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This was my husband and my first house-and first big renovation project! Inside, many original details remained, like the purple and black-tiled Art Deco bathroom and amazing Medieval-inspired chandeliers and sconces. With so much charm intact, the interior spaces just needed sprucing up with paint, hardwood floor refinishing and interior decorating. The exterior, on the other hand, was a different story!
The problem was not the house itself but the busy street that had built up around it. When the house was originally built, Glendale Boulevard was a local street; now, it was a major thoroughfare requiring a visual and auditory remedy! The solution was a tongue-and-groove Western Cedar fence and new double-paned wood windows from Marvin to cut down sound and add aesthetic beauty to the house.
Since it was a corner lot, we were also able to reinvent the way the house was approached: rather than enter the yard from busy Glendale, a grand pergola greets guests from the adjoining, quieter Apex Avenue. A terraced walkway now curves amongst the plantings and past a stately Spanish fountain before arriving at the front door.
To give the landscape a Mediterranean look, we broke up the concrete in the backyard (which was recycled into a retaining wall) and created a new stone path and patio surrounded by free-form garden beds. Much of the old-growth bushes were salvageable once allowed to grow out of their "meatball" shapes. We added lots of succulent cuttings from our friend's gardens, as well as drought-tolerant bougainvillea, rosemary, lavender, purple fountain grass, and Mexican bush sage.
