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Freshly Painted Deck at Our House in Land Park
A newly painted deck at our house in Land Park.
Now that we’re not likely to see any more rain in Sacramento until Trick-or-Treating time, it seemed a good idea to paint the deck at our house in Land Park. Not that I would do it myself, mind you. Although, I thoroughly enjoy painting and doing home improvement projects. It’s such a sense of personal satisfaction. Just do not have the time available to allocate to such projects these days. My time is better spent listing and selling homes in Sacramento.
The thing I find interesante is by viewing that history in my rear-view mirror, I understand the processes behind most improvement projects, which can make me highly critical of anybody else’s work. It is why I don’t put a lot of faith in reviews by average homeowners that are submitted to Angie’s List. What do they know if they’ve never done it and don’t know what’s involved? How can they tell if the job was completed correctly? They can’t. Probably not when it comes to painting, either. I doubt their noses are stuck at the seams checking for messy brush strokes or they are running their hands over the walls to check for sanding between coats, like some people obsessed with quality I know. Not saying who.
The guy who painted the deck at our house in Land Park did a marvelous job, I’m thrilled to report. He was referred to me by another fellow Land Park agent in my office at Lyon. This fellow takes pride in his work, and it shows. First, he spent half a day prepping. About 80 percent of any job is the preparation. If you do that part right, your chances of an excellent result skyrocket. He scraped the high spots off. Ran beads of caulk over cracks in the cement to seal them. Scrubbed the old deck within an inch of its life.
You can see the before photo below of when the deck was blue. Who picked that color blue? I’m not saying who that idiot was. The new color is a rusty brick red. I pulled a thread from the umbrella for my handyman to use for comparison purposes. He said he asked two people at Home Depot whether the paint matched, and both of those people, he made a point of mentioning, were women. As though women can spot color variations better than men, I guess. Or, maybe because then he could blame my gender and be closer to getting off the hook if I didn’t like the color.
Really perks up the yard at our house in Land Park. Lends a warm glow to our interior rooms at the back of the house, too. If it wasn’t so danged hot, I’d probably sit out there.
Former blue deck at our house in Land Park.
Newly painted rusty brick red deck at our house in Land Park.
Time to Tear Down the Spa at Land Park Home
Cactus garden in Land Park (Sacramento) and covered Spa
When I mentioned to my husband that it was time to tear down the spa because a) I haven’t used it in 2 years and b) it’s disintegrating before our very eyes, his response was: why don’t we buy a new spa? I guess because we don’t use the one we have now, and it still works. It seems pointless to heat, recirculate the water and treat it with chemicals when nobody sits in it. Waste of resources, energy.
It’s been here since we bought our home in Land Park, for the last 14 years. Hmmm . . . it was probably at least 10 years old then. I’m guessing it’s about 25 years. I’ve replaced mostly everything inside the spa, the heater, the blowers, some other weird motor thing, and bought a new cover, religiously replaced the filters every year, scrubbed and drained it annually, too, why-oh-why?
See, it pays to stop and take stock of your surroundings every now and then. Time to tear down the spa. The lattice work around the spa was losing its integrity, pieces have been flying off. When the workers began dismantling it, it was clear the bottom portion below the deck had badly deteriorated. Still, I didn’t want to throw it into the city dump. So, I asked a trusty source, my housekeeper, if she knew anybody who could use it.
Enter into the picture, Howard. Howard just had knee surgery and his doctor suggested that a spa would help him to recover faster. Perfect match. We would give the spa to Howard. Following are photos of that process. Plus, Howard was so happy he gave my husband and me a gift, which was very much unexpected yet super cool.
Yes, time to tear down the spa. Goodbye spa. Hello future garden beds.
Spa tear down in Land Park, Sacramento, photo 2
Spa tear down in Land Park, Sacramento, photo 3
Spa tear down in Land Park, Sacramento, photo 4
Spa tear down in Land Park, Sacramento, photo 5 with Howard
Spa tear down in Land Park, Sacramento, nothing but dirt.
The Unintended Consequences of Fixing a Mailbox in Land Park
Hand putting new mail in a full mailbox in Land Park.
Here is what you don’t do. You don’t stick a flashlight between your teeth to hold the light steady while you’re pounding away with a hammer. Part of the reason not to hold a flashlight in your teeth is evident. As you pound, you might grit your teeth in relation to the increased force used to slam a nail. Or, at least that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it because yesterday I broke a crown in half. The tooth simply snapped. It wouldn’t have been so bad, probably, if it was a located in the back of my jaw but it has to be, of course, a front tooth. Now I look like a bag lady.
The good news is our mailbox slot is fixed. Our home in Land Park was built in 1948, and like most homes of that vintage, we have a front closet near the front door, which makes a perfect place to install a mailbox slot on the outside of the house because all of the mail can fall safely inside the closet, not on the floor where some wild beast wandering about might attack or shred it.
I’d like to take credit for initially installing the mail slot but the previous owners created the system. You lift the flap on the outside of the brick, deposit mail and it falls down a metal lined chute through the force of gravity. A small door blocks the mail. When you open the door, the mail falls into your hands. It’s better than finding the mail tossed on the front steps, which is how many residents in Land Park receive mail and oversized envelopes. The mail carrier has to fold large envelopes in half but he can stuff them down our mailbox chute.
Somehow, while we were on vacation in Cuba, our mailbox door detached itself from the inside closet wall. It was a big annoyance, which is why I was sitting on the floor yesterday holding a hammer and trying to nail the door to the wall in the dark like an idiot. Finally, I got up to locate a flashlight, but you really need two hands to hammer, and that’s why the flashlight ended up in my mouth.
Dr. Coyle in Midtown will not be pleased to note the condition of my tooth today. Hey, yah, I put the crown under my pillow but the tooth fairy skipped our house last night. No million bucks under my pillow.
About the PG&E Gas Lines in Land Park on Muir Way
PG&E works on gas lines in Land Park on Muir Way.
PG&E is working furiously on tearing up the streets in Land Park to lay new PG&E gas lines. You have probably spotted those ubiquitous blue-and-white trucks that are busy replacing gas lines all over Sacramento this year but they are especially prevalent at the moment near where I live in Land Park. We’ve got those older PG&E gas lines running through our neighborhood, just like the Orangeburg sewer lines that so many homes in Land Park have to deal with and, if you live in Land Park and haven’t had a sewer inspection, you should probably do it. These older materials were not meant to last forever, but they’ve also been forgotten over the years, sorta like Pia Zadora, who my husband mentioned the other day when I asked why we were not watching a show that had won a Golden Globe last year. Two words, he said.
I ride my bike through Land Park, which is why the road tearing-up business for the PG&E gas lines is in my face. It is very difficult, for example, to cruise by the Riverside United Methodist Church at Vallejo and Muir to hack that Ingress portal with blue-and-white trucks all over the place and the road blocked off. They’ve been there for more than a week. The funny thing is when I look at the PG&E map of where its gas lines run, they do not show the gas lines running this far down Muir Way. In fact, below is a photo of a home that I sold in Land Park to a charming couple, which is located near Muir and Robertson, and you can clearly see they are working there, for which my previous buyers are undoubtedly very pleased.
PG&E gas line work on Muir Way near Robertson Way in Land Park, Sacramento.
These gas lines don’t appear on the PG&E integrated map. Which might be part of the reason why PG&E was indicted by a federal grand jury for lying to the National Transportation Safety Board last year over the San Bruno explosion of 2010. Suddenly, PG&E committed 2.7 billion to replacing gas lines.
Further down Muir Way by Perkins you can see lines drawn in the street that probably reflect where they will dig. CAT tractors are scattered throughout the PG&E gas line project, which I’m happy about because it means my CAT stock is likely to rise. When I first bought CAT stock in 2000, I was very excited to spot CAT equipment, being new to the whole investing arena. While driving with my husband and I’d spot CAT equipment at the side of the freeway, I’d squeal, “there’s a CAT,” and . . . he’d slam on the brakes . . .
As I road my bike west on Robertson from Riverside, I could not help but wonder why the residents don’t complain to the city about the way the blacktop in the street is charred and breaking up. Chunky bits, tar mixed with dirt. It makes for very bumpy bike riding, bouncing my bluetooth, and I imagine a car doesn’t fare much better. When I noticed a soft spot on my street that dipped, I called the city of Sacramento and they came out right away to inspect and fill it. I suspect the City of Sacramento relies on us to inform them because they don’t necessarily drive around looking for stuff to fix. Although, it would not be a bad idea to resurface all of the streets in Land Park after this PG&E gas line project is completed.
Look on the bright side: if you’re not hacking portals in the Sacramento City Cemetery or around Land Park, then you probably won’t be driving through the residential section of Upper Land Park, which is situated west of Riverside. Although, you might cut through Vallejo after checking out the The Mill at Broadway, which has brand new homes flying up faster than our cat Pia chased chicken treats. Just watch for the detour signs.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
Real Estate Construction and Condo Market in Downtown Sacramento
Back side of the Sacramento Kings Arena, the Golden 1 Center, on L Street near 5th.
Lots of people are beginning to bank on property values going up near the new downtown Sacramento Kings Arena, now named the Golden 1 Center, and with good reason. Parts of downtown Sacramento are going through renovation, which often tends to boost values in the neighborhoods near by. And there is a lot to point toward, from the older expansion of the Crocker Museum to the revitalization of K Street and all the construction buzz for boutique hotels, new condos and apartment buildings.
Rents are going up, too. In fact, in some neighborhoods, it is cheaper to buy a home in Sacramento than to rent. The buy-and-hold investors are coming back. There is a big difference between the flipper investors and regular investors. I think it’s funny that we call the flippers “investors” when they are more like gamblers. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose and they never seem to know when to fold. For the long run, investors who buy homes to rent them out look more for value than trying to squeeze every last dime out of a transaction and better fit the term investor.
Construction in progress at Kings Arena, Golden 1 Center, downtown Sacramento on L Street, 9/13/15.
Those thoughts ran through my head yesterday as my husband and I headed to the Sacramento Library on I Street and drove down L Street. I recall several years ago the condos at 15th Street at Stanford Court that used to sell for $150,000 are now moving in the $300,000 range and up. Those condos also rent for $1,500 and up. Some projects have remained fairly stable, like the Saratoga Townhouses over at 9th and Q Streets, but some of the others like Bridgeway Towers, for example, at 500 N Street, why, those prices have jumped through the roof. I’ve had short sales at $250K or so and those prices are almost double in 2015.
We also drove by flippers on 3rd Street in downtown Sacramento and, like the homes going in on 5th Street, the Mill at Broadway in Land Park, some of the reason for that construction is cheap land. Land is usually cheap because it’s either contaminated, like the railroad cleanup in Curtis Park Village, or it’s in a bad location, like under a freeway. I don’t know why people want to live under a freeway but they will, and I’m not talking about the homeless. Why do they want to buy in McKinley Village? I suspect it’s the same reason people will live on busy streets, affordability coupled with a connection to others.
It’s almost like a life-force to some buyers, the screaming freeway. Cars zipping by, a continual traffic hum of automobile tires, accentuated by the occasional compounding of racket made by 16-wheelers and motorcycles. I spotted new homes going in at the corner of Santa Buena and Swanson in Land Park, up against Interstate 5. This was a plot of land that the neighborhood rallied around to make into a dog park, but it never happened. I’ve sold homes on Santa Buena, and it’s one of the hardest places to sell homes in Land Park, except for those on Freeport or by the railroad tracks.
When you run out of land in a city, you get what is left, and the real estate mantra of location, location, location seems to matter less and less to home buyers. Well, until the day they become a home seller.
photos by Elizabeth Weintraub
