Tense Moments to Bring Back Past

Standing in our home, ankle-deep in plaster dust, unable to see the refrigerator over the jumble of furniture in the middle of the kitchen floor, while waiting for a sandblaster named Ken who was already three days late, we recently came to the unmistakable and jarring conclusion that we are . . . remodeling!

What started as a small project on a Saturday morning, the removal of a roomful of cheap, compressed-sawdust-faux-wood paneling, somehow became an extensive, expensive and unending remodeling job.

Unlike the couples one usually reads about in Remodeler’s Diary who plan their projects for years, with every minute detail worked out and matched against a sophisticated budget analysis, my husband, Mike, and I only meant to “fix up” the house a little.

Actually, ours was a perfect home to begin with. The key word here is was, because when it was built nearly 60 years ago by Walt Disney who lived up the street in Los Feliz, the house had all the amenities and charm that one will pay dearly for in a home today. Hardwood floors, French windows, crown molding, an enviable exterior plaster job, black-marble fireplace, fine cherry-wood paneling in three rooms and a red tile roof. Add to all of that location, location, location.

However, sometime in the late 1960s (we suspect) an owner perverted it into a wood-shake-roofed, faux-bricked, iron-barred, wall-to-wall shag-carpeted, stuccoed, faux Mexican paver-tiled, acoustic-ceilinged, harvest-gold-gilded-and-brown-Formica shadow of its former self.

In short, an ugly horror. In fact, when giving first-time visitors directions, we would advise, “You can’t miss it. It’s the house that looks exactly like one of those crack houses on the 11 o’clock news!” And no one ever got lost trying to find our house.

The only elements that were not hopelessly tampered with were the large picture windows in every room, which take advantage of a stunning view of the entire city of Los Angeles. Thankfully, because we do a lot of entertaining in our profession (publicity), most of our guests are drawn straight to the view and scarcely notice the aforementioned atrocities.

However, we, its inhabitants, were only becoming increasingly and more acutely aware of the home’s problems with each passing month. Therefore, our main goal became to return the house to its original design.

In truth, they simply don’t make homes like they did 60 years ago, and we longed for the genteel elegance of gleaming hardwood floors, the mellow patina of fine old wainscotting, and the clean and straightforward statement that freshly painted and plastered walls and ceilings make--all of which were hiding under three decades of questionable taste.

While we have had a lot of the work contracted out, we are also undertaking a lot of it ourselves. For example, we estimate it will take about another three months to complete stripping the layers and layers of gooey enamel paint off of the cherry-wood paneling and refinishing the wood.

Why, oh, why would someone paint this incredible wood in blue and white, while tacking up the cheapest excuse for wood paneling in another room? You find there is a lot of time to ruminate about such questions when you are spending any free evening, weekend and hour in rubber gloves, stripping away.

The amazing thing that we discovered when we started our first innocuous project, is that one thing invariably leads to another, bigger and more heinous project.

A typical sequence of events progressed something like this: Once we removed the cheap paneling we discovered there was only drywall beneath it. Upon making this discovery, Mike perused a number of “how to” manuals only to conclude that it was high time to hire a professional plasterer.

In removing the paneling, we also had to remove the bottom molding, which tore up the edges of the carpet. Since we didn’t like the carpet anyway, we took it out, which necessitated relocating our phone system, which was bolted to the floor.

The hardwood floors underneath were so pitted that we had to refinish them. Well, as long as we are refinishing the hardwood in one room, we may as well refinish all the hardwood (four rooms). Which, incidentally, required taking out at least one ton of paver tiles with a sledgehammer at the rate of one sixteenth of an inch per 15 minutes, a process that sent chips of ceramic flying everywhere.

A myriad of surprises, most of them unpleasant, await you at every turn when you start tearing things up and out, such as the absence of any flooring beneath the entry hall pavers. You also find that once you have started, there is no turning back.

However, you are relatively secure in the knowledge that there is nothing that a quick call to a subcontractor cannot remedy. That is, if you can reach one whose phone hasn’t been disconnected and who returns your calls and then shows up. (We are still waiting for Eddie, the fellow who promised to lay our black-and-white asphalt entry hall tiles.)

The same sort of scenario played itself out on our home’s exterior. What began as a noble and almost visionary attempt on the part of Mike to give an “antique-y” effect to the garish red bricks on the front of the house, soon became a complete exterior overhaul.

Mike, whose two favorite phrases are united under one recurring and downright chipper theme (It’s a piece of cake” and “It’s easy as falling off a log”) reassured me that not only was his father a masonry contractor but an artisan as well. In other words, when it came to bricks, my husband, by virtue of his heritage, was no brick head.

Copious globules of cheap, white enamel paint had been painted onto the bricks, so he armed us both with rubber gloves, wire brushes and caldrons of a steaming solution of deadly muriatic acid while issuing a stern command of “Scrub”! So we are off and running. As for the paint, it was there to stay and no amount of elbow grease and acid could remove any of it. The result was so hideous that neighbors began to gather across the street and point at our house, the bolder ones coming forward to inquire, “What are you trying to do there?” It looked exactly as if a blizzard had come through the neighborhood and deposited heaps of snow all around the front of the house.

Finally, the humiliation became so great that Mike’s little “project” (translation: mistake) became a major sand- blasting job, to be followed by repainting of the exterior, removal of tacky and unnecessary iron bars and complete relandscaping (sandblasting leaves gaping holes in even the most stalwart of shrubs).

All in all, there is much to be said for what some may call “bass-ackwards” remodeling, although we concede it’s not for everyone. For us, however, it seemed fitting, especially considering that we were taking the house back in time and returning it to its original design with only a few modifications.

Sometimes we find ourselves wondering aloud, “Why didn’t they just leave well enough alone and not tamper with what was already a nice house?” These thoughts usually occur when we are struggling with a particularly nasty job, such as removing silver-and-red-foil wallpaper from the bathroom walls that was apparently put on with Crazy Glue.

Suddenly the answer comes to me as I envision a cheery and industrious person of a Saturday morn’ maybe 15 or 20 years ago, who is busily preparing to cover his bathroom walls with the most beautiful wallpaper he thinks he’s ever seen.

How could I even think of denying someone else the supreme pleasure of “fixing up” his environment and home to suit his taste.

We only wish they hadn’t done it with Crazy Glue. . . .

Rogers is an entertainment and corporate publicist. READERS WELCOME TO SHARE THEIR REMODELING TALES Readers wishing to share their remodeling experiences should send queries or manuscripts to Real Estate Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.