THE NORTHRIDGE QUAKE: The road to recovery 18 months out : Family Struggles to Build Their Shattered Dream House Anew : They Go Through Contractor Hell as They Work to Bring Life Back to a Home Ravaged by the Quake

Sheila and Philip Bachelis had lived in their Northridge home for 31 years when they decided that with just a few more improvements, their three-bedroom, two-bath house would be perfect.

So in September, 1993, they took out a $60,000 loan, which they used to paint the inside of the house, put double-pane French windows in the front and install a new window in the back. They used the leftover money to buy Sheila a new car, a champagne-color 1994 Chrysler New Yorker.

After the Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge earthquake, the new windows were about all left intact.

“It was total devastation in here,” Philip Bachelis said, gesturing at his now-refurbished home. “It’s been a year and a half of constant redoing. It’s never-ending.”

The Bachelises are among thousands of quake victims who have spent the past 18 months juggling insurance payments and loans to repair crumbled homes worth a fraction of their pre-quake value, at the same time trying to face the ordinary trials of life while living under extraordinary conditions.

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For this San Fernando Valley family, four months of living in a rented condominium while they reconstructed their home paid off. They have recently put the final touches on a home that is once again lovely, with a beckoning exterior of clean, white paint and fresh brick, a glistening lawn and blooming flowers.

But economically trapped in their house, the Bachelises have been forced to reassess their goals and go on with their lives the same way that they coped with them during the long months following the disaster: one step at a time.

For a while, the pair cleaned and documented their damage in snatches, whenever they had time after work.

Later, unfortunately, things got harder. One month after the quake, Sheila Bachelis was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Three months after the quake, Philip Bachelis was seriously injured on a job. Unlikely to recover before he was scheduled to retire, he opted to leave a few years early.

By their insurance company’s tabulation, the Bachelises suffered more than $126,000 in damage to the structure and contents of their home.

The damage list is common to thousands of quake victims: huge, marring cracks through the floors, walls and ceilings of almost every room that ruined paint jobs, wallpaper and ceilings; separated floor boards, doors and cabinets thrown out of alignment and off their tracks, bearing walls rendered unsound, cracks in the heater, a shattered garage housing a car ruined by debris, and heaps of glass where there once were more than 30 years worth of glassware, collectibles, crystal and electronics equipment.

So after digging out of their house--literally using a shovel for some of the debris--the Bachelises and their 35-year-old daughter, Jeri, moved for a week into a hotel to wait for their heater to be fixed.

Although they were later reimbursed by their insurance company, they had to front the $666 for their five-day hotel stay.

Philip, 61, who worked as an industrial pipe fitter before he retired last year, went back to work the Wednesday after the quake. Sheila, 57, who has worked at the defense electronics company Litton Industries in Moorpark for 23 years, returned to work that Friday.

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Like many homeowners living in hard-hit areas, the Bachelises received an unsolicited check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $3,450.

They later were approved for a low-interest loan from the Small Business Administration for $10,000. Both sums, along with their savings, helped fill in the gaps between insurance payments and repair bills.

Before the Northridge quake, only about half the homeowners in the Valley had quake insurance. But the Bachelises paid about $200 a year for their earthquake insurance from CNA Casualty--a safety net Sheila had wanted to cancel three months before the Northridge quake.

“I said ‘no way,’ ” Philip said. “Thank God.”

To date, the two have received more than $117,000 in insurance payments: $67,000 for damage to the house, $30,000 for damage to the contents, $3,800 for damage to Sheila’s car, and $17,000 for temporary housing and storage while their home was being repaired.

Their deductible, which the company automatically took off the top of their damage assessment, was $26,000.

“We lucked out with the insurance--it helped us tremendously,” Sheila Bachelis said. “We could not have redone the house otherwise.”

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The Bachelises’ good fortune with their insurance company underscores the obvious hardships of those who were forced to make do without. But life, even with those funds, has not been easy.

Although having Philip around during the reconstruction of their home was invaluable to oversee the scores of workers who marched in and out, losing his salary was a serious blow.

From a pre-quake peak of about $800 a week after taxes, Philip’s income shrank to a partial pension of about $800 per month. The two began living mainly on Sheila’s after-tax salary of about $2,000 per month, as well as digging into their savings.

“We don’t go out for dinners as often as we used to or to the theater,” Sheila Bachelis said. “I used to support the temple a lot and I can’t do it now.”

On Oct. 28, nine months after the quake, the Bachelises moved out so that the serious reconstruction could begin.

The Bachelises and their daughter spent four months in the condo, for a total cost of almost $5,000 for housing costs alone. Their insurance company reimbursed them for both living and storage costs.

During that time, Philip went to the house each day to watch over the workers. Sheila went to her job.

So it was Philip who existed, day after day, in contractor hell:

* A group of day laborers, hired by a foreman, spilled a five-gallon pail of paint onto the hardwood floor and tried to cover it with a rug.

* Time after time, a front door thrown off its track refused to close, and workers refused to understand why fixing it was a priority.

* Hordes of workers trampled the lovely front lawn until there was nothing left.

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Then in February, the family moved back in with only minor touch-up work still left to finish.

Along the rest of Superior Street in Northridge, about two miles from the epicenter of the quake, most of the homes appear to be remarkably well-kept.

Many houses seem to be freshly painted with roofs recently installed. Gates are clean and straight. Lawns glow bright green and are lush with new flowers. An inordinate number of windows show not a trace of dirt.

Since the quake, three houses on the small street have been sold, the Bachelises said. Five other owners have left and turned over their properties to tenants, further changing the neighborhood from a stable place where everyone knew everyone else to a place in flux.

The Bachelises bought their home in 1962 for $18,750, with the help of a Veterans Administration loan. They made their final payment in 1990.

“It was a great house to raise kids in,” Sheila Bachelis said, smiling as she told the story of adding on the living room and then fitting 12 children’s sleeping bags into it during a slumber party.

At the peak of the housing market, Philip Bachelis estimated that his house was worth about $290,000.

Before the quake, but after the housing slump set in, the house was probably worth $190,000, he said. The day after the quake, they would have been lucky to get $90,000, he said.

“I’m retired,” he said. “Where’s our nest egg? Right in this house.”

Just a few weeks ago, an appraiser refused to examine the property, saying that with all the work to redo the house, it would likely be overpriced for the neighborhood and therefore unsalable.

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Before the quake, they thought about selling the house and moving to Ventura County, nearer to where Sheila works. It now seems highly unlikely that they will sell until they are ready to move out of state, they said.

“I take pride in my home,” Sheila Bachelis said. “I take pride in where I live. But now we’re stuck.”

For now, the Bachelises take comfort in how their home has come together again.

New purple petunias, yellow and orange marigolds, and little white and pink vincas have sprouted just outside the front door. The inside--decorated entirely with their original furniture--looks back to its pre-1994 self.

“As bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad,” she said. “We survived the earthquake. I survived the cancer. Phil survived his injury. Our children are healthy, and our grandchildren are healthy.

“We just learned to cope with what God gives us, one day at a time.”

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One Family’s Quake Repair Bill

It took Sheila and Philip Bachelis almost 18 months to complete the earthquake repairs on their three-bedroom house in Northridge. They spent four months living in a condominium while the major house repairs were done. And it was only recently they put the finishing touches on their house. Listed below are some of their expenses from the quake.

Total quake damage To home, contents and car: $143,800

Quake Aid FEMA grant: $3,450 SBA loan: $10,000

Insurance Total quake insurance payments: $117,800 House damage: $67,000 Contents damage: $30,000 Car damage: $3,800 Temporary housing and storage: $17,000 Amount of damage not covered because of insurance deductible: $26,000

Home Value Before the quake: $190,000 Immediately after quake: $90,000 Today: $170,000

Cost of various home repairs: Patch exterior cracks outside house: $900 Paint interior walls and wood trim: $1,200 Epoxy crack in living room floor and other repairs: $600 Epoxy two cracks in foundation: $600 Sandblast, patch, color coat and paint trim: $4,825 Repair block walls: $10,000 Repair ceilings: $790 Replace wood floor in family room/dining room: $5,000 Replace carpeting throughout house: $3,600 Replace bathroom vanity: $370 Epoxy floor in garage: $300 Replace front walk: $700 Replace lawn: $500 Replace vertical blinds: $900 Replace wallpaper in kitchen, dining room, hallway: $700 Replace concrete porch with brick: $800 Replace planter and brick in front wall of house: $800 Cement slabs in back and down side of house: $3,000 Tree removal: $500

Researched by ABIGAIL GOLDMAN / Los Angeles Times