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Archive for the 'Home Renovation' Category

Spectacular Re-Model in Miami Springs–$575,000

Worthy of Architectural Digest!

This 1954 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,600 square-foot home in Miami Springs has been completely re-modeled by the owner/construction professional.  He spared no expense.   An over-sized covered porch overlooks a magnificent pool and patio area worthy of Architectural Digest.  There is a guest house with its own covered porch that features a summer kitchen.  Marble floors, wood inlaid ceilings, tasteful wall coverings, and textured columns grace the interior that features an expansive eat-in kitchen with stainless steel appliances.  There is both a full-sized living room and family room. The home is on a full lot and a half in the heart of Miami Springs, the City of Trees.  Miami Springs is a delightful hideway north of Miami International airport and has golf courses, lakes, pedestrian walkways and has achieved national recognition in its efforts to promote a healthy tree canopy. 

I’d be glad to show you this home or any other in Miami Springs or South Florida.  You can reach me at bishopric.r@ewm or 305-401-8058.

Finally–new kitchen renovation finished!

After three and a half months, a wall of Miami-Dade County building department permits, dozens of various workers wandering in and out, eating off paper plates with plastic forks out of cardboard boxes, the kitchen is finished. My life has sort of come to a halt in the last few weeks trying to get this job done. That, and a bad bout of illness, has kept me away from the blog for a while. Assuming we pass our plumbing, gas, electrical and mechanical/ventilation and then the master permit inspections in a few days, my life will get back into order enough to get back to somewhat regular blogging. I’m going to start covering South Miami more extensively–what’s happening, local events, local politics, restaurants, etc. So at least once a week I’ll be out there with my trusty camera seeing what’s going on and reporting about it.

If you’d like to know anything about South Florida real estate, in particular South Miami and Coral Gables, you can reach me at bishopric.r@ewm.com  or 305-401-8058. I’ll be glad to answer any of your questions.

Miami-Dade County finds gold in my kitchen

All the permits I had to pull.

I had to have architectural and engineering drawings done and approved to do so.  I also had to pass an “owners test” which is basically going down to the Building Department with my drivers license to prove I’m me working on my own house instead of someone else working on my house.  The logic of this completely escapes me.  But the good news is that the kitchen is back on track and we passed our “rough” inspections so we can put up the drywall.

Here are the cabinets in waiting in the living room. 

Cabinets ready for installation

I think Andy the Cabinet Man of A.G. Cabinets (305) 761-8967 has done a beautiful job of crafting these custom-made, maple cabinets. 

If you’d like to commiserate with me about home renovations, or find out about South Florida real estate, you can reach me at bishopric.r@ewm.com or 305-401-8058.

Kitchen renovation plods on

Camping out can be fun

Day fifty of camping out on the back porch.

The cast of characters has expanded to include Jack the permit fixer, Hernan and Arial the Argentinean architects and Edward the engineer.  The Miami-Dade County building department insisted on a master permit to “tie” the plumbing, electrical, ventilation and gas permits together and this entailed getting a complete set of architecture and engineering drawings detailing the “scope of work”.  My personal suspicion is that since the decline of South Florida real estate had led to a virtual cessation of construction, there is a big incentive for the building department to create unnecessary inspection work for itself.  But that’s just my opinion and please don’t let the department know that I feel that way.  If they find out I dissed them, this could drag on until it gets hot again and then camping out on the back porch won’t be any fun at all. 

Yesterday chief kitchen designer and Wife Extraordinaire and I picked out our counter top material.  We decided on “Venecia”, a white quartz compound embedded with bits of colored stone from Compac.  Harder than granite and less prone to scratching and staining.  The cabinets are almost done and will be stored until we get back on track.

Wish us luck.

If you’d like to find out anything about South Florida real estate, or kitchen renovations, you can reach me at 305-401-8058 or bishopric.r@ewm.com.

Kitchen hood ventillation fails initial inspection

How I feel about my kitchen!

It’s very important in South Florida real estate to have any construction work done with the proper permitting so that the property doesn’t have any problems when it comes time to sell it.  I’m having all my work on this kitchen re-do done with the proper permits.    But I’m bummed out, the kitchen ventilation failed its inspection. It turns out the guy I hired to do the ventilation for and the installation of the hood in the kitchen got the wrong kind of permit.  So the inspector came in and said that the inspection failed.   I don’t know what the contractor  was thinking, but I know that what I’m thinking cannot be shared amongst polite company.  And this fellow came highly recommended by someone I respect.  Oh, well.  Now the contractor is getting more plans done, will have to have them approved, will have to get the permit reopened and then will have to call for an inspection of the rough work (walls open) and then once the drywall is up and the hood installed, a final inspection.  This, of course, adds days and dollars to this project.  I had hoped to have the job done by Christmas, but at this rate I don’t know.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress. 

What the kitchen looks like now

If you’d like to know anything about South Florida real estate, especially in South Miami/High Pines and Coral Gables, you can reach me at 305-401-8058 or bishopric.r@ewm.com.

The South Florida Kitchen Renovation Project–Part One

The Kitchen Project Underway

According to the National Association of Realtors, you can expect to recoup about 80% of a major kitchen renovation when you do a real estate transaction.  By that estimate, I’m going to get back about $30,000 on our current project.  Here’s a summary of a Return on Home Improvement Investments.

When we bought our house about four years ago, we knew that the kitchen needed redoing, but I managed to put it off and put it off, until three weeks ago a pipe in the wall behind the sink gave way and flooded the place.  Time to bite the bullet.  Thus begins a drama.

Here’s the cast of characters:  George the Plumber; Andy the Cabinet Guy; Gerry, Armando and Eddie the Electricians; Juan the Drywall Man; Jose the Gas Piper; Jorge and Juan the Hood Ventilation People, a Counter Top and a Tile Person to be named; Silvano the Mad Italian Painter and of course, Kitchen Designer and Wife Extraordinaire, Kathy. 

In three weeks we’ve ripped out the old cabinets, cleaned up the floor, designed and ordered the new cabinets, repaired the offending pipe, laid in gas piping from the propane tanks, and rewired the kitchen to handle the under-the-counter lighting and the power demands of my new Dacor gas/electric combination range and hood.  Oh, and we moved the refrigerator to the other wall.  The electrical has passed it’s first inspection and everything else is being permitted, of course.  (This being South Florida, an enormous amount of this kind of work is done without permits.  This is a big mistake, because when you go to sell your house, you have to go back and permit all the work anyway.  I don’t understand why folks do this.  Well, I do understand.  I’m paying a premium to have this work permitted because each of these vendors has to go stand in line and deal with the infamously cranky Miami-Dade County Building Department.)

Today’s project is knocking a hole in the gabled wall and running ventilation tubes up from where the hood will be mounted.  It’s amazing how much noise and dust a jackhammer going through concrete makes.  I’d record it and post the noise in the blog, but I haven’t had that lesson yet.

If you’d like any information about South Florida real estate or how to re-do a kitchen now that I’ve learned, you can reach me at 305-401-8058 or bishopric.r@ewm.com.