KnifeCatching 1235 Hawthorne St.

Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.

KnifeCatching 1235 Hawthorne St.

Up for review today is 1235 Hawthorne St. which has the official specs of being a 3-3.5 of 3330sq ft on an ginormous 13,986sq ft lot built in 1950 on sale for $1.475M!?!?!? Last sold in 94 for $570k. The house has been on the market for 115 days with no price drops yet.

While I got some pics of the place, go to the Zillow or Redfin sites for the official pics/prose.

Front of the house

I have to say, this place looked pretty amazing. Its got location, location, location with it being a lagoon side house in the Gold Coast.

This review should be sub-titled 'Don Drapers after-he's-made-it house'.

From the big fancy automatic gate to the stainless steel fence the house fairly oozes money. It looks like a Bel-Air mansion to me. The house has a very large open floor plan on the main level that is just perfect for entertaining...need to impress some investors? Have a sunset cocktail party.

I am mildly impressed that the PO's are even having open houses...People who can honestly afford a $1.5M house now-a-days don't troll open houses....When I was touring the house there was a large steady stream of people who I would have to say were probably looky-loo's (like me). Probably the entire point of the open house was for the Realtor to drum up new clients. If this was my place (I wish I had that kind of money), I would not want the 99%ers tromping through the place. I'd only show it by appointment to pre-qualified buyers.

The Good

Location, Location, Location. Lagoon side home in the Gold Coast in Franklin School District.
Marble, Marble, Marble! I think every floor in the house is covered in marble.
Radiant heating!
Love all the Birdseye Maple cabinets and trim that is everywhere. Very 50's.
Its got a serious MadMen vibe.

Lots of windows and views!

The garage has a nice little office off the back of it with views.

Big master suite with views and a little private 'smoking balcony.'
Giant fancy display kitchen (with views).
Wet bar in the great room for entertaining.

The Bad

There were a couple of troubling things about the house that I saw. Trying to be objective and not be wowed by the pretty and the views.

Its really MadMen lite...since the house was redone with modern finishes its a little less authentic MadMen as compared to 1223 ST Charles St.

All that famous glass faces South!!! The house has no AC that I could tell....how is it not going to be a furnace in the summer time?

Check out this big double door that opens out into...

No where...

Zillion Dollar House and they couldn't even use a modern thermostat? huh?

Troubling Permit Record
I've read it, and read it and read it....I still don't understand exactly the story its telling...
There are tons of permits pulled over the past years but a lot of them were never finaled....this is curious to me...why, after paying the fee's would you not get your permits finaled? Laziness? Ineptness of the contractor? What worries me is that there was some reason why the contractors work could not pass inspection...and they gave up???

Work done with permits that were never finaled.

New windows and doors in the Sunroom.

200amp service upgrade and gas line for trellis and 2 gas logs.

The master bath remodel, interior stair replacement.

The fancy front fence and gate thing.

Work that I can not find any permits for.

Uh, the radiant heating? or is it original? Don't know, Realtor implied that is was all new.

The fabulous kitchen.

Maybe minor, but I saw a lot of electrical work that wasn't reflected in the permit record.

From the Realtors ad copy

Every aspect of this home has been upgraded and remodeled with meticulous attention to detail.

Hmmm...permit record doesn't really support that notion....at least it doesn't support the notion that the work was done legally...

Maybe one percenters don't care about those kinds of things because they will just come in and do a gut remodel anyways? At least I'd think they would care to use it as a bargaining chip in price negotiations.  

I don't think I've seen a house with so many expired permits....I would argue that, this is actually worse than doing it in secret. Now you are on the Building Dept's radar as having expired permits and here's what I know happens. You go down to the building dept to pull a permit for something and they check your record and they go...'OOohhh,..yea, we can't issue you any new permits till you close out all the old ones.' So, is the new owner buying all that liability also? What hidden conditions are going to be uncovered?

Conclusion

An amazing show place home in a fantastic location.

Price?? I don't know..this place is so far outta my league that I don't have an honest frame of reference that I can use.
Buuuut, if its open ever again y'all should tour through the place as it is pretty amazing.
This house, I think hits all the high marks for a wealthy persons residence, definitely a braggable house/location, big entertaining spaces, big master suite, big fancy kitchen...and on and on.

It's a one percenter palace.

And that's the way I see it.

KnifeCatching 1223 ST. Charles St.

Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.

 

KnifeCatching 1223 ST. Charles St.

 

Up for review today is 1223 ST. Charles St. which has the official specs of being a 2-2 of 2441sq ft on a 7686sq ft lot built in 1958 on sale for $929k on the market for 120 days with no price drops last sold in 88 for $390k.

 

As usual, pics/prose on Zillow and Redfin. The description on the Redfin site is especially awesome I think. There should be an awkward prose contest for Real Estate listings.

 

This review is subtitled, 'Don Drapers Starter House'. If you don't know what that means get yourself a copy of Madmen.

 

There are hardly any mid-century modern homes in the Gold Coast in Alameda and this past weekend there were two open!

 

Front of House.

Okay so, not the best pic..check out the shots on either of the websites above.

 

But honestly, the house looks a little fugly from the street. All you see is this massive garage and a high wall. The front yard is all ivy (low maint!).

 

You walk into that door on the left and there is a nice enclosed courtyard with a Japanese theme and a little fish pond. Its too bad the pond was looking kinda gross and I swear the area reeked of cat urine. I even asked another browser about it and he said he thought it was probably the juniper bushes.. I actually smelled each plant and it didn't appear that the stench was coming from any of them.....

 

The description of the house says its got two master suites...its got a weird floor plan I think. It has this really large Master Bedroom and big master bath and then this little bedroom. It looks to me more like an age in place set-up where the smaller room could be for an in-home care provider or something. Also the house seems smaller than the listed sq footage?

 

The Good

In Gold Coast neighborhood on a quiet dead end street.

In Franklin School district.

All on one level...age in place?

Big 2-car garage.

The kitchen looked like it was in good shape and its actually good sized with what looked like plenty of storage.

The master bedroom and bath is of a good size. The master bath was large but seriously weirdly laid out I thought...lots of wasted space.

 

It appears to be some sort of copy of an Eichler. So, if you like that kinda thing.

 

Its got radiant heated floors. Which is great but almost none of the houses promotional material even mentions it?!?!?!? Why would you leave that out?

This is the boiler for the floors...it didn't look super new to me.

 

Lots and lots of big windows, sliding doors to the outside. You can really bring the outside in, in Eichler fashion.

 

Check out the back yard

Not exactly large space back here.

 

And the doors-windows to yard.

 

Original un-messed with midcentury modern.

 

Here's some fun details I took some quick snaps of.

 

This is the garage wall that faces the courtyard.

There is glass on the garage side. It just looked kinda cool looking out into the courtyard.

 

Check out this intercom system panel.

 

Doesn't that look super 50's?

 

Check out the wet bar and in house natural gas bbq! (on the listing page, sorry)

 

Crazy Scooby-Doo Hallway

 

This is the hallway to the garage. Its narrow and has like 37 doors. When I saw it I immediately thought of that scene in every Scooby-Doo episode. Where the bad guys are chasing the gang and everybody is running in and out of doors in a long hallway and getting all turned around? You know the one I'm talking about right?

That said, the house looks like its got a good amount of storage.

 

The Bad

Its an unmolested mid-century modern...

From touring the house and looking at the grounds and the over all level of upkeep with the place I was left with the feeling that this place was owned by elderly folks who keep it clean but didn't replace stuff when it got worn...It doesn't need to be remodeled but uh, refreshed maybe is the word for it? The original finishes are just worn after all these years.

 

My fav, Carpet in the toilet room.

 

 

I can't tell if the kitchen was redone...the permit record doesn't say anything about it and it appeared to be in better shape than the rest of the house.

 

Part of being unmolested is that the house probably has the original galv water piping and elec...which means fuses.

 

According to the permit record the roof was last done in 83. If that's true its a safe bet its going to need a new roof.

 

Problematic Radiant Heat.

Yes I love it but the problem with this old style is that they used copper pipes in concrete and after enough time the copper pipes ALWAYS spring leaks and fixing them is a major PITA.

 

Lots and Lots of Windows.

I know I said this was a positive earlier but its also a negative. It seems like almost the entire perimeter of the house is windows. When I realized that I couldn't help but think,...dang this place could fold like a wet cardboard box in a big shaker. To do that many windows/doors now a days takes special engineering which didn't exist back when this house was built.

 

Missed Marketing Opportunity

I remarked to the Realtor showing the house that the place was 'Sooooo MadMen'. She had never heard of the show!?!?!? The house seems so perfectly preserved that it looks like a set from the TV show.

Several people who where there looking at the house totally knew what I was talking about when I made that comment to them....

The show is super popular with like an entire fashion movement behind it...why would you not use that to your advantage? People who are specifically looking for a house of this era are going to be fans of the show...trust me.

 

Here's my gift to you. Before the next open, watch the show and study up on it. Have a fancy martini set out on the wet bar and drop as many MadMen references as you reasonably can when describing the place.

 

Conclusion

Very well preserved example of a midcentury modern that just probably needs some refreshing.

With a kinda weird floor plan that doesn't seem really conducive to raising a family there...house just seems a little bit small for that.

Think that this would be a great place for grandma and grandpa to have to be close to their grand kids.

Also seems like a great place for a hip same sex couple who are not planning on having any kids. You could have a lot of fun 50's themed parties here.

 

Price

$929k for whats basically a 2441sq ft low maint bachelor pad.....doesn't that seem a bit high to you? While I don't believe that the house needs $100's of thousands of work it does require some work....

Shouldn't the fact that its been on the market for 120 days be telling somebody that the price needs adjusting?

And thats the way I see it.

 

KnifeCatching 1441 Grand St.

Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.

KnifeCatching 1441 Grand St.

Up for review today is 1441 Grand St. which has the official specs of being a 4-2 of 2737 sq ft on a 6000sq ft lot built in 1905 on sale for $819k. Originally listed for $849k its been on the market for holy-moly 202 days!!! Last sold in 02 for $750k. Been on the market 202 days and they've only dropped the price $30k, last price drop in Oct...hmmmmm...

Somehow Zillow doesn't even know the place is for sale? You can see additional pics/prose on the redfin site for it.

The Good

First off I want to say that this house/grounds are gorgeous.

The house has a nice multi-color paint job.

Its got a pretty amazing front porch.

Check out that two story turret with curved glass windows!! The windows look originalish and you hardly ever, ever, see turrets with their curved glass windows now a days.

I have major turret envy.

The grounds appear nice and very private, almost fortress like (foreshadowing).

The house itself is huge. You can tell that when it was new it was an upscale place. Lots of fancy trim and paneling...all painted white of course. Big grand windows.

Its got a little one car garage off the side St.  

Super awesome solarium with Jacuzzi off back of house. Done with permits!!!

Right on the edge of the Franklin School District.

With my remaining battery power I snapped this picture of a funky detail that I really liked.

It looks like the little slot goes all the way through does it not? This is on the lower level of the house.

The Bad

Location, location, location....check out this satellite view.

You got churches, across the street. Big apartment buildings as neighbors. The house is on the corner of two of the busiest streets in Alameda. In fact there is a bus stop right outside the house on Santa Clara. Its LOUD inside the house...I suspect this is why its been languishing on the market for soooooo long. The 2nd story turret is a bedroom and wow its noisy....There just doesn't seem to be a good way to reduce the noise...it comes right through the old single pane windows. Most sound is transmitted into a house through the windows...so what can you do to reduce sound? Replace the ir-replaceable curved glass windows with modern double pane flat windows??? Horrible...You can buy sound deadening curtains but then you'd have to keep them closed all the time? I'm also guessing that the fortress like yards is an attempt to cut down on noise and give the HO's a modicum of privacy.

4 Bedrooms?
The specs say its a 4 bedroom but really, its a 3 with a good sized walk-in closet. On the top floor of the house are two good sized bedrooms, one medium sized bedroom (which doesn't have a closet) and a very small bedroom that would make a good sized walk-in closet. In fact, the door had a little brass plaque that read 'Office'. It would be a cozy home office also.

Brick Foundation

From what I could tell from my inspections the house is still on its full brick foundation. It looks like the front 1/3 was capped and has new pressure treated bottom plates (this does not appear in the permit record...). There is a serious B.S. quote for a foundation replacement for $31k.....make sure you look at what exactly you're getting for that money.... In my opinion the house needs a complete new modern foundation and earthquake retro-fitting and that is going to cost way, way more than $31k. Try more like $125k.

Master Bath?

Doesn't have one...can't see a good space to put one in.... I can't be the only person who really, really, really doesn't want to share a bathroom with teenagers?

Kitchen

While good sized it is seriously stuck in the 80's.

Roof

Permit record says it was reroofed in 83. To me, it looked like the roof is completely failing, at least on the little rooflet over the porch. Looking out the windows onto the roof you can see shingles that are so deteriorated that the Fiberglas backing is showing!!!

Elec/Plumbing

Nothing about this is mentioned in the record. From what I could tell the house is most likely still on galv water piping. There was a newer looking meter panel but it was locked and I couldn't see the rating. From the size of the panel and the wires coming to it I'd guess its probably a 100amp panel at most. It also looked like the original abspestos coated ducting for the heater is still being used.

Windows?
I didn't check every window in the houe but I looked at most of them. None of them opened. In fact most of them had been painted in place for so long that there wasn't even a gap between the window sash and the window frame...totally sealed! Great for keeping out drafts and noise not so great in a fire....Actually, I don't understand how it could be legal to sell a house with non-functioning windows...especially in the bedrooms...What happens if theres a fire and heaven forbid the new owners can't get out of the house? They would have to bust out the windows.....if they are lucky....who's going to be liable in a situation like that? C'mon Realtors y'all know that my favorite melodically named 'construction company' would unstick those windows for pennies.

Conclusion

I actually feel sorry for this house....it could be such a great place...if you could pick it up and plunk it down on a quiet street.

The price seems just, uh, crazy to me considering the kind of work the house needs.

It needs a new foundation, roof, master bath, kitchen remodel, service upgrade, and a repiping...that's going to be over $200k in work...

And you're still going to be living in a noisy fishbowl.

To me its probably worth $600k. But when I'd redo the foundation I'd dig out the entire basement and add probably 1000 sq ft of legal living space.

And that's the way I see it.

KnifeCatching 1021 Fair Oaks Ave.

Read This:The following review is just my opinion and only my opinion I am not a professional house appraiser or inspector and I am not a structural engineer. The opinions expressed in this review are based on my own inspection of the property, the publicly available facts from aggregator sites such as Redfin and Zillow and the online permit database for the city of Alameda. I am not responsible for incorrect or missing data that appears in these sources. In fact, its probably best that you just ignore everything you read here as the lunatic ravings of an unbalanced mind.

KnifeCatching 1021 Fair Oaks Ave

Up for review today is 1021 Fair Oaks Ave which has the official specs of being a 4-2 of 3446sq ft on a 5000sq ft lot built in 1900. The house appears to be a legal duplex with two separate addresses. The 'Realtor Facts' say its a 5-3...so I'm not sure where the disconnect is...According to Zillow this property has been on the market for 100 days. It was originally priced at $925k which was reduced to $895k two weeks later. This house was last sold 04/08/08 for $970k..youch..

This was the last house I looked at and the battery on my camera was totally dead so..not a lot of pics. Check out the Zillow, Redfin pages for official pics and prose.

Google street view of front of house.

I actually like how the house looks from the front. Its got an interesting porch and an interesting roof line. There is an apartment building on one side unfortunately. Nice tree out front and a nice little yard.

The Good

In Gold Coast neighborhood in Franklin school district on a quiet side street.

Legal duplex! Live in one unit and get help with the mortgage from the other? I think that's a positive but most folks say houses like duplex's are harder to sell and they sell for less.

Big House...if the official stats of 3446 sq ft are true that's a pretty large house for the area.

Permit Record says that there was a new foundation done in '08. Not done by professional foundation contractor unfortunately....

Apparently there is a large usable attic but I couldn't get up to it to look.

House is a Marcuse and Remmel just like Chez 2.0. Still has a fair amount of original details in the front part of the house.

The kitchen was large with lots of storage and a little eat-in island.

The Bad

~$18k in termite work!

Kitchen desperately needs updating...actually, if they woulda spent two half days wiping on a gel stain and a couple of clear coats the kitchen would of looked a million times better. Four hours of work and less than $100 in materials...why would you not?

Baths need updating.

Not much of a backyard.

Bottom unit wasn't open.

Nothing in the permit record about modern electrical upgrades.

Nothing in the permit record about modern plumbing upgrades.

Nothing in permit record about these two newer looking decks.

This worries me....in Alameda a 2nd story deck HAS to be officially engineered. Unsafe-overloaded 2nd story decks have a habit of collapsing and hurting people...If I was seriously considering buying the place I would absolutely make the current owner prove its officially safe.

Nothing in the permit record about a new roof...from what I could see from the street the roof does not look new.

Conclusion

Price, price, price, lets talk about price...I know I pretty much ALWAYS say this but... I don't understand how they came up with the price of $895k...it must be based on mostly the square footage???

According to the permit record and what I could see the house needs serious updating.

New roof

mid range remodeled kitchen.

two mid range remodeled baths...

New water supply piping?

New electrical? Upgrade to 200 amps and a modern service panel?

What's going to happen when the city notices that big 2nd story deck??? Trust me, that's going to be an expensive hassle.

$895k is a lot of money for a house that still needs a lot of updating.

According to the numbers from Remodeling Magazines Cost vs. value report and my own experience that's over $100k worth of work easy...and we still haven't seen the condition of the downstairs unit?

Honestly, this seems more like a $750k max house to me...I would say that since the place has sat on the market for 100days that maybe they should consider lowering the price again?

And that's the way I see it...

One more thing....

Take a look at the Zestimate graph on the zillow page.

I don't think I've ever seen one that peaked so high for so shortly only to plunge so low...

KnifeCatching......I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!

Mu, ha, ha, haaaaaa....

How do you spell that?

Wow, the weather was so nice this past Sunday that I went for a walk through the neighborhood and toured through four open houses!!

Shockingly enough I felt compelled to write about them...

Soooo, up soon will be reviews of 1021 Fair Oaks Ave, 1441 Grand St, 1223 ST. Charles St, and the big daddy, 1235 Hawthorne lane.

Two Victorians and two mid-century moderns.

While I'm not going to promise that I'm going to go 'review crazy' if there is a house you would like to see reviewed please drop me a note.

Realtors, this is serving as fair warning, if you want your side included in the review you best get back to me ASAP.

Mads

Christmas at Chez Neumansky 3.0

Now, we've never been really big on the whole Christmas decoration thing...Halloweens our thing. People have always said things to us during Halloween time like, 'Wow, I can't wait to see what your Christmas decorations look like...' and we'd just kinda look at them and smile...we've never really even owned any Christmas decorations until this year.

Not This Year!

Christmas at Chez Neumansky 3.0

Please be kind we've never decorated for this holiday before......and dang buying all this stuff even on sale adds up fast....

Outside Decorations

We replaced the 40W bulbs in the fence post lights with flicker bulbs and then put Santa hats on all the lights. Thank you dollar store for the cheap Santa Hats.

Maybe this should be a recurring theme with us? Pumpkins on Halloween, Santa Hats at Christmas...uh, Bunny Ears at Easter??? Uh, Leprechaun hats on St. Pats day???

Also, copying from Halloween we put a lighted garland all around the perimeter of the front yard...luckily the stuff was seriously on sale at Walgreen's..

We added a ton of decorations from the dollar store to this simple garland to dress it up. We put candy canes on it for people to eat and I don't think a single one was taken!?!?! That sure is a change from the ghetto I tell you what...

BBB had a sale on fancier garland and small wreaths that you can see here also.

Arty Shot...

 

Here's the best attempt at an overall outdoor shot..though we still missed half the decorations...

We also did the lighted tree thing up the walk way that you can see in the picture above.

Wouldn't be Christmas without the Menorah

Or the 'tree in the window' thing.

If you head up the steps to the porch you were greeted with this cheery site.

We tried to make the big incorrect columns look like 'candy canes'. The garland and wreath here were the fancier BBB stuff.

Stepping inside

More fancy BBB garland going up the stairs.

Mrs. Madmadscientist did this really nice thing with the lights.

She wove greenery into the lights and put hung ornaments from them...looked exactly like something out of a fancy catalog like Grandin Road or Frontgate. You can see some of the other lights in the other shots but unfortunately this is the only closeup shot of one of the lights...

 

And of course the Christmas-Solstice tree.

 Look, we even shelled out for a tree skirt.

We went with a color theme. Red, Sliver and white for the tree. We also got a big G-scale train to run around the track..that was my favorite Solstice present.

We even did the very traditional Christmas village on the mantle with our stockings.

But wait, look a little bit closer at that Christmas village....something doesn't seem quite right there...

Yep we have a Nightmare Before Christmas village.  We even got the fake snow blanket and some greenery. This was a hit at night with baby madmadscientist...she loved to inspect all the lighted houses and flick the little vampire boy on a spring on top of one of them.

Nice overall shot of the Christmas room.

We also lit Hanukkah candles

Love this fake fireplace...somehow having it going made things seem more Christmassy.

The final stocking-mantle set-up.

Pre Santa

Post Santa

Check out the eaten cookies, carrots and milk.....definite proof that Santa and the reindeer were there.

Here's something that we shoulda known....

Cats Love Christmas!!!!

Check out this selection of pics showing cats doing what they do best...destroy decorations...

Oh, the indignities that poor Christmas village suffered....

The cats loved the train...

Well that's it.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice to everyone!

Fence go BOOM! New-ish Fence

Subtitled: How I spent two whole weeks working on a 3 day job.....

A couple weeks ago we had some seriously strong winds blow through Alameda.

One of the casualties was several sections of our fence.

  
insert picture of blown down fence here (if I woulda remembered to take any)

So, my 82 years young neighbor and I set about fixing the fence together....he originally built the fence either 30 or 40 years ago all by himself. I think that for a fence to last 30 years is pretty good, don't you? Of course, back then fences were made out of all-heart old-growth redwood and were substantially more weather/rot resistant.

   insert in progress pictures here (if I had remembered to take any)

After Shots!

Here are the sections that we rebuilt.

It was 4 sections in all.

Here you can see the mix of old and new wood.

This section has just old pieces that we re purposed to make do.

Here's where the old posts failed in the wind storm.

 The arrow points to where the fence post used to be. You can see that its pretty rotted away.

What's odd to me is that the part of the post that was buried in the soil below the fence footing was actually not anywhere near as rotted as the top part that was exposed to air.

To replace the two completely rotted out posts we used a 10" by 2' sonotube to form the pier or footing...not sure what it should be called.

New Post Footings

We decided on using these brackets because they will keep the posts from rotting and they are adjustable. Our neighbor on the other side did the same thing and he really likes them. It was a little weird and different for my partner but he was won over by how its performing on the neighbors fence. These brackets seem so perfect for the job yet Simpson says that they are not intended to be used for fence posts? I really don't understand that. Do any of you?

In addition to the two completely broken posts there were two that still appeared to be in good shape but were a little loose in their footings.

I found these Simpson fence post mender brackets at economy lumber and we gave them a try.

They are pretty beefy steel that you pound down along the post and then attach with their structural screws. These really firmed up the fence posts, especially since we packed the area around it with the extra concrete. These felt just as firm as the new posts-footings.

They don't make em like that anymore.

I've never built or really even thought about building a fence before so I had no idea what the reality is. We first went to Home Despot to see if they magically carried replacement fence parts...nope..actually the selection of redwood at Home Despot was shockingly bad...didn't really have anything that we could use...So, next we went to economy lumber..where, yes, they carried a large selection of rough, all-heart redwood to build the fence with. Wow, that stuff's expensive...but not in the pre-made tongue and groove style that my partner was insisting that we replicate exactly......so we got to do it all 'by hand'.

Routing Craziness.

Here's a shot of the 2nd from the top 2by4 in the fence.

It is routed on the one side to accept the fence board, and on the other for the weird green wavy plastic stuff....The fence board rabbit is 7/8" wide by 1/2" deep...did it in one pass!! Man that created a lot of saw dust. I had to route every single horizontal piece plus both sides of each new 4by4 post.

Because we used rough redwood the bottom 1by12 board was two wide to fit into the existing rabbits on the fence posts...so, out came the Harbor Fright power planer and zing, zing, zing I shaved down the ends of the boards to form a tongue.

Handmade finials

My partner handmade the finials on the fence on his ancient Black&Decker table saw!!

After we finished the fence he actually made two more outta an old 4by6 fence post!

Speaking of old guardless table saws with adull blade and non-parallel fences....

Thank god it was just really a glancing blow....I tell ya there was a couple of scary minutes between doing it, swearing like a sailor, and getting the glove off and getting the wound cleaned out before I could tell it was superficial. I've had worse cuts cooking. 

Next Up, Chez Neumansky Decorated for Christmas???