Friday, March 27, 2009

"HIGH N' DRY" ON HOLLYWOOD LANE

We were first exposed to the high desert in the summer of 2001 when our friend Jack bought a beautiful house there. We lived at his place for the summer and fall of 2001 and fell in love with Wonder Valley. We looked at properties but didn't really even know where to start with actually buying a place. We then left the west coast for three years. When we moved back to Los Angeles in the fall of 2004, we began looking at properties out in the high desert again. We eventually found this amazing property, made an offer, and on May 30, 2006, we had our own Wonder Valley cabin on five acres!



BEFORE





AFTER





SPRINGTIME IN WONDER VALLEY

Spring is an amazing time of the year in Wonder Valley. For a few weeks, the desert wildflowers are in full bloom. Lisa's father came out from Detroit to visit us in Los Angeles and we took him to see our cabin.



INSTALLING NEW WINDOWS & DOORS

We installed (and framed out for) three new windows, new panes of glass for the two preexisting windows in the front, a sliding glass door, and a beautiful old door that we picked up (and resurfaced) from Sante Fe Wrecking. It was an exciting day when we locked up the cabin for the first time!




DISCOVERING A PREEXISTING SEPTIC TANK

A septic system installer recommended that we do a little exploratory digging where the pipe from the toilet in the old trailer went down into the ground. We were very surprised and very excited to discover that there was a preexisting septic tank that was up to code (750 gallons) and in perfect working order!

OUR WORK BENCH

NEW SIDING

Douglas worked on a commercial for Louisiana Pacific Lumber with a friend of ours, Matt Luem. At the end of the shoot, Matt donated all of the lumber to us for our cabin!!! Thank you Matt! We mixed and matched what was left of the old siding and came up with this.