After selling my San Jose home in July 2000, I moved into Mike's San Carlos home and started organizing home improvement projects. Mike purchased his home in 1999. The home was built in the '70s so had some very wild tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. The interior had been abused by previous renters and the exterior had never been maintained. In 2001, we had the roof replaced and I relandscaped the front and side of the house. In early 2002, we worked on the interior. We had the carpet replaced, the hardwood floors refinished, and the kitchen remodeled (we replaced appliances before refacing cabinets and replacing tile). You can see from the first 6 pictures what the original cabinets and tile looked like (can you say '70s!!). The next 7 pictures show the kitchen after the cabinets were refaced and the counter and floor tile were replaced.

Then came disaster. In December 2002, we had mudslides and drainage problems on the hill behind our house (below are pictures of Mike clearing drains and covering the hill with plastic; the cats helped out!). We had to get a soil engineer to analyze the hill before getting a landscaper to build more retaining walls and put in the more drainage. In addition to mudslides, in the spring of 2003 we had sewage back up into the downstairs bathroom, laundry, and family room. The outgoing pipe had to be redirected and replaced under the driveway and the hardwood and tile floors had to be replaced and refinished. What a nightmare. We had contractors in our house the entire summer. At least the insurance covered all the repairs.

Also during the summer, Mike built a new railing for the front deck (see pictures below). The previous year, he had rebuilt the stair railings to the front door. Then we had the exterior of the house repainted, which hadn't been done in over 20 years! At the end of the summer, the landscapers finished terracing and relandscaping the back hill (see last 6 pictures).

Click a picture to see a larger view.