One of my clients and I were talking about his house. He’s owned it for almost a decade and has done some improvements over that time. He’s really annoyed. One of his improvements has done much more harm than good.

Here’s what happened: My client hired a firm to increase the insulation in the attic and to also install baffles for ventilation. The insulation job led to mold growth in his attic. Now he needs to get a mold clean-up.

The task: Roof shingles last longer if there is good ventilation in the attic. It’s a good thing that most old houses don’t have. Heating costs and fuel waste are kept down by good insulation of the attic. It’s also a good thing that old houses don’t have. These two good-house-care items are at war with one another. If too much insulation is installed, it can shift over and block the ventilation. Then, the damp air from the house (caused by people breathing out, showers, and cooking) condenses in the cool surfaces in the attic. Without ventilation, the dampness can’t get out. This provides a happy environment for mold.

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One of the differences between print media and on-line media is that topics I raise live on -- through the joy of search engines -- long beyond when we here at Boston.com have forgotten about them. Here’s a questions that came to me long, long after the June, 2008 entry. JZ asked about the specifics of the lead paint law when it comes to condos associations:

1+ year later, if anyone can confirm the specific laws one more time, I'd appreciate it. I have searched on the Internet and haven't found anything more specific.

This is specific to Massachusetts. Does the law state that the condo association/condo trust is responsible and will pay for all common area deleading that is required, including both interior common areas and exterior of the building, if currently only one unit has a child under 6 years of age? The interior of the condo unit with the child would of course be the responsibility of that condo unit's owner. The question is for the rest of the building which is all occupied by owners of the condo units (Condo Trustees).

This one is easy. Very easy! If you want to know anything about lead paint, contact Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. You can write them or call them, 800-532-9571.

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With a chill in the autumn air, the Globe’s story on a Roxbury couple who believe they have designed the ultimate in green homes is an eye catcher, to say the least.

I had to read it twice to make sure I wasn’t missing some hidden catch, such a furnace in the cellar all ready to be fired up should Simon Hare and his wife, Damiana relent in their determination to get through a New England winter without heat.

I hadn’t. Rather, Hare and family are confident that their super insulated, energy efficient, paragon of green building design will do the trick.

After attempting to salvage a cottage from the 1850s, the Hares instead built their own, 750 square foot home at the same site, but one with the latest in green insulation.

Instead of a furnace in the basement, the Hares are counting on, among other things, super crazy insulation, and, incredibly, their own body heat.

It should be one interesting experiment, to say the least.

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Today, Jim shares a couple of his tips for looking around inside your house:

The use of electrical extension cord feeds and electrical receptacle adapters is the cause of many fires. If you see a lot of these in the house, then you’ll know that you’ll need to hire a licensed electrician to install new electrical receptacles and fixtures as needed.

It sounds funny, but I also look for price tags, particularly on the electrical and plumbing components. This is almost always a sign that a homeowner did the work instead of a qualified, licensed professional. If you see price tags and the work appears sloppy, you should check to see if a building permit was obtained.

Look at the insulation on the heating system and pipes or ducts. If it is white and looks similar to a plastered cast, it could contain asbestos. To know for certain, it must be sampled and tested in a laboratory (though some manufacturers boldly brag of the asbestos content on the label if you can find one). If it does contain asbestos, any friable asbestos pipe insulation should removed or encapsulated by a Massachusetts-certified professional, which will be expensive.

If the house has central air conditioning, you should ask the current owners of the property how old the system components are. The average life span of the outdoor condenser unit it typically 15-20 years and the average life span of the interior air handler is typically 30 years or so.

Shine a flashlight inside the heating or cooling ducts and look around. Chances are, the interior will be coated with dirt. You should strongly consider having the interior of the air ducts and the air handler professionally cleaned before moving into the house, especially someone in your family has allergies. For more information about indoor air quality, visit this web site

Inside the house, turn every light switch on and off to make sure they work. You should also try to open and close every window, checking for broken glass, broken sash cords, fogged double paned glass, and loose windows. Operate every faucet, run the shower and tub and flush all toilets looking for leaks at the appliance. When you have operated every plumbing fixture in the house, go back down into the basement and check for leaks.

You should also be looking for water stains on the walls and ceiling which indicate a past or current leak. Notice the pattern of the cracking in the walls and ceilings. It’s hard to find a house with no cracks at all, and cracks are not necessarily a sign of a structural problem. However, certain patterns can tip you off to a settlement problem that will require further investigation.

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Goodbye monster three-car garages, au pair suites, media/home theater centers and kids’ wings. Not to mention “pet rooms’’ and dual master bedrooms.

And, especially in the case of the oversized garages – and I guess kids’ suites and pet rooms, though still not sure what those are – goodbye and good riddance.

At least until the next housing boom/bubble hits.

Anyway, these intriguing trends come from the American Institute of Architects Home Design Trends from the second quarter.

And as the focus fades on upscale amenities, there’s also rising interest in more practical home renovations, finds the survey of 500 architects across the country.

For one, home offices are now the most popular special function room, according to 40 percent of the architects surveyed.

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In the course of doing my real estate business, I have worked with lots of different home inspectors. Today, I introduce James Morrison. His father, Allan Morrison was also a home inspector, so Jim comes by it honestly... Morrison’s slogan is “Each house tells a story. We write 'em down.”

Today, Jim writes on home exteriors:

A home inspector’s job is to diagnose and document major problems in houses. Most of the time, the people who live in these houses are unaware that the problems exist, making our job more difficult. It’s analogous to a physician trying to diagnose an illness in a patient who has no complaints. You have to look closely to pick up on the symptoms and exercise judgment based on your experience in order to figure each puzzle out. It’s even harder for the average person to recognize signs of trouble. Whether you are looking to purchase a new house or you’re just trying to maintain the house you live in, here are some things you can look for to flesh out potential problems that are not always apparent.

Here’s three tips I picked up during my first year in the house I lived in two houses ago: 1) That long circular driveway that I thought would be great when we have parties seemed twice as big when it came time to shovel! 2) For every minute I spent in the nice weather playing fetch with my black lab in that enormous back yard, I spent an hour marching behind a lawnmower, and who do you think is going to do all that raking? 3) Apple trees add a lot to the landscape, picking apples up off the ground before mowing the lawn each week does not. Keep all seasons in mind when looking at the yard.

Most of the time you won’t be able to see the roofing material up close, but you should ask the owners if they know how old it is. Most homes in our area have asphalt shingles on their roofs which can be expected to last a total of about 20 years. If you are able to see the shingles up close, check the south and west facing exposures because they wear out sooner due to increased exposure to the sun. Some signs that a roof may need to be replaced include: loss of shingle grit in the spaces between the tabs, curling, cracking, and missing shingles.

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This spring, our builder completed months of renovations, complete with a new addition, to our Natick fixer-upper.

But that does not mean we haven’t been busy over the past few months.

There’s a get acquainted period when you move into any house, including new construction, when you start to discover its quirks and those things that need to be fine tuned.

Kind of like a shakedown cruise for a new ship.

And while we did not do a tear down, in some ways it’s been like moving into a newly built home, with all that implies.

We basically added a new, modern half to the back of our hundred-or-so-year-old house, with a new kitchen and family room downstairs, and a second bathroom, two bedrooms and an office upstairs.

The old half got a thorough upgrade as well, with new electrical system replacing 1920s-era wiring and fancy new, code-approved fire alarms.

The good news is the big things work just fine, with no leaks, faulty floors or other horror stories.

Our builder knows what he’s doing. But that does not mean there haven’t been some kinks to work out, either.

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Since the discussion about appraisal last week turned into a discussion of the value of “green,” here are a few tidbits about green commercial buildings to chew on:

The Fireman’s Fund made a statement this week saying that for commercial buildings, being not green will be a liability in the future. They offer a 5 percent reduction in insurance for green buildings.

Green buildings can boost real estate owners’ bottom line by protecting and building net operating income, attracting and retaining quality tenants and improving the environment. Simply put, green buildings create a triple net effect, benefitting [sic] the owners’ bottom line, its tenants and the environment,” said David Cohen, senior director of real estate, Commercial Insurance at Fireman’s Fund.

The Fireman’s Fund states these risks for non-green buildings:

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Yesterday, I wrote about my clients who bought land, torn down a house and put up a modular. They thought long and hard about how to honor the family that lived there before them. Not only did my clients choose a home that fit into the neighborhood, but they also chose one that looks a good bit like the original house with an addition. The main part of the outside of the new house still resonates with the family home it replaced. (This inside works a lot differently, thus the need for the modular house.) They also communicated with the family about their progress. Surprisingly, the seller (a younger relative who did not grow up there) came to see the new house setting. She seems reconciled, according to my client.

It has been a difficult process for the members of the extended family who had memories in that house. The couple who lived in this house was at the center of a large, extended family. One neighbor-relative said he will always remember the matriarch of the family sitting on the front porch. He said something like this: “She’s gone. Now the house is gone. Leaving the house there won’t bring her back.” Another neighbor, who wasn’t a relative, remembers both of the owners. “They were really nice people. Both of them.”

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This spring, my office had two client-households close on homes that they planned to tear down and replace. Both went modular. I wrote about the first one, when it landed in July. The second one just landed.

This house is twice as big as the one that landed at the end of July.
Because of its size, I learned something new about modular design: thirteen feet is the magic number for room width. A room can be as long as you want it, but width beyond thirteen feet takes a little extra work. My client’s master bedroom is more than thirteen feet wide. Part of it was in one box and part of it is in the other. Their family room was too wide, too, so it had to have a police escort from New Hampshire for highway safety.

The land these clients wanted had a house on it. The house was much loved by an extended family. It was outdated, but still very serviceable as a nice family home. It had a new bathroom, lots of nice woodwork and wood floors, some good light fixtures, sinks, and appliances. This created an ethical dilemma for my clients: How to mitigate the waste of good house materials.

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Most people expect wood to decay, they assume stone will last forever. Stone buildings are subject to the same detrimental effects of weather and other environmental factors that can damage wood and other siding materials. Shorter, more exposed, stone boundary walls need regular maintenance. I learned that from Robert Frost, when I was in school. Remember Mending Wall?

Stephen Roberts , from Housemaster Home Inspections, explained it to me less poetically:

Water is almost always the source of the problem. Moderate exposure to rainwater is inevitable and, to some extent, beneficial as it helps clean exterior surfaces. But damage occurs with cycles of heavy saturation and drying. These cycles may be caused by seasonal weather factors, leaking gutters, ineffective cornices, blocked drains or clinging vegetation.

The most common causes of stone deterioration include:

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Recently, I showed a house that had a very odd pattern of damage. There were water marks that were not coming from the roof, or the bathrooms, or the kitchens. We found the source of the water in the attic. There were signs of a fire there; the water was from the fire hoses. A Google search yielded the date of the fire (a couple of years back) and the number of the fire report at the town fire department. The fire department had more information.

My client lost interest at that point. The house has some fire repair, but there was still tons of work to do. The project was over his head.
Had he been interested, the next step would have been to purchase a CLUE report. This Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange report covers the last five years of insurance claims on a property. This is a handy tool, but it doesn’t go back long enough to help with most of the fire and flood damage that I have seen in my career.

Older fire records are not so easy to find. Many towns file their fire reports by date. So if you do not know the date of the fire, you are out of luck.

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In honor of the Red Sox playing them this week, The Red Sox are in New York, so let's enjoy a little local real estate. Today, I share with you another reason why Boston is better than New York.

In New York, interior decoration shows love of their transit system. It's New York, so of course, it's over-the-top.

I really love the Red line. I use it quite a lot for someone with a car-centered job. I always stop to look at the tiles in Davis Square or the gloves in Porter. But I wouldn’t design my house to match it. Would you?

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A year ago, I had clients who got fed up with bad designs in expensive new construction. Instead, they set out to find land to put a modular home on. When they looked at what modular homes had to offer, they were pleasantly surprised. Since then, two of my clients have chosen the modular route to a new home. Both, as it turns out, ended up with the same builder.

A lot of my old opinions were replaced by moderate curiosity and later a favorable opinion. Today, I am a true fan. Last Thursday, I attended my first “house setting.” It was really fun. My clients were there, cameras in hand. Neighbors came to watch. A week before, the land was a pile of dirt! Now a new house has joined the neighborhood.

The house came down on two trucks from New Hampshire. A crane put the first half on the foundation. (I’ve never seen a half a house swing around on a crane before; it looked like a doll house because the cabinets and plate rail were already installed.) Then they nailed plastic on the marriage wall of the second half and swung it into place. A little ratcheting to tighten them together and voila! The house is set. The roof was flat for transport, but it folded up to a peak. By early afternoon, both halves were set and connected. The roof was up. By the middle of the afternoon, the house was ready for our rainy summer.

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Richard Vetstein is a real estate attorney in Framingham. In a recent blog entry, he wrote about a topic near and dear to my heart (and Scott’s heart, too): home repair and construction.

Since Richard is an attorney and thinks like an attorney, he has an attorney’s take on how to handle contractors. He writes:

Sign A Written Construction Contract In Compliance With Massachusetts Home Improvement Law (General Laws Chapter 142A)

The Massachusetts Home Improvement Law provides the bare minimum of what is required to be in home improvement contracts over $1,000, but most contracts supplied by the contractor are non-compliant and terribly one-sided.

Here’s what you need in your home improvement contract:
1. The home improvement contract must be written, dated, and signed by both parties…
2. The home improvement contract must provide the start date of the work and the date of “substantial completion.”
3. The home improvement contract must provide a detailed description of the work and materials involved. I suggest incorporating that detailed estimate provided by the contractor… (You can attach it as an exhibit or addendum to the end of the contract).
4. The contract must detail the scope of work, being as specific as possible. I cannot emphasize this enough. Itemize the exact type of materials involved (Andersen windows, California paint, Italian ceramic tile, etc.), and work to be performed (full kitchen remodel with installation of new flooring, appliances, etc.). If you are not specific in the contract, and there’s a problem later, your claim will be severely weakened, if not dead on arrival.
5. The contract must provide the total contract amount and the timing of progress payments…

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It’s amazing how much damage years of simply neglect can do to a house.

That is what my wife Karen and I found out when we bought our Natick fixer-upper back in 2002.

The seller, a retired railway worker, didn’t hold big beer bashes or keep a houseful of mangy cats. Yet there is little evidence much got repaired or replaced during the 30 years he lived at the cut but rundown little village colonial on Marion Street.

The toilet in our new home’s single bathroom was in danger of plunging into the basement, the lights dimmed when you turned on the toaster, and the patterns were hard to make out on the wallpaper beneath the nicotine stains.

Those days, though, are happily history now, with a local builder having just finished putting a new addition on the back and renovating the older half.

Yet as bad as the house was, the real surprise how much work it has been to tame our jungle of a yard.

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There are two kinds of homeowners: the ones who buy fixer-uppers and the ones who create them. Then again, there are people who fixer--up the same house more than once. Reading about Scott and his Natick home inspires me to give some advice based on my annual “what does the house need now?” project.

When we bought our two-family fixer-upper, there was a long list generated by our home inspector. Some of the projects at the top of the “to do” list were cosmetic, some were not. Some things that we expected to fail soldiered on, some did not.

Tip #1: Review your inspection report annually. Add in some of those recommendations as you do other improvements.

In the last few years, our home improvements have been about insulation, ventilation and temperature control. This year, we tackled my home office. (Am I being too competitive, Scott?) My home office is in an extension built in the 1960s. This year we added insulation in the floor, resided the walls and insulated around the (good, but poorly installed) windows.

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Following up on what Steve sent me yesterday, this is the worst of the silly little things that lead to fairly serious damage to homes.

The worst case of a tiny neglect that led to big damage was in a house I didn’t see myself. New clients of mine reported this. An elderly gentleman lived alone in this house for many years. My clients described this: “The old fellow must have missed the toilet every day for years. It smelled of urine and there was a ring of rot around the bottom.” My clients may have been right about the ring of rot and the smell, but they were wrong about the gentleman’s aim.

The cause of this problem is a loose toilet. Over the years, the two screws that hold the toilet to the floor will loosen up. Then, every flush allows a couple of drops of toilet water to leak through the wax seal inside the toilet. Drip, drip. Many years later, rot around the toilet and a urine smell.

Simple problem. Simple solution…But wait! There is also a simple catastrophe if the rush in to fix this. Tighten those toilet screws slowly. Maybe a quarter turn at a time, then go to the other side. Toilets are surprisingly easy to crack. So, a little bit…switch sides…a little more until it is snug.

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Stephen Roberts reports his impressions of DIY gone haywire. Steve says:

Every Dad loves to tinker around the home, after all, his home is his castle. I can attest, some tinkering can lead to more costly repairs in the long run.

The handiwork of many do-it-yourself dads has created some of the most interesting discoveries for home inspectors hired to root out structural flaws and other defects in homes. Many homeowners get in over their heads with home improvement projects. Many mistakes start with well-intentioned homeowners who put too much emphasis on home improvement rather than home maintenance The current trend in home improvement often stems from the desire to add value to a home. However, a home’s value begins at its core with a healthy structure. Adding a new kitchen or bathroom to a home that has foundation or moisture issues is not necessarily the best investment. While modern amenities are attractive to potential homebuyers, cutting through a major floor joist to update a home’s plumbing may be the quick and easy way, but it can create more negatives than positives. Amateur power tool users often get into trouble by cutting before thinking. Many do-it-yourselfers have cut or nailed through old pipes in a wall during a home improvement project, leading to water damage and major repair issues. Even outdoor projects run the risk of breaking through a gas or water line. Collateral damage caused by such mishaps often show up on a home inspection report once the house is up for sale. And the next buyer seldom wants to inherit a fix-it list spawned from do-it-yourself projects gone wrong. So many houses look great on the surface, but the home inspection business has grown from the need to look past the surface and uncover less noticeable defects. Savvy homeowners are getting annual home maintenance inspections to stay up-to-date with maintenance requirements and keep ahead of major repair expenses. Smart homebuyers always get a professional home inspection before purchasing a home. FULL ENTRY

I’m still getting used to the feel of my new and improved Natick fixer-upper.

We moved into the new addition back in early May and while the furniture is in and the carpet is down, there is still a lot to be done to make it homey.

One of the nice surprises, though, has been the home office.

It’s the smallest room in the house and the one that I probably gave the least thought to beforehand.

Of course it is also where I now spend the most hours in any given day.

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That roughly what my newly hired landscaper has told me, in so many words.

First, let’s bring things up to date. My wife Karen and I recently wrapped up work on a two-story addition to our Natick fixer-upper.

OK, so my house looks great, but the yard is a war zone, a sprawling mud patch torn up by tired tracks and littered with unearthed rocks and old bottles from old trash heaps.

Anyway, we’ve hired Joe, a local guy with a landscaping business on the side, to whip our yard into shape.

After taking a look around, Joe came to the conclusion that was both unsettling and logical: If we want a lawn instead of a mud patch, most of the trees that ring our yard will need to go.

While his assessment makes sense, I have mixed feelings.

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There’s one simple truth about buying a fixer-upper – the home improvement fun just never ends.

That’s what my wife Karen and I are finding out now we have completed a renovation and two-story addition to hundred-year-old village colonial near Natick Center.

We just converted the construction loan we took out last fall into a permanent, 30-year mortgage, even managing to snag a low, 4.6 percent rate. Our debt load is now $412,000, a combination of the old mortgage and the $152,000 we financed for the project.

The low rates were a pleasant surprise – not a development I envisioned when we closed on our construction loan two weeks before the bottom fell out of the stock market last September.

I was questioning my sanity back then.

Anyway, the closing of the loan – and the completion of our addition - warranted lunch out and five minutes of celebrating.

When we bought out fixer-upper back in 2002, it was a glorified camp-ground shelter. The dingy, nicotine stained wallpaper dated to the 50s, the single toilet was in danger of falling into the basement, and the electrical system was so crude that all the lights in the house dimmed when I put the toaster on.

So now we have functional house. But the yard, or what’s left of it, is one big rock-strewn, ugly mess of a mud patch.

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Inspectors tell me to look at the individual rectangle of the roof shingle. If the edge is clear and discrete to the eye, then the shingle is newer. The fuzzier the line, the older the roof. This rule of thumb seems to work. Now, let’s hear from someone who can tell you more. Inspector Steve Roberts joins us again. Today, he is starting at the top.

Asphalt shingles are the most commonly used type of roof covering for pitched roofs on homes. The overlapping design of the installed shingles provides a double layer of protection as the water flows down the roof slope to the roof edge. Asphalt shingles, also known as composition shingles, are so widely used because of their moderate cost, light weight (compared to many other roofing products), durability, and ease of installation. Asphalt shingles are surfaced on the top side with mineral granules to provide protection from the elements and a level of fire resistance.

Asphalt shingles are available in a variety of colors, weights and patterns. Regular weight asphalt shingles generally have an economic life span of 16-20 years; heavyweight shingles are sold as 30-50 year shingles. Exposure to the sun will tend to shorten the lifespan.

The installation of an asphalt roof involves more than just the roofing itself. A water-resistant saturated felt underlayment is typically rolled out over the sheathing before the shingles are applied. In New England, a special rubberized membrane is installed along the eave to provide extra protection from ice dams and water backup. Eave or gable edge flashing is also used.

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Small, cosmetic changes are in when it comes to home renovations, and big is definitely out.

That’s the take from a couple of new surveys on home remodeling trends that find while the sector is certainly down, it’s not entirely out either.

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When I ask a prospect what they want in a home, the answers vary regarding the number of rooms, bathrooms, the yard size and such. But, they almost always say “I want a lot of light.” In order to get a bright house, you need big windows.
Bad windows are a problem that is expensive to solve. It is literally a pain in the neck to have a window that doesn’t close or open easily. It is a waste of energy to have a drafty window. Controversy abounds about replacement windows. Many think that vinyl is the answer; others say the wood frame is the way to go. Choose carefully.
Inspector Steve Roberts joins us again. Today, he describes windows found in New England.

Windows are like the eyes to the outdoors, they allow us to see what is happening outside, and at the same time they provide safety and protection from the elements. There are many different window types, and in New England the ages of these window units can vary from new to several hundred years old.

As an inspector, we come across all makes and models of window units. Some are top of the line and others just barely shelter you. With this in mind, I’d like to describe the different types of windows.

Aside from storm windows and screen windows, there are six basic styles found in residential construction. The different styles are:

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Stephen Roberts is a home inspector with more than ten years experience. Write me if you have questions for the inspector. He agreed to take a crack at answering questions here for home buyers and owners.
Today, Steve of HouseMaster Home Inspections describes what you need to do to turn a wet basement into a dry one.

Here's Steve:

What I tell all my clients is "a basement is nothing but a hole in the ground. Water (as we all know from science class) seeks its lowest level. Therefore, every basement has the potential to develop water issues." It doesn't matter if the home is 200 years old, or brand new, water is its enemy.

Several years ago we had a very wet spring (remember the Mother's Day rain?) The Boston area received an unusual amount of rain, and there was a tremendous amount of basements that were flooded. The phones at basement water proofing companies were ringing off the hook. It was certainly a good time to be working in that business.

Most of my clients understand that there is a level of risk in purchasing a home, and if they plan on finishing the basement, it's advisable to install a basement water proofing system. These systems are designed to move any ground water away from the living area and to pump it to the outside. A properly designed and installed system should be able to handle any ground water issue and keep the living space dry.

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I have been holding Wednesdays to talk about landlord-tenant issues. Is my audience still there? What do you want talk about or learn about? Let me know.

Today’s topic: normal seasonal maintenance. What needs to be done and who does it?

My tenants had to wait until mid-April before we got to clear the front yard. (We keep it covered in mulch over the winter. It looks normal in the winter, but begins to look shabby when the flowers come up.) Our poor spring bulb plants struggled through it and so did the tenants. We take care of all the common space at our rental. Is that what your landlord does?

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The crux of the issue between landlords and their tenants is defining normal wear and tear, normal maintenance, and improvement. Today, let’s talk about plumbing. Should landlords expect tenants to flush only the most flushable things? Should tenants be responsible for clogs they make through normal usage? What about hair clogs in the tub? Food clogs in the disposer or dishwasher?

PC asked the un-PC question that plagues many a landlord:

… how do you tactfully tell women they can't flush tampons/pads down the toilet?

I found the answer to that one pretty easy. We have a clause in our lease about care of the plumbing. It includes a statement that nothing may be flushed down the toilet except human waste and toilet paper. No tissues, face-wipes, “flushable” cleaning and hygiene items.

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My wife Karen and I are finally wrapping up work on a two-story addition to our Natick fixer-upper.

We’ve been pretty darn lucky. No major budget overruns and everything just about wrapped up a year after we began serious planning.

But, ironically, one of the toughest things we have faced is picking out the colors for the new half of our old house – two new bedrooms, an office, a new kitchen, a second bathroom and a small family room.

We painted the office and first bedroom on our own, picking, without much problem, light green and a deep blue respectively.

Then help arrived, in the form of a friend who runs his own painting shop. He’s providing the labor to finish up the remaining rooms - all we have to do is pick out the colors.
What could be easier, right?

Wrong. We picked an reddish orange for what will be our master bedroom, but settling on a color for our new kitchen/family room has been entertaining, to say the least.

We thought we had settled on a color, a light shade of purple. Once it got on the wall, it looked like a day-glow shade of lavender you might find on an old set of Miami Vice.

Just call it our color quagmire.

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Sam Schneiderman, Broker-owner of Greater Boston Home team continues his weekly series:

Last week, I discussed renovating my first single family with my fiancé. Like many renovators, we did most work without permits except the kitchen installation, which we understated on the permit to save a few dollars on fees.

I was still a real estate dummy and thought that permits were a formality that allowed the city to track improvements and increase my taxes based on those improvements. Now, after 25 years of brokerage and appraisal experience, I have a very different perspective:

Over the years I’ve seen numerous sales either that cost sellers money or fell apart due to lack of permits. More than a few wood stoves were removed due to hazardous installations. Countless decks have separated from buildings because they were attached with nails instead of bolts. Water damage is common when flashing is not used properly. (In one case, the entire corner of a building, including porches and walls suffered extensive structural damage because flashing was poorly installed.)

Another seller had to cut two feet off a deck before the town inspector would sign off on the permit so they could sell. The worst situations occur when bedrooms are added without adequate emergency exits and there is a fire later or when improperly installed heating systems leak deadly exhaust fumes into living spaces.

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Sam Schneiderman, Broker-owner of Greater Boston Home team continues his weekly series:
Last week, I explained how my fiancé and I bought a single family after our three family purchase fell apart: a decision based heavily on emotion. We were desperate for a home and liked the idea of renovating and living in an “affordable” single family. We bought an ugly duckling that had nothing but upside potential. It was 1984; we were young, naïve and had “vision”.

There were no home inspectors yet, so we hired a pest inspector. The rest was up to us. The house obviously needed a kitchen, bath and “heavy cosmetics”. Every interior inch needed serious help.

During the hot, humid “dog days” of summer, the smell of cigarettes and the seller’s filthy dog would haunt us, hastening our desire to get the walls and floors refinished faster to seal out odors. Over the next few years, we methodically finished one room at a time when we weren’t working to earn money to put back into the house.

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Little me, I had no idea the hornets’ nest I was stirring up with my recent post on architects.

To be more exact, “Some good reasons to ditch the architect,’’ laid out my reasons for not hiring an architect before pushing ahead with a two-story addition to my Natick fixer-upper.

The response was quite interesting, to say the least. I had more than one architect write to accuse me of either harboring some secret hatred or grudge against the profession, or of trying to stick it to the field and rob honest practitioners of work during the worst downturn since the Depression.

“It sounds to me like you got burned once, are blaming the architect and have decided to extend that blame to every member of the profession...”

Wow. I guess no one read my opening line, “Don’t get me wrong, I love architects.’’

And I do, really. I stand by my story. But while I may have hit a nerve, let me explain my reasoning for skipping the architect.

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Don’t get me wrong, I love architects.

Having reported on commercial real estate for years for one newspaper or another, one of the really fun parts of the job has been following what various marquee architects dream up for the Hub’s skyline.

But when it came time to put on a two-story addition to our Natick fixer-upper, my wife Karen and I decided to skip the architect and have our very capable builder/contractor do the design work.

It was not a decision that was without controversy for us. My wife from time to time wondered whether it would have been better to start off with hiring an architect to do the plans. She likes order and following directions, and to her, it seemed like we skipped a few chapters and dove straight into the book.

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Some days I feel like I am running a one-man stimulus program for the Natick area.

My wife Karen and I closed a construction loan on a two-story addition to my Natick fixer-upper just two weeks before the stock market implosion back in mid-September.

Now we are about a week away from being able to move into part of it – though there’s still a lot of pesky painting to do.

As the new addition to the back of our house has steadily taken shape, the economy has gone from bad to worse. And it’s become pretty clear that for some of the tradesmen and women working on various parts of our home renovation/expansion, this is one of their top sources of income right now.

That brings me back to the painting. A scruffy fellow with a bulldog tucked under his arm appeared at my front door one day last week. Living on a side street a few blocks away, he had noticed all the work on our house and wanted to see if we needed any help.

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OK, so I must be smoking something. I mean my wife Karen and I are in the final stages of putting a two-story addition onto the back of our Natick fixer-upper and we have yet to consult Remodeling Magazine’s latest “cost versus value’’ report.

Maybe if we had, we wouldn’t have gone ahead with all our big plans. After all, we would have found out we’ll only get 80 percent back of what we spent if we sell someday, though that’s a bit better than the relatively paltry 76.2 percent such additions recouped for their owners back in 2007.

Go figure. The endless debate over how much bang for a buck you can get with common renovations and additions is certainly fun, but I am not sure how useful it is.

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I welcome back Sam Schneiderman. Sam is a colleague and native Bostonian who will share his experiences and lessons learned during his journey from first-time buyer to home owner, renovator, landlord/investor and successful broker. He is president & principal broker of Greater Boston Home Team. And now, Sam's story, part 2:

When we concluded last week it was 1981 and I had just closed on my first condo in Cleveland Circle, a well-worn student ghetto with weekly apartment break-ins. I bought an unrenovated 1929 studio with the original bath and kitchen that featured oversized orange, green and white flowers on the kitchen wallpaper. Every inch of the place needed serious help!
Sure that I had just made a huge mistake; I started removing layers of wallpaper. My vision of converting that dark studio into a bright open plan kitchen/living area with a breakfast bar, double bed sleeping alcove (stolen from part of the kitchen) and foyer/dressing area with a 7’ closet began to invigorate me.

With six weeks of free rent in another apartment before starting to pay rent PLUS mortgage payments, I was focused on sticking to my five-week rehab plan. When the developer learned that I was removing five feet of wall, he made me hire a structural engineer that took a week to write a one-page report before I could proceed. Kitchen cabinets arrived late, installers rescheduled and flooring finishers never showed up.

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I talk a lot about my Natick fixer-upper.

It’s become a pretty big part of my life since my wife Karen and I decided to build a major addition nearly a year ago.

With three small children and a cramped and creaky old house, it was either build on or move. And, as anyone can figure out, moving in this market is just not much of an option.

Now, as that anniversary approaches, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The two-story addition on the back of my roughly 100-year-old colonial is roofed and insulated, the wiring and plumbing is mostly complete, and there is a coat of plaster on the walls.

I can walk over into the new addition on the second floor now, with the empty rooms providing some great winter time running around space for my three children, all five and under.

One of the first lessons, though, is my work is just beginning as my builder wraps things up.

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If you walk passed Liz’s house, watch your step!
For those who don’t know Liz, she is the poster-child for people who don’t shovel their walks. Followers of Liz can use fear of litigation as a reason to make things harder for their neighbors.

According to some legislators, as the law stands now, if you don’t shovel your walk, you are not liable if someone walks through the snow and falls. If you shovel your walk, you are liable if someone slips on a spot that has refrozen. A bill to change this was not signed by its deadline by our governor. Some of you wrote in to say that the legislators misunderstand the current law. Well, apparently, the governor agrees with you.

We’ve talked this one to death. This was just an update.

Now for the broker angle on the snowy winter:

Because we have not had a long enough thaw to melt the snow-cover, I am hearing more debate about what is “normal maintenance” in regard to snow shoveling. A seller is responsible to continue normal maintenance of their home until closing. Lawyers can get more specific, but the gist is that if something breaks, fix it; water and mow the grass so it doesn’t die. Does it mean shovel the snow?

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Is there a market for an eBay for homeowners looking to hire contractors?

That is what entrepreneur Andres Torrubia is looking to find out with his newly launched FIXR, which allows homeowners to field bids from contractors for all manner of home improvement and renovation projects.

The on-line site recently launched in the Boston area, with Torrubia and his Spain-based team hoping to roll out the concept across the U.S.

So far, about 500 contractors have used the site, with some jobs getting 10 to 15 bids. The biggest project bid on so far has been a new garage in Littleton.

It’s certainly an interesting concept. One of the biggest obvious advantages, of course, is the ability, in theory anyway, to get a range of bids on work you plan to do around the house.

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My wife and I spent $280,000 to buy our Natick fixer-upper back in 2002.

It was our first home and at the time it seemed like a pretty steep price to pay to enter the world of homeownership.

It still does.

We’ve spent the last seven years fixing it up and are just about finished with a major addition, one that will add a couple bedrooms, a second bathroom and a small family room.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved older homes and I love ours, a simply built, early-1900s village colonial.

But what if we could have spent just $100,000 to buy our first home? Maybe not the old home I would have liked, but a sleek and stylish modern home?

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If I had an extra hundred grand to spend on my house, you won’t catch me blowing it all on insulation.

I mean that sounds pretty extreme to me, but then again I’m not on the green bandwagon yet. I’m barely recycling, to tell you the truth.

But not so to Arlington homeowner Alex Cheimets. He’s shelled out $100,000 to encase his two-family condo building with four inches of foam board insulation. Plus another six inches on the roof.

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My house is no longer my own. At least that is how I have been feeling lately after a posse of much too friendly neighborhood squirrels have become squatters in my attic.

When I last let loose on the ongoing saga of my hapless efforts to wrest back control of my attic, months of frustration over the midnight antics of these furry nocturnal visitors had boiled over.

Trying to wish the problem away hadn’t worked. So finally I broke down, rented a trap, and set it up under the eaves with a wad of peanut butter on a piece of bread as the bait. No dice. When I checked in the morning the bait was gone alright, but there was no sign of a squirrel.

While disappointed, I was still not worried. After all, my wife and I are renovating and adding onto our Natick handyman’s special, a project that includes all new siding. And soon after the trap fiasco, the final strips of white siding were hammered into place, seemingly covering up any small squirrel holes leading into our warm attic.

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Remember John Dough? You met him on November 6. He bought a bank-owned property with the intention of finishing the renovation and selling it for profit. You heard about his private financing on November 18th. Now, John has a loan, he has a deed, he has a budget. He's picking up his hammer and getting to work.Here’s John in his own words:

Getting to Closing in One Piece: It’s been awhile since I last commented on our progress so here is an update. After we secured our financing we had about three weeks until closing. It was pretty uneventful. Title was clear, taxes were owed, and the water/sewer bill had to be paid. The bank owning the unit agreed to pay the taxes, but would only pay a 1/3 of the water/sewer. So we had to pay the balance, which wasn’t much ($400 or so) and we also had to insure the property which meant that we’d be paying for the share of the other condos in the building that were bank owned. That cost was about $1200 for a half year master insurance policy. We plan to recoup 2/3 of that cost when the banks try to sell their units. With all that going on, we closed about a week later than expected but we weren’t subject to the usual fees that banks invoke when you don’t close on time. We now owned the condo.

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We’ve spent years fixing up our 100-year-old fixer upper in Natick.

My wife and I are halfway through a major addition that includes some significant upgrades to the older half of my house, including new windows and siding.

But the toughest problem to date hasn’t been the bank or my builder, who is awesome, but rather a posse of unruly squirrels that set up camp nightly in my warm attic.

If they were to just squeeze in through whatever hole they’ve found for a little shut-eye, I guess that would be one thing. But being squirrels, they like to scamper, wrestle and run about at all hours of the night.

It sounds like a gym meet is taking place over my head, all at 3 a.m.

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N. sent me an email about her improvement plans:

Hi … I am going to be doing a renovation on my current home located in…. It’s a… I am adding 680 sft. which includes a family room downstairs off the kitchen… a deck and a master bedrooom upstairs with master bath and kids bath. As well as a new 1/2 bath downstairs. I checked zillow.com to see what we are appraised at currently____.

I am trying to get an estimate of the new value , so I can re-finance when its done as we currently have a adjustable mortgage. With the zillow estimate is estimates our house at $___ per sft, although we bought at the height of the market 6yrs ago. Is this a reasonable sft price to use to calculate the new value?

What about the new bathrooms(one is new not included in the original ___sft) how are these calculated. In addition I plan to install a new kitchen.

.. we cannot get a loan to do the project, because of the credit crunch so I have to pay cash. … so I am trying to see if my projected numbers are about right, to see if I can re-finance once w e have the equity and take some can out to finish the kitchen. I am the general contractor on the job…I can do the whole project for $100,000, so I would double my investment. Are my estimates correct for the new value?

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I’ve got a couple condo developments under construction a few blocks from my house in Natick.

One sits near the train station, overlooking the police station and its picturesque parking lot on one side, the tracks to Boston on the other.

Condos were listed there recently for nearly $600,000. Most, so far, are unsold.

The other project features townhouse-style units in the $400,000-$500,000 range grafted onto one those castle-like, former National Guard armories built in the early 1900s. Work is still going on there.

Have I missed something, or aren’t we in the middle of one of the worst real estate markets since the Great Depression? New home starts have hit their lowest point in sixty years.

Not to single out anyone, though. There are a trio of new luxury towers well underway in downtown Boston. Sales have slowed for some of these developers as well.

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Starting with the winter solstice, the days get longer from now until June. That’s not such a warming thought, since the winter is just beginning. So, what do you need? Light! Fire!

Today, let’s talk about fireplaces. Do the short days of the year make you yearn for a roaring fire? Do you have an opinion about which is better, wood-burning or gas?

For some of my buyers, fireplaces are a must. Some don’t care. Some don’t like them. Homeowners, did you want a fireplace? Did you get one? Do you use it?

If you are part of the fireplace-less majority, there are alternatives. In 1966, WPIX in New York began airing a film loop of a crackling fire, called The Yule Log. It was a hit in the New York metropolitan area.

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Did you go home early on Friday? Or did you work from home? Not everyone can stay away from their job. For some, their jobs are more critical in bad weather. Staying home is just not an option.

In the spirit of the holiday season, I would like to commend all those who have jobs which took them onto the road during this spate of wet weather. You know who you are. You are the plow drivers, truckers, fire fighters, police, bus drivers, heating and plumbing contractors, medical workers, and, of course, public utility repair personnel.

Also out there were those who added to our convenience. These workers include taxi drivers, food delivery people (from meals-on-wheels to pizza,) those who staffed grocery stores and convenience stores. The mail came. So did the newspaper. The Patriots played at Foxborough.

Thank you all.

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During the energy crisis, then President Jimmy Carter told Americans to cut down on their Christmas lighting. He thought that a simple candle in every window is a beautiful way to express the season. Not so wasteful. The argument that we are wasting a lot of electricity is back in recent years.

The environmentally friendly answer is that you can spend money on new LED nights. So can your town.

The word is that it will cost some to upgrade, but they will be worth it in the long run by lasting longer and saving on your bill. They are safer; they burn cool. You can recycle your old lights, too.

I think the stress around holiday lighting goes beyond that. Since September, we have been reeling from bad news after more bad news on the economic front. Energy prices are down; that’s the only good news. Does that make it OK to light up the streets for Christmas? People are concerned about losing their jobs, retirement funds have been flattened, and foreclosures are up. Is it insensitive to make merry with bright lights?
Or do you just dislike Christmas lights?

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My builder wants to add a deck to the new addition he is grafting onto the back of my Natick fixer-upper.

But I didn’t bite. First, I have three small children and a tiny backyard, so it takes away from precious play space. Second, I had my own theory that decks were going the way of the backyard swimming pool. You know, cool once, now more likely to viewed as a giant, expensive pain that you will have to shell out big money to make go away.

But if you believe the 2008 Remodeling Cost vs. Value Report, spending money on a wood deck is one of the best home renovations that you can make. That and new siding and windows as well, according to the annual survey, a joint effort of Realtor magazine and trade publisher Hanley Wood LLC.

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The ice storm on Thursday night was the worst since 1990. I wish a quick recovery to everyone in the path of this storm.

Where I lived it poured, it was windy, but it didn’t all freeze until later. I drove on Thursday night. I drove on Friday morning. I had power and heat at home. This weekend I saw some damp basements, including my own. I saw sump pumps running, including my own. I saw sump pump run-off freezing on the sidewalks and streets, including my own. I got off lucky.

In my memory, black-outs, snow and flooding became an opportunity for neighbors to band together. City dwellers (and some suburbanites) have strength in numbers. When power is out or streets are impassible, neighbors find neighbors. As a child, blackouts meant ice cream binges. Barbeques were fired up to save the meat. Neighbors with gas stoves cooked other perishables, those with candles and extra blankets shared them, and the neighbors with camp heaters housed the little children overnight. During the flood after a hurricane, my father ran important errands in his truck. To the kids, disaster meant no school. It was a party. I think the grown-ups had a fairly good time, too.

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If it hasn’t been done already, Thanksgiving weekend is the time when I get around to getting the house ready for winter. This year, it’s a little late, since we have already had a hard freeze.

When I was a kid, this was the weekend that the storm windows went up and the heavy curtains came out. My parent’s bed moved to the other wall (farther from the window) and the couch and chairs in the living room flipped position (I never knew why.) The hoses came in; the spigot got turned off. The bicycles were hung up and the junk got moved to the back of the garage to make room for the car. We all had to chip in for one last raking of the yard. It was tradition.

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It feels lonely out here on the renovation frontier.

There’s a big hole where my ramshackle one-story kitchen once stood at the back of my creaky Natick fixer-upper.

My friendly neighborhood builder, after a little too gleefully tearing off the back end of my house, is now pouring a foundation for a badly needed new addition.

And I can’t stop thinking that I may be committing an act of financial madness.

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One of the things that I dread during a home inspection is when an inspector suspects a foundation problem. In most cases, it is the end of the transaction. But that’s OK. It’s when the buyer still wants the house, that the fun begins! ...Sigh...

House 1. This one was a big, beautiful old thing with a foundation that was about two feet thick. It was made of rubble. It badly needed pointing. It had shifted again, and again, from the look of the multiple lines of re-pointing at the corners. The engineer was called. He said that the whole foundation had to be pointed by hand and could be damaged if done wrong.
Mason 1 said the pointing job would be some 5-figure amount, done by hand. Mason 2 would do it for something under $5000, but would power wash it first to get the majority of the loose stuff off (which was wrong, says the engineer.)
My buyers walked away. The sellers then had a <$5000 estimate to show to future buyer prospects.

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Happy Halloween.
This is a scary story. Yesterday, I got a panicky phone call from one of my “happy homeowners.” He has owned since 2001. He has an emergency. He needs a carpenter immediately.

What are your carpentry emergencies? This is his:

He had a mason to the house to do some work to the front steps. The mason came, tore out the steps, and... (Do you know what he found? I did.)

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I am pleased to see the death of another house-furnishing fad. As of this summer, sales of granite are down. I have been waiting for this...granite is out! I have to admit, I have never liked granite, but for a while, my clients wanted it. Then about a year ago, I started to hear “granite, blah, blah...” or “I am so sick of granite and stainless steel.” I think granite has died a natural death, gone the way of harvest gold bathtubs, paneling and Navaho White paint.

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This is an encore blog entry, first posted on August 10, 2007. Since then, I have had two more two-family buyers. The good choices for two-family homes have been few and far between. Both houses I have worked with were old, solid, but needed extensive updating.

I had buyers close on a two-family home last week. They had a long and hard search because there were so few nice options. I am glad to have them join the dwindling ranks of two-family homes owners.

The mass conversion of two-family homes into two-condo associations has reduced the supply. The steep increase in sale prices without a proportionate rental increase made the economic benefit of owning a two-family less appealing.

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