Renovation: The Trick is.....

As I was sorting out my 3 and a half 1978 California Contemporary Dream Houses, it occured to me that I have left a big issue largely unaddresed. How do you pick out/grade parts when you have a choice? Its different for each different kind of part, and thats where it gets 'tricky'. For me, I had two painted, and one non painted wall assortments to choose from. As the unpainted walls were fairly bright white I chose those as my number one best walls. For the roof, floors and windows, and 'glass' doors you want the darkest colors possible as the sun fades these colors and LIGHTENS them. It is the exact opposite for doors. You will want to pick out the lightest color doors as the sun fades them to a DARKER shade eventually brown. One thing to keep in mind is the condition of the hinges/pegs. For example, I chose the set of front doors that was slightly darker than the palest set because both doors had both hinge pegs and that meant they would swing in and out without scotch tape. I chose the sceond best set of rear windows since all of the hinges were damage free making for a tight fit. Incidentally, all the best windows fit snugly and held position since they hadnt been removed too much over the years. Out of all three and half floor assortments, some sets were dark, some pale, but the peculiar thing to me was that not only was there a 1978 and 1979 dated pieces, there was one set that was not dated. That led me to the issue of once I had sorted out the best minty pieces, I had a 1979 roof, 1978 patio triangles and 1978 floor pieces. So, in constucting the most minty house out of 3.5 houses one will be confronted with wether or not to match the numbers. In the end I decided not to. It was mainly because having the best, minty parts is more visually important than maintaining the illusion that the house in question has never been parted out. I wanted it to all be a 1978, but the roof was so very dark red and non scratched. Incidentally, I do have a rare orange roof panel set I am setting aside. I am not sure what I will do with it, but its highly unusual.

Another issue is the flower boxes. I had a big bag of flowers and plants for the planters so had to decide the best way to ration out the pegs and 'good' flowers. I have always embeleshed the planters with small scaled silk florals. You can see this in my earlier post featuring my first refurbished house. So, in making a 'best' house out of three, I used a good asortment of the bag of plants plus a prudent smattering of non-mattel plants. I like the overall effect, I think it fills it in and makes it more lush and vibrant than just the stock flora, it left more original material for the other two houses, and its a one of a kind customization. Now that I have my first place house, I display it on my green out door carpet square. It really pops the yellow floor pieces, as seen in the post, 'Custom Add on, Great Idea'. I stage the house with minimal furniture and some '73 townhouse pieces since they are smaller scalled and yellow & orange.

Though this is an unrenovated A Frame, you can get your repainted one to look this good with some elbow grease.  Occasionally you will find a minty one like this, it will cost more but its always better to have original unfaded, unpainted pieces.