Starting All Over Again

Considering the hell Richard Kaufman went through seven years ago when he built his home in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, it’s amazing that he allowed another building contractor to set foot on his hillside property.

But that’s also the point. Kaufman became so disheartened while the agonizing, problem-plagued permit and building process dragged on and on that he cut back on materials and quality with little thought of the consequences, leaving himself with a new home that needed remodeling from the moment the occupancy permit was issued.

“For a time I thought it would never get built,” recalled Kaufman, who manages a 911 center for the Glendale Fire Department. “It got so I didn’t care.”

But for better or for worse, the 3,000-square-foot house with stunning views all the way to Catalina Island did get completed.

“It was a true disaster,” said Kaufman, who just a year ago settled his complaints against the contractor in arbitration. “I would never do that again, any more than I would fly. When it rained, water just flowed in. It was like a Japanese koi pond.”

As Kaufman retells the saga, his gaze fixes again and again on a piece of buckling drywall tape above a sliding door, a telling sign of poor workmanship. When it’s suggested that he get that tape fixed, Kaufman said: “It’s everywhere! The whole house is like that.”

Still, since Kaufman has “well over $500,000” invested in a house that was last year appraised at $290,000, he said he’s “not going anywhere.”

Rather, his plan is to remodel one room at a time to bring the home’s quality up to an acceptable, even a laudable, level. His first major project 18 months ago was to remodel his downstairs bathroom, which, he said, was “a dismal space.”

And it was, with its awkward arrangement consisting of a long counter at one end, a shower and toilet at the other, and a bleak, high window over a blank wall in between. There were cheap vinyl floors, cheap cabinets, cheap fixtures and a prefabricated shower that he’d been patching for years.

Kaufman was spurred into action after visiting friends in Montebello who showed him their magnificent, newly remodeled bathroom. “How did you do that?” he asked.

They told Kaufman that their Culver City-based architect-general contractor, Carolyn McCown, completed the project on time and on budget. Kaufman was not convinced. “I almost said: ‘Yeah, right.’ ”

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Still, he contacted McCown and began the process of transforming his own bathroom. The first mission, even before the contract was signed, was to decide on fixtures and materials. For a person as particular as Kaufman, this was not easy.

“We went all over the place,” Kaufman said, recalling how the circumference of the area he and McCown traveled on their quest got larger and larger. Eventually, she had nearly exhausted her repertoire of sources. As they were leaving one massive warehouse, filled with thousands of choices, she turned to him and said: “There’s nothing in there you like?”

Finally, though, at Altmans in Beverly Hills, Kaufman’s eyes lit on a gleaming set of fixtures with stainless steel stems, golden knobs and faucets that rose up like cobra heads. “That’s it,” he told McCown.

That done, McCown sent Kaufman out shopping for ceramic floor and wall tiles. He chose gray tiles with blue tiles for trim. At a large stone supplier, Kaufman favored a gray slab of granite for his new counter. And at a glass store, he picked out glass blocks for the half-wall of windows McCown had proposed. Even this was difficult.

“I thought glass block was glass block,” Kaufman said. “But I was looking at walls of glass block.”

Once the materials were selected and a floor plan decided upon, McCown drew up a proposal. At $42,000, it was double what Kaufman expected to spend. What happened next is remembered differently by each of the story’s participants.

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He recalls: “I was in shock. But Carolyn talked me through it. She told me to look around my house and see where cutting back had gotten me.”

She recalls: “He went into shock for a few minutes. He went downstairs. He was down there for 15 or 20 minutes. I didn’t know if he was down there killing himself. Finally, he came back up and signed the thing and said: ‘Oh well, you only live once. It doesn’t make sense to put in another mediocre bathroom.’ ”

At one point, Kaufman did try to lessen the expense of the remodel by leaving out the glass block and retaining the old window. He said McCown was aghast, telling him, “No. I won’t do it. It won’t look good. People won’t like my work. Get someone else.”

He stayed with the original plan, realizing that “it was her way or no way.”

McCown admits that she has a pretty strong hand with clients, even while letting them direct the project. “I work like a therapist, pulling out of clients what they like. But if they choose something gross, then I come down on them.”

For a relatively small room, about 10 by 13 feet, the demolition and construction period was relatively long, about 10 weeks from beginning to end.

According to standard figures, the plumbing costs for a bathroom can equal one-quarter of the total cost, or more. In this bathroom, the fixtures for the sinks, shower and tub alone cost more than $2,100, not counting the extensive web of behind-the-wall piping the plan called for.

Once the job began, Kaufman noticed things that made this project run smoothly and trouble-free. For instance, every Monday morning, the contractor’s crew laid out plastic sheeting on the floor from the bathroom to the front door, and rolled it back up on Friday afternoon.

Plus, a portable toilet was parked in the driveway. When Kaufman told McCown her crew and subcontractors were welcome to use his other bathroom, she informed him: “That’s not how we do things.”

And most of all: “She was here all the time,” Kaufman recalled. “That’s how she pulled it off.”

Today, the bathroom is a showcase of elegance. The large glass shower doubles as a steam room with a tile bench and massaging water jets positioned to hit Kaufman’s shoulders and back. The glass shower attaches to the tiled tub base, a tricky installation done by Hollywood Glass Co., which also installed the mirrors and custom windows. The tile work was done by Gary Tile Co. of Torrance.

The bathroom also has built-in speakers, two telephones (one near the sink, one near the toilet), a Jacuzzi tub, recessed lighting, custom-made cabinets and the fulfillment of Kaufman’s lifelong dream: “All my life I’ve wanted a low, gray toilet.”

“I like this kind of client,” McCown said. “He’s got a bunch of toys in there. He’s pleased with everything. He makes good choices. He laughs a lot. He pays the money.”

And since his finances have recovered from the expense of the bathroom remodel, Kaufman is ready for the next upgrade--tiling his kitchen floor, now covered with the same cheap vinyl the bathroom once suffered.

But while he discovered the perfect stone-looking ceramic tile two years ago, he recently found that the store that sold it went out of business, and the tile has been discontinued. Soon, Kaufman will begin another extensive search for an acceptably exquisite tile.

Meanwhile, he is counting on McCown should the unthinkable occur.

“When the 8.6 [earthquake] happens and this house slides down the hill,” he said, “I’m hoping I’ll be first on her list [for a rebuild].”

McCown doesn’t pause: “He will be.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Project: Remodel master bathroom.

Size: 10 by 13 feet.

Architect-Contractor: Carolyn McCown, Culver City.

Cost: $44,341.

Notable: Half-wall of glass block, steam shower, Jacuzzi tub, tiled floors and walls.

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Kathy Price-Robinson is a freelance writer who has written about remodeling for eight years. She can be reached at KathyPrice@aol.com.