My neighbor has shamed me into working on my house

[OnMyWay]

When we bought our duplex here in the freeport, the other half was empty and for sale.  That half was quite run down and needed a lot of work.  Shortly after we moved in, it was good to hear that it was bought and they planned a complete renovation.  When we moved in, we only renovated the inside and completed that in 3 weeks, 10 days before our baby was born.  At the time, the exterior seemed ok for now and I plan to do a major exterior renovation in a few years.

The new neighbors are an older retired Korean couple.  Very nice people but the husband does not really speak English.  The wife worked at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul for 25 years so her English is good.  Their son owns 3 or 4 businesses in the Freeport and they must be well off because they also have homes in Seoul and Los Angeles.

They spent about 6 weeks renovating before they moved in.  The crew they hired has done a lot of work for their son, and we like their work, so now we have hired them to work on our front porch area, for a week or two.

I really like the way their house came out so I hope they don't mind if I share some pictures.  This is the only "before picture" i could find.  This was when we first looked at our house.  Ours is the right half with the red roof, and the left side is the run down half that they later purchased.

Here is the result of the exterior renovations and landscaping.  You can see my shamed house on the right.

They used a Korean grass and if it does well, I might try it on one section of my yard.

They expanded the original eaves to create this beautiful porch area.  This is looking from my front door over to their porch.

So, anyway, now I am going to have the guys redo my front porch in a similar style.  Instead of the white railing, we are going to build a small wall in between 3 columns that will be similar to theirs, with compatible but different colors.  We are going to make the wall wide on top so that we can sit on it.  New floor tiles, new paint, new lighting, new rain gutters, etc.  We had most materials delivered today and they will start tomorrow.

 

[BobP]

Wow!  Very impressive!

[robert k]

Fortunately this couldn't happen to me because everyone knows I have no shame. That is also why I rent nice places, when they need a facelift, I move.

[intrepid]

Yes Don, it looks very nice.  I hope yours turns out as well as you plan.  I like the idea of a wider wall to set on.  Looking at the picture from the street, almost could be a residence in the US.  I've not been to Subic yet but if the whole neighborhood is like that photo, it looks nice and relaxing with those mature trees all around.  

[OnMyWay]

33 minutes ago, intrepid said:

Yes Don, it looks very nice.  I hope yours turns out as well as you plan.  I like the idea of a wider wall to set on.  Looking at the picture from the street, almost could be a residence in the US.  I've not been to Subic yet but if the whole neighborhood is like that photo, it looks nice and relaxing with those mature trees all around.  

They are strict about tree cutting.  We plan to cut a few trees when we redesign the yard, and one of them will be the evergreen you see in the middle of the first picture.  They will tell us that we have to buy another tree to replace it, and what kind, then they will plant it somewhere, but not on our property.

Yes, it is quiet and relaxing here.

[Queenie O.]

That's a very nice nice and unique style house OMW. I don't think I've seen any house style similar to that duplex style. I don't see a problem with that pine tree though, it's a nice "statement" tree, and if you wanted it would make a nice decorated tree at Christmas. I like that wide porch look. Almost like a wraparound porch look, but straight instead.

[OnMyWay]

7 hours ago, intrepid said:

Looking at the picture from the street, almost could be a residence in the US. 

Originally built by the U.S. Navy, it probably did look like a U.S. city neighborhood years ago.  It still does, but the maintenance of the infrastructure has not kept up.  We have a new head guy for the Freeport and our neighborhood group has already had a meeting with him, so I hope things will improve.

[stevewool]

Once we started the build on the house in marikina it must have started something, there have been lots of renovations on the street now, and maybe it's improved the area too, but it's still not my sort if place I would like to call home, but a base it's just perfect.

[earthdome]

Looks like a beautiful porch. Will be a nice place for the kids to play outside.

[OnMyWay]

40 minutes ago, earthdome said:

Looks like a beautiful porch. Will be a nice place for the kids to play outside.

Now that you mention it, I will go into more detail on the neighbors.  Actually the older couple are living there with their son and his family right now.  The son has 3 cute kids that match up well with our daughters.  They have twins, boy and a girl, who are 3, just older than my daughter, but they are smaller than her because they were pre-mature by a few months.  Very healthy and cute now.  Then they have a baby about 4 months, and our baby daughter is about 6 months.  So, lots of playmates for the kids!

They already have further plans.  They bought another duplex a few blocks away and will start work on it in January.  When half of it is ready to occupy, the older parents will move there, and the son and his family will stay next to us.