An unpleasant surprise

We've torn out walls and discovered why the walls were put up in the first place. The central beam that is holding up the house has twisted as it transitions to the kitchen. Ugh.


So, we looked at the beam on the other side of the fireplace and noticed that it is a little cracked... which led us to notice some repairs in the bedroom.
Oh, yeah.

more pictures from the house

Progress on the house to date

We've taken possession of the house and have started doing some of the remodeling work. Adam has removed 2 walls so far (one in the bathroom and one in the dining room), replaced all the locks, doorknobs and closet knobs, torn up the carpet and some flooring in the dining room, and taken electric wall heaters out of the wall. WOW!!! Here are pictures as of yesterday.

Update on the house...

We just bought the house across the street! (See the last blog entry)

video tour of potential house

We are interested in buying the house across the street. The house is 3br, 2ba, 1450 sqft built in the 1950s in an Eichler-ish style.

Map of house location: 2068 Laurelei Ave, San Jose, CA 95128

Here is a video tour

Compressed clip...

Clip from the home movies, showing Noel's 8th birthday party. This party took place on May 31, 1949. The baby is PJ.

Castleman Home Movies - Digitized

There are a huge number of 8mm movies taken by various Castleman family members from the late 1940s to the 70s.

These movies (2 1/2 hours worth) have previously been put onto VHS tapes. But the tapes have limited circulation within the family and they kind of look awful.

So I got hold of the originals and had them digitized frame-by-frame (2200 feet worth). The result is a VERY high quality digitization which I plan on editing, adding narration, possible interview and packaging into a 2 DVD set to send out to every single living family member who might be interested.

I recently accomplished this task, all be it on a smaller scale with the Adams home movies and the response I received was overwhelming.

I will keep you informed for new development and video samples.