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Read excerpts from Debra Lee Baldwin's award-winning articles: 2006 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Steep Solutions" (garden feature) 2006 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Painterly" (Architect/interior designer profile) 2005 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Ruocco Revisited" (Remodel of a Mid-Century home) 2004 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Modern Masterpiece" (Architect's own home) 2003 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Requa Redux" (La Jolla Home Restoration) 2002 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Historic Kensington Gem" (restored Cliff May home) 2002 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Low-Water Wonder" (drought-tolerant garden) 2002 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Rescue Mission" (restored adobe home) 2002 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Why I Adore Decollate Snails" (gardening essay) 2000 Awarded by: Garden Writers Association of America For: "Gardening in the Big Leagues" (profile of an aloe collector) 2000 Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Inner City Kids Learn About Agriculture" 2000 Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Travel Journal: Learning to Drive Like a Frenchman" 2000 Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Las Vegas" (travel essay) 1999 Awarded by: Garden Writers Association of America For: "Winter Wonder" (profile of a poinsettia hybridizer) 1998 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Assignment: Consignment" (story about consignment shops) 1995 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Lunch on the Fly" (profile of a carnivorous plant expert) 1989 Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Growth in San Diego: A Special Report" Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Growth in San Diego: A Special Report" Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Consumer Writing Excerpt:
It's 5 P.M on Friday. You're driving home after a long week. You can almost taste the cold drink you're going to fix yourself. You hear the whappita-whappita of a helicopter overhead and reach for the radio dial. Might as well get the traffic report. "We have a fender-bender in the number four lane of eastbound Interstate 8 as you approach College..." A word enters your mind that isn't fit to print. Sure enough, brake lights ahead. Endless brake lights. Your pulse quickens. You look in the rearview mirror to see if you can merge to the right. You can't. You're caught. Obviously, you're not alone. "Ask people what they like least about the San Diego region today, and the answer will likely be 'traffic,'" says a SANDAG report... ...Growth is alive, vibrant, and bigger than all of us. It continues, in spite of ordinances, initiatives, and heartfelt citizens' wishes. It could slow suddenly because of economic woes -- something none of us wants. Or it could continue, rampant, molding us into an orange-gray clone of L.A. Because of its complexity, many San Diegans see only the tip of the growth iceberg: traffic on their street is snarled, their grown children can't afford an average house. Don't assume that the ways growth affects you -- both obvious and insidious -- will get better without your help...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Lunch on the Fly" (profile of a carnivorous plant expert) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Health/Science/Environment Excerpt:
ZZZZT. Zzzzzt. A slender, vase-shaped plant on Malcolm Mitchell's patio buzzed with an unseen, angry bee. The bee had reason to be upset. It was about to be dissolved in acid, then eaten. At the curved rim of its entrance hole, the graceful green plant appeared to grin. "There's a beehive close by, and the pitcher plants have been feasting," said Mitchell. He sounded pleased, as though a pet had performed on command. Just like pet reptiles and fish, Mitchell's plants are meat-eaters. In fact, you might say some are meat-cravers, so voraciously do they seize their prey with snapping jaws. "I'll let you feed the Venus flytrap," Mitchell said. The plant seemed tame enough, dozing in the dappled sunlight. Its wedge shaped leaves ended in twin paddles, each rose-red and rimmed with what looked like green eyelashes. Mitchell gently brushed a pair of tweezers across one of the small, sticky hairs protruding from one of the dime-sized paddles. Nothing. He brushed it again. Like a clam shell closing, the fringed lobes swung shut, their hair-like teeth interlocking like clasped hands. "You have to touch it twice," Mitchell said. He explained that with a single contact, the plant likely has caught a drop of water or a piece of dust and won't close. Prey, however, doesn't sit still, so the second movement triggers the closing mechanism...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Assignment: Consignment" (story about consignment shops) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Consumer Writing Excerpt:
One afternoon last month, Stuart and Bridget Hunt, a retired couple from Rancho Bernardo, carried a small Louis XVI table into Lionheart Consignment in Escondido. Though slightly worn, the lady's chair-side table looked like it belonged. Lionheart specializes in antique European furnishings. Stuart set the dark-wood piece near an Empire sofa upholstered in cream-colored damask. Store owner Mary Garman, her eyes on the antique, greeted the couple. "We bought it 15 or 20 years ago," Bridget said. "We used to have a whole house full of antiques. My husband just bought a new computer desk, so now there's no room for this." "The top is kind of marred," Garman said thoughtfully. "People are so picky, you know." "Well, for being 18th century..." Bridget began. Garman gently turned the desk onto its side and examined the wood. "I have to make sure no termites... What did you want for it?" "Two hundred, maybe $195," Stuart said. He smiled. "It probably won't sell, but we don't care." Garman reached for a consignment contract. "We'll give it a try." The brief agreement promised the Hunts two-thirds of the sales price, which Garman set at $135...
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Awarded by: Garden Writers Association of America For: "Winter Wonder" (profile of a poinsettia hybridizer) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Newspaper writing Excerpt:
It was a Quasimodo of a plant. Even so, Franz Fruewirth was intrigued by the gangly poinsettia he saw growing in a sunny corner of the Paul Ecke Ranch in Encinitas. The year was 1962, and for 40 years the Ecke family had dominated the poinsettia market nationwide. True, customers preferred traditional-looking plants, but that didn't mean tastes wouldn't change, given an appealing alternative. The oddity had a grand name, "Ecke's Flaming Sphere," but its ball-like red topknot and tightly curled leaves suggested not a comet so much as a tarantula. It had been discovered a decade earlier, in the mid-'50s, as a mutant shoot of a normal pointy-leaved plant. Maybe, Fruewirth mused as he went about his routine work of mating poinsettias, Flaming Sphere could light the flower market on fire. Sure, there were problems. Floppy, skinny stems. Small, widely-spaced leaves. And Flaming Sphere flatly refused to grow indoors. "It's a stripper," Fruewirth says. The term describes poinsettias that drop their leaves when deprived sunlight -- a problem with those sold as recently as two decades ago. This tendency for poinsettias to disgrace themselves indoors is a trait Fruewirth has bred out of the world's most popular potted plant during his more than three decades years with Ecke. Worse yet, Flaming Sphere was, to put it politely, sexually challenged. Its reproductive organs were almost nonexistent. Fruewirth could propagate the plant asexually, that is, he could take cuttings and root them, creating clones. Indeed, if he had wanted to, Fruewirth could have populated all 120 acres of the Ecke ranch with floppy Flaming Spheres. But without a well-formed flower, without ripe and lusty ovaries at the core of its ruby bracts, there was scant hope of cross-breeding Flaming Sphere with Ecke's more civilized -- and commercial -- poinsettias. Yet Fruewirth persevered. Tackling the impossible had become routine for him. But it would be 36 years before customers worldwide could evaluate his success...
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Awarded by: Garden Writers Association of America For: "Gardening in the Big Leagues" (profile of an aloe collector) Publication: San Diego Union-Tribune Category: Newspaper Writing Excerpt:
Fleshy green monsters in Patrick Anderson's Fallbrook garden look like they might snap him up if he turns his back. They're giant succulents, and Anderson's half-acre hillside showcases hundreds of unusual ones. "I like their huge, sculptural forms," he said during a tour of his garden in January. Anderson, 45, is an active member of the San Diego Horticultural Society, and is known to local garden clubs as a lecturer who specializes in the great gardens of Europe. "I give slide presentations, and like to think I offer trenchant commentary," Anderson said. "I'm a student of garden history and design, so I put European gardens in that context." Yet his own garden specializes in plants that wouldn't survive in Europe, much less in most of the U.S. They prefer heat, poor soil and -- because their leaves store water, camel-like -- a dry climate. Showiest among them are aloes and agaves, giant succulents with an attitude. Punks of the plant world, they produce blooms big as baseball bats, in colors calculated to shock. Hundreds of bullet-sized flowers sheathe bloom stalks. Leaves have sharp tips and clawed edges. Yet Anderson's armed-and-dangerous flora do have an otherworldly beauty. This time of year, aloes pierce the sky like exotic torch bearers, hot orange against cool blue...
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Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Inner City Kids Learn About Agriculture" Publication: Roadrunner Category: Education Excerpt:
Bernadette Cisneros is the kind of teacher kids don’t argue with. Her voice has a no-nonsense tone to it, and she doesn’t hesitate to use it. On a sunny weekday morning, as Mrs. Cisneros kept a watchful eye on 40 children ages 5 to 7 seated at picnic tables at Bell Gardens produce farm, she described her students as “high-risk because of socio-economic problems.” Her voice softened. “Some are in foster care, many have single parents or are living with grandparents, a few have learning disabilities, some are inmate’s kids.” Inmate’s kids? “Yes. Our school is near a prison. We have kids waiting for a parent to get out.” Before she could clarify this, Mrs. Cisneros’ gentle, perfect English transformed into strident Spanish as she reprimanded a dark-haired boy for eating fresh-picked strawberries yet to be washed. “These kids are good eaters,” she continued, smiling. “They appreciate food. It’s important to them.” Her school is in San Ysidro, near the Mexico border; her kids in grades K and first...
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Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Travel Journal: Learning to Drive Like a Frenchman" Publication: Roadrunner Category: Arts writing Excerpt:
My husband Jeff has learned to drive with confidence and speed, like a Frenchman. Well, maybe not exactly like a Frenchman, because his bravado stops short of suicidal. Even so, sitting beside him, I'm alert at every moment. For non-natives, driving in the South of France is a two-person job. Unfortunately I'm not the best second person. I've no sense of direction, get carsick if I read a map, and tend to flinch at any hint of danger. Here, in the serene French countryside, with green fields dotted with red poppies and sleepy farmhouses hunkered in centuries-old stone, decisions must be made in an instant, without warning. At crossroads and roundabouts, there are a dozen arrow signs with the names of destinations painted on them, and all appear to point in different directions. Highways might be numbered on maps Jeff studied the night before, but if there were names or numbers on signs or roads, we couldn't find them (except on major toll roads and thoroughfares). In the countryside, it seems, you have to recognize the Quixotic, unpronounceable names of villages along your route: Vaison-la-Romaine, Mont Ventoux...
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Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Las Vegas" (travel essay) Publication: Roadrunner Category: Critical Writing Excerpt:
Las Vegas is like sex: It’s more fun if you don’t analyze it. Even so, during a recent two-day stay, I couldn’t resist. Consider: Las Vegas is a city unlike any other, past or present. Its massive fanciful structures and gigantic lighted signs merit status as Wonders of the World. Yet the simmering desert city offers no cultural contribution of lasting significance. It’s simply an experience -- albeit a pleasant one -- as ephemeral as laughter. For centuries, mankind built cathedrals to honor God. Today we build them to honor Mammon. Casinos, which soar to dozens of stories and sprawl across city blocks, are temples of Money. Clink, clink, clink, bing, bing, bing -- that's the new Gregorian chant. Hoards of glassy-eyed minions, uplifted by Faith that assures them their prayers will be answered if only they persist, feed coins not into collection plates but into chrome-plated idols. These whir and flash and keep ten percent (their tithe) and return 90 percent...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Historic Kensington Gem" (restored Cliff May home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
Visiting the Kensington home of Lee and Barbara Roper is like exploring the mind of a creative genius before he became famous. Theirs is the second house designed and built by Cliff May, who went on to launch an architectural style that, during the latter half of the 20th century, swept the U.S. like a warm Santa Ana wind. May, father of the ranch-style home, is perhaps best known for designing million-dollar mansions for Hollywood moguls, and Sunset Magazine's headquarters in Menlo Park. Thanks in part to "the magazine of Western living," which promoted May's work extensively, few architects have been so celebrated -- or so copied. But in1933, long before post-war prosperity and housing booms, May was 25 and nervous. Would he sell the second 2,300-square-foot "hacienda" he had built on spec? Kensington, San Diego's newest suburb, was far from downtown. May's low-slung, L-shaped house, with rooms opening onto a walled courtyard, demanded that buyers rethink their concept of "home." And even if people loved it, could they afford $9,500? On the same day President Roosevelt closed America's banks, a Navy captain and his wife showed up with their life savings in a satchel...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Low-Water Wonder" (drought-tolerant garden) Publication: Flower Gardening (a Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publication) Category: Science and Environmental Writing Excerpt:
Susi Torre-Bueno is more likely to talk about "weaning" her flowering plants than "weeding" them. Her quarter-acre front garden is designed especially for its arid San Diego climate, where rainfall averages about 10 inches a year and a dry spell may last eight months. Homeowners in Susi's area tend to plant lawns for their front yards. People fond of flowers favor roses or tropicals that do well the Zone 10 location near the ocean, but such yards are thirsty and often have a sameness about them. Susi's garden, on the other hand, doesn't take much water, and it blazes with out-of-the-ordinary perennials, annuals and bulbs from South Africa, Australia, Mexico and the Mediterranean. In addition to dry-climate plants that bloom loud and long, Susi and her husband, Jose, wanted a garden that would enhance their home's architecture. The house, with angular walls the color of warm sand and circular clerestories, is sleek and modern -- a perfect backdrop for the softening presence of plants...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Rescue Mission" (restored adobe home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
Five years ago, when Matthew Midgett finally found his dream house, it was days away from demolition. "The property had been neglected for more than a year," he recalls. "A bank owned it. Weeds were waist high. Trees were so overgrown, they hid the view. But when I saw it, I just knew." The three-bedroom ranch-style house occupied a two-acre hillside lot in what realtors call Escondido's "Old Adobe" district, south of downtown. The area is known for mud-brick homes built by the Weir Brothers from the '50s through the '70s. Despite layers of grime, paint "the color of cooked liver" and hideous terrazzo floors, Midgett saw sound construction and exquisite craftsmanship. He made an offer. So did a buyer who wanted a view lot to build on. Bulldozers, you might say, were clearing their throats. Normally a sane man, Midgett did two crazy things: He hired tree trimmers to lace oaks that blocked the view. Then, using a hose coiled alongside the driveway, he washed his car. Two simple acts any proud, confident homeowner might do. Except he didn't own the home...
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Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Why I Adore Decollate Snails" (gardening essay) Publication: Roadrunner Category: Consumer Writing Excerpt:
In my garden, I have tiny helpers who protect flowers and tender leaves from harm. I pay them nothing, never see them, and feel amazingly blessed to have them. Fairies? No, decollate snails. If you've yet to get decollates, it's probably because you've heard they eat seedlings. I've never seen any evidence of that, but I have seen common garden snails consume not only seedlings, but entire pony packs. Decollates feed on decaying organic matter when they run out of their preferred food (the eggs and young of the brown helix snail), so they're also little composters. When I first cultivated what seemed to be a half-acre salad bar for brown helix snails, I bought snail bait by the 50-lb. bag (fortunately, my dog never went near it). Now, seven years after introducing decollates, I've saved their cost many times over in bait I haven't bought. And I'm no longer dumping poison onto the soil. For years, on foggy evenings, my husband, son and I hand-picked helix snails by the bucketful. Perhaps the neighbors, seeing our flashlights, thought someone had lost a contact lens. Day or night, whenever I found a snail, I squashed it or threw it into the street. Once I propelled a large snail through the open window of a pickup truck...
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: Requa Redux (La Jolla home restoration) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
The young couple, transplants from the East, evaluated 100 homes before buying the 70-year-old Spanish colonial estate in La Jolla. "It was our dream home, and we looked forward to restoring it," the wife (who requested anonymity) recalls. "And we were planning to start a family." They hired a visionary architect who shared their reverence for the past; an interior designer with taste, sensitivity and good sense; and a general contractor known for reliability, attention to detail, and access to the finest craftsmen in town. But hammering ceased mid-way through the project when workmen heard the news: The husband had been killed in a car crash. "I was grief-stricken," architect Norm Applebaum AIA recalls. "After our first meeting, they had told me they wanted to adopt me as their dad. I cried at the funeral." General contractor Chuck Lang says of the husband, "He made a point of talking to everyone, from the superintendent to the laborers. That's very rare. It was tough to take." Interior designer Robert Wright ASID was with the wife when she received the news, and though stunned himself, did his best to console her. At the time, Wright recalls, about a third of the 5,400-square-foot house was torn apart, due to dry rot and major structural changes. No one could blame the widow for abandoning the project. What, everyone wondered, would she decide to do?
Awarded by: Society of Professional Journalists For: "Walton's Farm" (Wal-Mart family's San Diego Estate) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Magazine Feature Excerpt:
People who have the means to live anywhere normally don't choose National City, a San Diego suburb best known for its shipyards and Mile of Cars. Yet John and Christy Walton have owned a Victorian home on a National City hilltop for the past 17 years. "We love National City," Christy says, her voice so matter-of-fact, you wonder what she knows that you don't. What brought them there, and why they stayed, have to do with hard work, near tragedy and triumph -- things everyone experiences, even the son and daughter-in-law of Wal-Mart founder and (now deceased) billionaire Sam Walton. Back in the early '80s, John, who has a passion for sailing and boat design, worked in Chula Vista, helping to establish a boat-building company. "John told me to look for a home nearby," says Christy, who is no stranger to boat construction herself; she and her husband built a 44-by-27-foot sailboat "with one helper." So, when she wasn't "grinding the bottom of the boat," Christy cruised local neighborhoods, checking out houses. She discovered that older homes in nearby National City not only have "bigger back yards and more space," the city has many more Victorians than other San Diego communities. These date back to when the area was, according to National City historian Janice Martinelli, "the La Jolla of the 1880s." Christy fell in love with a crumbling 100-year-old "orchard home" on four-and-a-half acres. Surrounding homes range from low- to high-end, which was fine; the Waltons wanted "to be part of a mixed neighborhood. We didn't want a gated community." It didn't matter that "the chimneys had fallen off, wooden rain gutters had rotted, porch steps had fallen in, and the driveway was dirt." Christy saw the home's potential, and recognized construction of a quality superior to much newer houses. The faded mansion, however, wasn't for sale...
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Modern Masterpiece" (Architects' own home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
Next time you drive I-15, notice the Nokia building off Scripps Valley Parkway -- the one that hugs the ridgeline, with the sail-like shade structure in front. It's one of many impressive commercial structures by San Diego architects Robert L. and Laurie Perriello Davis. Since Davis Davis projects average in the hundreds of thousands of square feet, what sort of house might they design for themselves and their two small daughters? Not surprisingly, Laurie and Bob's 3,000-square-foot home incorporates practical enhancements seldom seen in residential applications. And like their commercial buildings, it's simple, elegant and contemporary. The couple, who have been married nine years and worked together for 15, met while at the architectural design firm of BSHA, where Bob was director of design…
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Ruocco Revisited" (Remodel of a Mid-Century home) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
The notice ran under "Homes for Sale," but it seduced Norm Applebaum, AIA, more effectively than any Personals ad. "We were in escrow to buy a condo downtown," he recalls. "I saw an ad for a Lloyd Ruocco home on Mt. Helix described as 'a symphony of glass and wood.' I told Sue, 'That's the house we're going to buy.'" Most wives would have protested they should at least look at it first. Not Suzanne Applebaum, who immediately understood what owning a house designed by San Diego's premier post-war-Modern architect would mean to her husband. "Norm is not the average man," Suzanne says. "Art and architecture are his life." Before the two married four years ago, Suzanne got rid of decades of detritus -- an experience she found exhilarating. "I always had large homes. I distributed the contents of a six-bedroom house -- including a 7-foot-wide china cabinet -- among my grown children." Good thing. Her "new" home was a 1,300-square-foot, two-bedroom house in crying need of TLC. "Trees had buckled the concrete, and those sliding glass walls wouldn't have lasted another year," Suzanne says. "It's likely the house would have been razed."
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Steep Solutions" (garden feature) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
Three years ago, Jim Bishop looked at a mountain of gravel in the street in front of his Mission Hills home, and wondered what to do. Two truckloads had been delivered by mistake instead of the topsoil he ordered. The supplier told him he could keep the gravel -- at no charge -- or pay $3,000 to have it hauled away. Bishop recalls this matter-of-factly, along with other challenges that would have pushed most homeowners over the edge. Edges, in fact, were another thing that Bishop and partner Scott Borden contended with. "We had to warn anyone who wanted to stand on the back deck and look at the view," Bishop recalls. "A gutter ran along the balcony wall, and if you weren't careful, you'd step in it, lose your balance, and fall 15 feet into the scary swimming pool below." When house-hunting eight years ago, they had hoped for a level lot, so Jim could indulge his passion for gardening. The back yard they ended up with, behind a 1930s Spanish-style house that "smelled of dogs" and desperately needed remodeling, was near-vertical and dominated by a massive retaining wall above the pool. Beyond the pool, the rest of the steep, one-acre property had been Swiss-cheesed by gophers. Bishop didn't know about the gophers until every perennial he planted disappeared, and the ground caved away beneath him and he fell into a foot-deep tunnel. He soon discovered the buck-toothed rodents had undermined existing terraces and stairs to the point of instability. "I'm from Texas. All I knew about gophers was the movie, Caddyshack..."
Awarded by: San Diego Press Club For: "Painterly" (Architect/interior designer profile) Publication: San Diego Home/Garden Magazine Category: Architecture & Design Excerpt:
The 800-square-foot, 1930s house in Point Loma that architect Bruce Peeling and interior designer Megan Bryan Peeling bought 13 years ago "was a collection of old bones," Bruce says. "The floors were rotten, and it was a haven for raccoons, possums and skunks," Megan recalls. Remodeling their own home differed significantly from their regular work. "The majority of our clients have sizable lots, ample budgets and a reasonable timeframe," Megan says. "When our offer for this property was accepted, we had a stringent budget and six months to make it habitable for a family of five." Moreover, a deed restriction dictated that nothing could be constructed or planted that would block neighbors' views. A small home on a cramped lot "is like a boat," Bruce observes. "Every inch matters." Even now, the pair won't admit they're done. Megan wants to add a studio/dining room, but they've almost maxed out their allowable space. "We're limited to 2,800 square feet (including the garage) on a 5,100-square foot lot," Megan says. Plus, she's not finished painting. "And I never intend to be." "This house is going to fall over from the weight of all the paint that's been put on it," Bruce says...
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