Rob's House

It’s time once again for my favorite form of maggot-flogging I get to endure. There is nothing I love more than having people talk out of their asses at me about their ignorant views on real estate, investing, decorating, landscaping and/or how my wife and I should live our lives! It’s my favorite thing about sharing.

So without further adieu, let the flogging begin;

We have completed our back yard finally after months of deliberating and deciding exactly what would be best for our lives. Our decisions centered around the following;

We wanted a yard that was enjoyable and usable to our lives. We love listening to rain, sitting by fires, smoking cigars, enjoying the peaceful quiet of where we live, playing with our dog, etc.
We wanted to do something that was financially smart. Pools are a horrible waste of money unless you know you will live in the house for at least 10 years, which we certainly won’t. We decided to invest in the type of landscaping that will add value to our home and our lives.
We needed something our giant German Shepherd, Shep, could enjoy and use as his own personal playground when he’s outside (which isn’t often, but we baby our pets so we catered part of decisions around him)

So with those issues and others dictating our decisions, we chose a backyard of two serene ponds with waterfalls, a fireplace, outdoor kitchen area, bushy privacy plants and a nice cool strip of 1400 square feet of grass for Shep. We love it.


The whole process took about four weeks and began with a big plot of rocks and hard dirt. The first few days were spent assembling all of the lose rocks and boulders already strewn about the yard for use later in the ponds.

The rest of week one involved giant earth moving machines prepping the yard. Our house is built on lava rock so it is hard as hell and requires a lot of care to properly turn into foliage and landscape.

At the beginning of week two the holes for the ponds were being dug using jack hammers, and the fireplace has been built and placed outside our bedroom.

By the end of week 2, the grass was laid and the ponds were beginning to take shape towards completion

The beginning of the third week included piecing together the granite walkway our landscaping team designed between the patio and the ponds. We also completed the fireplace.

No yard project is complete without a mistake. The crew supervisor backed into our wrought iron fence with the back-ho so for a few days we lived with plywood while the fence section was replaced.	The backyard is designed like the letter “U” with two long side walkways. One is Shep’s dog run where he poops & pees and the other is a rarely used walkway, pictured here. No one ever goes here so we just threw down some bushes and bark and called it done.

The true test of a backyard is how much your dog loves it. Shep is very content in his new playground.

With a cool, rainy weekend shortly after completion we were able to fire up the fireplace and I enjoyed a cigar in our peacefully silent back yard. Email me to tell me what you think of my newly landscaped backyard!

As we head into our 5th full year at the new home of Williams Manor, we continue to celebrate our beautifully comfortable home that we love to be in and our stunningly awesome timing. When we bought the home, we paid $930,000 for it. Literally, last week, a home 10 houses down the same street with the exact same floor plan and fewer amenities and upgrades than our home sold for $1.4 million. While we bask in our equity we are also slowly continuing to add and replace things that make the home more user-friendly to our lives.

For this round of updates, I present a photographical round of before and after changes that we have made:

We begin in the closets. Both my wife and I have our own walk in closets that were miserably designed upon purchase. As you can see, my clothes are scrunched together and not organized well, with a ton of wasted space on the walls and floor. It was so miserable, I didn’t even have the motivation to try to keep in neat

In came the specialists and the wasted space was turned into more space than I can currently fill. Now, every time I walk into my closet I see an organized, easy to use comfortable area.

No doubt you’ve noticed that I own more shoes than most women. Guys gravely underestimate how important the right pair of shoes is to a great look. The new shelving allows me to properly display my shoes, making them easy to find and preventing them from being damaged, crushed, blemished, etc.

Two perfectly placed electric tie racks house my ties without taking up a lot of space, but still making them easy to get to.

I also have two belt racks which pull out to provide me my choice of belt for each day but don’t hog any space otherwise.

The exceptional amount of ceiling and shelf space allow me to surround the top of the closet with all of my golf hats. Again, they are displayed in a way that makes them easy to find, and easy to get to while also being protected from squishing and getting damaged or dirty.

This is one of my favorite little features of the whole closet my pull out/push in garment rod. Each night I can gather up my next day’s outfit and hang it here. Very handy when you get up at 2:30 in the morning!

Moving out to the kitchen area, these are the horrible hanging blinds we inherited with the house. They looked cheap and unattractive and were not user- friendly at all.

This is the door Shep uses to go outside and play and as you can see by the look on his face, even he didn’t like the old, crappy hanging blinds.

Here, Shep is smiling because we installed sliding wooden shutter doors which are a breeze to use, offer a fantastic view when opened, and block out all light when closed tightly.

The newly installed kitchen shutter doors match the adjacent family room’s oversized window shutters as well, also a recent addition to the home.

Moving outside, this is the crappy propane bbq grill I have been using for the past year.

This is the new Natural gas powered cooking island I now get to use, still surrounded by our crappy, not yet completed backyard (but the plans have been drawn and we hope to actually have it finished by Fall).

Even Shep got an upgrade this year as his family room bed was improved.

The house is a one story, Mediterranean design so it's actually split into two wings. When you walk in the front door, you begin in the foyer area which looks into the family room and provides a bunch of corners to hang silly decorations in.

If you turn to your right while standing in the foyer, you see the game room, housing my sports and Bugs Bunny artwork, my humidor, and our dartboard. The game room leads into our "vice room" which has beer on tap, a fully functional and stocked bar and is where we cellar our wine which was featured in last year's photo update of the house.

Directly opposite the game room is the formal dining room where we have our table that Janell and I both fell in love with the minute we saw it. It opens up to seat 12 adults if necessary.

If you walk forward towards the family room, you come first to two hallways; this one is to your left and features some wall art, candles and photo frames.

The hallway to the right features our oil painting of Pepe the cat and more candles, etc..

Throughout the house there are hallway nooks, closets and storage areas that offer plenty of opportunity to not only store things but subtlety decorate. Remember, less is more, kids.

The kitchen was featured in last year's pictorial, but here are some highlights; the 5 burner gas stove which I use to make culinary masterpieces and the 2 dishwashers (great for parties) along with trash compactor (which I think is stupid, but what do I know)?.

Many people who visit the house seem to really like the large walk in pantry which we keep well stocked because we hate people and having to go out to the store more than necessary.

Our dog Shep has two entire shelves of the pantry just to himself. Hog.

Speaking of Shep, here he is lounging on his family room bed.

This is the famous "New York" bathroom which most guests use when they visit. It is the only bathroom of the 5 in the house that is a half bath and is decorated with paintings, pictures and artwork highlighting New York City.

One of Shep's favorite parts of the house is the main fireplace. We're not sure if it's because of the heat or the fact that his honorary frame, (given as a gift by our pals at Griffin & reed Eye care) highlighting his life and pedigree, hangs above the fireplace.