I would never have thought to do that

On of the very best things about being a home inspector is that I get to visit about 365 homes each year (I try to limit myself to one inspection a day).

I get to see the rich with their maids, butlers, nannies, gardeners, and pool guys (smile if you remember the pool guy from “Legally Blonde”).

I get to see families trying to make it in the world without maids, butlers, nannies, gardeners, and pools, much less pool guys.

I get to see what other people have done which often gives me ideas.

A great example is this garden path from today’s inspection:

See the long tree root that is creating part of the path border? I would never have thought to do that. I would have covered that root with some soil, leveled it, planted some flowers on top of it, and gone on my merry way. I’m still inclined to plant some flowers instead of using landscape bark, but I absolutely love using the tree root as a path border.

The tree is a eucalyptus, about 200′ tall and probably planted in 1940 when the house was built. Unfortunately, eucalyptus trees have shallow root systems (proof in the picture) and are very brittle. This tree was planted about twenty feet from the house, so if a good period of rain comes, or some high winds, parts of the tree, or even the tree itself, could fall on the house. Not good.

Need a unique gift?
Consider Photographic Art!Visit Russel Ray Photos.

►►►►◄◄◄◄

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer, Realtor, CDPE
CA BRE #01458572

►►►►◄◄◄◄

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Blah to beautiful with Photoshop!

I always like it when my home inspection Clients are satisfied with the home inspections I do for them.

Occasionally, though, a Client will call with a different matter.

I include pictures in my reports, usually of problems and problem areas. However, on the front page of the report is a picture of the front of the property that I inspected. Here is the picture from an inspection earlier this week:

Yep. It’s a picture of a house, specifically a manufactured home. A pretty blasé picture.

Now that my Photographic Art venture is viable, I decided that I should start including a Photographic Art picture of the home. I decided to replace the cloudy sky with a more beautiful sky, and bring some contrast and depth to the home and the plants. When I finished, I had this:

My Client called to ask me where I got the picture. I told him that I took a picture at the inspection, and since the picture was pretty blah, I used Photoshop to make it more beautiful. He was amazed. I pointed him to my Photographic Art Catalog, so who knows where this might lead somewhere down the road. Maybe he’ll buy billions and billions and billions of my work!

Tomorrow, just for my wonderful readers, I’ll be posting a tutorial on how to not only replace skies, but how to easily select detail like you find in those pine trees, a technique that works with anything that has a rough outline, like hair on a person’s head, cat and dog hair, etc. So be sure to tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel (smile if you grew up watching Batman!).

Need a unique gift?
Consider Photographic Art!Visit Russel Ray Photos.

►►►►◄◄◄◄

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer, Realtor, CDPE
CA BRE #01458572

►►►►◄◄◄◄

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!