- The Rob, Arnie & Dawn Show - Official Web Site

WILLIAM'S MANOR

Updated October 9th, 2007

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!

Updated July 26th, 2007

As we head into our second 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 in 2007:

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.

Those are the latest photos from Williams Castle. Next time, we'll have photos of the new backyard in all its splendor. Until then...

Drop me an email if you want to comment on the photos.

Updated April 23rd, 2007

It was a full year ago when my wife and I decided to take advantage of the real estate market and jump up from our crappy 2500 square foot home in a court into a 4100 square foot home in a gated community on top of a hill. We found a desperate sucker who practically gave us the house which is now appraising at 50% more than we paid and comps in the neighborhoods are selling for 33% more than we paid. Go figure…I guess I'm good at this money stuff.

We haven't posted pictures in quite a while, so here is a tour of much of the house (not all) and its amenities:

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.

Across from the fireplace is the main bar, including a wine storage closet which houses the wine we are ready to drink at anytime.

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In our bedroom, we have our always snuggly bed, second fireplace, dressers, etc.

In the master bathroom, this is my area…

and this is my wife's.

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My wife's area is decorated appropriately in a "princess/high maintenance motif," complete with her modest perfume collection.

I'm not sure if this picture does our shower justice, but this is the greatest shower! It's tiled in granite, features a removable waterfall showerhead with 8 settings and is 8 feet long by 4 feet wide. Even Arnie could fit in this shower.

Our oversized tub features a direct view of a flat screen TV. We stole this idea from Las Vegas hotels.

I thought if we were going to show our house, we should also show part of Shep's area. This is where he poops in the side yard, covered during the winter months. Once he poops, his turds wind up in the poop bucket.

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This is a preview of the backyard which will be finished this spring. Ponds, waterfalls, a fireplace, gazebo, cooking island and fancy pots will all be part of the landscape eventually.

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One of the best things about our view is a never ending supply of great sunsets.

Those are the latest photos from Williams Castle. Next time, we'll have photos of the new backyard in all its splendor. Until then...

Drop me an email if you want to comment on the photos.

Updated April 17th, 2006

Many of you have asked for photos of the new Williams Castle. Even though the house is far from being the way we want it, here are some preliminary shots. We've moved in to about half of the house, with a lot of work left to be done.

Here's our boy Shep being introduced to the new home the day we closed on it.

The home is 4000+ square feet, all one story, so we have a lot of long hallways, all of which currently have bare walls.

Eventually, all of this crap will be on our walls and this will be Arnie's room. I mean, a guest room.

On the other side of the house is the second guest room, which currently houses weights that I never use and the cats' beds.

This is the most important room in the house to you…my office, where all of the work gets done preparing the #1 show in town by a 2-to-1 margin. Before we even moved in I had the carpet replaced and the cable and internet service hooked up so that I'd be able to prep your show for you. I am such a giver.

This is the completed office, complete with the 4 bookshelves that Arnie says makes me a geek and the 40 inch TV that Dawn says makes me a pretentious ass. (they're both right, by the way).

Someday, this will be a formal sitting/living room.

This would be the game room if the pool table weren't in pieces.

Literally 3 days before I posted these pictures, the pool table was finally assembled. Eventually, the walls will house one of our 3plasma TVs and all of my Bugs Bunny art and Sports memorabilia.

During the move, our dining room housed our 1000+ bottles of wine.

Eventually, a lot of the wine wound up here, in what we call our "vice" room where we house much of our alcohol, our kegerator and cigars .

In a separate wing of the house is the main bar area, where our top shelf scotches and crystal stemware is located.

Sadly, not all of wine fits in our 2 wine refrigerators so this closet will be turned into an overflow racking system soon. What a problem to have.

As you can see, the house came with a carpeted family room which is well, ghetto.

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So, in came the contractors. Nothing is more fun than living in a construction zone.

It was all worth it after we saw the completed family room, regaled in imported Italian porcelain/granite floor tiles.	Just last week, we finally got our new sofa delivered and got the family room set-up. The damn room is so big our 5o inch plasma TV is too small, so we're going to have to buy a new, bigger one.
The kitchen is also functional and decorated.	The house came with a great view, high atop a hill overlooking the gorgeous "Kansas-like" skyline of Sacramento. Sadly though, it didn't come with a landscaped yard.
The boys from AKA concrete came out after listener Scott, who owns the company, e-mailed me because he was tired of my whining about not having a backyard. They laid the forms for what would eventually be my patio on one of the few dry days in March.	Three weeks later, the damn rain stopped and we actually got our patio done.
There haven't been many clear days since we moved in, but when there is, we get a sunset like this.	So there's your first look at Williams Castle. Next time, we'll have updated shots of the backyard, game room and formal dining room, along with the first look at our master bedroom and bath, which Dawn describes as our own personal day spa. Whatever. Drop me an email if you want to comment on the photos.