I like them actually. Wonder if they had bars/gates when they were first built?
Anyways, cheapest would just be to add a solid door/gate that is insulated, secure, and you can’t see through. Are you required to keep the gate transparent?
Once you have the solid door, nobody knows what you do back there. After the neighborhood adjusts, you can store whatever you like down there, put in partition wall if it suits you, remove upper door to heat the space, etc
For the center patio I like the idea of making it a sun room / enclosing with skylights
I just don’t think it is financially worth it to convert. It is the main door design plus there is a huge opening (no roof) above the staircase leading to the front door (good idea for more natural light). You will still need a stairs there.
Come on, lay off the tunnel entrances… they add something called CHARACTER to some of the homes in the Sunset. Otherwise, y’all would be complaining about how come the homes in the Sunset are so boxy and boring. Can never win…
Most people def do not sit in this area. Too cold usually. Useful for say bikes, toys for tots, shoes…etc.
I can’t stand tunnel entry. If you put a skylight to cover up the patio you can convert it to indoor livable space. It’s a pretty dumb design IMO. You get rained on inside your house. Argh.
I don’t like tunnel entries either; went to a couple open houses in the past in the Sunset with these setups; every time I went in there was a strong odor in the tunnel. Gross!
The funny thing is that you have more privacy chit chatting with friends inside the tunnel entrance then in the typical SF back yard. The back yards in SF houses are a joke - they are like a plot of caged area in the zoo where your neighbors could be looking down from their rear 2nd floor window… unless one doesn’t have any neighbor houses in the back/left/right. Kinda like looking down at the Hippo bin in a zoo…
Even “detached” SFHs are still too close to each other!
Now that pot is legal there will little incentive to grow your own …they will be able to grow it in Lodi for pennies a pound…It will be like tobacco. .nobody grows that for personal use…
(although spec house numbers are pretty good, no?)
