Post Street renovation meets the challenge
Lake Shore resident Ray Lunn was looking for a challenge. Having restored cars for years, he decided that renovating a house might be a good next step. The house at 4517 Post Street in Murray Hill seemed ripe for pursuing.
“I worked two jobs to pay off my own house and truck so that I could get a home equity loan and make a cash offer,” Lunn said. Lunn bought the Post Street house in January 2013 with the intention of simply renovating the kitchen and then renting it out.
“The deeper I looked, the more I found things that needed fixing,” Lunn said. Built in 1928, the 900 square foot house needed a lot of help. The kitchen had four layers of floor over the original tongue-and-groove hardwood floors that Lunn wanted to refinish. A drainpipe leak had damaged the floor.
“I love attention to detail and fixing structural issues, so this house was a good project for me,” said Lunn. He decided to renovate the house completely and sell it instead of renting it.
“It’s a brand-new old house now with original elements but new amenities.”
In the kitchen, Lunn has added granite countertops, custom maple cabinets, a deep undermount sink, garbage disposal, pass-through window over the range to allow the cook to talk with people in the living room, and under-cabinet LED lighting. He removed a window to add French doors that open to a patio.
“I installed picture molding and trim throughout the house to match the original look,” he said.
In the bathroom, he installed reproductions of the original hexagon porcelain floor tile, Carrara marble wall tiles and a shower fixture for the original bathtub. He enjoyed building custom cabinets, a toilet seat and lid from maple wood that he had left over from the kitchen cabinets.
Lunn acknowledges that the house’s front door was his biggest renovation challenge. He wanted to install a period-style door, but first he had to deal with the fact that the existing door was 80 inches, four inches shorter than the original opening. He turned to Eco Relics in the Mixontown neighborhood to build a new door out of maple and find the period door hardware.
“I went to YouTube to learn how to build a new casement for the door, install the door and add the lock and hinges,” Lunn said. He also added exterior lighting and rain chains.
Lunn says he definitely wants to take on another project like this in the future.
“You have to have patience. I have thousands of man-hours involved in this project. It also takes upfront money,” said Lunn. “You can’t count on an older home being level and squared.” He had to correct all the doors because the house had settled.
The house has sold.
“I wanted the house to be move-in ready and project-free, so that all the new owner will have to do is put furniture and personal touches in it,” he said. “Everything that was an issue has been repaired and resolved.”
Lunn chose to buy in Murray Hill because he was looking for a stable neighborhood with a moderate price range.
“The neighborhood has really come back with a lot of young people buying and renovating homes.”
Lunn is originally from Kansas City, Kansas. He came to Jacksonville to join his brother, who used to work for CSX. Lunn was in code enforcement for 12 years and then environmental for 14 years for the City of Jacksonville. He bought his home in Lake Shore in 1994 and retired from the City in 2021, which gave him more time to finish the Post Street house.
He gives this advice about buying old homes: “Buy a house you can afford and have income in reserve to have the work done. There’s always more work than you can see.”
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