This Old House

Once upon a time in 1941, a sweet little house was built on a plot of land at, what was then, the northern edge of Old Austin-town.  Way up on 33rd street, a family who would own the house until 2003, made their home on a sweet little corner lot, planted pecan trees, and would probably never begin to imagine what would be happening 71 years later to their modest, two bedroom/one bathroom home where they would raise a family. We've heard that Mrs. Pauline threw garden parties in her backyard, and was allegedly well-loved by many in the neighborhood.

In 2003, a kind woman named Kathleen would buy this home and add a lot of fantastic features to the house, including central air, new electrical wiring, updated plumbing, and a beautiful paver patio in the backyard. She spent a lot of time planting beautiful specimens around the yard and entertaining her two grandchildren, who would stay in the small spare bedroom when they came to visit.  Her two pug dogs were a fixture on the block for their friendliness, as was she.

Fast forward to 2010, when Greg and I, as a young couple in our second year of marriage with no children, would purchase this old house as only the third owners in nearly 70 years.  We dreamed of a family, and living in what had become in all of the time passed since 1941, very much Central Austin. Barely two weeks after we moved in we found out we had a long-anticipated baby on the way, and we spent the next months preparing for her arrival.  

We knew when we bought the home that we'd have to expand our house in order to accommodate the growing family we'd been anxiously planning. An 1,100 square foot, two bedroom/one bathroom home was perfectly cozy for a family of three (plus our two beloved pups, of course), and it allowed us to brainstorm the perfect home addition over the last two years.

Shortly after Piercy Joye's arrival in the spring of 2011, we began meeting with an architect about our desire to expand and update our home. The process was slow, as we felt no immediate pressure to pull the trigger on a project, and frankly, we were covered up in the newness of navigating parenthood. By the beginning of 2012 we had nailed down the conceptual plan for the addition and knew we were becoming increasingly ready to expand our home... and our little family again!

In the midst of interviewing general contractors (twelve of them), finalizing our architectural plans, griping with our architect (who, as it turns out, isn't even an architect after all... Lesson learned: always check the credentials of your designer/"architect"), and recovering from Piercy Joye's first birthday celebration, we realized that our target start date of "October 2012" would have to be amended.  I called Greg one April evening while he was flying the friendly skies to let him know that we needed to move our project up: we were expecting again!

In the last six weeks we've been slammed with all of the details of star alignment so that we had a shot at beginning construction of our home, a contributing structure in an Historical Neighborhood, in August.  This is no short order, y'all.

I'm talking meetings with our voluntary neighborhood association, meetings with the city, packing, moving some of our things to storage, finally choosing a general contractor, closing on a home improvement loan, moving others of our things to my grandmother's attic, removing fixtures and appliances we didn't want demo'ed, moving plants that we didn't want completely trampled and/or bulldozed, making many (many) trips to Goodwill, moving in and living with my saint of a grandmother, "Angel," and trying to give our child some semblance of routine and normalcy in the midst of the chaos.

Last week when we were really close to being completely moved out, I took a few final "before" photos of our little bungalow that has treated us so well, and in which we've made the sweetest of memories. In addition to all of the changes listed, we'll be replacing all of the windows, re-siding the house with hardiplank, and insulating the walls, floors, and ceiling with spray foam.

Our Master Bedroom

This lovely room is one of my favorites in the house, and after some adjustments, it will become the nursery for the new baby.  I love the light in this room.  We are going to be moving the closets to another wall in this room (the one with those black floating shelves, below), and creating a hallway in the space where the current closets are.  Also, we're adding recessed lighting, a welcome advancement for 21st century living. When all is said and done, this room will be nearly exactly the same size as Piercy's room.

These are the closets Greg (on the left) and I (on the right) have been using for the last two years!

 The Hallway

I do love this hallway, but it will no longer end where it does today.  Instead, it will take a turn and continue to the brand new master suite and utility room and connect on the other side of the kitchen, making a second route through the house that will be extraordinarily convenient.

Piercy Joye's Room:

I adore Piercy's room, but...  It gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer, partly because there is no insulation in any of our walls, partly because the windows are so leaky (even though they're painted shut), and probably mostly because the attic access is in her room.  Well, sayonara drafty old room! We're moving the attic access to the brand new re-built garage (more on that in a bit), adding recessed lighting, and of course, replacing windows and insulating the house.

Dining Room:

Not much is changing in the dining room.  We are opening that arched entryway to the kitchen on both sides (more on the left than on the right) so that we will have a centered, squared, wide opening to the kitchen for more of an open concept.  We'll lose some counterspace and cabinets to this change, but we'll be making up for it in other places.

(PS, I don't love the columns, but they're staying for now)

 Dining Room:

This room is one of the more untouched rooms in the project.  We're adding recessed lighting and expanding the window (on the wall opposite all of the appliances, that I failed to take a picture of) to be a large picture window.

Kitchen:

This is, conversely, one of the most touched rooms in the renovation/expansion.  We will be pushing out the northern wall (on the left of the picture directly below), to capture a previously unused portion of our two car garage.  This space was a landing that housed a huge, precariously placed hot water heater and my sweltering "laundry desk."

All of the cabinets will be gone tomorrow.  There are a lot of them for this age house, but I'm so excited about the custom cabinetry that will be taking their place.  Also, that dark granite tile countertop that you see? Never again.  Grout lines in the floor are hard enough to keep relatively clean.  No cook that ever expects a relatively high level of sanitation for a relatively low level of upkeep should settle for grout lines in their countertop if at all possible.

We are hoping to salvage the built-in ironing board (on the right of the picture directly above), and the screening on the cabinets just below the sink (also above) due to a strange attachment and desire I have to reuse these elements in the new design if it can be accomplished.  Also, another game-chager:  We are adding a pantry! W.O.W. Our lives are going to seriously be altered with this addition.

Above is the other perspective of the kitchen/dining entryway that will be widened considerably. Also, we will be adding a center island and under cabinet lighting.  I am entirely thrilled about our new kitchen and can't wait to see it come to life.

Garage:

Oh, garage.  You are funny. See that photo below?

Well, it's hard to discern from this picture, but you can tell from the street that this garage has some problems.  The roof very obviously sags. I hope you click on that image and open it to full size to get the full effect.

Beloved Despised Laundry Desk 

This is part of the landing area that is going to be captured and used for our kitchen expansion and remodel.  Yeeeeee!

Garages are hard to come by in this neighborhood, especially two-car garages, but this one has its share of frustrations.  

• It is built on a sectioned slab: essentially multiple ~4X4 square slabs of concrete that have moved and grooved independently in the last 71 years to create a cracked, catawampus surface. 
• That door to the backyard you see there on the right? It's built for a person no taller than 5'9", which does not work for our family
• The garage door opening mechanism is ancient, does not have a working remote, would not open or close unless you pressed and held the button at just the right pressure and angle, and caused the garage door to buckle in the last three weeks we lived in the house, making the garage door essentially useless.
• I think someone as knowledgeable about wiring as I am wired the joint.
• There is a drainage issue at the front of the garage where it meets the driveway and the solution one of the previous owners thought would be useful was to cut a trench in the concrete so that the water would just go directly into the soil.  FYI, this isn't a proper method for engineering a French Drain, and all that collected in that trench was a plethora of pecan leaves.

We are completely demolishing the garage from sagging roof ridge to sectioned slab and starting over.  The right way this time 'round.  Oh, and guess what won't be in the garage: My. Laundry. Desk.

Windows:

I know I've mentioned that we are replacing all the windows, but I had to share the most embarrassing view of our house.  Yes it's right by the front stoop so it's... hardly noticeable at all?  See those two plastic coverings I had to make after Sheriff June Bug the Blue Lacy Dog punched out two separate window panes on two separate occasions? They happened fairly recently when we were gone and June was undoubtedly trying to fend off neighbors walking their dogs armed intruders. In the future, the dogs will be quarantined to the mudroom/utility room (with access to the backyard) so that they are unable to cause this kind of mayhem when we are out to dinner. 

Front Porch:
See that tiny stoop we have leading up to the front door? Piercy and I spent many hours there this summer, watching storms come in, and enjoying the sole tolerable morning hours.  We are so excited that we will be expanding the stoop to include the entire right side of the house - from the front door to the edge of the front wall where it meets the chimney wall. I can't wait for some proper front-porch sitting!

Kids' Bathroom:

Wow.  I can hardly write that, it is so foreign! First, I can't believe we will soon have multiple children, but mostly I can't believe that Greg and I will no longer have to share space with Piercy Joye's Elmo loofah! I don't really mind the Elmo loofah part, but I definitely prefer the opportunity to have two operating toilets.  The single operating toilet facet has... brought Greg and I quite... close (?)... in the last two years.  It's probably not a lie that one of us has, on occasion, used the toilet at the Burger King down the street in emergency situations when the lone toilet was in use. I'm glad to see the end of this era.  Not much will be happening to this room, save a new coat of paint.

I love you, sweet old house, and I thank you dearly for what you've done for our family so far.  I hope we can do right by you, your history, and the history of the people who have gone before us in these walls.  It is our goal to preserve your character, while increasing your environmental friendliness, livability, and value.  Here's to seven times seventy years ahead!  Cheers!