Everything Changes

There were three sliding glass doors in this project: one in the master bedroom and two in the family room. All will become French doors and picture windows.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-04-27.

There is nothing so constant in this world as change…change and the value of collaboration.

We found out today that the walls we were planning to remove at the Ash House so we could “open up” the kitchen to the dining room are load bearing. The cost of engineering the LVLs to replace the walls and the delay in the project for engineers, permits, and inspection would cost more than we could expect to get from the change. So, we’re going to revise our thinking a bit and scale back to renovation instead of redevelopment on this project.

We’ll still have a really nice kitchen with a breakfast bar, just not the open concept we’d hoped for.

We have already removed the ugly and questionable built-in sideboard in the dining room, and we can still make better use of that space. We’re going to remove the (non load-bearing) wall that separated it from the shallow pantry to make a really nice pantry that will be accessible from the kitchen. From the dining room, the former sideboard will become a smooth wall. It will be a good place for an antique sideboard or maybe just some art.

Removing the plywood from the broken sliding door brought an amazing amount of natural light into the family room. We’ll replace all those sliding doors with French doors. In the family room, the two sliding glass doors will have one set of French doors and huge picture windows. That combination should let in as much light as the two sliding doors do now.

White roofs are more energy efficient, because they reflect back much of the brutal Texas sun.

As you can see from the photo, the roof is being replaced as I type. We went with a white shingle for aesthetics and to save on energy costs for our new homeowners.

The replacement windows are still about six weeks out. I’m glad we ordered them up front. The good news is that means we don’t have to spend time and energy masking or cleaning the windows when we paint the outside of the house. We’ll just paint the old windows and have a nice, clean look when we replace them.

All-in-all, we’re continuing to make progress. As with everything, flexibility is key. We’re not letting obstacles like load-bearing walls stop progress on this project. We’re being flexible and moving along. When we’re done, this will still be one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood.

Blue Ridge Demo Day

Blue Ridge during demolition. Compare this to the photo of the Villa Park nanny suite below.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-01-03.

It’s unusual that you can say that a house looks better right after you start demolition. The demolition process usually piles trash throughout the house and around it, making it look trashy or even scary. But as you can tell from the picture, the Blue Ridge house is an exception to that rule.

The first thing we did was to take out all of the excess shrubbery behind which the house originally hid. That opened up the front of the house and made it much more inviting. Unfortunately, it also emphasized the damage that is been done to the front arch.

Carol, Sue Ann, and I had previously agreed that we would take down the arches on either side of the kitchen to get the house and more modern look. I think that plan is working, even with the pile of rubble piled to either side of the kitchen.

The interior of the house is pretty much as described in the opening paragraph—trashy. The kitchen and both bathrooms have been gutted to enable a clean, 21st century renovation. The ancient carpets have been removed, and the faux beams have been taken down from the ceilings. All of that debris is stacked in various places around the house awaiting delivery of a dumpster that has been promised by noon Monday.