The biggest Transformation......sheetrock!

After all the demo, permitting and framing our electrician and plumber came into the picture (Chris and I both agreed that it was better to leave those tasks to the professionals). The whole house was re-wired and the plumbing was set for our new master bathroom and the kitchen re-plumbed. And then the fun part.........sheetrock!!! It's amazing to see the walls go back up and actually get a feel for what the house will feel like.

Pic- Chris is standing in the den looking into the kitchen

(he is prepping the opening for the molding)

Pic- Same as above- This time standing in the kitchen

New Layout & Permits

When we bought our house it felt dark in almost every room. I can remember telling Chris that it felt cave-esque! Even though there are 21 windows, each room was so compartmentalized that it was blocking off the light flow. We decided to open things up to let the light flow and thus a new layout was born!!!
The dashed lines were walls that we took down, the front bathroom was added from a space that used to be the front porch (more to come on that) and the kitchen was turned into a large galley to, again, create more light throughout.

You might notice the City of Houston Permit stamp on the plans.......Well, since we were doing an extensive kitchen remodel (full gut job), new wiring, new plumbing for the kitchen and adding a master bathroom we had to get city permits. Normally this is taken care of by a general contractor, but since Chris and I were the acting GC on our house I took on the project of obtaining the city permit. After consulting my brother (the structural engineer) many times regarding the plans and the process to obtain a permit, I headed downtown fully expecting to be rejected the first time. BUT, after a few hours of jumping from desk to desk and office to office I ended up walking away with our permit in hand!!!!!!

See those yellow beauties hanging in our front window??? Those are our PERMITS!!!! YEA!!

Let the demo begin!!!!!!

Once we had signed on the dotted line and the house was ours we could not wait to begin demo!!! We knew that we had to open up some walls between the individual rooms to let more light flow through out the house and to create a more functional floor plan. We also knew that under all the sheetrock was going to be shiplap (tongue and groove boards that run horizontally on top of all the framing 2x4s) and that was going to make the old sheetrock removal more difficult (and it did!!). Chris and I teased through out the demo process that the shiplap was all that was holding our 75 year old house together.......and we were taking some of it down- YIKES!

Pic- The living room opening to the dining room and me with a sledgehammer ;)

We planned to enlarge the opening so we removed all the sheetrock to reveal the shiplap.

Pic- Same view as above.

This is once the new opening was cut and ready for framing and a new header.

See how much it opened things up and created more light.

Beside sheetrock/shiplap and wall demo the kitchen also had to be removed to make way for a brand new layout with new cabinets and the works!

Pic- Kitchen before

We planning our new layout- Chris is standing at the new cooktop.....can't you tell???t :)

Pic- Opening from dining room to kitchen in the process of being enlarged.

You can also see the upper cabinets have already been removed (Chris decided to surprise me while I went to Home Depot.....when I came back the uppers were gone!!)

Pic- Demo of the kitchen is DONE!!!!

And the wall to the back den has been removed as well to create the "open concept" kitchen I was longing for....and got!

Ashland Renovation....Exterior

We bought our 1935 cottage in the Houston Heights back in Jan '09. Then the transformation began taking a total of 4 months with lots of late nights and every weekend devoted to demo, framing, trim work, tile, and so on. We'll start from the beginning with some before and after pics and move our way through the house. Enjoy!!

Before- exterior

The exterior needed some major waking up! We had the limestone circular drive removed (you can see the car parked on it in the before pic) to make way for some new St. Augustine grass and new concrete sidewalks and a driveway. We removed all the overgrown shrubs to start from scratch for new flower beds.

The exterior was freshly painted (Sherwin Williams- Smoky Blue) and a new craftsman style front door and new porch were built/installed by Chris. Then we added some black star gravel in front of the new sidewalks to create additional parking for visitors to the house (a common thing done here in the Heights). Finally we built (in two weekends) the wooden fence surrounding our lot and since we are a corner lot it was a lot of wooden pickets!!!! But it was all worth it to see the final product.

After- exterior