2007 Annual Report: Adventures in Remodeling

Here's some background:

• Our friend, Mo Altholz, who was married to Linda's college roommate, Helene Mittank, lived in an old house in Travis Heights until he died in May, 2007. Linda told Mo many times that she wanted to buy the house, so in his will, he left us the option to do so. The price is approximately what the lot is worth, so we got the house for free.
• The house was built in 1949.
• The house contained about 1352 square feet of living space.

It needed some updating.

Then Linda saw This Old House on PBS, where they upgraded a house in Austin, making it 5-star energy efficient in the process. (Aside: If you want 5-stars, it helps to have someone else footing the bill.) She thought it would be a great idea to fix up Mo's old house.

So, after some checking around and getting ideas from several people, we hired a local firm, CG&S Design to come up with a plan, after explicitly rejecting the idea of just selling it to someone else in its current condition.

Linda saw the first iteration of the plan, which was, shall we say, a bit more than we'd envisioned, and got cold feet.

However, by that time, Jim had the bit between his teeth. He jumped at the chance to see a kitchen developed the way he wanted, not to mention wiring the house properly, and having a 21^st century office, entertainment center, etc.

We are now on the third or maybe fourth iteration of the basic plan, which calls for a very open first floor with everything open except the master suite, and a second floor with two guest bedrooms. A perfect empty nester in a hot area famed for having lots of Democrats, and 4-star energy efficient at least.

Linda points out that the location does not have a creek in the back.

We'll let you know how this all turns out, with some before and after photos as the project develops. Stay tuned.