# My Home Project in Texas



## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

I'm new to the forum but not new to remodeling. My wife and I were living in a decent area of the city when we decided to get married. We started looking for a family home for us for a single couple to get started in life together. We found a good deal on a home with a big lot a mile from downtown Houston in an up and coming neighborhood.  I'll start with my before pictures....


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*Few pics*

Built in 1951 with the standard orange brick.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*more*

more pics


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pics*

more pics


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*remodeling*

remodeling pics


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pics*

more remodeling pics


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## REXAMUS (Jul 20, 2011)

Nice job!!


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

+1

Looks fantastic so far. 

Love the progress.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Thanks. I appreciate it. It's a 3 bedroom 2 bath 2088 sq ft home. The pics above were stolen from my wife's spacebook acct. almost all of these were mid project pics and I'll try to post up some finished pics. We started out with major(17 piers) foundation work. We've basically finished the master bedroom, master bath. Re sheet rocked the whole house, texture and in the middle of painting. About 90% done with paint. The floors are original hardwoods, they will be refinished before thanksgiving. Next up is a brand new kitchen. Doing white cabinets with shaker style doors. A large island in dark wood stain will be in the middle where the wall between the kitchen and dining area were removed. My wife is an interior architect (designer) by trade but does sales for a natural stone retailer. This is all her. I'm just the hired help. Have a baby due in Feb so running out of time to be finished. Hopefully the kitchen cabinets will be installed dec/jan. We paid lot value for this house.... The whole thing has been gone through.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

We started this project in October 2013....


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

It's looking great landman.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pics*

Couldn't get into the back yard with the cover....so first thing to do was to rip it down.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pics*

Took all the burglar bars off... helped out a lot to make the house look less morbid. Some of the screws were more difficult than others. We removed this wall to open up the living space... in the next pic I upload you can see the open feel about it. You can refer to one of the first posts to see the dining area and the walls prior to tear down.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pics*

Pics shown: Double doors added and widening the entrance into the master bath from a small single door. The living space with the walls torn down and the header tucked up into the ceiling. We had just started painting. A little "friend" tried to sneak into my gun closet. In the hallway pic in earlier post you can see shelves in the hallway. Behind that was a closet. We closed in the closet opening up into the middle bedroom(now nursery) and added a door to where the shelf was. I went on a dove hunt one weekend and grabbed my gun out fo the closet...something was stinking up the closet. removed the ammo cans and found a mouse had chewed through the baseboards but got stuck at its waist...pretty nasty to have pull it all the way through the rest of the way.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

The above picture of the cedar column is strictly for looks. It's to clad over the ugly iron column. We're doing the same thing and covering the entire chimney outside. The fireplace inside will be clad over with tile....that project will be a spring 2015 project.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*closet*

This is the gun closet closed in and the work started... I still have shelves and a few other things to do on the insde of it. It has a door that was pre-hung I installed now.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Big news today/.... floors are scheduled to be refinished starting next Monday... Pics to come in a week after that.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*CAD drawing*

Our goal...


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## cleanlymaid (Nov 12, 2014)

Hey, I live in Houston too! The place looks great. Looks like a lot of work. What zip is the house located?


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## Windows on Wash (Aug 30, 2011)

Love it. Now you are scratching me where I itch!!!


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## r0ckstarr (Jan 8, 2013)

That's a familiar looking house. Are you between 45 and 59? Progress looks great!


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Yeah... It's a mid century home fit into a neighborhood full of craftsman homes. We really wanted one but found this one a .35 acre lot when people are living on next to nothing on a .10-.15 acre lot. My dogs have somewhere to place and I can stretch my legs out so it's all good. Project of the weekend was stripping paint off the trim. Almost got all of it done before the floors. Floors start tomorrow. Had a great meeting with a cabinet maker and he is building my cabinets to be installed around dec 5. Can't friggin wait. I'll add pics of the before floors tomorrow along with kitchen design. Yes I'm more between 45 and i10 though


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## handygrad89 (Nov 17, 2014)

Looks great so far!


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

On my wife's iPad so will update with pics tomorrow. Had a tough day at work today .... Golfin. It was hard to not think about the work being done in my house. First round of sanding done. Wow what a difference. Pics tomorrow. Really this time


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Got everything moved off the floors this past weekend. This is a sample of the before and after of the hardwoods...I believe they're the original oak hardwoods that came in the house and look brand new again. The hardwoods in the front bedroom and living room were removed and re-installed by my floor guy when we had the interior foundation work done.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Found a contractor who remodels homes for a church friend of mine to do our cabinets. Got a pretty decent price from him to demo our kitchen, build, paint and install cabinets, and float the floors. Should be ready by end of the first week of December. These pics show the design but they will be white with shaker style doors. Backsplash will be a Carrera natural stone and granite counters...deciding on one of three right now. The floors are up in the air but looking at possible limestone.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Have been out of the house for two weeks with the floors being refinished and the holidays...got back and sorta got some order to the living room...you can see how the floors turned out in this photo. Since floating the dining area and kitchen floors are out of my realm of knowledge, our contractor has a guy working on those today along with cleaning up the walls where the kitchen cabinets will be installed. Pics to follow.


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## mrrhtuner (Dec 23, 2014)

That looks great. Love how you are taking an older home and completely updating it. Very nice


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

thanks mrrr... have gotten away from the DIY stuff to allow the contractor to do more specialized projects like the cabinets... granite installed, cabinets painted.... I'll need to finish electricals, install appliances, lights, backsplash and tile.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

kitchen pics


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*update*

Well, the kitchen is mostly done. I helped my wife's dad install the tile (Daltile Unity/Porcelein 12x24) over the holidays and I grouted it yesterday. Have let it dry overnight and now the floors are finished in the whole house...that's an achievement. We'll need someone to do a transition for us from the tile to the hardwood. Next up in here is finish the trim...We're trying to decide on backsplash as well plus lighting solutions. We have installed 2 cans so far, will be 9 total along with some drop down lights over the island and above the sink.

My next project is my new daughter's closet(she'll be born in next 4 weeks). Should be a simple project. Gonna use a 4'x8' sheet of MDF to build paint grade shelves with a 1x2 poplar trim. Should be easy.

One of the bigger projects I have that I haven't decided if I want to take on is the vented range hood. I'm not sure if I want to be the one to put holes into the roof, this might be a job I give to my contractor...we'll see.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Apologize for the sideways pictures.


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## Newguy2015 (Jan 3, 2015)

I would swear that house was located in Coryell County. It looks so familiar.

I've also seen that house in Waco too. So a lot of houses around here look alike. 

I like your arsenal in the gun room. With that kind of fire power certainly won't need the burglar bars...

Fantastic work landsman650 and nice vision from what it was to what it has become. 

Is it a pier and beam home or slab? 

Mad skills

Mat


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

I don't think you've seen my house in Waco unless it's doing some magical type sh!t behind my back. Burglar bars were terrible...good way to die in a fire if you ask me.

The vision was all my wife's...I can promise that.

it's slab. We had about 17 piers fixed in the foundation prior to us doing anything. Once in a while we find a new crack in sheetrock that pisses me off but with the substantial amount of work we had to do it is what it is.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

So at this point, we have the kitchen essentially finished. We need to install two pendant lights over the island and one pendant light over the sink but neither takes away from the function.

I installed a grey glass 3x6 tile for back splash using a new translucent grout. I think it's Texbrite and uses fine glass particles and epoxy. Its a little tougher to work with but I think it turned out great....gotta love having a wife in the natural stone industry that is up to date on all that kind of stuff.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Pics of the new grout and backsplash. Will have a pic of the range hood installed tomorrow. You can see the before and after of the kitchen area...


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

The girl is not my wife... since the range hood needed to be vented to the outside, I had my cabinet guy send an installer. ($300 to install) was well worth it considering I didn't want to put a hole in my own roof


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## Ariadne (May 9, 2014)

Fantastic work; LOVE the gun closet! 

Pre-congrats on your baby girl!


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## ron45 (Feb 25, 2014)

If you don't mind me asking...
Why was the one cabinet built different from the design.? ( lower )


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

Ron... Which one?


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

The 45 degree corner in the left corner or the bar to island d change? The cabinet guy also accidentally swapped oven a fridge on us.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*update*

Havent been on here in a while. Had my baby girl on Feb 12 and that's pretty much consumed my time. Finally got around to working on my fireplace. It was functional but an ugly brick just didn't work with the house so after some going back and forth on what to do decided the easiest(cheapest) fix was to paint it. Picked up a Sanus full motion mount from Best Buy and a new 55" LG 4K to go on the fireplace. Because the fireplace wasn't properly secured and was actually falling forward I tied into a studwith long screws and washers behind the top layer of bricks and the fireplace isn't going anywhere. We'll be on the look out for a new mantle as well. A wall outlet was installed by previous owner in the brick where the TV is and since I have Direct TV I can get the Genie Wireless receiver to install behind the tv with no visible wires. I've been looking into ceiling speakers and other audio components to use but no decisions made yet. I need to touch up the walls where I got some paint and add trim soon.


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## ron45 (Feb 25, 2014)

Looking good...But.
Call me a sucker or old fashion I don't care, but I was wondering if we were going to get a quick peek at the new addition to the family.?


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*pic*

Yep of course I don't mind showing her off...whole reason for the rush on the house.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

Aaaaww. She's BEAUTIFUL landman! What a blessing.

(nice job on the fireplace too.)


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## williamlayton (Feb 18, 2015)

Good work.
HUMMMMM ! I have been around houston since that era---seems just like yesterday !
Piers---a way of life with older homes and even new ones. Your original soil is somewhere down the block.
That is a good part of Houston---I think it is around St Joe's Hospital if I am correct.
Blessings


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## SallyWilliams (May 22, 2015)

Wow. Thanks for sharing the entire transformation of your home. I always love comparing the before and after of a home during renovations. I love what you did to your place. I hope you're enjoying it!


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

*Little back wall update*

Added about 14' of windows to the rear wall and replaced the old, rotted cedar with hardie. We've since installed harbor sconces from restoration hardware on each side of the outer windows for light. 

On a side note, Harris Cty appraisal came back with a $65k increase in value. I hate taxes.


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## landman650 (Nov 10, 2014)

I've been lazy, but hopefully I'll have the rest of the trim and the hardie painted soon. I'll probably hire someone to remove the concrete and walkways. My wife wants a nice area to enjoy our backyard. We haven't decided to go pavers, wood deck or concrete patio...All up in the air. Hopefully when we get this cleaned up we'll start the landscaping.


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