August 2008

We bought the house. It was ours. What started out as buying our dream home, quickly became a whole lot of work. Before we bought the dream, we had the honor of Mr. Northcutt’s opinion. Mr. Northcutt came and looked over the house. He had built many houses over the years, and “Knew all there was, about building houses”. It was his opinion that cemented the decision to buy this house. His main piece of advice was “Make sure your marriage is strong, because renovating this house will test it.” Tammy and I have a strong marriage, so we knew there would be no problem with buying and renovating this house.

The first thing we did after buying was to walk through and start making a plan of what to do, in order to be able to move in. It was a short list, and 6 weeks of some of the dirtiest work I have ever done.

The list:
Remove all carpet, fabric, and wallpaper.
Have the gas lines tested, and fixed if needed.
Install a new water heater.
Fix the foundation/ beam, joist, termite damage/rot.
Have new electrical service installed (200 amp.)
Install washer and dryer hook ups.
Remove some of the walls to make bigger rooms.
Install a fence for the dogs

In order to get the list done, we had a very large dumpster delivered to the front yard, right in front of the porch. I started to pull up the carpet, and pads. I will never be a fan of carpet again. The ground floor carpet was from the early 70s. The 2nd floor carpet was from the 50s. It was all musty, dirty and just plain nasty. Under the carpet on the ground floor, I found hardwood floors, in need of some refinishing, some rooms needing replacement, and in what is now my office, brick. The 2nd floor has all hardwood floors as well, and they mainly need refinishing.

The wallpaper, fabric wall coverings, curtains, all came down pretty easily, the walls are wood planks, no plaster, and the wallpaper was nailed up. It was so brittle that it crumbled when touched. There were rooms with several layers of wallpaper, and rooms with only two layers. I took samples of each layer. Some of the patterns were cute.

It took two weeks to get all the carpet and wallpaper out in the dumpster. During this time we were getting bids from contractors on some of the work. I am so thankful that I could focus all my time to the house. I have the most incredible wife in the world. It is because of her, and how good she is at her job, that I do not have to have one.

The electrical bids were very high, and we had 4 different bids in all. The highest was $22,000.00 the lowest was $15,000.00. The bids were for a complete replacement of all electrical lines, switches, plugs, breakers, and even the service drop to the house. The major electrical things that both Tammy and I wanted to keep were the chandeliers and the old push button light switches. Sam wanted the elevator to stay and work too.

The plumbing bids. The first Plumber to come out was Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris tested all of the gas lines in the house and each connection. The house had gas lines to each room for gas space heaters. Every connection and bend in the line leaked. The gas was on too. Mr. Harris, turned off the gas to the house and cut and capped the line coming into the house in the basement. It is a wonder that the house didn’t blow up. He then offered his services for the rest of the plumbing that needed to be done. After getting the bid, Tammy and I decided to get the plumbing done on an "as needed" basis.

The contractor that came for the foundation is by far the best company I have ever had service from. Dave, from Southwest Foundation, came and walked through the house, looked at all the little problems, and, having loads of experience with older homes, actually told me how I could fix the issues myself if I wanted to save money. Tammy and I hired Southwest Foundation to do the work as I did not feel comfortable doing that myself. They came out a couple of weeks later with a crew of 7 men. Hugo ran the show and they went to work, replacing rotten and termite damaged beams, fixing the basement walls, and re-leveling the house. For four days these guys did their best work. They fixed the hill in the media room and the entry way, since rolling hills in the floor were not part of our "big picture vision" for the house.

Tammy and I had one more contractor come and do work on our dream in August. A couple of weeks after we bought the house, one of our many trees on the lot broke and fell over the neighbors fence. The contractor that came out and gave a bid to take care of that tree, as well as another tree that was dead. We hired him.
They did get both trees down safely, though it was questionable there for a bit. I never wanted to hear from a “professional”, “NO EDDY! YOU”LL KILL YOURSELF!!” when cutting down a rather big tree. Tammy and I still laugh at that.

August and the first part of September in Texas is always hot, and last year was no exception. I am amazed at how cool this house was when it had no central air. There were four working window a/c units when we bought the house. After a week or two, 2 of them died. When we first walked into this house in July, the a/c was not on, and the ground floor was rather comfortable 80 degrees, when outside it was 95+ the 2nd floor was much warmer, and the attic, was an oven.