End of Year Update...

OK, so I haven't been updating as often as I should. We didn't do much during the month of November so we had to pick up the pace for December.

We finally decided on a design for the front of the house. Kari and I tend to disagree on most things for at least a month before we can come to an agreement. Most of the time it's what I wanted to start with it just took me that long to convince her.

I continued to move around the living room replacing existing exterior walls with new ones.

I started with the wall opposite the first wall we built with all the windows. This wall had brick on the outside which took a little more work during the demo but helped us in the long run because the brick ledge left us an area to build the new wall before we demoed the existing wall. When I'm doing most of this myself (with some help from my apprentice) it's normally takes me two days to do anything.

I got lucky when Jason and Janeen were in from Florida, Jason felt the need to work while he was in San Antonio so we tackled the front wall of the house. I've attached a picture of the door design for your viewing pleasure.

Here is a 3D view of what we are hoping for in the end on the entrance side of the house.

Still Working.... On the Wall

So were back at it again this weekend. Mom and Dad came up to help. Thanks :)

We continued rebuilding the wall in the kitchen area. You can see the before in the first picture. We tore out the existing door and the last remaining window. Rebuilt the wall and installed a new door. One that was square... The other one had been trimmed for the last 50 years and was wasn't even close to square.

We finished the OSB outside and put up Tyvek on the walls (thats the white stuff). Tyvek is a vapor barrier that keeps water out but lets the house breath.

BTW... Kari and Mom did all the cleanup while Dad and I continued to make a mess.

Bringing the Outdoors In

So this weekend we developed a new meaning to the term bringing the outdoors in.

On Friday I was going to investigate to see what was behind the siding in the courtyard so I could get a game plan together for how I was going to replace all of the windows in the courtyard.

What I found..... wasn't good. The construction on the house was a little sub-par to say the least. From research I've done Milton Ryan used "standard length" wood to build his homes to cut done on the cost of lumber. So what I found out was all of the 2 x 4's used in the house were a maximum of 8' in length. On a 10' wall they didn't reach all the way to the top so they spliced them in the middle. Once I pulled the T-111 siding off the outside the wall got a little flimsy. We also found a lot of rotten boards that appeared to have suffered from years of neglect and water infiltration.

Once I found this out I couldn't wait I started tearing off all of the sideing and ripping out the windows. This made for a long weekend but in the end we prevailed and we finished most of the living room wall and started on the kitchen wall.

More to come next weekend.....

And the Pergola Comes down.....

So today was the day to start demo on the pergola in the front courtyard.

Here are the before and afters for today more to follow tomorrow...

Day 2.....

The First Weekend.....

Kari and I had the Pack-Rat (the storage box we put all our stuff in) delivered on Tuesday so we could start unloading and setting up the new house. It took us 3 days to get everything out and into the house. We didn't want to ask our friends to help us move again since we seem to move alot (every year since we got married to be exact), although our friend Scott did come over to help me move the big stuff in (thanks Scott).


Mom and Dad came up for the long weekend to help us in the yard. I'll bet they never do that again. Here are some before and after pictures of the yard work.

The House....

The house is an 1860 sqft Milton Ryan designed home built in 1952. It's a split level mid-century modern home that has most all of the living and kitchen areas on a slab foundation and all of the bedrooms and bathrooms on a pier and beam setup. The home sits on a corner lot at the end of Morningside Drive in Terrell Hills. Terrell Hills is a city within San Antonio located just north of downtown.

The house is designed in a "U" shape facing the street with a center courtyard. It has a carport that enters from the side street with a small storage space in front that currently houses the washer and dryer. The house has a pool in the backyard with a deck.

When you enter the front door you are standing in the living / dining area, it's all one big open space from the front door into the kitchen. All of the ceilings in the house are exposed (no insulation either, makes for a high electric bill). The entire courtyard area is surrounded by windows.

As with any home in Terrell Hills foundation problems are not out of the ordinary. The house has settelled a little and there are some noticable movement in the kitchen cabinets. I had a foundation company come check it and it's only out of level a little and they told me they couldn't justify taking my money to fix it (good news, that would cost around $9K). Most of the items that show movement can be fixed with a little work.

The Pier and Beam side of the house has all wood floors, three bedrooms and two baths. As with most homes in this era, the master bath is not connected to the master bedroom (nothing a hole in the wall can't fix).

Here are some pictures that I've collected on the inside....

How this Story Begins.....

So, you might wonder why I decided to buy the house you see at the top of the page. Well, for starters I was tired of driving 45 Mins to work each day when Kari only had to drive 5. I started looking around in the Alamo Heights (AH) / Terrell Hills (TH) area of San Antonio for a new house. For those of you that know anything about that area its EXPENSIVE. About 6 Months ago I found a home in AH that needed some major renovations, I ended up passing on the home because we wouldn't be able to live in it for the six months months it would take me to remodel the inside. Just to give you an idea of prices, the AH house was on the market for $250K, it sold for $225K and needed $100K worth of renovations. I would end up into this house for at least $350K and the houses nearby were going for $350K - $375K. And by the way, this house was only 1400 sqft.



On a recent trip to see what was going on with the AH house, I took a trip though Terrell Hills down Morningside Drive, I found a few houses that looked like they had already been renovated and I also found one house that was a cool contemporary look. That's what Kari and I like! Heres a pic..... I went home and pulled up everything on Morningside that was forsale, found this house that I really liked. Guess what the price was.... $1.6 MILLION!!! That scared me a little. I kept looking down the page and at the very, very bottom (the price was so low it was almost at the end of the internet) I found 937 Morningside. Our new House. Kari and I went to look at it as soon as we could make an appointment to meet with the realtor. We loved it, that weekend we left for Flordia to our friends wedding. My agent drafted the offer emailed it to me in Florida, and after a few drinks I signed it. The sellers countered in less than 30 Mins and we accepted. Let the story begin.......