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.......