Transformations . . . and a little bit of history.

Construction dust is nothing new to us. It's been five years since we bought our house and the majority of the time we've been "under construction." I’ll try to put this in perspective with a bit of history about our home, but I have to preface this story by saying that Tobin and I often chuckle to ourselves when we hear someone else complaining about a minor bit of remodeling they are doing. “If they only knew?” we laugh to ourselves.

Our house was built in 1939 and has had only two prior owners. Our understanding is that the original owner was Paul Daniel of Daniel Industries, Inc. The house was one of the first model homes in the neighborhood and Mr. Daniel and his family lived in it until the 1970's when Daniel Industries, Inc. was listed on the NYSE. http://www.daniel.com/aboutus/History.htm.

Sometime during the 70's, the second set of owners purchased the home and lived in it until we purchased it from them in May 2005. It quickly became apparent to us that the owners were very sentimental about the house. They had put a lot of money into it and were extremely grateful to learn that we did not plan to tear it down like a lot of others in the neighborhood. We knew it would take some work, but Tobin and I planned to remodel over time. I’m lucky Tobin is a great visionary for this kind of project, because I don't think either of us totally understood what we were getting ourselves into.


We started by moving some walls and gutting the kitchen and upstairs bathroom before we moved into the house. Among other improvements, we rewired, re-plumbed and re-HVAC’ed the house’s 1939 infrastructure. Luckily, replacing the roof and refinishing the hardwood floors were part of our contract with the former owners. Construction ran late (surprise! surprise!), but we had sold our townhouse in Midtown so we moved into our new home without a finished kitchen and some construction dust. This meant we cleaned the cereal bowls in the bathtub each morning and ate out the rest of the time. We “survived” this phase of the remodel and immediately began working with an architect to plan the second phase of our renovations.

In August 2008, we broke ground on a major addition to the house. We planned a study on the first floor and a master bathroom suite above on the second floor. We replaced the interior doors for aesthetic reasons and all of the exterior windows and doors to be more energy efficient. The renovations also included a major renovation of the exterior of the house. We replaced the old brick with new brick and replaced the old cedar siding with Hardiplank siding. Our house was now taking on a whole new look. We replaced the roof for a second time (don’t ask why) and also refinished the hardwood floors for a second time (again, don’t ask why). We replaced the old wood burning fireplace with a gas fireplace and added new cabinets and wiring for our stereo equipment and speakers. For reasons which are still unexplainable we had made up our minds to remain living in the house during the renovations. This was probably a mistake because all of our furniture had to be moved out of the house into storage so we were living between our bedroom and the kitchen, but we were optimistic construction would only take four months. Construction ran late (surprise! surprise!) and then in February 2009 we found out I was pregnant with Kariana (not so much of a surprise). Construction dragged on and my hormones raged!


We just finished the third and final phase of our “vision.” We tore down the old garage and built a new one, plus we updated the backyard and swimming pool. I think it safe to say the only aspects of the original house that remain are the foundation and the hardwood floors.

This is our house in July 2010 (post addition, garage & pool remodel).

This is our house when we bought it in May 2005.

This is what our house looked like when Paul Daniel and his family lived in it.

We think this picture was taken when the owners we purchased the house from bought it from Paul Daniel in the 1970's. It was given to us at our closing.

This story wouldn't be complete without some pictures of the pool remodel. The second set of owners put a pool in when they bought the house and we kept the original shape of the pool but added the back wall & sheer descents, changed the tile & coping and re-plastered. The decking is also new. I often ask myself if we were insane or just out of our minds but if I had to do it all over again I probably would. We love our house and neighborhood and wouldn't want to live anywhere else in Houston.