March 2006



Mar
31
2006
 14

Kitchen Design Mockup II


Well.....maybe the Coffee House Blend II will not work. Now we are looking at the Bungalo Blend from Modwalls for the backspalsh. Very cool and right for our house. I saw a link to Schoolhouse Electric on House in Progress. They have some very cool light shades that ride the line between nerdy and atomic in just the right...


Mar
31
2006
 0

Unrated Week 9 Wrap Up, Lap-and-Gap Edition


Slowish week. Rain sent the framing crew packing, and I think they were waiting on windows anyway. In an ideal situation, we are at the halfway point. 9 weeks down, and 10 weeks until Christiane's due date. Saturday: AC guy started putting in ducts Monday: Framing crew started putting up trim, finished Tyvek wrap Tuesday:...


Mar
29
2006
 1

Ah, Memories


I Dream of Carport Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. Once upon a time, it was not raining. It was sunny. And beautiful. And David and I lived in a blissful bubble and talked about the progress they were making on our house and imagined landscaping. Harken back to a time ages ago.... Picture it: March 26th,...


Mar
29
2006
 0

Hakuna Matata Federal Credit Union


Our bank has managed to be consistently disconcerting. From getting the loan amount wrong on the paperwork at closing and then saying it didn't really matter, to the events of today. On Thursday Ace told us he was requesting a draw. We had about a week of delays in the first draw, so we wanted to be on top of things this...


Mar
28
2006
 2

Change Order


Dear Ace, I am afraid that we are going to have to request a change order. Since it has rained forty-billion-hundred inches of rain in the last 24 hours, and it is supposed to rain forty-billion-hundred more inches in the next two days, and since nothing is happening at the house right now (except for everything getting...


Mar
28
2006
 1

Panorama-rama


I just discovered Autostitch. It's perfect for interior shots, and for a house that is out-growing it's exterior "before" picture vantage points. Each of these panoramas are combined from about 20 individual photos.


Mar
28
2006
 1

An Attic of One’s Own.


I have not had an attic since I lived with my parents. It's been dorms, apartments, rental houses (you just don't go into the attic in a rental house) and then I bought the little flat-roof house on Grover. So when we designed our house, there was very little emphasis on the attic. We put in just enough for the AC and a few boxes. Still...


Mar
27
2006
 9

Kitchen Design Mockup


On Saturday we popped over to the Tile Guy. The place was teeming with pregnant women and toddlers. We picked up our backsplash sample (CoffeeHouse Blend II). It was browner than we expected, but we decided to make it work. We picked out the floor and paint color in a flurry of decision making. Bamboo floors, white cabinets,...


Mar
27
2006
 0

Teetering on the Brink


I'm amazed by the difference in building quality between our house and the scaffolding that the framing crew uses to get 25 feet up. None of the boards line up, half the nails don't hit the other piece of wood. Do these guys dare each other to get on this stuff? On Friday I saw a guy putting up plywood above the second...


Mar
26
2006
 0

A Bit of a Pulse


I dropped by the house late on Friday night and caught the framing crew playing cards in the downstairs bedroom. It was a chilly night and they had blocked the door with a 4x8 sheet of plywood and had run an extension cord through the window for a light. I didn't disturb them. As I drove off, I saw the light glowing and shadows...


Mar
26
2006
 3

Goldilocks and the Three Trims


Today I noticed our pending trim in the front yard. It looked small to me, so I snapped the tape measure off my belt (like a real-life architect) and measured it. Horrors. It's 3.5 inches. That's wrong. The old trim was 4.5, and I want the old trim back. According to the James Hardie web site, they have 3.5 and 5.5 inches....


Mar
26
2006
 10

Eye Candy


Yesterday was a very full day. Kidless for the afternoon, we figured we would grab a late lunch and run some Erwin House-related errands. We headed over to the Sustainable Shopper's Ball (the "Sustain-a-Ball") first with the hopes that we would be able to get more info on photo-voltaics (PV's, or solar panels) and rain...


Mar
25
2006
 0

Caught in the Crossfire


I had a student journal meeting on campus around lunchtime. I was driving home after the meeting, talking on the cell to my mom about the progress on the house. I was going to do a quick drive-by on the way to the rental, but stopped and pulled over when I saw a cop car in the old driveway. "The house looks great," I was telling...


Mar
24
2006
 2

If I had it to do over.


I would have been more demanding of the draftsman. Today we encountered the third boneheaded mess-up in the plans. The wall between the dining room and the kitchen is one complex piece of origami. You won't be able to tell when it's finished, but it's wacky. We asked if elevations were needed and he said they would understand...


Mar
24
2006
 1

Eaves!


They're putting on our subroof right now as we speak thisveryminute. Apparently, the rain is no biggie. With the subroof and the Tyvek, the house should be fairly water-resistant. Of course, it doesn't have any windows yet, but hey who's counting? My biggest concern is that the rain will simply slow the project down...


Mar
24
2006
 0

Noooooo!


I refuse to be intimidated. We will prevail. LOL


Mar
24
2006
 2

Eye of Gnome


I've been using several consistent places to take before, during, during, during, and after photos. And I just decided to name the locations and tag them in Flickr. Some of the before photos are out of order, but you can figure out which ones they are. Gnome's Eye View. Named for a garden gnome who observes the construction...


Mar
23
2006
 0

Door-to-Door Service, Baby. Yeah.


IKEA delivers! That's our kitchen. Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. That's our kitchen, delivered yesterday with little pomp or circumstance. They have been making such amazing progress on our home that I might be baking brownies in my new kitchen in time for the midwives to help deliver the baby! Note to self:...


Mar
23
2006
 2

Photos


I've just uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr, catching up on the two days without an internet connection. I took this one at night, so the color is a little weird. Note the makeshift scaffolding on the right hand side. All Erwin House Photos The framing is about done and they are wrapping the house in plywood and Tyvek....


Mar
22
2006
 3

Kill Bill Homes


I've been a little sleep-deprived lately. And today, when I could not hold my head up at my desk, I stepped out for a quick walk. Across the street is a KB Homes Design Showroom. I had never had any reason to go there, but I popped in today. What awful glee I had. There was not a single good thing in the showroom. Even...


Mar
22
2006
 0

Radio Silence


Our internet has been down at the house for two days. Grande was sending our bills to the wrong address. And now they must punish us. Hopefully they will send apology flowers and have us back online today.


Mar
20
2006
 2

Ketchup


This is just a bunch of observation I want to get down before I forget them. (Warning: Booooring) 1. Christiane just started her third trimester on Saturday. Thus, I have produced a timeline. I still think we can be in the house for the birth. We've had a very productive 6 weeks and all the design decisions are made. 12 weeks...


Mar
20
2006
 5

Fifties Forever


50's kitchen Originally uploaded by Handpicked. Well, it took me forever to stumble onto Dwell, so I guess it makes sense that we were midway through our project when I finally found HouseBlogs.net. 'Cause, ya know, I'm slow like that. There was a plethora of yummy linkage to be found there, and I particularly...


Mar
20
2006
 0

Rain


There was light rain all weekend. The house got wet, but it wasn't that bad. By Sunday afternoon it was drying off. Then one last storm last night. There was thunder and lighting all night. And it got really wet. There was some damage to the drywall. There are pockets of water making their way down the wall under the paint...


Mar
19
2006
 0

A Triptych


Our older boy set out this weekend to author a graphic novel of our renovation. These are three select pages from that tome. In the first page we see the house before renovations. It is a memory of the first night the boys spent at my house (before it was "our" house). Fate sent an awesome hailstorm, which would have been...


Mar
19
2006
 1

Eave Update


Again, never mind. Not a problem. We'll have our big 30 inch eaves. I think I figured out what bugs me about small eaves. It's kind of like a guy wearing a hat with a brim that's too small. Specifically, the hat that Sylvester Stallone wears in the first Rocky movie. And to think that guy is now the governor of California.


Mar
18
2006
 0

The Shrinking Eaves


The second floor has been creating traffic jams of rubberneckers on Grover for the last two days. I wonder what they're thinking? I've had a few initial observations. 1. It looks bigger on the outside, than I thought. 2. It looks smaller on the inside. 3. The downstairs bathroom and bedroom are more public that I thought....


Mar
17
2006
 2

I’m in love!


The second story started going up yesterday. There was another small scuffle (I alluded to it in yesterday's post). The draftsman had placed the windows on the south and east walls of the second story in one spot on the elevations and a different spot on the floorplans. The picture above shows the incorrect positioning....


Mar
16
2006
 2

Speed Trap Ahead


So far, I am loving our contractor. This is a rare thing, from what I hear. Most of the people we talked to complained about their remodeling experiences, and they gave us many, many warnings. Things aren't perfect, but he's a good guy. One of those genuine types who takes pride in his work and is honest about what he can and cannot...


Mar
15
2006
 0

The Famous Living Room


Christiane did a neat thing this evening. She took a photo of our living room from the exact position we had rendered it in Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer. (Put your mouse over the picture to see the rendering.) We have these images in our heads from working in the software all summer and into the fall. And now we are starting...


Mar
14
2006
 4

Feuerbacher


Weldue Feuerbacher May 9 , 1951 This signature and date were on the floor under cabinets. (put your mouse on the image to see my tracing of the lines.) I'm pretty sure about Feuerbacher. Ancestry.com shows a concentration of them in Texas in 1920. But I don't know about the first name. Weldue? Weldese? Our house was built...


Mar
14
2006
 0

Trusses


Trusses Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. I know there's been a stink about the trusses. I haven't been able to keep up, really. With cousin Ben here for Spring Break, my Master's thesis due in one week, and freelance deadlines, I'm a little busy. Oh, and I'm baking a baby. All I know is that I drove by this...


Mar
14
2006
 0

Still Wrong


I suck again (sorta inside joke). I spent the whole prenatal appointment this morning trying to solve the wall-in-the-wrong-place problem in my head. I had a good solution. Brilliant even. After the appointment, we went back to the house and they had already built the wall. Looked perfect. The trusses can be used, the walls...


Mar
13
2006
 0

Clearer?


Since the last post made no sense. Here is a better (I hope) explanation. (Bored yet?) The plans were based on measurements of the old house, which were slightly off. Front to back across the bedrooms, the drawings were 2.5 inches short. So the trusses were short. And the length of the bathtub was wrong. It was drawn 6 inches...


Mar
13
2006
 0

Measure Twice, Build Blog Once


Nevermind. I totally misunderstood. It was the measurements of the old parts of the house that were off. That makes so much more sense. Still, several trusses are the wrong length. We'll see how big a delay it causes. We got a call from Ace yesterday. They built the downstairs slightly too small. Four inches front to back,...


Mar
12
2006
 0

Living the Good Life


Ya'll know about my green building interests, so it should come as no surprise that I am finding Linda Cockburn's sorta-blog about her family's experience building a strawbale home very fascinating. Just wish I could subscribe to it (RSS feed, plz!). Ever since I read about Linda's book on Loobylu's blog, I've been wondering...


Mar
10
2006
 2

Overwhelmed


This is a photo of the master bedroom on January 31, 2006. Put your mouse on the picture to see what the same view looked like on Wednesday this week. About the only thing that remains is that doorway, and it's coming out too. So much has happened this week. I really don't know where to start.


Mar
10
2006
 0

From the East, Friday AM


FRIDAY AM: WEDNESDAY AM: SATURDAY AM: I had driven by the house on Thursday morning and thought to myself, "The no-walls thing is really getting to me. I need to stop driving by until there are walls." On our way to Brentwood Tavern last night, David made a pit stop. I'll be damned--there were walls. Funny...


Mar
10
2006
 0

City Approves Glass Houses, Provides Stones


I have not been able to avert my eyes from the continuing train wreck that is the public input web site for the Task Force. Today I saw something I expected. A citizen, we'll call him "Wreckingball" posted a disparaging comment about a house, with an address, suggested that it had been built without a permit, and then recommended...


Mar
9
2006
 0

Truthiness, Meet Taskiness


On Tuesday we got an email from the neighborhood listserve about a web site set up by the city's cleverly named "Task Force" to take public input about housing building codes. One of the top topics is called, "'Good' & 'Bad' Examples: Single Family Houses", where people are encouraged to drive around and take pictures of their...


Mar
8
2006
 0

Holy Crap!


Update 12:30am: I called Ace who was so asleep he almost couldn't speak. Then I went to the house. What a haunted house scene. Lightning, thunder, a creaky gate, half a house, and a big billowing blue tarp. I got a broomstick and pulled down a couple of corners that were exposed, and hooked the tarp to various nails which...


Mar
8
2006
 0

Destruction/Construction


Something happened while we have been marveling over the tarp and all the destruction. They started building our house. The sub-floor for all the new downstairs square footage appears to be done. And extra supports under the house have been connected to the new piers. Our oldest boy leapt over the chasm still in the living...


Mar
8
2006
 3

This is what happens when you make fun of IKEA…


They deliver your kitchen to their store in Houston instead of to your front door. We were hoping for something like this: the kitchen Originally uploaded by splityarn. Alas, we instead got a phone call. "Come pick up yer kitchen." Did I mention our kitchen is in Houston? Anybody in Houston wanna bring us our kitchen?


Mar
8
2006
 0

Disappearing Act


Tuesday, From the West                   Wednesday, From the West


Mar
8
2006
 0

The IKEA Epidemic


The Onion has a groundbreaking article on a new disease that is terrorizing our nation: "At present, the IKEA epidemic is mostly limited to the coasts, but if the populace isn't educated about the very real aesthetic dangers of IKEA, more lifestyles will be lost all across the nation," Greeves said. "Just last week, we received...


Mar
7
2006
 3

Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue


Christiane has been (ok, me too) a little obsessed with the blue tarp on our house. I cannot exaggerate the blueness of the light in the house. The diffused sunlight comes in every square inch of what used to be the ceiling. Even the closets. Red objects appear black. And after your eyes have done their best to adjust,...


Mar
7
2006
 0

Tokyo Blues


Speaking of tarps... I met Nurri Kim last fall at Design Engaged 2005 in Berlin. Her presentatation was breathtaking. I was feeling ill and missed the original viewing, and I was told by many, many people to take her aside later and ask her to review it with me. They were right. Nurri's photos of blue tarps being used...


Mar
7
2006
 0

Haunted House


David's last post reminds me of yesterday. The youngest came with us to the walkthrough and was fascinated with the process of taking the siding off of the house. He wanted to know, what were those tools they were using? I told him they were called "crowbars." "Hmmmm, crowbars," he repeated, thoughtfully. Uh oh.   I...


Mar
6
2006
 0

Open Hearth Surgery


They took the roof off today. I stopped by the house four times. Each visit driving deep weird grooves into my amygdala. (From now on, every time I hear the Honeydrippers' "Sea of Love", I'm going to think a wall is about to fall down.) You can see the green walls of our living room from the corner of Pasadena and Grover....


Mar
6
2006
 2

Framing Walkthrough


Framing Walkthrough Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. We met early this morning with our contractor, Ace, and the framer he hired. We had one last chance to make sure that everything was exactly how we wanted it: the placement of all of the doors and windows, the walkable area of the kitchen, the height of the ceiling....


Mar
6
2006
 0

Off with your windows!


Off with your windows! Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. There went our picture window! She's going right back where she came from, so we sure are glad to see that she survived removal. Took six guys, and I think they were all shocked to see her land in one piece.


Mar
5
2006
 0

Small Mystery Solved


The deadbolt on our front door has been so out-of-whack, the we hadn't been able to lock it from the outside since August. It was a problem that came and went with the humidity, but this time it seemed permanent. With the siding off, you can see what happened. The door facing had sunk about and inch. Either because of the extra...


Mar
4
2006
 0

Off with the siding!


Off with the siding! Part 2 Originally uploaded by cmwoodley. The demolition continues. I think the crew is a little tired of us dropping by every five minutes but stuff is happening! The shutters and doors and various other details have been set aside, and soon the windows will be too. Oh my god, they're going...


Mar
3
2006
 2

Off with the kitchen!


I drove by the house, oh, four or five times today. Each time, I anticipated the destructive aftermath of today's scheduled demolition. Each time, I was disappointed. I was at the low point of a fairly crummy day when David announced that, on his way home from work, he had driven by the house and there was a crew in the midst...


Mar
2
2006
 0

Month One Wrap Up (and Why I Blame the Bush Administration)


Carport and storage - Demolished Piers - Poured Trusses - Delivered That's it. Except for the Trusses, the last two (going on three) weeks have been just waiting. I blame the Bush administration. They pulled money from levee improvement projects. Then New Orleans sank while the president played guitar. Now a good number...


Mar
2
2006
 1

Saucy Dwellings


From Living Room On Originally uploaded by Mattie & Den. Some time ago, I became addicted to the Saucy Dwellings community at LJ. Yesterday's post by pulpattack sent me into convulsions at the end. Ya gotta read it. Lip liner, ha! At one point, I created a sister group over at Flickr for anyone interested....


Mar
1
2006
 3

Business Roll Call


On Valentine's Day, I found myself at Amy's on Burnet getting a bowl of Belgian chocolate to-go for my Valentine. As I was walking back to my car, I noticed a half-built bar on the other side of the building with two brand new shining taps. Boy, do I love living here. So here is a short list of the businesses around here...