After closing on an old house on November 20th, knocking down said old house in early December, and sitting down with the architect for the first time in mid-December, we thought we'd get started somewhere around April. As it turns out, it takes a rather long time to design and get a permit for a house. Especially when the city of Houston decides you need to build a sidewalk. But your neighborhood has no sidewalks.
Our builder, Southland Homes, broke ground on July 1st. As these photos show, they have made remarkable (to us) progress in the last 27 days, especially considering the near daily rains we got in July, and we couldn't be more thrilled. We can't wait to actually live there - after 8 months of "mentally" living in the house, it's so surreal to start to see it come into existence.
December 2012: Demolition
December 2012: Demolition
We wanted to get the old house down as quickly as possible after closing because we knew it would sit empty for a very long time if we didn't, and we were concerned about potential liabilities (silly lawyers).
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| It only took them about 30 minutes to reduce the old house into this pile of rubble |
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| At the lot about a week later during a wet December day |
Then these kids came to visit. My sister is really excited.
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| It's raining and there's not much to see here, mmmk? |
Groundbreaking: July 1
We got the floor plans finalized in May and spent pretty much all of June dealing with permitting issues. Thanks, City of Houston.
They staked all of the locations for our pier and beam foundation's piers and started pouring concrete on July 1st and 2nd. Everything at this stage was completed in mid-July.
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| Staking piers |
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| Pouring the garage slab and continuing the piers |
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| Piers and slab finished, July 14th |
Framing: July 15
They started with floor joists and worked up to the subfloor - I was thrilled to arrive to see this:
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| LUMBER! |
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| View from back yard (the darker boards are the rear porch) |
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| The view from the front of the house |
Neither of us went up to the house for a couple of days, thinking that the sub-flooring would take at least that. Oh were we wrong. I was shocked to find this only two days after the joists were completed:
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| !!! |
The following were taken between July 21st and July 27th.
Entryway:
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| July 22nd: The dining room is to the right; the study, the left |
The Kitchen and Hearth Room:
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| July 22 |
View from the master bedroom into the back yard:
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| July 22 |
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| Kevin taking photos in the evening of July 25 |
My favorite part of the house: the Back Porch:
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| July 26 (ceiling joists complete) |
More progress:
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| Entry stairs on July 26 |
We are hoping to have the house finished some time between mid-February and mid-March. Please come visit - we'll have plenty of room. However, we will not have a 60 ft. strip of sidewalk to nowhere for you to walk on. So sorry.
