Deforestation

In honor of the recent Earth Day celebrations, I thought the next post should chronicle all the trees we had removed from the front yard.

BEFORE

Need I say AFTER?  The bizarre little tree in the bottom left corner of this picture has now been removed as well.

Don't worry, when the renovation is complete AND assuming we have money left over for landscaping, we will be planting many replacement trees.  The 101-year-old trees were kind of a nuisance since they hadn't been trimmed in as long!

This is what people mean when they say "tearing it to the studs"

It took more truckloads than I can recall to haul off everything we took out of the house.  We will spare you the demo in progress pictures and go straight to the studs...

The hole under the stairs is the path to the "basement," which is a term I use loosely.

We're hoping to put a piano underneath that stain glass window.

Living Room

View from Living Room to Dining Room

View from Kitchen to Front Door

Utility Room

Other view of Utility Room.  Door to Backyard on the left.

The Master Shower will be in the blank space above these windows on the landing of the stairs.

View from what will be the Master Bath to the Master Bedroom.

View from Master Bedroom to Master Bathroom.

Looks so small without walls...

This is was the yellow tiled bathroom we are calling "Hattie's Bathroom"

FAQs

Since we launched this blog about a week ago (now the most viewed renovation blog featuring a home located on the 600 block of NW 16th Street in Mesta Park), we have received numerous questions concerning various details of the project.  Here are the answers to your burning questions:

1.  How long will the project take?

ANSWER: We hope to move in by late Summer or early Fall.  Keri is assuming it will be Thanksgiving...

2.  Where are you living?

ANSWER: This question correctly assumes two things: (1) we are not living in the Mesta Prairie and (2) I am too cheap to pay the mortgage on our old house and the construction loan at the same time.  We are living with my (Reagan) parents in Edmond.  They have a big house so we don't end up stepping on too many toes.  We have pretty much invaded and taken over the upstairs, which is an upgrade from our old house: we went from a 2 bed, 1 bath, to my parents' upstairs, which is 4 bed, 2 bath.  Not bad.  Plus, no bills!

3.  What are the specs of the house and/or are you changing the layout?

ANSWER: The house was originally 4 bed, 1 bath as constructed in 1910.  That's why they call them Prairie Four Squares: four bedrooms in each corner.  We are taking the two front bedrooms and turning them into a master bedroom and bathroom.  We will actually lose a room, but gain a walk in closet and a large (relatively speaking) bathroom.  The rest of the house is pretty much staying the same from a layout perspective.  In all, the house is about 2,100 square feet.  There was a small addition on the back of the house, we think in the 1950s based upon the old newspapers stuffed in the walls, that will serve as our utility/mud room that also features the downstairs guest bathroom.

4.  Where will Hattie Mae go to school?

ANSWER: We are a long way from answering that question, even though we talk about it nearly everyday, but we are thinking there are some very attractive public school choices in the area, most likely Wilson Elementary.  There is also talk of a charter elementary school in downtown OKC, which I understand will be the last of the Maps for Kids projects to be completed.  We will see how that develops too.

Demo pictures coming soon...

DIYers? More Like PSETDI (pay someone else to do it)!

My attempt at being a DIY (do-it-yourself) homeowner was short lived.  At our first house (built in 1933), I went to Lowe's to get a new shower faucet with the hopes of taking care of the minor fix myself.  I repeatedly asked the manager if I needed to "shut the water off" (not that I even knew how to do that), and he repeatedly laughed at the question and told me, "no, I've done this a thousand times."  When I went back to Lowe's an hour later, soaking wet from the water that sprayed all over me as I removed the knob, I knew my place in the home improvement world: work hard at my job, so that other people who know what they are doing can fix my house.

With that said, we will be doing nothing more than picking out fixtures and paint colors with this project!  Don't kid yourself, I stop by the house every day and talk with the contractors and nod my head as if I know what they are saying, and truly I am learning, but not enough to jump in there and do anything myself.

The general contractor for our job is Jeff Witt, owner of Witt Construction.  We stumbled upon Jeff by falling in love with two recent renovations in Mesta Park and Heritage Hills.  We thought we would be comfortable taking on a project like this if only we could find a contractor like the ones that had done these two homes.  Little did we know at the time that it was the same person who did both, Jeff Witt.  We figured it out, and I called him blind, and, as they say, the rest is history.  The homeowners of the two houses placed him on the path to sainthood, so I figured he must be our guy!

Check out the before and after of the two homes that Jeff previously renovated:

Mesta Park Before

Mesta Park After

Heritage Hills Before

Heritage Hills After

We think we are in great hands and hope our before and afters are half as good as these!

In the Beginning...

For quite some time, we have dreamed of tearing a historical home to the studs and remodeling it just the way we want it.  Problem was, someone has always been willing to pay too much for houses on the market to allow us to do a renovation the way we want to.  Through some contacts (our new neighbors!) we were able to snag a house in THE best historical neighborhood in OKC, Mesta Park.  Great part is, the prior owner wanted to contribute to the revitalization of Mesta Park and sold it to us at a price that would allow us (enter constantly thinking about the budget, even in my sleep…) to renovate the house the right way.  We are starting this blog to keep our family and friends in the loop about our progress (or lack thereof) and to keep a record of our project.

Here are some pics of our blank canvas, although, it's really more of a tattered uninhabitable canvas:

The trees are definitely staying, the urban jungle look is one we've often admired, wait, never mind.

Yes, Hattie is that small...

You might have thought the wood on the walls here was flown in from Brazil, but it is, in fact, wood paneling.

I'm pretty sure a tennis ball would roll from right to left across this picture...

We love this back route to the kitchen from upstairs.

The laundry room off the kitchen should be nice considering our last house had the washer/dryer IN the kitchen.

Again, turns out the wood is just fake paneling...believe it or not this room will be converted into our master bath.

The door on the right will be walled off and the passthrough door will be the path from master bath to bedroom.

These master bedroom windows won't allow much sleeping in...

Hattie cautiously checking out her new room.

The yellow tile and the wallpaper will be gone.

To be created child's room...

I don't think that being able to see the sky through the roof is a good thing.

We have our work, or at least our pocketbooks, cut out for us!