The You're-Not-Welcome-Here Wagon

As some of you noticed, I haven't posted an update in a few weeks.  This house renovation project has been somewhat trying on both Chris and I, not because we cannot agree on choices and designs (we have very similar taste),  not because things aren't going as planned (surprisingly going well on that front), but because our neighbors have been less than friendly and welcoming and some have been downright hateful and mean.

Our neighbors to the left are a mid-30 something couple with 2 children.  They moved in and renovated their house about 2 years ago, converting the garage into 2 bedrooms for their children and they chose to be garage-less for the time being.  Between our two houses there was about 50 feet of wooded area, all of which is our property.  Chris and I spent hours and hours deciding how we were going to situate the garage on our property while leaving the backyard in tact.  Keep in mind the backyard is what sold me on the house... Anyway, the area between our 2 properties ended up being Chris's new garage/shop site.  Let the drama begin...

Our not-so-friendly neighbors decided Labor Day weekend to go door to door, literally to all 50 of our neighbors petitioning against our white trash beer barn that we kids wanted to build in their neighborhood.  He went to the trouble to search online for our garage permit, review it and note that it was made of metal (yes, a metal garage, however we always planned to brick over it which was done about a week after it went up) but of course he left that part of the plan out of his petition.  He managed to get about 30 signatures, and it seems the ones that didn't sign simply weren't home.  Please keep in mind that there are THIRTEEN other homes in our neighborhood with detached garages similar to ours, most of which signed the petition.  I can only imagine what kind of first impression all of our new neighbors have of us now.  It gets worse...

Before the garage construction started we were served, yes served, with a cease and desist order by one of our other neighbors based on what Mr. Petition went around telling everyone, that we were putting up a metal white trash beer barn in their neighborhood.  Chris and I left our vacation a day early to come home and smooth things over.  After about an hour long chat, the neighbors threatening to sue us were completely on board with our bricked garage and were obviously misinformed.  Of course, another black mark on our reputation months before we ever move in.

A couple of days later Chris and I were working in the front yard when all of a sudden Mrs. Petition starts chatting up another neighbor telling her quite loudly what trash we are, both Chris and I, for putting up this garage for his trashy truck.  I'm totally lost on where they get off calling us trash... I went to quite a prestigious university, as well as my husband and we're both successful working professionals.  And that's our 3rd car.  Trash?  I think not.

And then there's Mrs. M, an older retired lady who lives down the street.  I stopped by the house one morning and she was standing in front of the garage flailing her arms explaining to another neighbor what an appalling site this garage is and of course she says the same to me as I walk up to say hello.

The latest incident is the most disturbing if that's even possible.  Chris and I were spending last Friday evening epoxying his new garage floors until about 2am.  Around 6:30pm Mr. M pulls up to our house and rolls down his window.  I, having never met him before and not knowing who he was, wrongfully assumed he was just a nice neighbor saying hello and wanting to meet us.  Boy was I wrong... I walk up to his car and the first thing he says is this, 'Are you the white trash putting this thing up in our neighborhood?!' and I just stare at him, in shock as he continues to yell at me telling me what trash I am.  As I walk away he says to me this, 'You listen here b*tch, you're not going to like living in this neighborhood, I guarantee it!!' which at this point Chris walks up realizing this isn't some neighbor saying hello to me and in short, tells the man that his actions are incredibly inappropriate and he needed to leave.  So he drives off, and pulls into his driveway 4 houses down.  Awesome.
I did call the police on him and submit a police report because as far as we're concerned that was blatant harassment and borderline assault.

Oh, one more... Chris and his dad were replacing the fence that we recently torn down around the pool (it was literally falling down...) after we were issued the permit to do so.  Well the neighbor behind us, whom we've never met before, walked out and told us that his wife made him come out there to tell us that the fence needs to be moved back a foot.  So what she'd done is pull our survey offline, pulled our permit papers, and determined that the old fence was a foot off the build line which by the way has no bearing on the division between our two properties, and made us move it.  MOVE it.  As in Chris and his dad had already set the post.

The worst part about all of this is the defamation and irreversible damage that has been done to our reputation in this neighborhood based on lies and hatefulness.  I understand that the majority of the neighborhood is older couples, most with children grown and out of the house who aren't big on change, but change is inevitable.  Be happy for us people!!  We're improving your neighborhood!!!

I'll post a real house update later today with pictures, just bringing everyone up to speed on the delay.

We Have Walls!

It's true!  The walls were completed yesterday and it's feeling more like a real house on the inside!  Here's a sneak peak!  (My apologies for the poor photo quality... not sure what was going on there because some turned out just fine!)

Main Living Area

Looking into the Kitchen from the Foyer

 Looking into the Kitchen from the Living Area

 Looking into the Hallway that Leads to the Master

The Master Bedroom

(our tub's in that box and that's a see through fireplace to the tub area in the bathroom!) 

(that door walks out to the pool area)

Master Bathroom

Looking at Chris's vanity from my vanity and that doorway goes to his closet

Looking at my vanity from his :)

That's all for now!!  It's all coming together!!!

A Whole New Front!

Onto happy things!!  Let's see what's been going on in the front yard...

We removed the old sidewalk and added a new one with a twist!

 We wanted to add some character to the walkway since we were tearing out to old one so we put a circular walkway at the bend and ultimately will have a fountain or some sort of decorative something in the middle.  It looks really good!

Here's a view of the finished concrete

And if you cannot tell from the photo above we poured the porch too!

And as of yesterday they were working on adding the cover

So I'll have to update you once that's done in just a couple of days!  Yay!  I'm SUPER excited about this part!!!


Now we're just deciding on what door we want.  I like this one!

(without those little rivets)

But instead of the middle part doing this

But Chris really like this next one...

(conceptually, we'd choose a different iron pattern)

We're still discussing it.  I think it really depends on the overall theme of the outside.

Here are our two latest choices...

You may recognize this building, it's my condo building from college!  Chris and I both really like the color scheme.

But my only concern is the cedar posts so I'm thinking may be this...

With a darker gray paint color on the house/brick (here it almost looks tan). 

I'm hoping that the cedar looks good with the gray and white color scheme above but we'll see!!

Let's Talk About the Garage...

It's been a little while since I last posted and a lot has happened on the garage front.  We've poured the concrete...

During

After

And built the garage...

But now our new neighbors are being super mean and I feel like doing this:

As if we've committed some personal injustice towards them.

When in fact we've added nice doors

And fancy strapping's...

And ultimately plan to do something like this if it matches our overall color scheme...

Oh, and did you see all that brick up there in front of the garage?  We're bricking the building too.

Most of you who know me know that I'm a very positive person and Chris and I incredibly nice people.  We're great friends with our current neighbors and are actually very sad to be leaving them.  I was hopeful to come into this new neighborhood and have more great relationships but instead, we've been welcomed with a Cease and Desist (which has since been dropped because they realized we were bricking it) and neighbors (one in particular) telling other neighbors what trash we are and how they cannot believe we've built a beer barn next to our house (beer barn?  not a bad idea, maybe we'll add a keg :)  ).  We made certain that we followed our city's code exactly and have the permits to prove it, we've done nothing wrong but are being treated as if we've personally offended several neighbors.  It's very frustrating!

My only solace is the fact that Chris and I are building our dream home and he's getting his dream garage where he can work on Betty, learn woodworking, and just have a man cave for his own personal space.

Who wouldn't want THIS for their husband?

I mean yea, it's a little over the top but pretty cool too.

I've decided not to stoop to my neighbors level and retaliate, instead I've just been trying to be as nice as can be and hope that eventually they'll see that we've done all we can to make it look like an extension of our home.

Positive attitude positive attitude positive attitude...

Time for an Update!

Lots has happened in the past couple of weeks!  We've poured in the concrete to level the master and the living room, the master outside wall extension has been completed and closed in, all of the doors have been set, the garage footing is done, and we've torn down the wall in front of the house!  Whew... that was a lot.  Here are the photos!

 Front Porch

 Remember this?

Check it out...

It's GONE!

Here's what our architect drew up for us...

We're adding a double gable, the smaller one to the left being above the front door.  We're also replacing the walkway, that's why it's gone.

Will post progress on this soon!

The Master

Here they are pouring concrete into the master bedroom.

Another view.  I'd never seen this done before!  So cool.

Here's a photo after it dried.

And from the outside.

I thought this was fun...

I felt like a crazy person taking all these photos while they were working but hopefully they're used to it from other crazy owners...

The finished out wall!!

I LOVE it!!  I so wish we could keep the ceiling open like that too.. but no, it's getting roofed.  Also, just an FYI, we're adding an 8 foot fence back there... no the neighbors wont be able to see into our master :) weird!

Living Room

Before...

Still wet...

Finally let there be light!  Our doors :)

I thought I took photos of the garage area but apparently I did not... I'm heading over there later today so should have those up soon!  It's really coming along!

Whoops - Sorry for the Temporary Address Change!

Last night I thought it would be a good idea to update my blog name to Texans Forever in an effort to mitigate the cheese-factor... Then I realized this morning when a friend asked where my blog was that it wouldn't redirect any of you to the new site so it's changed back now!  Sorry for the confusion, won't happen again!

Onto newer fun things :) I'm headed out later to get more crafty stuff!  Will post back soon!

I'm Crafty!

You may not know this about me but I seem to always have this itch to be doing something... Maybe that's why we've moved 4 times in the last 3 years... I digress... By the the way, this house is IT for us!  Anywho - since we're still in the pre-finish out stage of the house and there's nothing I can do to speed the process along, I've decided to move in another direction to keep my mind occupied :)

Lately I've been really wanting to make things, really just product of wanting super nice things but being too cheap to buy them.  I've never been very crafty but I've found just after completing my first two projects that I LOVE making things!!  I truly enjoy every part - deciding what to make, what goes together, making it, and of course enjoying the end product!  I made two things tonight and am just super proud of them!  So much so that I'm going to share them with you :)

Floral Arrangement

Please keep in mind that this is my first attempt ever doing anything like this... Here it goes!!

As silly as it sounds, the sense of accomplishment I got from creating just this simple floral arrangement was huge!!  I absolutely loved it and I cannot wait to make more fun house things!!  I painted the pot, added the rope and arranged the flowers... Go me!!

Hurricane

I made this guy too... Added the rope to the bottom and put in the candle.  It's amazing what little changes will do to decor!!

It may not look like much right now, but I really feel I'm embarking on a new fun hobby!!!

The Great Wall...

Is coming down!

Remember this?

Yea, I'm talkin' about that great big wall in front of the house.

After much deliberation we've decided to take it down.  Originally I thought it added character to the house and would be a terrible decision to move it because what's behind it is nothing special.  WRONG!

Here's our inspiration photo...

Once the wall is removed the house will just have a plain flat front.  Our plan is to add a large porch, the size of the area that the wall surrounds now, and then cover it with 2 gables and add columns, just like the photo above!  I'm SUPER excited about this, I can already see us sipping our morning coffee on the front porch in our rockers.


And then ultimately we'll paint all of the brick and add shutters.  The colors will be much like the house below.

More to come!!!

PROGRESS!!! And a Short Feature Film.

Short Feature Film

This is a video I took walking through the house right after we closed on it.  Hopefully it will help you visualize the changes in the pictures below.

(Coming Soon!!!  Need to figure out how to get it off my iphone...)

Demo Progress

This picture was taken from the master bathroom walkway.  You'll also notice that this originally was the garage... yes that garage door is going away soon :)

The opening at the top is a framed in window that will go across the top of our bed.  That door to the left is a door out to the patio and pool area.  The garage door will go away and the master bedroom will be extended outward about 3 feet.  There will be a window on each side and french doors walking out to the future private patio area.  That's a LONG way away, but we're preparing!

This picture was taken inside the master bathroom facing my vanity area.  That opening in the middle is the doorway to my closet and you'll see the 2 tires (not sure what they are doing in the house...) which should give you a good idea of the end wall of my closet.  My closet used to be the old kitchen, crazy huh?!

This one is a little hard to tell... but you're looking right at the 2 person shower.  It's 5 feet by something... A rectangle.  This will be a better picture with sheet rock up!

This is the hubs vanity area.  The framed doorway is actually getting moved all the way to the right.  So where the doorway is will be his vanity area.  And to the left of the vanity area will be the corner tub and in front of that is the see through fireplace to the master.  Totally easy to see, right?!

This is the new hallway!  Standing in the living room looking down the hallway into the master.  To the left is the kitchen and to the right is the pantry opening.

THE NEW KITCHEN!!!  This used to be one of the bedrooms in this house.  Works much better as a kitchen if you ask me!  Those wood floors are coming out too.

Here's the only window in the kitchen right now.  There will be 2 more, one on each side overlooking the pool area!!  Here's the look we're going for...

LOVE the wall of windows concept!!  So open and pretty!

This one is a little hard to see too... Right now you're standing in the kitchen, looking through a hallway opening into the walk in pantry.  I'd explain more but I don't think it will do any good :-(

Here's a view standing in the foyer looking to your left.  It's my office!!!  French doors will go in that opening.

And if you turn to your right in the foyer, this is the dining area.

And if you keep walking straight through the foyer and turn left you'll see this.  It's the hallway to the other side of the house with the other 3 bedrooms and the game room.

And if you were to walk through that hallway you'd dead end and have to turn left into THIS hallway.  All the way down the hall is the game room, to the right is the guest room and to the left is the workout room.

Like I said, to the right was the guest room.  Here's the guest room complete with a patio view!

Here's the workout room.  Nothing special... Just an extra bedroom really.

The future nursery :) NO we're not pregnant, yes I have already decided it's location.

When you walk into the game room this is what you will see.  You've got a small hallway with a cabinet, and then to the left is the laundry room and to the right is a bathroom.  The new door to the new garage will be through that utility room.  And there will be a door out the bathroom to the patio and pool area.

Another view in the game room.

Garage Area

Standing in the front of the house near where the driveway will go.

From the side, this is actually where the driveway will be.

And finally a view of where the garage will be from the backyard.  You actually won't be able to see the garage while being in the main area of the backyard (YAY!!)= was one of my requirements :)