Our first home has been somewhat of a challenge for us. The hard work can be assumed--the debates between what looks best at Home Depot and was within our budget were a different story. Many couples do not survive building and remodeling homes, and we were told this after the fact, as there is so much that pours into the house to keep yourself not to mention your partner in step with the project can be a rough road to go down, and once you start down that road, you have to keep going until you are either done, or threw. Fortunately, we completed the house for the most part, with just little things that need to be completed now. The house has been livable since December 24, 2002, we were clear to move in December 28^th and two weeks later and we were piling furniture into this place.

The house is very modest, located in Cedar Hill Texas. It's a three-bedroom house, with very small bedrooms. The house has been in my family since 1976, when my father Royce bought it off the courtroom steps at repossession at that time. He turned it into a rent house from that point, and it wasn't until 1983 when my brother Ronnie moved in. He completely redid the floors, paint and ceilings at that time, to bring the house up to the styles of the 1980's. He lived here with his family for many years until he bought a house near Red Oak. The house was turned back over to renters, most of which practically destroyed the house in almost every way imaginable. Then my niece Candi and my new nephew-in-law Adam decided to move into the house three years ago. They tried their best to bring the house back up par, as it had many holes punched through the walls and ceiling, the floors were totally messed up, and the exterior was runned down. They painted the outside, and made many small repairs to hold the house. They almost purchased the house from me a couple of years ago, but found a better, larger home for their two kids in Palmer Texas, so Kay and I decided to take a spin at bringing up the place. We totally gutted the house down to bare everything, leaving merely the sheet rock and electrical systems in place. Virtually everything else has been replaced. Our worse mistake was the amount of time to complete the project. We were projecting a good month any ways to take care of the major work, which is obtainable if you do not all ready have another full-time job that has extended outside job duties between the 8-5.

Kay and I would offend meet here in the evenings, and then start a long hard weekend from dawn to dust Saturday and Sunday for three solid months to take care of the major work. And that was with Mikel and Denise helping out, Mikel sometimes pushing himself more than we could to get this project completed in the way of hanging doorframes and carpentry work in the kitchen. It was his idea to refit the kitchen doors with Wayne Coat, or beaded board, to avoid having to purchase a whole brand new kitchen.

So this is what we started out with:

These are the exterior views. The house still pretty much looks the same on the outside. Kay has a lot of garden ideas that she wants to try, so the outside is a work in progress still, and will likely be for a good year to come…

Going forward, we start into the house. The next view is the living room and dining room. The bright orange wall connects both rooms, and the doorway goes into the garage. Proceeding to the dining room gives you the sliding door to the backyard. Now it looks worse with the way we have the curtail dangling, but it was time for an update in these rooms nonetheless.

Denise couldn't stand the orange wall, and had it painted pretty quick with white primer paint. A special tool that was mainly designed to remove roots when digging in the ground removed the carpets and vinyl tile under the carpet very quickly. It was flat and heavy, so it was great for ripping glued tile from the concrete floors. Kay is using this tool in the next left picture. Also is a picture just after we removed the older appliances. It took several weeks to remove all the tile, and the dust that it picked up was often choking to breathe.

We had started this project in late August after getting back from Canada. It was still pretty hot outside, and although we had a good functional air conditioner, we typically did not use it, because of all the dust and debris that was all over the floors. There were times when you could feel a heat stroke feeling coming after removing a section of vinyl tile, or one of the many gutting activities that we were working on.

Moving further into the house, these two next rooms are the front bedrooms. In order as they are on the hallway. They are roughly about the same size, except that the first bedroom has a double closet door (in view on the left wall, left picture).

For some odd reason, getting the tile off the floor in the bedrooms were more laborious than any other room. The only other room that was any more difficult was the bathroom, because not only did it have tile, but a layer of lanioum down as well.