Back in October, just as we began our renovation project, I was given information on the provenance of the house. Michael and I are the fourth owners. The original owners were a family by the name of Rhodes; originally from England, they came to Austin by way of Taylor, Texas. Apparently Mrs. Rhodes moved into the house in the 20's after her husband had passed away. Her youngest son, an IRS agent, and her daughter, a stenographer at the Fish and Wildlife Agency, lived with her for many years.   

I can just imagine what a cool place this house must've been for them. Three people living in a 1,500-square-foot house. It was configured differently back then. There was a galley kitchen and a butler's pantry with a pot bellied stove that must've heated the whole house. There was a third bedroom off the kitchen and a screened in porch from there. Our contractor, Bill Moore, helped us piece together the scenario when we were a few weeks into our remodel. He used clues—like the fact there was no central heating vent and round holes for pipes going into the bedrooms—to figure out they used a heating stove. 

I don't know how long Mrs. Rhodes lived in the house, but I do know her oldest son, Buddy was the final owner. There are legends of an 80-year-old Buddy climbing up on the roof every winter to close off the vents. This information I learned from Sonny Rhodes, the grandson of the original owner. We found he had sold the house after Buddy died and located him through a Google search. He still lives in Austin and, as coincidence would have it, has a house 2 blocks from where Michael and I are living during the remodel.

—Michele

Get ready, TOH fans: episodes featuring the Austin green project premiere on PBS this week. See how a newlywed couple updates a 1920s bungalow using environmentally friendly products and building practices.

Check your local listings for time and channel, or just go here to look it up!

To see all the blog posts from Michael and Michele, owners of the Austin project house, click here.

Sam and David stand guard against dirty shoes

Well, we're down to that point. The point of putting the new finish on the floors.  Its a natural oil finish, followed by a wax for shine. Dirt is enemy number one. Simple depression of the human foot on the wood surface (noticable, believe it or not, in the wax) is the other. The floor guys are pretty anal about all of this.

The biggest challenge is that the house must usually be empty to do this. This is because the floors need to be clear of EVERYTHING. This includes relatively small particles of dirt, detritus, and all things normally associated with construction sites. Normally the floor is done with NO ONE else around except the floor guys. They usually "have the house to themselves." That just isn't reality on this job, unfortunately. 

The need for floors also does not coincide with mud produced by 2 weeks of rainy weather. The dirt here is referred to as "black gumbo", mainly because it sticks. And then, it comes off, usually inside the house. Again, this is not compatible with the wishes and desires of the floor guys. 

So, we had to institute a policy: No shoes inside. If you have to wear shoes inside, or if you have the old converse high-top tennis shoes that take forever to lace up everytime you put them on, then you have to wear the clean-room booties when in the house. How to communicate this policy…well, in the most direct way possible, of course. A sign at the doors, carefully scrawled, with the requisite friendliness and veiled threats to be expected. This results in the unusual Japanese-like line of shoes on the front porch, and a bunch of construction guys shuffling around in their socks inside.

Gee, hope I didn't put on the holey ones this morning!

—Michael

Years ago, my house in Arlington, MA, had the nasty habit of leaking profusely when the ground froze and the rain then fell. Many nights in the basement with a wet vac, pumps and Wellies, and oh-so-much stress. To say that "a river ran through it" was an understatement. Moving to Austin, I bought a house on top of a plateau, with the most level lot around, and with a cement slab foundation. Dry as the sand dunes in July.  Ahh.

Well, now we move to Hyde Park. It's a fairly level lot, but here that's not necessarily a good thing. The soil is gumbo, and the water MUST move away. You get the picture of what happens if it doesn't in one of Michele's earlier blog posts. With the recent extremely wet (and, coincidently, icy) weather, we got to see what was needed in terms of landscaping to make sure the water moves away. And I got to dig out the Wellies again, and do some shovelling in the rain. 

I don't know what makes landscapers think that inpermeable walls are a good thing, but we had some in the back, and they conspired to create "Lake ThisOldHouse" during the big rains. We will have to make sure that water is carried away from the house with the landscaping. The plastic skirt that Bill has installed will help with that, and we should get some BIG help with the rainwater collection system—a 1500 gallon cistern that collects the water from our roof (through the eavestroughs and plumbing) and stores it to be distributed by the drip irrigation system. This is a must for a climate where most all of the precipitation occurs in short, heavy bursts, followed by days of 100+ weather.

In this case, the cistern water will be distributed over time to the plants in the landscape. Couple that practice with plants that do not require a lot of water in the first place—natives and "adapted" plants (those that have been adapted to the climate here, but weren't here originally) and my hope is that the majority of our yard irrigation will be provided by mother nature's contribution to our lot, rather than the city's piping through the street, from the reservoir. This should reduce our water bill as well, of course. 

And the river will run through it (the yard, that is), but SLOWLY, via a drip system that reduces evaporation and provides small, constant moisture to the plants. They like that. We will even run the drip system up to the deck coming off of the master bedroom, and capture any runoff from the planters there as well, closing the water-recycling loop.  The rainwater/drip system acts like a capacitor in the system, storing and then slowly releasing the precious water, distributing the release over time when mother nature doesn't. Coupled with a clever and careful landscape design, hopefully the river will contribute to the lushness and greenery of the garden, and not to the buoyancy of the house!

—Michael

Well, it's happened. The first major-ish redo of the project. I think....

The Icestone tub surround was installed, and it was all we expected and more—beautiful cobalt blue glass shards embedded in a creamy white terrazzo composition. Michele and I had the same vision—the Icestone would be the focal point of the new upstairs bathroom. That would mean white tile, painted cabinets (off-white) with the dominating color being the blues of the Icestone. We chose tile made—by hand—from recycled materials. That meant bigger gaps between the tiles to accommodate the irregularities of sizes and edges, which in turn implied bigger gaps between the tiles.  Challenge #1.

Challenge#2 was choice of grout color. Without thinking too much about it, we chose a gray grout, because the whitest of choices was actually a bit yellow—a definite clash. gray goes with blue, right?

Challenge #3: We used subway tile—3x6—arranged in a "brick" fashion with every other row offset by 3" from the ones above and below it. Put it all together, and you get something that looks like a brick wall. With gray cement between the white bricks. And a pretty harsh clash and distraction from our beautiful Icestone. Enter the large, very audible sigh. What could we do? 

Remove the grout, and find one that blended with the tiles, of course. Of course grout isn't meant to be removed, and a Dremel tool would be required. And a lot of hand work. Tedious hand work. With a steady hand so as to avoid chipping the tile. 

And then wherefore the right color grout? The whitest epoxy grout is light yellow for some reason. The solution came from Home Depot—a non-epoxy sand grout. White as the tile. Yee-haw. Our tile guy—a consummate professional and perfectionist—gave it his ok, and so we went for it. 

The result? Let's just say "and there was great rejoicing." Now we hope that this is our only big re-do. Knock on long-leaf pine.

—Michael

Contractor Bill Moore and his crew trying to deal with how to lower the front facade
(Photo by Joey Shebesta)

A pier-and-beam house in this part of Austin is a living being. It breathes (the windows weren't exactly winterproof), it groans (in a few spots where the boards were creaky) and yes, it moves. Not a lot mind you, but the house can shift a bit if a long spell of dry weather is followed by more than average rainfall. When this occurs and the drainage isn't good the earth contracts, pushing up the piers and the parts of the house rise in response. 

When we started the project, Bill tells me, the front door was a full 4 inches higher than the back door. I didn't really notice because of the substantial distance between the two doors, but suffice to say I couldn't have held a marble tournament in the living room with certainty. We did have several cracks in the Sheetrock because of movement, but I had begun to look at them as features rather than flaws. 

Fast forward to the remodel. Several weeks spent adding new piers, leveling out the old, rehanging Sheetrock and redoing the mantle over the fireplace because it had been done after the house had already begun to settle and was 5/8" out of plane. And then, the big rain. And no gutters in place.  And some water didn't cooperate. And the house moved. The fireplace rose up in protest and it'll slowly go back down over the course of the next year. 

To protect against any more rain before gutters are installed, the crew has created a lean-to structure over the front porch. The gutters go in soon and we'll be installing a French drain to move water away from the house to avoid this problem in the future. But I had thought we'd be all squared out from day one, and the fact of the matter is that the houses in this part of Austin have a life of their own.   

—Michele

I love the plum. The house down the street is grey-green with plum details. It's beautiful. 

Carol and Michele were working on the colors for the house and I came in late. The screen color had been chosen—a bright red. The plum was reserved for the door only. But it looked good. The red looked good too, although a bit fire-enginish. The plum was the bee's knees. Still, if Carol and Michele were happy with the red, I was fine with it. Go with it, I said. It is my gift to you, I thought.

Tonight, in a lamentful mood, I sigh, "There's this house that's green with plum details down the street. It looks really good. But we've chosen red for our screens. Why?"

Michele's reply: "I thought YOU liked the red. I LOVE the plum!"

"I thought you and Carol picked out the red, and I just decided to go with it. I LOVE the plum too."

We gave each other the red screens. Neither of us wanted red screens. 

And so, in this Christmas season, in this town that O.Henry once called home, we have the modern house-renovation version of "The Gift of the Magi." Sort of. 

Director David Vos reviews the lighting options with host Kevin O'Connor and lighting designer Mark Loeffler (photo by Kenny Braun)

Lighting is becoming much more efficient. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are solid state electronic devices that emit photons as they conduct electricity. They do so with great and growing efficiency—so much so that they are beginning to rival the output of common lightbulbs.

The difference?  They draw much less current for the photons that they emit.  They also generate much less heat than an incandescent source, which produces light by heating a filament until it is white hot.  The result is doubly-green:  less current draw (less electricity burned) and less heat produced, thus reduced cooling costs for the house lit by LEDs.

They even draw less current than compact fluorescents and do not include heavy metal, such as mercury, or environmentally-damaging phosphors in their manufacture.  Finally (perhaps the best bonus) the lifetimes of LEDs are around 50,000 hours—at least 6 times compact fluorescent, and 12 to 25 times that of incandescents. This is the lighting solution of the future. 

The downside is that at the moment the brightness of LED lighting is just getting to tolerable levels to be used practically.  AT THE MOMENT.  This will change, and the cost will drop.  Meanwhile, we have found a great source of linear LED sources that can be used for ambient soft lighting and accent lighting. Mark Loeffler, our lighting designer introduced us to these fixtures, consisting of a line of white LEDs, driven by a 24 volt source.  The light stick is 1/2 x 1/2 inch in cross section, allowing it to be hidden behind moldings.

Because LEDs generate so little heat, and because they have such long life, they can be put in spaces that are difficult to access.  We should never have to replace these!  I'd like the house to have a complete 24-volt circuit run into every room, but this won't be practical, since each element needs to be attached to its own small transformer for code reasons.  Still, there will be a day when all houses have a low-voltage circuit for light generation, using LEDs.

—Michael

It seemed like it would be easy to pick colors for the exterior of the house.  After all, you just pull a bunch of paint chips and select the ones you like. Ah, how naive.

Michael wants a color that doesn't make too much of a statement. We want to stay with historic colors, but not trade off on the playful factor. I wanted a purple door. Carol, our color consultant, is there to make sure that whatever we do will complement the metal roof. And you want to be sensitive to house's self image—last thing you want is for the house to say "does this color scheme make me look fat?"

So we pick green as a starting point. Green—my favorite color from childhood. But quel green? (Sorry about that, we just watched Breakfast At Tiffany's this week and I picked that up from Audrey.)

Taking into account all of our parameters, we find a pretty green with yellow undertones for the body color. Pair it with a handsome red for the wood screens and a plum color for the door. Sounds great.  Paint it on the house to see for sure. The red is too soft. Look at it with a second coat. The green is too sweet. A second trip to the paint store. Now the red is just right. 

More paint chips, more decisions. How about a new body color? We're leaning towards a mustard right now. It's a little bold. Maybe too Goldilocks?

—Michele

Reuse, repurpose, recycle. So many things from this house are being ripped out and stacked in the front yard, back yard, and in the bin. 

There are two water heaters (only one came from this house—where'd the other come from?), a washer, dryer, door, and kitchen sink in the front. Add a refrigerator and a rusted-out car and we could make an installation art piece with found objects. Fact is that all of this will go to a new home somewhere. Makes the mess bearable for the time being.

We're also salvaging all the long leaf pine from the rafters and walls. Much of it is being reused in the upstairs construction and to patch the siding on the first floor. And we still have a pile of odds and ends of the pine stacked in the backyard—a stack as tall as I am. We're hoping to use some of it to face the treads on the stairs.

And in the bin on the side of the house is old copper piping, pieces of wood, nails and other scraps. Best thing, I'm told the disposal service will sort through it all and mulch the wood and recycle whatever can be reclaimed. What a service. It takes Dumpster diving to an art form. Glad I don't have to sort through all of this—but to know it will be done feels really good.

—Michele