So…we’re running pretty behind, but we’re under budget (we’re actually a little over, but it’s because we added a bunch of stuff - all the planned work is in under budget.)  We’re 98% complete - the concrete countertop is being formed right now, and will be in within 10 days.  Other than that, we just need to create the punchlist, run it, blue tape, & clean the exterior.  Here are pics - bear in mind that we don’t have our furniture set up, and it’s not decorated.  Oh - the pomo Snoop Dogg painting is definitely staying.  I put my foot down on that one.

Make sure & click more for more pics…

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The floors are coming in & the spiral staircase is here! The upstairs master bathroom turned out really awesome - the tile is really light in color & looks very clean/sharp. We did 45 degree angled tile on the floors & then brick pattern on the walls & shower - very nice contrast. Here are pics:

Master Bathroom & My Puppy-Mama

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So we’re back rolling!  It seemed like not a lot has happened over the last week, but it has - the texture is all in, and it looks really solid.  They started laying tile in the kitchen & 1/2 bath yesterday.  They’re putting tile in the other 2 bathrooms today.  The cabinetry should be in w/in a week…we’re basically at finish-out, which is the fun part.  Here are a couple pics of the tile…

Both of the kitchen tile…

Half Bath tile…

The drywall is up now & they’ve been mudding since yesterday. Everything came out very nicely - and everything is as big as it looked when it was just framed. The pic’s don’t really do the kitchen or master bathroom justice because the ceilings are low - and it makes them look much smaller than they feel. Here are pics:

The infamous “living room shot”

From behind the bar out into the living room.

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I haven’t updated this in a little over a week…we hit the first speed bump w/ the rails & it set us back a few days. Regardless, they came out AWESOME! I’m really pumped to see how they’ll look when we put the wire in - we’re doing that last so the stainless doesn’t get crap in it. Also, we wrapped the rails in bubble wrap after they were done so that they wouldn’t get dinged up by all the subs. Here are pics:

Finished - living room side.

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Everything is still going smoothly with the remodel. We decided to go ahead & swap out all the original light fixtures with can lighting - which I think is a really smart idea. The old lights were really cool looking, but they burned through light bulbs in about 2 weeks & were a huge pain to change out. The biggest deal we’re working on right now is the railing. Lane is fabricating the railing - I met him a while back when he modified my boat trailer. He does really good work & his pricing is really fair.

Lane Schroeder = 512.299.0209

The railing is now built & Lane is sanding everything down tonight. It’s going to be really killer when it’s done - he’s basically sanding the steel down to almost look like chrome & then spraying a clear coat on it to protect it. Here are pics of the railing being built, and then the built rail.

These top 3 pictures are yesterday.

Here are pics of the fabricated rails.

I went back to my house this afternoon for a walk-through on the electrical, a/c, & framing. The plumbing is 100% done & good (knock on wood.) Everything is coming together fantastically, and we had our 3rd dumpster dropped off, so the job site was very clean. I’ve added in some extra work - can lights, some tiling we weren’t going to do, and a more expensive treatment on the wire railing - and we’re still within budget. We’re also ahead of schedule. I don’t want to get too excited, but it seems like everything is working out extremely well. Collins - my GC - is to thank for everything. He’s been awesome. Here’s his contact info if you’re in Austin, and you need some work:

Collins Johnson - 512.563.4105

Anyways - on to the pictures. Unfortunately, my flash still wasn’t working when I went over there. I fixed it as soon as I got back to the office - it was as simple as resetting the settings. Go figure.

This is the same picture of the living room that I take every time I walk in. As you can see, the job site is much cleaner.

This is the old closet converting to a half-bath. They’ve framed in the storage & moved the door over about 12″ so that you don’t open the door & see a sink. This 1/2 bath makes the living room much more functional.

Here is more master bathroom work. It’s going to be really tough to see how big this is until the framing is up - also, I’ll need to look and find some pics of the old BR so that everyone can see how small it was before.

Here is a really bad picture of the new stairwell. Now that I have my camera fixed, I’ll take more pics of it with the flash the next time I’m over there.

Alright - the two pictures above are what we’re really psyched about. This is a huge master closet that goes all the way to the ceiling & creates a utility closet in the loft for printer/fax/wireless, etc… The old master was HUGE but the new one is BIG & FUNCTIONAL.

As you can see, “functional” is really a big theme with this project. We’re basically taking a 3000s.f. 1970’s mod-house that’s designed with nothing in mind but “party” & turning it into a really cool mod-house that’s still good for entertaining, but much more functional - oh, and updated.

Between now & next Wednesday, we’ll have the railing & the drywall up! I’ll send pics of the drywall when it’s up!

The rehab is moving right along. I went by this morning, and there was something wrong w/ my camera flash so most of the pics didn’t come out. It doesn’t really matter that much, though, because pictures of plumbing & electrical aren’t really worth looking at.

Here’s a pic of the kitchen bar that’s been framed in. You can see to the back & right of it that a lot of other framing work was done. The framing behind the kitchen bar is the master bathroom - it turned out to be pretty huge, which was a very nice surprise. Oh, one other surprise we had was when we demo’ed the half wall on the loft - you can see here that the original builder/architect used a steel I-beam to support the loft. He was pretty serious about this home when he designed it.
Here’s a photo of the front closet. Nothing really much to see here, but the plumbing has been run to convert this to the half bath. Again, plumbing rough isn’t a lot of fun to take pictures of.

So…that’s where we are right now. We’re about 2 days ahead of schedule & slightly under budget. I’m meeting with Lane, the welder, this evening to talk about the loft rail design. He’s going to start fabricating it this week to install next week.

I only have a rendering of what the great room will look like, but the whole house will be the same thematically…

Check out the pics I took today of my house. The demolition started about two days ago, and is almost complete…