*some assembly required

New project in Zilker

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:20:00 +0000

Here's a cool new project we're just starting in the Zilker neighborhood. We're rearranging the existing first floor to get the kitchen out of the middle of the house and connect it to the back yard, then adding a second floor master suite plus two bedrooms and a bath. We're giving up some of the conditioned area on the first floor to create a screened porch that will make the house live bigger and really connects the living spaces to the great backyard.

"Before"- the 70's addition that cut the house off from the back yard

The feature that adds the most bang for the buck might be the the new stairwell, which creates not one, but TWO new spaces that will help the house live large for a young family. At the bottom of the stairs, there's a great little nook for an office, and at the landing, a beautiful window seat for reading, napping, or even a spot for that extra overnight guest during SXSW.

The kitchen is pretty cool, too. The existing kitchen got buried by an addition in the 70's. We're moving the kitchen to the back of the house to re-connect to the yard.

There are a zillion old homes in Austin that got "remuddled" like this, and we're putting them back to right, one house at a time.

Virtual... Reality!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

Rendering...

Finished!!- just waiting for some rain to perk up the landscaping

We put lots of energy into modeling every detail of our projects so we don't run into surprises during construction. The final result on Sinclair Avenue in Rosedale looks pretty darned close to our pre-construction design model. We owe a lof of the credit to builder Warren Spain for turning our concept into a reality.

Check out Warren's Facebook photo album of photos taken during construction of this project for more of the story, including the amazing concrete and steel foundation designed by Jerry Garcia of Structures.

Apparently, the City of Austin thinks our work is iconic

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:38:00 +0000

We were watching the news the other night and saw a story about the launch of the brand-new website for the City of Austin. To our surprise and delight, when the website appeared on the TV screen, our Chestnut Commons project was front and center! The image is one of three images of Austin that you see when you first arrive at austintexas.gov . Here's a snip from the site:

City of Austin's new website, featuring a nice photo of Chestnut Commons

It's a nice little shout-out to us and our visionary clients at Momark Development and a good way to end a wonderful 2011. Happy New Year, y'all.

South Third St. project nearly ready!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:12:00 +0000

Took this snapshot today with my phone (carefully cropping out the bare dirt, port-a-potty, lumber, etc.) to give you a peek at our S. 3rd St. project as it nears completion. Below you can see our design model, which is remarkably close to the real deal.

Here's the "before" photo...

Our clients will move back into the house in a couple of weeks, so we'll have more photos soon!

Do over!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:54:00 +0000

Proposed kitchen viewed from the back door

View from the entry to the kitchen

We see it all the time: additions to Central Austin homes that ended up more of a liability than an asset. This house in Rosedale was a perfect example. A previous owner of this wonderful little stone cottage had tacked on a "master suite" to the back of the house that robbed the home of its connection to the amazing back yard. The result was a room that never really worked as a bedroom or anything else useful (it ended up being used more as a mudroom/study/storage space). This is one of the most common problems we encounter, as so many additions go on the back of houses, creating a "buried" kitchen and stealing the daylight and access to the back yard that's so vital to a home.

There's a different solution every time, but in this case we opted for a really dramatic change. We're converting the unusable master bedroom into a cool new kitchen and splitting the former kitchen area into dining and bedroom areas to make it all right again.

In the renderings above, you can see the proposed kitchen. It's loose and airy, really functional AND very inexpensive to build. It's set up to allow the base cabinets to be anything from "freecycled" Craigslist finds to Home Depot utility cabinets. We're also ripping out a storage loft that blocks the view to the wall of windows along the back wall of the house (yes, they're all existing) and opening up the vaulted ceiling to add light and space to the room. We'll also expose the original stone wall between the house and addition. Because the kitchen is so loose and simple, the materials, colors, surfaces can go in any direction our clients choose. It's a great example of a kitchen that "fits like a mitten"- it will look like it's been there a while right from the start, and it can evolve as time goes on.

It's going to be a great kitchen on its own, but the solution it offers to the rest of the house will be truly life-changing for our clients.

Wait till you see what we're going to do with their old garage!! Stay tuned...

Whole-house remodel in Allandale

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Coming soon! The house stays true to its roots, but gets an update for a 21st century family.

"Before"- your basic early '60s Allandale house

There's no need to call FEMA, it just looks like it's been hit by a tornado...

This tired old house on West Terrace in Allandale was really overdue for a makeover to get it ready for its next 50 years. Over the next few months, builder Warren Spain will transform the house to match the rendering above.

Inside, we're rearranging a huge percentage of the interior walls to make the living spaces bigger and brighter. The master suite will move from the second floor to the first, the kitchen will be re-built from scratch, and we'll add a new screened porch to the back. On the second floor, we're turning what used to be a rental apartment into 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a play room for the kids. We're adding only a few square feet to the conditioned area of the house (the family room will steal some space from the garage), but the whole house is going to feel much larger and less "chopped up".

Out front, we're getting rid of the cheesy gambrel roof over the garage and adding a nice new porch. The whole idea is to respect the context and create an updated home that will look and feel like it's always been there.

Tree-mendous!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:38:00 +0000

Rendered view from street showing new front porch and new upstairs master suite

Existing house, from street (photo courtesy of Google StreetView).

We're just a few days from starting construction on this fun remodel/addition project on South Third Street. It's on a lot that's covered with beautiful oak trees, so we opted to go up with the new master suite to avoid having to cut any trees down or expand the home's footprint onto the the trees' critical root zones.

The resulting second floor addition not only made the the trees happy, it gave us access to treetop views, breezes and daylight all around. The new master suite will feel like a treehouse.

Downstairs, we're tearing out a hallway to open up the family room and adding a nice new porch to the front. We're looking forward to a cold beer on that porch in just a few months!

Did we mention that we're doing all this fun stuff without spending a fortune? Youbetcha.

Something old, something new...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 01:53:00 +0000

Our clients on Ramsey Ave. are celebrating in a very big way this weekend: moving back into their newly remodeled/expanded home and getting hitched. In the middle of all that, they were kind enough to give us a peek at the house tonight, and it's awesome.

We'll have more photos in a few weeks, but for now, here's a sneak preview of the nearly-finished kitchen (a work table island is on the way, and a the microwave hasn't been installed in the tall cabinet on the left yet).

Builder Trey Smith did a fantastic job with the project and managed to finish up before the wedding deadline. We're looking forward to working with him again soon.

The beautiful shiplap pine ceiling in the kitchen is a remnant from the original 1940 house that had been buried under drywall for decades. If you look for it, you can find the "shadow" of the old kitchen wall in the ceiling.

The project also includes a beautiful new master bedroom suite upstairs, a new utility room, study, and a big back porch. As soon as the happy couple is settled in, we'll have some more photos for you to enjoy.

Here's to many happy years in your new home, guys!

Facelift!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:12:00 +0000

Schematic showing new porch

This is a really early design sketch of a fun transformation. Our clients purchased this classic 60's ranch house on Edgemont recently, and it needs LOTS of updating. We've been focusing on the floor plan a lot, but this week we gave them a peek at what could happen to the front of the house. The new porch will add curb appeal and an updated "classical ranch" feel to the house, plus it adds a nice outdoor room to enjoy.

We'll update this one as we go along...

Edgemont rancher today...

From our archives...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:30:00 +0000

In an idle moment today, I uploaded a batch of fairly random photos from a variety of projects. Some are almost 20 years old, but we still like them! I added a basic caption to each shot. Click here to see the rest of the images...

Worth the wait!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:21:00 +0000

New addition between existing carport and house

We did the schematic design on this Rosedale project back in '09, but it had to wait a bit while the economy sorted itself out. We're getting it ready for construction now, and thought you'd like to see it.

We're tearing off a couple of hinky old additions to a classic late 40's 2/1 and adding a compact new two-story structure that extends the kitchen into a breakfast area/entry/stairwell/study/laundry (truly a multi-function room!!) with a nice screened porch on the back. Upstairs, there's a nice little study space at the top of the stairs that leads to a bright new master suite that will capture treetop views and cool breezes.

It's all designed to be compact and affordable, and it will enhance the old house while expanding it. Where the previous additions robbed the old house of daylight and access to the back yard (an all-too-common problem), this project will make the original house feel "whole" again and make it viable for a family of four.

This "before" shot shows the old additions that will be removed and concrete area that will become landscape

old addition, from kitchen

More space, more light, and re-connected to the back yard!

Rough rendering of the new breakfast room, looking toward stairs and kitchen

Coming soon to Sinclair Ave…

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:25:00 +0000

Here’s the final rendering of the new home we’re about to start building at 4010 Sinclair Ave. in Rosedale. The original house on the site had been “remuddled” so many times and was sitting on such a poor foundation, it was completely unsalvageable.
The new house will be bright and spacious, with three porches for relaxing and entertaining for a growing Rosedale family. It’s a 1 1/2 Story design, which will help it to fit into the fabric of the existing neighborhood. The design also uses wider-than-usual side setbacks to ensure that it doesn’t crowd out its neighbors.
To avoid repeating the foundation mistakes of its predecessor, this house will be built on concrete piers that extend down 12’, past the expansive clay soil to bear on the rock strata. Steel beams will span from pier to pier to support the structure, allowing the many advantages of a traditional pier and beam structure with a twist of modern engineering.
As with all of our work, this house has light on at least two sides of every major room to ensure beautiful daylight and cross-ventilation. Instead of a light-sucking attached garage, it features a breezy carport that can function as a fourth porch for parties or child’s play on a rainy day. For us, that’s the key to creating homes for 21st century families that have the wonderful feel of older homes. That old-school charm has little or nothing to do with materials, colors, or “style”; it’s all about the light.
Naturally, it’s also going to be energy efficient as well. Beyond the cross ventilation and thermal chimney effects designed into its form, the house will feature foam insulation and high-efficiency mechanical systems to make it genuinely “green” to the core.
This one’s going to be built by our friend Warren Spain of Escarpment Construction. Construction should begin in a few weeks.

Self-Cleaning Gutters!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:09:00 +0000

The nuns always said my mind was in the gutter, and here’s the proof.
Not all houses need to have gutters, and very few houses need them all the way around. Because gutters can be hard to maintain, it’s best to let water run off your roof and deal with it at the ground level, being sure to create enough slope away from your foundation to ensure that water doesn’t pond around your home or get under it to cause soil expansion/foundation problems. In areas of your home where it’s impossible to re-reroute the water on the ground, gutters are needed to move the runoff to a point where it can be poured onto the ground and carried away by the contour of the landscape.
At our house, we only have gutters on four spots where the roof runoff needed a little help. Like everyone else, our gutters always got filled with tree debris, then clogged completely when a storm came along. I often found myself out in a storm cleaning out the gutters until one stormy day when Necessity met Invention. Our gutters and downspouts were totally blocked, and it was raining buckets. I needed to solve the problem fast, or we could have had a flood on our hands. I grabbed a hammer and banged the ends out of the nice gutters and FLOOSH!, all of the water and crud washed out in a mad rush. I took the ends off of all of our gutters that day, and it worked beautifully.
Later, we installed new gutters that are half-round, 6” wide. They have open ends and no downspouts. We created “splash areas” in the landscape beneath the gutter ends to handle the concentrated water flow and contoured the landscape to allow the water to get away from the house.
I still clean the gutters out from time to time, but I don’t have to any more. Even when they’re pretty full, they still carry the water off the roof and when a downpour hits, they flush themselves right out.
I don’t think many people are hip to this trick (the gutter installers were totally puzzled), but it might be worth a try for your house.
We had a nice little storm come through today and I shot this video to show you how it works. The gutters haven’t been cleaned in six months or more, and they were dumping crud out quite nicely!

Click on the "play" icon in the video to see how it works...

Self Cleaning Gutters!

Allandale “before” and “after”

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:14:00 +0000

This one is so new, the pixels are still wet. We’ll be showing this to our clients in the AM, but you get to see it first. We’re doing a lot to this Allandale home, including moving the master suite downstairs, opening up the classic “Allandale Wall” that separates the front living spaces from the back, expanding and rebuilding the kitchen and many other items. Along with all of that fun stuff, we’ll get rid of the gambrel roof and expand the sad little porch into something really usable. It’ll still have some of its classic ‘60s vibe, but should be a bit more appealing and a lot more livable.

This is just the first schematic design sketch. Stay tuned for updated images as we work on it!

Jacked up!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:17:00 +0000

I was telling a client about his project the other day, but words don’t really tell the whole story. We took a little house on Avenue F in Hyde Park and lifted it ten feet to make it the second floor of a two story house. It’s rare to find a house that’s a candidate for this kind of trick, but when it’s right, it can be a really efficient way to double the size of a house.

It also adds an element of excitement to the process that takes the whole thing up a notch!!! Check out the video below:

YouTube video during construction

“Before”

“After”

Current work, May 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sun, 02 May 2010 14:59:00 +0000

We're busy with a bunch of fun projects right now! Here's a sampling from a few, ranging from early conceptual sketches to near-construction phase.

New house in Rosedale, street view:

New house in Rosedale, rear view

New house in Rosedale, kitchen concept sketch

New home in Rosedale, exterior study sketches

Allandale remodel/addition (master suite, study, utility, garage), overview

Allandale remodel/addition, street view

Rosedale remodel/addition (breakfast room, utility, screened porch, master suite), overview

Rosedale remodel/addition, view from breakfast room


West Austin whole-house remodel, kitchen concept

West Austin whole-house remodel, alternative kitchen concept

And the award goes to...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:48:00 +0000

With nearly all of our work coming from referrals, we've never worried much about awards and publications (heck, we haven't even been listed in the phone book for the last ten years!), so when builder Lee Mackenzie sent our 2009 whole-house project on Shoalwood off to NARI for their remodeling awards program, I never imagined that we'd run the tables with it.

It won locally, then regionally in the category "entire house $250-500k", then we got word yesterday that it won the national award, given out at NARI's annual banquet in Phoenix over the weekend.

How will we top that?

Bright and Breezy update

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:37:00 +0000

Here are some preliminary sketches of our most recent project in West Austin. We're working on a 50's house on a great lot. The existing house has lots of rooms, but no Space, and it doesn't do justice to the great views and breezes it's surrounded by.

Our early plan is to gut the entire main level of the home to repurpose all of the space. As you can see in the renderings (these focus on the casual family spaces), the end result should be way more enjoyable than the existing house.

Stay tuned for updates as we move forward with this one!

Are we "Green"??

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Our work has been Green since long before that term was coined, but you won't hear us jabbering about it very often. People are pretty excited about "Green" materials right now, but our interest in sustainability is more than skin deep, and it's definitely not about being trendy. If you're hoping to build a 4,000 s.f. suburban home and slap bamboo all over it so you can say it's "Green", we're not the firm for you.

Our projects are sustainable because they're compact, energy efficient, and very often recycle an old house to start with. We fight our clients for every single square foot of house and every bit of proposed demolition. After we settle those larger issues of sustainability, if they still want to have Enviroglas counters, they can go for it- knowing they're building something that's genuinely Green.

A kitchen that "fits like a mitten"

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:50:00 +0000

By now, you may have figured out that we try to keep things very simple. So many homes today are designed to "fit like a glove", with custom features piled on and everything designed to be perfect for a single moment in time. We think that's too costly and too short-sighted. Our preference is to design homes that "fit like a mitten", so they cost less up front, then last a long, long time. A good illustration of this concept is the kitchen at our current project on Ramsey Avenue. We designed it to be ultra simple, with an island that's a piece of movable furniture, rather than a typical built-in island cabinet. The result is a kitchen that can accommodate changes in use and lifestyle from day to day or decade to decade. It's also really easy to freshen up over the years with new materials and colors, which is a great alternative to today's typical overkill kitchen.

We didn't invent this concept, of course (turns out, we don't invent much!). This is just a 21st century reinterpretation of your grandmother's farmhouse kitchen. It's designed to be loose and bright and very functional, whether you're cooking, eating, or hanging out with friends.

Austin Urban Home magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:59:00 +0000

The current issue of Austin-San Antonio Urban Home magazine features our 2009 project on Shoalwood Ave. The article recaps the recent NARI remodeling awards, where the builder Lee Mackenzie received a Contractor of the Year award for "entire house $250-500k". (photo by Greg Hursley)

Rosedale expansion/update

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:43:00 +0000

We're working on a bunch of fun projects right now!

This one is getting pretty close to starting construction. It's a classic old Rosedale home, and we're working with the owners to add a master suite and a few other goodies, while also opening up the main living spaces to create a new kitchen that's more suitable for entertaining.

Typical "addition" projects often take a house one step forward and two steps back, by slapping nice new space onto an awkward old house, or worse still- adding nice new space and causing a nice old house to become awkward. We're always working to enhance the old house while expanding it for current needs so the whole thing works together in the end. This is going to be another great example of that approach to remodeling!

Thanks for a great year!!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:33:00 +0000

2009 was certainly memorable! Our 20th anniversary year was fittingly a lot like 1989, when we started this little firm at the height of another great economic bust. There were a handful of "quiet" days here in '09, but as always, we got to work with a bunch of wonderful clients and worked on a great batch of projects.

It looks like 2010 is going to be very, very busy, so we're going to take a few days at the end of the year to rest up and get ready for a new year.

Thank you for sharing the adventure with us! We wish you a safe and Happy Holiday season and a bright New Year!

Shoalwood project wins NARI award

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:07:00 +0000

The Austin chapter of NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry) had their annual awards dinner this week, and Lee Mackenzie of Mackenzie Design Build won the award in the category "entire house- $250-500k" for the project at 5511 Shoalwood Avenue that many of you saw last month on the tour of remodeled homes.

It was already a winner in our book, but it's nice to know the NARI folks like it, too!

Just add water!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Allen) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:49:00 +0000

With the rain we got in October, it was finally possible to install some landscaping at Gabardine, and the results are beautiful! We're really pleased with the construction quality of the houses, too.

TBG Partners designed the landscape, focusing on great shared spaces, with seating areas and fire pits for the neighbors to enjoy together.

Remember when houses were filled with sunshine, or houses that allowed you to open the windows and enjoy the breeze? Remember what it was like to know your neighbors? That's what we're building at Gabardine. Those Old-School priorities would make our cottages unique in Austin's new home market at any price, but at $202k, the house at right offers more bang for the buck than any new home in the area.

It's a rare privilege for an architect to get the opportunity to work on reasonably-priced production housing. It's very challenging work, but we really enjoy it, and it's a treat to see Gabardine taking shape and growing as a community.

More photos soon...