Exterior of the Kerrville house, showing the trees and attractive front facade.

We’re looking forward to working on our next project, which is a nice house in north Austin that’s been on the market for a long time. There are enough issues with this house that it was not selling in the retail market–some plumbing issues, mainly. So, we are getting it for a good price before it wanders off to foreclosure. It’s a “rockin'” house for two reasons: first, it’s sitting on one of our local karst formations, so the back yard is pretty much all limestone, and there’s a cool rock patio in front; second, the street is named after a local folk festival in nearby Kerrville. And we’re hoping to totally rock the renovation.

Our Exit Strategy

We know you want to know what the exit strategy is for this house. Well, we plan to fix it up and then sell it right over to our colleagues, Russell and Carol. The house is five minutes from Russ’s work, and is exactly what they’ve been looking for since they sold their previous “homestead flip” house. When this is done, Sue Ann and Lee, the Hermit’s Rest team, will be able to rent out the main Villa Park house for lovely income. Look forward to a longer and more detailed post from Russell on what exactly constitutes the homestead flip.

Looking into the living room. Needs some paint and new flooring.

Background

Today I just wanted to introduce the new project and share a couple of “before” pictures. The good news about the house is that it was obviously one of the nicest homes in the neighborhood when it was built. There are some pretty impressive 80s features, such as mauve counters, white and gold shower knobs (wish I’d gotten a better picture of those), plush carpets (which are now all buckled up), and some fine but a bit old appliances. Each of the nice-sized bedrooms has a large walk-in closet. That’s such a great feature. The master bath is a bit crazy, so that’s going to be a fun challenge for our design team!

Another living area view. It’s a blank slate.

In addition, there’s a little office in what was once one of the garage bays, and a nice work area. The lot, as you can see in the pictures, is surrounded by beautiful mature trees, and all those rocks make it really low maintenance. I can see why our colleagues didn’t want to sell this one to anyone else.

The Plan

Carol’s still working on her renovation plan, but I’m pretty sure it involves knocking down a kitchen wall, a complete revamp of the kooky master bathroom, and some beautiful new floors that are not carpeted.

Of course, we will still be working hard to keep the renovation on budget and on time. We will share updates on the progress, including a Facebook Live video tour or two, so if you are not a fan of our Facebook page, you may want to head over there and sign up.

The current kitchen. Love that pinky-mauve formica. Not shown is the wall at right which may go away.

The back yard. Take a leaf blower to those leaves, and you’ve pretty much got a natural limestone patio back there.