Taylor Homestead
BEFORE: Here is a street view showing the large detached garage
AFTER: Sparkling in snow
We closed on this house on January 10, 2018. Click the link for a beautiful slide show.
In early May, 2017, we signed a contract on another renovation property, in a town we have wanted to work in for quite some time, Taylor, Texas. Home of the Ducks! It’s not too far from Round Rock, which makes it one of the far suburbs of Austin. Taylor has a number of wonderful neighborhoods with charming, renovated Victorian and other older homes, plus some nice new neighborhoods. The town has some good shopping areas (even a coveted Wal-Mart), and has a downtown that has hugely improved since we first started visiting there. There are now fun bars, restaurants, and live music is happening there often!
Sue Ann and Lee have a stepson there, and are friends with the guy that runs the local newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce head (that’s why we know so much about the lively social scene). So we like this place.
We also like this house, which Russell inspected closely before we purchased it from a wholesaler. It’s a hundred years old (or so) and in a nice part of town, near a main road but far enough away that it isn’t noisy. It has a large lot with three outbuildings, and already has a good roof and downstairs flooring. We just need to fix up the kitchen and bathrooms, paint it inside and out, replace the perky red and blue upstairs carpeting, and then see what we want to do with it. It has just two bedrooms and two bathrooms (1350 sq. ft.), but all are a nice size.
There are three big outbuildings, too. Someone who is a handy person would really love this house, or someone who works on cars. We will see!
Side view. Nice old house!
A Glitch in the Process
Turns out that the contract we signed had a clause saying the owner had to approve the price, and the owner didn’t like the offer we gave to the wholesaler, and was confident there were higher offers coming from some folks he knew. He wanted $4,000 more. And when we carefully reviewed the amount of repairs the foundation needed, we couldn’t raise the numbers. At least two of us were quite bummed. The hard-headed business half of the team, though, was right.
Only a couple of days later, Lee received a call from the wholesaler. All the great offers seem to have fallen through. Were we still interested? Lee said sure, at the original price we offered. Once again, it was accepted. The Taylor Homestead house was back on our list!
Lots to be done with this kitchen!
The “before” pictures you see here show how much work there was to do on the house. It also has an “interesting” floor plan that we are going to work with rather than try to revise. We’ll get that second-floor master sweet looking masterful and sweet!
Want Some Updates?
The new paint makes a world of difference.
We finished the renovation on December 8. Once it got started, it went quickly. Trees were trimmed, repairs werebeen made to the siding, skirting, and decks, and most beautiful is the exterior painting. We even fixed up the outbuildings so well that the “apartment” in one of them could easily be made livable. The other outbuildings are sparkling clean and ready to be a workshop, garage, or whatever the new owner wants.
On the interior, we painted every single surface, turned the upstairs into a huge master suite with a giant closet and nice bathroom, created a beautiful stairway, and spruced up the kitchen to its vintage charm. A future owner might renovate it. The house looks gorgeous!
For more on the house, check out these posts:
December
November
October
September
Taylor Homestead: The Old Lady Gets a Facelift and a New Dress
July
June