Remodel On Big Timber Road – Then There Was One

Around May, 2019, after A LOT of thought and discussions, Jerry T and I decided that we wanted to remodel our 27 year old home. Actually it was all my idea, but I convinced him it was his idea too. And after reading this book, he was 100% on board. How do you even begin this process? I basically knew what I wanted to do, but I needed someone to bring it to life. Years earlier, I had read an article about a home remodel in our town of Tyler, Texas. The remodel had a modern vibe, which is a little unusual for this area. I loved the look of it so I took a picture of the designer’s name and info and saved it for several years. By the end of May, I reached out to the designer of that home (Christy Root Designs) and she met with us in our home. After several months and tons of design plans, Then There Was One. Our Remodel On Big Timber Road was well on it’s way.

 

INSERT A LOUD SCREECHING NOISE!

 

Wow, I think I made the whole design part sound easy. Well folks, it wasn’t. Jerry T and I basically wanted to open up our living and kitchen area. We planned updates for every room with the exception of the upstairs office area. A previous update was done to that area that you can read about HERE.

I cannot tell you how many times Christy redesigned our plan. Even on a vacation trip, a few months later, we were still going back and forth with new ideas and changes to the plan. There was even a time when I wanted to just give up and “86” the whole remodel idea, but thankfully I stuck it out. Throughout the entire design process, Christy always remained patient, and accommodating. Never once did she get pushy or frustrated with us. By the end of September, we finally had our plan!

A little side note – Pay close attention to what your designer suggests. They have probably designed a ton of homes and they have a better concept of things than you do. Months later, I have realized that. I am already regretting a design change that we made from her plan, but I’m going to try and make the best of it! More about that in a future blog post.

For some INSANE reason, Jerry T thought we could complete the remodel by January 1 🙄. Wow, was he ever wrong. As we interviewed each of our potential contractors and Jerry T told them his deadline, they all laughed – A LOT. And speaking of potential contractors, we decided to interview five of Tyler’s finest. We met with all of them individually at our home. We gave each of them a copy of our final plans and walked them through the changes. The funny part was WE LOVED ALL OF THEM. They all seemed professional and easy to work with.

In order to give us an accurate bid, they all came back with their subcontractors who got to see firsthand the work that had to be done. We never discussed our budget with any of them (although we definitely had a budget). We wanted to see if this project was even feasible with the amount of money that we had to spend.

A few weeks later, we got the first bid back and it was not within our budget. We were definitely in panic mode. Were our ‘remodeling eyes’ bigger than our ‘remodeling budget’? At this point, we were trying to figure out what we could eliminate from the plan 😩. After what seemed to be an eternity, we got the second proposal. Surprisingly, it was actually within our budget.

Ok, this seemed really weird to us. How could these two estimates be so far apart? We needed the remaining three proposals to confirm which bid would most likely be the most accurate. Lo and behold the third one came in and it was also within our budget – hallelujah. Looks like this is really going to happen. What totally blew our minds is that the two remaining contractors never gave us a bid. We never could figure that one out. Maybe the job was too big or they didn’t think they could work with Jerry T and me 🤷‍♀️.

We really struggled with which contractor to choose. We narrowed it down to two and we really liked both of them. I wanted to just pick a name out of a hat but Jerry said “let me call them and have one last conversation with each of them”. When he came home that day he said “I think we should go with Keith”. He said “I think he will work hard to give us a really good final product”. That was it – Then There Was One – Keith Culver Homes would be our contractor. He and his beautiful wife Georgette would make our Remodel On Big Timber Road a reality.

At this point, you may be asking yourself why we chose to remodel instead of buying/building a new home. I actually gave this a lot of thought. When we first moved to this home almost 25 years ago I was very unhappy here. We had just purchased a company in Tyler and had to downsize considerably from our previous home in St. Charles, Illinois. There was not much available in the neighborhood and school district that we wanted to be in and this home was basically our only choice.

On move in day, when we arrived at the home, we were shocked at what we found. The previous owner had left it in a deplorable condition. Mental breakdown time for me! What had we done here? We had uprooted our family and were moving to a big fat dirty mess. I can remember crying everyday on the way home after dropping my kids off at school for months. We were all struggling with the transition. Moving is hard y’all!

Whoever said “things get better with time” was right. I began taking one room at a time and converting it to my taste. That along with a lot of yard work (and poison ivy) and our kids adjusting to their new environment helped to turn this place around. Basically now, I am sentimentally attached to this home.

I have wonderful memories of my parents and sister (who are all gone now) helping me make this house a home. My granddaughter, Lani, had her first birthday and her high school graduation parties here. We’ve had showers here and we’ve even had a television pilot show filmed here. And as as most of you know, Abby and Brendan got married here. We have deer and lots of other wildlife that often show up on our three acres. All of our neighbors are great so why move anywhere else?? It just made sense to remodel.

Lani’s 1st Birthday

 

Lani’s High School Graduation

 

Abby & Brendan’s Wedding

I am expecting this remodel to take around five or six months. Although our builder, Keith, has told us it should be more like four. We’ll see. Trying not to get my expectations up too high. Below, I have posted a video of our home a few days before we moved out. In the video, I tried to explain what we are planning to do. Forgive me in advance for the poor filming, my creepy weird voice, and the strange vocal mannerisms 😳 😂.

Next blog post … Remodel On Big Timber Road – Pack It Up & Move It Out