Tag: 77021

Is the Houston Extreme Makeover: Home Edition home all those volunteers built for the Johnson family on Goodhope St. at last complete? Swamplot hasn’t been able to get an update: HHN Homes’ website has been out of commission for a couple of days, and the company’s email service may be down too. (Maybe that’s the best way for everyone there to get some much-needed rest after the double-overtime build?) Over the weekend, Swamplot photog Candace Garcia took a little stroll around the now-very-quiet construction site and came back with some interesting pictures, a few to-do items, and one burning question:

77021, Construction Problems, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, New Construction: Residential, Photos, South Union

Homebuilders

08/05/10 5:17pm

Still Working on Goodhope: The Drawn-Out End of the Extreme Makeover Is Near

Homebuilding, New Construction: Residential, South Union

7 Comments

Four long and hot construction days after the big made-for-teevee bus-moving ceremony, HHN Homes still needs help finishing its 4,400-sq.-ft. Extreme Makeover on Goodhope St. in South Union. What exactly is the company looking for? â€œPlumbers to finish trim features,â€ HHNâ€™s Linda Stewart tells Swamplot. And there’s still that ongoing, restrained request for some patio furniture. When will the Johnson family get to move in? Theyâ€™ve been â€œin and outâ€ of the house over the past few days, Stewart says. HHN Homes hopes to have all of its work complete by Friday evening.

77021, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Homebuilders, Homebuilding, New Construction: Residential, South Union

Comments

08/05/10 2:57pm

Comment of the Day: How Houston’s Extreme Makeover Home Got Knocked Off Schedule

Homebuilding, Quicklink, South Union

11 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW HOUSTON’S EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME GOT KNOCKED OFF SCHEDULE “We completed the house and the family was able to go inside and see the finished home fully furnished Monday night (8/2/10) around 10pm. The first year electrical service is being provided by Champion Energy. This is the 5th home we have built with EMHE and are very proud of what they do for families in need. I have personally met with several of the families and they are very grateful for what EMHE and the volunteers do for them. I just wish more people would have shown their Big Texas Hearts and would have come out to help. One building crew did not even show up for the night shift one night and it put the build behind by 30 hours! Thank you to everyone who did come out to help us complete this new home for the Johnson family.” [Rene, commenting on No, Not Finished Yet: Extreme Conditions After the Deadline at Houstonâ€™s Extreme Makeover House]

77021, Comments, Construction Problems, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Homebuilders, Homebuilding, South Union

Homebuilding

08/02/10 3:53pm

No, Not Finished Yet: Extreme Conditions After the Deadline at Houston’s Extreme Makeover House

31 Comments

“I’ve just been told we need Gatorade,” HHN Homes manager Linda Stewart emails Swamplot from the site of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build on Goodhope St. in South Union. “Water is not doing the trick as far as electrolytes are concerned. Â If you can spread the word and people can just drop off 3-4 6 packs would be great.”

Wait a sec . . . wasn’t the weeklong building project’s grand finale this past weekend? Didn’t the Johnson family come back from Paris and wait patiently to see their new home? Didn’t thousands of well-wishers shout “Move that bus!”?

Yeah, that all happened Sunday night — only a little more than a day later than originally scheduled, despite all of last week’s rain. But don’t imagine the Johnsons are gonna get to move in too soon . . . not with these kinds of requests still going out:

77021, Cancellations and Delays, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Homebuilding, New Construction: Residential, South Union

Construction Problems

07/30/10 4:10pm

Extreme Makeover: How’s This Home Gonna Get Finished? Edition

15 Comments

The Johnson family may not want to come directly from the airport to their new home when they return tomorrow from their weeklong surprise vacation in Paris. “Organizers are frantic they may not be able to finish,” reports abc13’s Cynthia Cisneros, who adds that the project was still 21 hours behind schedule as of this afternoon (that’s marked down from about 30 yesterday). Meanwhile, the folks at HHN Homes have updated the company’s website for the project with a screaming headline: “Extreme Help Needed!!” and a list of specific trades they’re hoping to attract for shifts beginning 8 pm tonight and Saturday.

“Every radio station and tv station is soliciting the public for volunteers,” notes Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia, who visited the site this afternoon. And she noted evidence of more problems:

77021, Construction Problems, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, New Construction: Residential, South Union

Homes for Sale

07/29/10 2:19pm

Just West of Extreme: A Goodhope House for You

South Union

2 Comments

Intrigued by the South Union neighborhood where the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and HHN Homes is making a valiant effort to build a 4,500-sq.-ft. home for the Johnson family — in less than a week? Maybe you’re wondering what the rest of the area is like? Well, the home right next door, at 3609 Goodhope St., is for sale! Asking price: $40,000. Don’t worry: It won’t be the fanciest home in the neighborhood.

New Construction: Residential

77021, Homes for Sale, South Union

07/28/10 7:43pm

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Meets Extreme Mud: Houston Edition

South Union

11 Comments

Note: Story updated below.

HHN Homes manager Linda Stewart tells Swamplot the construction crew building the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition home for the Johnson family on Goodhope St. in South Union is running about 10 hours behind schedule — and still “desperately” needs framers and workers from the “cornice trades” (to complete exterior trim work).

Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia watched workers slip and slide on the muddy site and rain-slick materials earlier today, and snapped a few pix of the scene. “It is REALLY wet out there,” she reports:

77021, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, New Construction: Residential, Photos, South Union

Demolitions

07/27/10 2:54pm

Live from Goodhope St.: Extreme Upsizing in South Union

7 Comments

Yesterday was demo day at 3613 Goodhope St. in South Union. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host Ty Pennington (or his designated photo-Tweeter) sent out this pic Monday, showing the final moments of the Johnson family’s 700-sq.-ft. 1945 bungalow. What’s going on today at the Houston build?
HHN Homes manager Linda Stewart tells Swamplot last night’s rain set back the schedule. The slab for the new 4,500-sq.-ft. home is now on track to be poured at 3 pm today. Pre-assembled wall panels should be “ready to set” 50 minutes later, she says. Intrepid (and now hard-hatted) Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia files these photos from the scene:

77021, Demolitions, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, New Construction: Residential, Photos, South Union

Disaster Aftermath

07/26/10 7:46am

Extreme Makeover: South Union Edition

New Construction: Residential, Quicklink, South Union

22 Comments

EXTREME MAKEOVER: SOUTH UNION EDITION Texas Children’s Hospital pharmacy technician Eric Johnson, his wife Elaine, and their 5 daughters — all of whom live in a 720-sq.-ft. Hurricane-Ike-damaged house at 3613 Goodhope St. in South Union — learned over the weekend that they’ll be traveling to Paris this week. When they return on Saturday, they’ll find their old home gone and a new 4,500-sq.-ft. 2-story home installed in its place, designed by Studio RED Architects and the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and constructed by HHN Homes and hundreds of volunteers. The Harrises run a small marriage and family counseling nonprofit they founded called Optimum Lifestyle. Host Ty Pennington and the EM:HE crew are promising an “innovative tears-free episode” of the teevee show this time (the Harrises got the news in a comedy club). And no, this home is not in the Third Ward. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

77021, Demolitions, Disaster Aftermath, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Hurricane Ike, New Construction: Residential, South Union

Commercial Real Estate

07/05/10 12:49pm

Very Small Business: The 14 Tiniest Commercial Buildings in Houston

Griggs Terrace, Houston Heights, Montrose, Oak Forest, Office Buildings, Retail, Seabrook, Sunset Heights, Upper Kirby, West End

13 Comments

Armed with your suggestions, roving Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia set out to document the smallest freestanding commercial buildings in Houston she could find. And here are the results! Above, “The Spot” hair salon at 1207 Westheimer in Montrose, at the corner of Commonwealth.

More tiny:

Comments

02/16/10 4:37pm

Comment of the Day: Here Come the Almeda Promoters

Forecasts, Museum District, Nightlife, Quicklink

25 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HERE COME THE ALMEDA PROMOTERS “Washington ave is already done. . . . Whats next you askâ€¦.Almeda (59 to med center)â€¦.two bars opening right now and four more planned on the way. Wide streets, lots of empty places to park, a community who wants the crowd and can handle it better than wash or mid town. The two bars that are going in are building out in empty spaces right now but more on the way with some new buildings planned. You will all want to know where I get my info but [ride] down and you will see for your self what I know.” [Dj Ashby, commenting on Comment of the Day: Reading the Washington Ave Crystal Ball]

77004, 77021, Comments, Forecasts, Museum District, Nightlife

Brookesmith

02/16/10 4:16pm

Houston’s Unhappy Hipsters

Home Design, Houston Architects, MacGregor Terrace

13 Comments

Sure, it’s a big break when local architects and designers get their work published in Dwell, but who knew that an appearance in the modern design magazine might ultimately be seen as just a stepping stone on the path to even greater fame? That’s right: With the recent appearance of the Unhappy Hipsters blog, Dwell‘s design stars will at last be able to reach a much wider circle.

Most photos on Unhappy Hipsters are taken from the magazine. But yes, the captions are changed — just a little bit — so that the work shown can reach a larger and perhaps more appreciative audience.

Already, two teams of Houston designers have been featured on the blog. A reader writes in to report that the photo above, showing the owners of Numen Development’s shipping-container house on Cordell St. in Brookesmith, was featured in a recent Unhappy Hipsters post. Except instead of the original caption from Dwell, which described the front porch, the species of grass on the lawn, and the bent-steel shade above, we have this:

Not on the grass, Sweetie. Never. On. The. Grass. See how much fun Daddy is having?

Who else is appearing on Unhappy Hipsters?

77009, 77021, Brookesmith, Home Design, Houston Architects, MacGregor Terrace, Modern Design, Shelter Magazines

Home Design

01/25/10 12:58pm

When You Need To Go, But Just Can’t Bear To Part

Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Riverside Terrace

7 Comments

“Dual toilets in the Masterbath…very unique,” reads the caption on this photo in a listing for a Riverside Terrace home on Parkwood Dr.

But haven’t we seen something like this somewhere before?

Oh, yes.

But that just means this home, built in 1965, was way ahead of its time:

77021, Bathrooms, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Riverside-Terrace

Environmental

08/05/09 1:39pm

More Excitement at that Chemical Waste Disposal Plant in the Back Yard

Hazards, MacGregor Terrace, Riverside Terrace

No Comments

Good news for the residents of Grace Ln. who back up to that Griggs Rd. waste treatment and disposal facility run by CES Environmental Services! It’ll probably be a while before another thermal oxidizer ruptures and sends four-foot-wide metal pieces flying over their back fences again:

â€œI mean, this was metal that could have decapitated people,â€ [Grace Ln. resident and salon owner Kimberly Sadberry] said. â€œIt was sharp. We had to put it on a dolly to take it back, it was that heavy.â€

CES assured residents nothing like that would ever happen again, but less than two weeks later, another explosion occurred, she said.

Why the grace period now? Responding to complaints about intermittent explosions and noxious smells emanating from the plant — as well as the fiery death last month of a CES employee as he attempted to clean a tanker truck — police officers and federal agents raided the facility yesterday morning. And figuring out what’s really going on there might take a while:

77021, Environmental, Explosions, Hazards, MacGregor Terrace, Odors, Riverside-Terrace

Eastwood

04/20/09 7:55am

Metro Coming Attractions: Previewing Houston’s New Light Rail Lines

Greenway Plaza, MacGregor Park, Moody Park, Proposed Developments, Third Ward, Transportation

27 Comments

Here’s a whizzy reel showing what the new Metro trains and stations on 4 upcoming light-rail lines are supposed to look like. Dowling St. in the Third Ward, the Edloe Station in Greenway Plaza, the Moody Park Station on the North Line, MacGregor Park Station on the Southeast Line, and Lockwood Station on the East End Line each get about 30 seconds of CGI treatment, from a low-flying camera buzzing some extremely lifelike — though torpid — pedestrians.

Christof Spieler finds a few flaws:

The Third Ward footage seems to be out-of-date; it shows the old alignment crossing Dowling on Wheeler, not the new route that switches to Alabama. But other details are correct: the stations shown are the new prototype station design (by Rey de la Reza Architects), minus artwork.

Itâ€™s nice to be able to visualize what these lines might look like. But itâ€™s also a reminder that itâ€™s important to get the details right. At Edloe, for example, the trees integrated into the canopy are nice, but thereâ€™s no crosswalk at the west end of the station platform, which means a 500-foot detour for some riders. The Moody Park and MacGregor stations do show that crosswalk, and the sidewalks look pretty good, too. But in all the images, the overhead wires are suspended from their own poles in the middle of the street, not from the streetlight poles on either side, as on Main Street. That makes for more poles and a more cluttered streetscape.