11/25/14 4:00pm

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Tweaks to a 1977 Briarmeadow home have left it looking rather peachy inside, thanks to a dream-state color wash. The heavy-roofed French-ish property last sold in 2013, for $291,040, and has appeared in an assortment of listings and relistings ever since. Updated in that interim, the westward-facing home is now  attempting a flip at $409,000. Previous listings sought a high of $489K in July 2013, with reductions to $459K in September 2013, $449K in April 2014 (which snagged a contract but not a closing), and $429K in July 2014 — before taking a breather from the market in August. Renovations picked the bones clean and added new ingredients . . .

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Continuity
11/24/14 2:45pm

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A Garden Oaks home likes balconies so much, it stuffs a few of them inside looking over the living room (top) as well as facing the street (above). The bones of the property beneath a tree canopied lot located just west of Yale St. date to 1940, but it’s been expanded and updated over the years. Last week, its tidy presence popped up on the market sporting a $695,000 asking price.

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Canopied Lot
11/19/14 12:00pm

DAYS AFTER $300K TREECUTTING SETTLEMENT, WORKERS ARE BACK ON THE JOB AT THE KIRBY DR. WENDY’S Workers at Wendy's Restaurant, 5003 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, HoustonThe snapper of this story-in-an-image pic taken of the construction site at 5003 Kirby Dr. tells Swamplot that construction crews went back to work on the stalled renovation of the Wendy’s Tuesday morning. Last Friday Mohammed A. Dhanani and HAZA Foods, the franchise owner, agreed to pay the city of Houston $300,000 for the 6 oak trees removed late last month from the city right-of-way in front of the fast-food franchise along Kirby and North Blvd. A permitting logjam had halted work on the ongoing renovations after city officials learned of the street-tree chop-downs. What’s the worker’s gesture in the pic supposed to mean? “I think it was a ‘right on’ fist pump,” reports the photographer. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Swamplot inbox

11/14/14 3:00pm

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Overhauled this year, a 1935 Broadmoor foursquare across the street from a small park is aiming for a sale price of $339,000 — after a purchase in August 2013 for $127,500. What comes with a more-than-$200K bounce? Some of the updates to the property, which is located west of Telephone Rd. and near the neighborhood’s namesake street, include a renovated kitchen and bathrooms, roof, electrical and plumbing systems, and air conditioning. But the home’s interior has kept its 80-year-old proportions, trim, and efficient floor plan:

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A Broadmoor Foursquare
11/03/14 3:30pm

Stump and Red Tag at Wendy's Drive-Thru Restaurant, 5003 Kirby Dr. at North Blvd., Upper Kirby, Houston

A passerby stopping for an iced tea today at the McDonald’s across Kirby Dr. from the recently deforested Wendy’s restaurant at the corner of Kirby and North Blvd. reports that the once-bustling construction site has gone quiet: “Nothing going on at the site, looked closed, stopped, locked up.” But one bright marker affixed to a window of the mid-redo building at 5003 Kirby did catch our tipster’s eye: “I noticed the largest ‘red tag’ I have ever seen. 4 times the size of a normal one.” Unfortunately, the site is fully fenced, so there”s no way to read it without a good pair of binoculars.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

Big Red
10/31/14 3:30pm

Tree Stumps Along North Blvd., Wendy's Restaurant, 5003 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, Houston

The owner of the property at the southeast corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd. has indicated he might attempt to evict the Wendy’s franchise whose operator appears to have ordered the nighttime removal of 6 oak trees on public property surrounding the fast-food outlet earlier this week. Lias J. “Jeff” Steen, the property’s landlord, says he sent an email saying “I am extremely disappointed he took down the trees under cover of darkness . . . And I am looking at terminating our lease,” according to a report by abc13’s Deborah Wrigley.

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Removed ‘in Good Faith’
10/28/14 2:45pm

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Somewhere within this recently renovated and expanded shingle-sided double-decker home in Brooke Smith lies the 1926 single-story version it sprang from. Can you find it?

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Porches and Roof Pitches
10/13/14 5:15pm

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Not many homes come with their own meat locker (top), but this one has kept its cooler from a previous life as a meat market and corner store. Located in the townhomey Magnolia Grove neighborhood of Brunner, south of Washington Ave. and east of N. Shepherd Dr., the former Laurnicella Meat Market (later Snow’s Corner Store) had living space upstairs for the proprietor. A 3-year renovation with various reconfigurations by the current owners (on top of efforts by their predecessors) converted the 1921 building into a tin-roofed home (middle) with back yardlet (above). Its listing, posted last Thursday, asks $2.1 million.

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On the Corner
10/07/14 3:00pm

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You’ll find just a splash of red in almost every interior pic here. No, you aren’t looking at a portfolio of images from National Geographic: This is a renovated 1990 Georgian in Sugar Land’s William’s Glen neighborhood, southwest of Sweetwater Blvd. Listed on Monday, the 4,232-sq.-ft. spread is now asking $619K.

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Flipping for Red
10/07/14 12:00pm

BIGGER GALLERIA APPLE STORE FOR BIGGER IPHONES OPENS THIS WEEKEND Apple Store Closed for Construction, Houston Galleria, HoustonOnly a few weeks after beginning sales of a pair of embiggened iPhones, Apple is ready to unveil its latest enlargement: the newly expanded Galleria Apple Store. That’s it hiding on the second level in the photo at left, behind the 60-ft.-long black wall. A grand reopening is scheduled for this Saturday. The store moved to a temporary location over the summer to allow for the widening, described in detail here. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: David Ruiz

09/30/14 12:00pm

Former Kuko's Taqueria, Future Teotihuacan Mexican Cafe, 3707 Irvington Blvd., Near Northside, Houston

Former Kuko's Taqueria, Future Teotihuacan Mexican Cafe, 3707 Irvington Blvd., Near Northside, HoustonThe Teotihuacán Mexican Café at the corner of Irvington and Cavalcade (now helpfully labeled “Festively adorned Tex-Mex restaurant” on Zagat-powered Google Maps) will be relocating a few blocks south once renovations to a structure the 3-restaurant chain’s owners purchased in late May can be completed. Kuko’s Taqueria shut down at 3707 Irvington Blvd., between Alber St. and Collingsworth, this past June. It appears some work on the interior is already taking place, notes reader Christopher Andrews.

Photos: Christopher Andrews

Going South
09/29/14 2:00pm

8402 Glenscott St., Meadowbrook Freeway, Houston

If you’re wondering why there are no photos of the foyer in this listing for the ranch home at 8402 Glenscott St. in the southeast Houston neighborhood of Meadowbrook Freeway, it’s likely out of respect. Because that’s the room where Sybil Berndt, the previous owner of this 3-bedroom, 2-bath home, fell, lay still face down on the floor for 3 days, passed away, and then slowly decomposed over the course of 3 months, all while her twin 48-year-old sons Edwin and Edward carried on with their lives, staying inside and watching TV and eating popcorn, potato chips, and candy.

There was a brief period after their mother fell, 2 days before her 89th birthday, when the twins considered getting her to a hospital, but they worried they might not be able to pay for her medical bills, according to investigators. Later, they worried how they might pay for her funeral. (It appears their mother had more than enough money to cover both.) Their mother, according to the twins’ account, never asked for help.

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Paint and Carpet Magic
09/26/14 1:00pm

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Now flipping in Sherwood Oaks, a fully renovated ranchburger with rebooted pool serves up an open floor plan (above) with an outside of fresh greens. (The droopy tilted mailbox at curbside — shown in the older photo at right — has been replaced, too.) The overhauled property, located west of the Sam Houston Tollway and north of I-10, popped up on the market Wednesday as a relisting, asking $449,000. That’s the same price a previous listing by the same agent had reached by June; the property took a quick break and repositioned its pricepoint up from an initial $230,000 set in May, shortly after the current owner picked it up for $175K just a day after its listing at the end of April.

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Tap Into Taupe
09/24/14 11:30am

FAIRHOPE RANCH REDO AIMS FOR A SMALLER FLIP 3202 Fairhope St., Braes Terrace, HoustonAs Swamplot reader Tawnya notes, the Braes Terrace ranchburger that emerged mid-August from a spring-and-summer redo sporting an almost-$700K asking price (it sold previously this past April for a far humbler $361K) has undergone a second, even quicker refresh. Sporting a new listing agent and a new side fence fronting its Buffalo Speedway frontage (pictured above), the home at 3203 Fairhope St. is now available for $649,900. The previous listing had dropped from $698K to $686K earlier this month, but was terminated yesterday. [HAR; previously on Swamplot]

09/19/14 3:45pm

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Despite a series of remodeling tweaks, this 1970 Thornwood contemporary’s rebirthing still has a way to go. Its listing earlier this week pegs the property’s status as ripe for renovation, and sets the ask at $345K. Several rooms already feature updates (and the pool got a redo back in that “watershed” year of 2008), but others show their age, work in progress, or the effects of what’s gently described by the listing agent as “recent moisture and plumbing issues.”

Can the home’s renovations be completed? Should they be? Look for clues in the photos below, or see for yourself at this Sunday’s open house.

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