I’ll never forget the first time I drove down our street and saw our house for the first time. The house belonged to one of my clients (my very last interior designer when I had my decorating business). I happened to mention that I wanted to buy an old, repaired upper house that I could remodel myself, and she told me that she happened to have a repaired upper house that she wanted to sell. It belonged to her parents and she had grown up in the house.
So she gave me the address and I drove by to see what it looked like. When I first saw it, the house itself didn’t scare me off, even though it looked…
I mean, I said I wanted a fixer-upper, and this definitely fit the bill. I was able to look past all the outdated things and see that the house actually had “good bones,” as they say. I knew it would be a lot of hard work, and I knew I would be doing most of it alone, but I was up for the challenge.
But there were two things that were almost crucial for me. The first reason was that the house did not have a paved driveway to the garage. That confused me. Every other house on the street had a paved driveway, but this one had gravel with weeds and grass growing on it. That confused me.
But as it turned out, the lack of a driveway, which was almost a breach of contract for me, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We ended up turning our garage into my studio and replacing the front garage doors with windows. If the house had a paved driveway, it would have ended up right in front of my studio, which would have looked really awkward.
And when we finally got a driveway poured, we didn’t have to spend a lot of extra money removing the old concrete. We could skip this step entirely and have new concrete poured. Everything worked out perfectly in the end, and looking back now, I laugh when I think that the lack of a driveway leading to my current studio was almost the deciding factor for me buying this house.
But the second thing that almost became an exclusion criterion was the curbs in front of the house. We live in an old neighborhood in town and the curbs along the street were in terrible shape. I prefer neighborhoods with curbs. I’m not a fan of the curbless look at all. But I like the curbs to actually look nice and straight. But these were old, cracked, crumbly in places and there was even an area with a fairly noticeable depression.
This is the best picture I could find to show the cracked, crumbly area in the curb in front of our house. This picture was taken years ago when we had the new siding put on the house. But to both the left and right of the mailbox you can see how terrible the curbs looked. And it wasn’t just the curb. It was also the area in front of the curb that sloped down quite a bit. Every time it rained, water, dirt, leaves and other debris would get stuck there. So the curb wasn’t just an eyesore, it was a pain every time it rained.
Since we’ve had several concrete contractors on the house over the years (first the new sidewalk and then the driveway), I asked them if there was anything that could be done to the curbs. And I was always told that you couldn’t really do anything because the curbs belong to the city. I would just have to live with them. That was disappointing to hear.
Anyway, fast forward to the middle of last week when the city trucks arrived on our street and started putting out orange bags all over the street. I asked what they were doing and they said they were fixing a water leak. But then yesterday I heard them cutting concrete right in front of our house. I looked out the window just in time to see their big machines picking up a large section of our cut curb and loading it onto a truck. I watched as they cut one piece after another and moved away. And then I watched as they cut at least a foot into our front yard.
And this morning it looks like this. We’re getting new curbs!!
I can’t tell you how excited I am about this! There’s nothing like an unexpected upgrade, especially one that I’ve wanted for years and been repeatedly told I can’t get.
Even better, I get an upgrade I’ve wanted for years at no additional cost to us!
I was actually quite amazed at how much of the old curb, road and yard was cut away. They even had to take a little walk around our mailbox (our sad, dirty mailbox that needs a good cleaning).
This is all very exciting for me. When we had our new sidewalk poured, I liked the way it looked, but hated that the new concrete ended with an old, crumbling curb.
But that old, crumbly part is now gone and will soon be replaced by new concrete.
I’ll be very interested to see how they mix the new concrete with the old parts. I wish they had just replaced all of them, but of course the city won’t pay to replace curbs that don’t need to be replaced.
I wish my pictures really showed how deep they cut. At that end it looks like a good 18″ depth to me, but I haven’t actually measured it. However, it is quite deep.
Anyway, I’m very, VERY excited about it. It was a surprise that kind of came out of nowhere, and it’s something I’ve wanted for years but never thought I could have. So I just learned to live with the old, ugly, crumbling curbs and the annoying dip.
And of course we paid for these restrictions… with our taxes. And our taxes are not cheap. But it’s really exciting to do an upgrade/repair out of the blue without requiring any out-of-pocket payments.
Side note: After I finish the studio bathroom, I think I really want to spend a few weeks working on the front of our house. I STILL haven’t gotten the shutter back up. I have lights that need to be repaired/replaced. The mailbox needs to be cleaned thoroughly. The porch needs some attention. I still haven’t finished the baseboard on the porch, and it has been unfinished for several years. And our new bedroom door still hasn’t been painted.
To me, these projects sound fun, and now that we have new curbs, the idea of spending some time sprucing up the exterior of our house (before it gets hot here in Central Texas) sounds like a fun break before starting a big project like ripping out a bathroom. And while I work on these projects, I can keep you updated on the outcome of these new curbs.
