Rebuild After Hurricane Harvey: Reviving a Beloved Home

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Is there a place in your life that you feel so connected to, there isn’t a thing you would change about it? A home that is so ingrained in your memory you can still smell the food cooking and see the people laughing who are no longer with you?

For me, this is my Grandma and Popo’s house.

It is a place where I remember waking up late on Christmas morning as a child–I was too excited to nap with curlers digging into my scalp as we all got ready for midnight mass. A place where I helped Popo gather crabs out of the crab traps in the bayou and had the entire family over for a crab boil. I can still remember my older cousins smearing the yellow guts of the crab on their faces. My younger brother and I squealed and ran away in disgust!

With no master en suite, there were separate bathrooms for the ladies and gentlemen–the ladies’ being much larger. Of course, Grandma, Mom, my aunts and I filled it up with EVERYONE doing makeup, gossiping and laughing all at the same time!

It is where I chose my grandma’s ring as my engagement ring.

And later, where I told my family I was expecting. My husband and I had an an epic failure of announcing with a “bun in the oven” in the double oven pictured below, the day after this picture was taken.

Time has gone on and beloved family members have passed away. From time to time, my husband and I have talked about the house in passing. Not to live in, but how to remodel. It is the finest 1951 had to offer and Popo gave Grandma the best. We have our ideas, but at the end of the conversation I end with, “I would not have the heart to change a single thing”. It is the only house in the entire world I could not remodel.

Until now.

We’ve all heard of Hurricane Harvey. Some of you may have even heard of Dickinson from some of the disaster coverage (if not you can see the massive force of flood water going straight through town here). Some of you are already in the middle of figuring out how to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey ripped through your home.

Grandma and Popo’s house is right off the Dickinson Bayou.

Six feet of water later and many, many, many days (soon to be weeks) of blood, sweat and tears, the house is in the middle of being gutted.*

Mid-demo of the ladies bathroom. You can see the reflection of the torn out bathtub enclosure.

The kitchen photographed above: the plywood is the old location of the double oven.

A possible location for a new walk in closet?

I’ve never imagined what it looks like from one end of the house to the other. I’ve also never wanted Superman x-ray vision to see through walls.

The house is a blank slate with nothing but studs. OK, the saltillo tile still has to go and that will be a monster to tackle. However, upgrading electrical and plumbing are SUPER easy with open walls. The only other hard part** is any resizing of the sewer lines going out of the house if they are not large enough for today’s code.

The overall layout is fantastic for the majority of the house. However, there are two major problems with the current layout. First, modern families expect a master suite. Second, a walk-in closet is expected in a house of this scale and grandeur.

I knew I shouldn’t do a rough sketch. I know myself well enough to know if I drew one I’d fall in love. If I fall in love, I’d want to do it. But I drew one anyway. I even started a Pinterest board just for the new master en suite.

I can already envision the finished product in my head.

First, I switched the location of the old master bedroom with the adjacent bedroom. THE OLD MASTER BEDROOM IS MASSIVE with plenty of space to donate to the new master walk-in closet. I would rather shorten the walk in closet by a foot, but then we would have to deal with moving or removing the window. Note: I did not draw all the windows. You can see them on the original blueprint.

The biggest change in the layout is the point of entry for the previous ladies bathroom. It works perfectly as an en suite! Due to the addition of a walk in shower and double sinks, the new bathroom also takes over the old closet as well.

Inside the master bathroom, the design minimizes the changes needed to the existing structure. The wall to wall windows in the bathroom can remain (although perhaps upgraded to energy efficient windows), eliminating exterior work. Additionally, the shower drain/wet wall is intentionally on the inside wall. The glass wall on the shower curb does not require any changes to the exterior wall (aka closing in a window).

As for the design–the eye candy we all love that turns a regular remodel from ho-hum to jaw dropping–I can envision a bathroom with classic, traditional materials that never go out of style. Marble tiles in the shower along with the tile work around the freestanding tub are eye catching. Or perhaps a bold decorative vertical stripe of marble strategically placed in a few places along with shower nooks surrounded by classic subway tile. A chandelier above the tub and another between the granite double vanity are a nod to Grandma’s style. Grey tone wood plank tile in a herringbone pattern would complete the look–another touch of class inspired by my grandparents. Check out some inspiration collected from Pinterest here.

I fully expect the ladies will still take over the glamorous new master bathroom as the guys file in and out of the other bathroom.

There are a few tweaks maximizing the space of the boys bathroom as well. While the footprint is similar, there is now a bathtub/shower combination instead of a stand alone shower. With the door pivoting the opposite direction, there is plenty of room for a double vanity. The rest of the closet and linen space is now designated as a closet of the adjacent “storage” room. The storage room is now a forth bedroom.

Access to the wet walls is a consideration in both bathrooms.  This is why they are on the interior walls.

Rebuild after Hurricane Harvey AND prepare for the next flood

Special considerations are also in the new layout in preparation for the next flood, hopefully another 38 years or longer from now (the last flood was in 1979).*** All it takes to dismantle the boys bathroom is to disassemble the plumbing (no tools needed–P-traps are intended to be removable for maintenance clean out), unscrew the double vanity from the boys bathroom, and the entire wall is quickly removable. In fact, we could put up bead board along the walls of the boys bathroom. This choice of material makes “demo” a ridiculously strong word for the necessary dismantling work.

This Schluter System shower base is ideal for the new master walk in shower. This is a polystyrene base (think styrofoam), so mold will not grow like it would in a traditional dry pack mortar base after soaking in contaminated flood water for days. It still will have to go because mortar and grout are water penetrable. However, removing the base after a flood is much quicker and easier. As anyone knows in the removal process, water soaked drywall, mortar–even toilet paper is so much heavier from water weight. EVERYTHING IS LITERALLY BACK BREAKING WORK! So let’s make something a little easier!

A freestanding bathtub would also address built-in bathtub problems requiring absolutely zero demo work after a flood.

While plans for the house are still uncertain, it is a fun thought experiment I was NEVER able to do before now. If perhaps I had the chance, it would be special to honor my grandparents memory. I know Grandma would be proudly laughing, watching us work on the rebuild after Hurricane Harvey, just as she did when I said I learned how to do all of this from reading a book. I promise to take off my engagement ring as I work, Grandma.

Now it is your turn. I want to hear from you!

What do you think of the new floorplan? Any and all thoughts and suggestions are welcome!

Do you have a place near and dear to your heart that you have had the chance to remodel? Or perhaps you too have done similar thought experiments?

*A huge shout out goes to the quickly organized groups of Catholic volunteers, Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief Unit, and Knights of Columbus ministries. These groups assisted in both my aunt’s house as well as Grandma and Popo’s house. The links go to their donation websites as their efforts are ongoing. Just yesterday the Knights of Columbus voted to extend their relief and soup kitchen effort for another 90 days! It is hard to fathom the generosity of people involved in these charities–they will be present until Christmas! Not only are the local Knights of Columbus members helping those on the ground, they are also dealing with flooding in their own homes. Thank you, gentlemen and ladies.

**Let’s be real. THERE ARE A TON OF HARD PARTS during a full on remodel. The thought of running a straight line of tile through over a hundred feet is a challenge I want to take on. Difficult? YES. Challenging? YES! But why are we here if we aren’t in this for good old fashioned work? Not only that, but I know without a doubt my work will be better than my competition and I will take extra time to go over that last little complicated corner piece because my heart is here.

***Maybe longer than 38 years if the house is raised.