A Trip to Gladewater TX

Sorry for the few week gap in posts. It has been been a crazy busy month of October and life is just now getting back to normal. I have had this post written for a couple of weeks now and just haven't had time to get around to posting. If you are lucky however and we remember to take pictures of all the progress happening in our house right now you might get multiple posts this week.

If you head out of town on 271 past the UT Health Center you are going to run into Gladewater, the antique capital of East Texas. In my 15 years of living in East Texas my only experience with Gladewater was the frustration it caused with its 35 mph speed limit on the way to Arkansas. It’s one of those places I heard people talk about, but never really imagined myself gracing the streets to peruse store front windows filled with other people’s unwanted junk.
Over the last few months (or year and half) Katie and I have been planning for the renovation of both bathrooms in our house. We enjoy the older home charm that comes with a 50’s style house, however could do without the quaint 50’s size bathrooms. Both of our bathrooms are small in size, and outdated. Our first thought was to add an addition to the house with a grand master on suite. We actually purchased the house with this intention, however when we started to add up the bill, the major addition price tag just didn’t make sense for a house in our neighborhood. We feel like we got an exceptional deal on our house when we purchased it, but we still analyze every choice we make in the grand scheme of will this project add more value to the house than it cost, and does it make sense for the neighborhood both in terms of style and price. You never want to price yourself out of the neighborhood you are currently in by spending too much on your home renovation.

For our bathroom we wanted a 60” double vanity. That sounds simple enough right? We thought so too, but when we started to see what the big box stores had to offer we found 2 options. You have your standard cheaply made builder’s grade cabinet which is boring, or something with a little more style for twice the cost and up which is more than we wanted to spend on this project. After several trips back to the store just to see if anything new had arrived we decided to explore other options and talked about using a dresser or other piece of furniture to convert into a vanity. You have probably seen this done all over for the past 15 years, it’s nothing new, but still a good alternative and adds a little more interest than you would get with your basic vanity. So where better to look for antique furniture than the antique capital of East Texas.

Gladewater is a small East Texas town, population just over 6,000 and it seems every one of them decided to open an antique shop. We parked downtown next to the railroad tracks and were able to walk about a quarter mile in every direction. We did find a map at one point which was helpful. These are some of the more interesting items we came across and thought we would snap a few photos of them. Above is a medic bike used in WW2, and below is a popcorn machine from the 1800's. Both of these were a little bit out of our price range and weren't exactly on the list of pieces we were looking for.

This is one of the shops we entered, and immediately turned right back around. The owner had just returned from Italy were she acquires a lot of her items, however her style of displaying them stressed me out.

She did have an entire hallway full of century old iron and wooden doors that had been removed from churches and other buildings overseas. I can't image what it would cost to ship these beasts back to the states, but then again after checking a few price tags, I probably have a pretty good idea.

Luckily our trip was a success and we were able to find exactly what we were looking for. We found this vanity at our first stop and thought it would work perfect, but of course we had to go hit every other possible option to verify that indeed it was the best option. After several hours and an excellent lunch (see below) we can back to where we started and purchased it.It is exactly 60" wide, has tons of storage with all the drawers working perfectly, and even has a matching mirror that was included. It is currently 34" tall and the plan is to add a two inch think concrete countertop (that we are pouring this week) with a glass vessel sink which is already sitting in inventory in the guest room. We are really happy with this purchase, we got the vanity and mirror for $350 and plan to paint the entire piece a light grey and replace all of the pulls. We are not sure how old it is or even if it is an antique or not however through Katie's knowledge she obtained during her years of selling furniture she is able to point out to me the dove tailed drawers and dust covers that tell her this is a quality built piece.

While were were trying to find our way out of the maze at the crazy Italian lady's shop, she asked us if we had eaten lunch and directed us across the street to Alba's Italian Kitchen. We knew we needed to grab a bite somewhere and really had no other plans or recommendations in the area so we decided to give it a try.

It was a late lunch and we ended up being the only table there but Alba was great and her food was outstanding. The menu included only a few items so we asked her what she recommended. Katie got the Lasagna and I ordered the Cheese Tortellini in cream sauce which she had just finished making when we walked in the door.

We were so hungry and it was so good we had already eaten half our food before I realized I hadn't taken any pictures. Both entries were delicious however the homemade lasagna was amazing. The portion were enormous and I had to decide to forgo eating the rest of mine to finish Katie's leftover lasagna (actually I ended up coming back to mine and finishing it, really you thought I left food on the table?). Since we were the only ones there and the place is not very big we ended up talking with Alba during our meal and learned that she is from Sicily and had only been in the states about 18 months, moving to Gladewater to be closer to her daughter. She is retired but needed something to do during the day so she decided to open a little restaurant offering food she has cooked her entire life back home. We told her we were from Tyler and had just came over for the day and she mentioned that her daughter had just finished making home made cannolis for a catering company in Tyler. Didn't take much convincing before we had to order our own. We got laughed at for trying to eat it with a knife and fork so I had to pick it up with my hands and finish it off from this point.

If you are ever in Gladewater be sure to make plans to stop by Alba's, or take a long lunch today and head that way, its only about a 30 minutes drive and well worth it.

This past week we went on buying spree and purchased everything we needed for two bathroom renovations that got underway this past weekend. In the bed of the truck is two bathtubs a vanity and a toilet, with another toilet hanging out in the backseat. We had made a lot of progress already, the old claw-foot tub is out of our bathroom (if anyone is interested in it let me know) and the new tub is installed and we will be ready to tile this week.

Also, a big thank you to my parents who spent practically their entire weekend helping us demo and plumb up this bathroom. Just another reminder how fortunate we are to have parents living nearby.

Lighting

So with our 1950's house came 1950's lighting. We knew from the first time we looked at the place that every fan and fixture would eventually have to go. Before we renovated the kitchen we had a pendant over the sink (which really wasn't that bad), a small three bulb fixture over the breakfast table by the back door, and a ceiling fan with four lovely globes. The ceiling fan looked out of place to me but since the kitchen was so closed off from the rest of the house it did get really hot in there when we cooked that one time.

In the kitchen we added four can lights around the room and these two pendants over the island that I mentioned in our kitchen before and after post.

Since the old pendant over the sink didn't match we took it down and put a another recessed light in it's place. With the sink in front of a window we prefer that the can light does not obstruct your view of our football field of a front yard.

We have been told by several of our neighbors that the hill our house in on is one of the highest points in Tyler and after we went jogging for the first time in this house we believed it. We frequently like to get out doors to go on bike rides, walk the dog, or head over the Pollard Park and swing on the play ground like we are 8 years old and once we leave the drive way any direction you go you are headed down hill. My office is located a mile away on the other side of the neighborhood and we learned one night that you can get from our driveway to the office with out pedaling. Now getting back is a different story. I told Katie I would ride my bike to work but she would have to come pick me up every day and that would just be embarrassing.

When we first moved in to the house our plan was to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dinning room (which we did) and make the dinning room into a family room. We went ahead and moved the dinning table and chandelier to one side of our large front living area and ran electrical and inserted a new switch for the light. We have gone back and forth and changed our minds, multiple times, on almost every project in our house and this one was no different. We finally decided that since we already had two living areas (we also have a den with a fire place that I am currently using as an office) for us to eliminate a true dinning area to add a third living area didn't make sense. So once the wall was down the dinning table went back. Where the dinning table was in the front room we put our small wooden breakfast table that no longer fit in the kitchen with the new island and bar seating. This became a game table and a place for the just the two of us to eat and be able to see the TV. The additional space in this area was filled up by our piano which is a whole other story that I will get to one day. Over this small table we needed a light that looked different enough from the new island pendants in the kitchen but helped tie in our new dinning room light that we hadn't yet purchased but knew what we wanted it to look like.

(This is our little bookshelf with games beside this table)

We tried everything in the space, went to every lighting store in Tyler, twice, even tried to make one ourselves by installing a light kit into a lantern we bought at Home Goods last time we were in Dallas. Nothing seemed to work in the space. Our last thought was to open a new lighting store in East Texas that actually carried some different and exciting looking lighting. That discussion didn't last long though and we were back to scouring the existing stores.

Going into it we thought we would have a problem with being cheap. I don't know if I would actually say cheap but we were looking for different and unique on a budget. What we found though is that different and unique didn't even exist. We weren't even given the chance to say "man that is perfect, too bad it's so expensive". Finally during a trip to Lowe's for a completely unrelated project, we came across the new Allen + Roth collection. We had started to see several of these glass globe pendants around the Internet and on several shows but had never really seen one in person. I was hesitant on the finish, never really being a fan of oil rubbed bronze, but really liked the glass globe so we decided to take it home and give it a shot.

We ended up liking it so much that when we were looking for an entry light we went back to Lowe's and found this one from the same collection. This entry light needed to be high enough and not too wide so the door could swing beside it. We didn't really want another pendant and can never find a flush mount that we like so this seemed like the perfect alternative. (We also really like the vintage filament bulbs that come with these lights)

Back to the dinning room that is without a light since I took apart the old chandelier to use parts for our home made lantern attempt. For months Katie had been searching the Internet for chandeliers and the only ones that we both liked were the wine barrel chandeliers from Restoration Hardware. Now if you click on that link you will quickly learn that this just wasn't going to happen. So the search was on back to all the lighting shops within a 50 mile radius. We would tell people we were looking for a wooden wine barrel chandelier and they would always say sure I know exactly what you are looking for and then show us a light that was the complete opposite. We were frustrated, and almost gave in a few times and purchased a light that neither of us liked, however we never really got over how great a unique wooden light would look in our house.

Finally we heard from some friend that there was a man at First Monday in Canton that sold lights that sounded like what we were looking for. So the next First Monday weekend that rolled around we made the 35 minute drive over to Canton. Sure enough we found this little shop inside one of the main pavilions and were really impressed with what he had. We settle on one that was a little smaller to work with our 8 foot ceilings and after a little haggling it was ours and we couldn't wait to get it home to install it.

Installing a light is something I have done numerous times and if everything goes right should only take a few minutes. After four hours I gave up and called my Dad in for reinforcement. Apparently at this junction box in the ceiling was a connection for almost every other light in the house and when we took the wall down and moved the lines into the attic a few of them did not get reconnected correctly. The first time we wired the chandelier up and flipped the breaker back on the light stayed on all the time. You could flip the switch all you wanted but the light was always on. We thought about just using the breaker as a switch because how often do we really dine, but decided to forge ahead and figure it out. In our next attempt the light worked, however half our house was out. Finally after taking everything apart and chasing it through the attic we got it all put back together and working.

We know our table is too small for the space and we are still looking for a knock off Restoration Hardware table to go with our new light. Something that seats 8-1o. We had a big mirror on that back wall but ended up moving it to the entry way of our bedroom across the closet. It gets more used there.

We are really happy with our lighting solutions thus far and hope we have the same luck going forward with the rest of the house. Currently we are having a hard time finding ceiling fans that we like. Maybe we should open up our own lighting store, any investors reading? This past weekend we traveled over to Gladewater and made a purchase for our upcoming bathroom(s) reno so be sure to check back for that post.

DIY: Found Headboard

Last spring my parents purchased a house here in town to renovate and turn into a rental. The previous owners of this property were an older couple who had lived there for quite a few years and managed in that time to accumulate a mass of junk. There were multiple storage buildings in the backyard filled with all kinds of dust ridden treasures from the 1950’s and a house full of items that they must have decided weren’t worth taking with them but were too lazy to throw out themselves. Among the items left in the house was this:

A solid wood matching headboard and foot board, missing the side rails.

Katie and I immediately noticed this bed on our first visit to this property and really like the shape and finish. Our current guest bed had been an iron headboard Katie had used in college, painted over multiple times, and attached to your standard metal bed frame. We didn’t have time to do anything with it at the moment but decided that it might make a neat guest bed in our house someday so we took it and placed it in our garage in inventory, where it stayed for several months.


This past weekend we decided to pull the bed out and see what we could do with it. We knew we needed to add side rails and somehow refinish the entire bed to make the new side rails match but honestly neither one of us had any knowledge of how to go about it. We spent some time looking at our bed to understand how the side rails worked and took some measurements and decided that a 2X6 would probably be a good height and thickness for the two side rails that we needed to make. We also needed some way to attach the side rails to the headboard and foot board. So we headed over to the Home Depot, because it was lunch time, and picked up a 12’ 2X6, and a handful of brackets to attach the side rails to the bed.

We added a block under each side rail nailed to the bed to help support the weight so it is not all being held by the bracket and also to help line everything up.

We also needed some smaller brackets to attach the ledge on the inside of the rails that the slats would sit on. After the railed were attached, we ripped a 2X4 through the table saw in half and flipped the bed on its side to attach our ledge.We had some 3/4 hardwood left over from various projects so we cut a few slats about 3" wide, measured the inside of the bed from rail to rail and cut them to length.


We also decided to go ahead and add a few center supports under the middle rails to help hold the weight of the bed. We had a few feet of the side ledges left over from the 2x4 we ripped in half so that worked perfect.

Now that our bed frame was complete we dragged the box springs and mattress out to the garage just to make sure our measurements were correct and it all fit before proceeding. I thought a bed in the garage would be perfect for guests, or even for taking a short nap during projects, however the misses strongly disagreed.

Once the mattress was safely back in the house, we decided to do an antique finish by staining the entire bed and then painting it and sanding off a portion of the paint so the stain would show through. Since the headboard and foot board were already pretty rough looking and the side rails were brand new wood, we thought this would help unify the look.

We didn't have enough of a single stain on the shelf to do the entire bed so we mixed a few together, probably from containers that had been mixed before honestly. It ended up being a light brown but served our purpose well.

After the stain was dry we painted the bed white. We used a Behr ceiling white in a satin that was already on our shelf. We decided on white since we knew the nightstands in our guest room were black and the dresser that will eventually go in there is white as well.


As soon as the paint had dried we got to work sanding. We took some fine grit sandpaper and we over the entire bed, especially the edges and corners so some of the stain underneath would show through.

Finally got Katie in a picture. She was glad when we were finished with this project so she could park in the garage again.

When we finally finished, around 10:30 at night I believe, and the end result looked great. Better than I imagined halfway through the project when I had some serious doubts if the whole thing was going to work.
We quickly took the bed apart and set it up again in it's new home in our guest room. We were relieved the white bed works so well against the grey/blue walls (granite builder, Behr) which was the first thing we painted in our house over a year ago.

Along with building beds, lately all we seem to be working on in our house is lighting. Our plan is to replace every fixture/fan in the entire house before everything is said and done (we are about halfway there) so our next post is going to be about our most recent, and most exciting, lighting purchases.

Opie's Famous Hot Dogs

If you have ever been to the Home Depot in Tyler during the day light hours you have probably noticed Opie's Famous Hot Dog stand conveniently located just outside. If you haven't seen them I guarantee you have smelled them, and if you haven't tried them what are you waiting for. We usually end up needing something from the hardware store almost every weekend, and we do our best to plan our trips around lunch time. It's become a tradition now in our household, it just doesn't feel like the weekend without an Opie dog.

(Katie just happened to lean in to apply the spicy mustard to her regular dog with onions just as I was taking the picture of the menu)

It's a cash only establishment and I would be lying if I said we haven't purchased something inside just to get the cash back to be able to buy our hot dogs but they are that good. Since you don't have a clear shot of the menu I will give you a run down. Katie has her usually, it's a regular beef dog ($2) with grilled onions (optional) with a bag of Nacho Doritos and a Dr. Pepper. Now I am a little more adventuresome with my choice of dog and I am not ashamed to say I have tried every single item on this menu. Usually I leave it up to the ones manning the grill to decide what looks the best at the moment and that's what I go with. Saturday it was a Bratwurst ($2.75), always with the grilled onions and spicy mustard.

If you are a first timer to Opie's, and you are headed there for lunch today after reading this post here is my ranking of every dog on the menu for your convenience.

1. Jalapeno cheese sausage ($3)


2. Hot Link ($3)


3. Bratwurst ($2.75)


4. Cheeseburger Link ($3, this one is strange, it's ground hamburger meat and cheese formed into the shape of a hot dog and grilled. It took me about 6 months to overcome to weird factor and try it, but it's pretty darn good)


5. All Beef dog (regular $2 or jumbo $3)


6. Polish ($2.75)


7. Sausage on a stick ($3, it's good but I prefer to eat my dog with a bun, and I wasn't sure how to make the grilled onions stick to it)

Chips are $.50 and $1.00 depending on the size bag, cokes at $.75 and a bottle of water is a buck. We can usually eat lunch for around $8 for the two of us including a generous tip to these fellas.

They were out there every day in the heat off the summer standing over a grill singing along to the ipod they have in one ear always wearing long basketball shorts and tall socks. They make us laugh. Since we frequent this establishment so often we feel like we have become friends with these gentlemen. They wave at us across the parking lot if we happen to stop by Home Depot during the week and occasionally ask if we will still come eat a hot dog when we are finished working on our house (like that will ever happen). Katie is more concerned about them leaving to find a real job once they graduate college. My hope is that they are going to school to study hot dog stand management and plan to take over this little place some day.

Opie's may not be your definition of fine dining in East Texas but if you are looking for a good quick meal on the cheap give if a try. So plan your next trip to Home Depot around lunch time and tell them the tall guy and cute girl who eat there every Saturday sent you. We are really trying to give this blog a shot and hope you are enjoying reading it. Our next post will be a DIY project over the weekend that includes this guy that has been laying in out garage for months. Stay tuned.

Now Open

Chipotle Mexican Grill officially opened its doors today in Tyler. You can find it on S. Broadway in front of the mall in the corner of the Sears parking lot. I guess they finally decided that since no one shops at Sears, they don't need a parking lot.

(I was expecting the line to be longer)

After years of rumors and what seemed like endless months of construction we now have our very own burrito subway. I know I know some of you Tylerites out there are thinking, "well what about Salsaritia's"? Let me start off by saying I appreciate that Salsarita's came in and filled a need in our town left by Frisco's (Where Daniel Boone's is now) almost 10 years ago. If you were craving a burrito wrapped in foil that you could eat with your hands Salsarita's was the only place in town. Now I have eaten at quite a few of these similar make you own burrito establishments in the past few years and with out a doubt Salsarita's is the worst. Management was terrible, the food was sub par at best and the menu was scattered with off the wall items such as pizza that I was too annoyed with to try. If you picked up on my past tense verbiage it was no mistake, it's just my general feeling that with the opening of Chipotle it won't be long before we see Salsarita's close up shop.

If you have never been to a Chipotle, which I was surprised to learn that one of my co-workers had not, you really need to go check it out. Get on there website, read their story, and appreciate their commitment to bringing you organic and locally grown food in an up scale fast food setting. Up scale fast food sounds kind of funny but I don't know how else to describe it. The food is outstanding and the atmosphere is more trendy than some of your traditional sit down restaurants, but you get your food FAST. They really have the whole ordering process down to a science assigning a single task to each employee and passing your order down the assembly line.

(only 10 minutes later from starting in the parking lot and it's my time to order)

(I went with the Babacoa with brown rice, grilled onions and peppers, corn salsa, pico, cheese and lettuce)

Chipotle also offers tacos, burrito bowls, and salads and I hear has some pretty darn good guacamole. I would tell you but come to find out I'm pretty allergic to the green stuff so I have to stay away.

If you live in East Texas be sure to check out Chipotle and don't be scared of the long lines. If they are already this fast on opening day just think how quick they will be once they get the hang of things. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know of any new restaurant rumors you have heard lately.

New Beginnings

Caught up in the excitement a few years ago of a time in our history I like to refer to as the year of the blog, the wife and I decided to start our own…and it failed. It sounded like such a good idea at first, you post a few photos write a few sentences and sit and watch as your legion of loyal followers hang on your every word. We really did have every intention of blogging on a regular basis. We were fresh out of school, had just gotten married, and the best way to stay up to date on the lives of your friends, your friends friends, and even friends of those friends, was to read their blogs from afar without ever actually having to speak to them. Katie spent the better part of a month designing/re-designing a background look for the blog that fit what she calls “our style”. We started snapping pictures of everything from decorating the Christmas tree to Lobo “el perro” playing in the snow. We said this is easy, we can do this! We were wrong. After the first few months we started to notice something pretty instrumental in the whole blogging process. Blogging is just a fun word for “writing” and writing is something neither of us like to do or do particularly well. So our blog died, we let it die.

Our last post on the blog was before the purchase of our house…over a year ago…where we so casually made the promise to start blogging more. I’m not exactly sure where the last twelve months have gone but here we are, another year older so they say, and taking on the daunting task of blogging again. The blog isn’t going to be so much about our everyday lives as it was in the past, but at the same time it kind of is. Instead of blogging about baking cookies and sharing our inner most personal feelings with the world we are going to focus on two primary topics we actually care a little bit about. That is renovating our house one project at a time, and food. I come from what you would call a “project family” and after purchasing this house last summer Katie and I can safely say without a doubt that this is our fate. Our evenings and weekends are filled with sawdust in our shorts and paint on our faces (not really because we are painting pros) and throughout this blog we are going to share with you what we like to do, how you can do it, and why in our opinion DIY is the way to go. Since we last left you with a picture of the house we had yet to purchase, we thought we would go ahead and share some before and after pictures of our kitchen remodel that is almost complete.

Here is a before picture of the kitchen from the listing when we bought the house. Not bad at all, but not our style. We did appreciate the gas range and stainless steel appliances though. It didn't take long after closing that we got to work.

My dad and I starting to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room.

The wall is now down with a header in it's place. The studs you see are for the temporary support wall we had to build while taking down the wall since it was load bearing.

Since the pantry was on the wall we took down, we had to build a new, BIGGER, pantry and also decided to box in the fridge while we were at it.

We repainted all the original white cabinets after sanding off layers and layers of paint with Sherwin Williams ProClassic Universal Khaki which we saw in the kitchen of a parade house a few summers ago.

We replaced the old fake wood roll out flooring with some 16x16 tiles and built an island for our piece of marbel you may remember from our last post.

One Saturday while watching Sarah's Cottage on HGTV we saw this backsplash tile and Katie said "I want it". Come to find out it was from a Canadian supplier that only has one store in the U.S. which is conveiniently located in Indiana. Katie was determined however and after numerous phone calls, e-mails, and shipping mishaps the tile was finally ours. It really does look great. We also decided to refinish the original solid wood countertops in the rest of our kitchen after seeing it done at the Nix's remodel on Jeff Davis this last year on the parade.

FINALLY, here she is. The apron sink and pendants are worth mentioning, they were great finds from Ikea and the faucet is a pull down Moen from the HD. We also did a wood treatment on the ceiling and installed four can lights in the room and one above the sink to add more lighting.

In case remodeling and design is not your thing stay tuned because we are also going to be talking about food. Good food. Not so much how to make it but where to find it. We love to eat, finding new places, and enjoying what your put in your mouth past the point of simply fuel to stay alive. I wake up in the morning and think “what do I want to eat today”? I plan my day around food, I’ve planned vacations around food, and legend even has it my first word was “food”. We live in Tyler Tx, and despite the rumors, it is not the restaurant capital of the world. In the past few months we have added to our repertoire with the likes of a BJ’s Brew house and Chuy’s Mexican Café and have even seen construction start on Corner Bakery, Chipotle, and Panera Bread. However much is left to be desired when it comes to eating out in East Texas. Through the mass of fast food eateries and subpar Mexican restaurants on every corner there are still places out there serving good food worth the cost of eating out.

This week we have a short list of projects around the house that include putting the finishing touches on our kitchen, and at least half a dozen opportunities for eating out. We aren’t going to promise to start blogging every day or even every week for that matter, past history has taught us that it just won’t happen. When we do blog however, you know it’s going to be good so check back every once in a while and comment often, we are always looking for new DIY projects to tackle and exciting restaurants to check out.