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This week, we look at a kitchen renovation and June housing stats as well as what’s happening with the Oak Forest Shopping Center on 43rd Street.
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Saturday, July 25, 2015 • Page 1B
Cooking up a new kitchen plan
By Cynthia Lescalleet For The Leader The ranch-style home in Timbergrove Manor worked just fine for many years as a rental property. As a home for a millennial member of the owner’s family? Not so much. Wear and tear – and some deferred maintenance – on the 1958 vintage property had really taken a toll in the interim, says homeowner Glora Bee Helm. While the three-bedroom, two-bath home had changed hands more than five times over the decades, it still had a lot of its original features, fittings and floor plan. An overhaul of the dated kitchen – a small, dark and isolated one with breakfast nook – was especially merited, Helm recalls. As remodeled, the spruced up space features an opened up floorplan able to accommodate a whopping 11-ft. island with bar seating under its overhang and an adjacent dining area.
“It’s more livable, more pleasant,� Helm reports. “It’s a real working kitchen. You can move around. Entertain. You can circulate.� ENDING ISOLATION Opening up a kitchen to an adjacent room for more space and better flow is one of the most common renovations homeowners currently seek for houses, especially ones built before the ‘70s, says Rob Hellyer, president of Premier Remodeling and Construction and a member of the Remodelers Council of the Greater Houston Builders Association. Back in the day, kitchens were more removed from a home’s common rooms, he says. Today’s lifestyle, however, prefers to have whoever is prepping the meals not cut off from the rest of the family. Another open plan driving factor is people wanting more space for guests to congregate when entertaining, he says. While this project’s scope encompassed “only� the kitchen, it was an extensive reno-
Submitted photo In Timbergrove Manor, a kitchen overhaul by Premier Remodeling and Construction removed a 20-ft. wall between adjacent rooms to open up the floor plan as part of the updates.
vation nonetheless, the homeowner and renovator agree. Among the tasks tackled: gutting two rooms, removing the wall between them and in-
possible, he estimates, the cost could go higher. The return on investment, however, appears to be at least the same as a kitchen remodel in general, which in Houston is about 75 percent to 85 percent, Hellyer estimates. LOADING ZONE To open up the Helm home’s adjacent rooms meant removing a 20-ft. load-bearing wall. Since Helm did not want the new supporting beam visible in the newly contiguous space, it went into the attic, along with
See Kitchen, P. 3B
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PetSmart to open on West 43rd Street
the new wiring, plumbing and air conditioning equipment. Sometimes on projects like this, structurally redistributing the load requires extra foundation work or roof support or both, Hellyer explains, but that was not the case with the Helm project. For those considering a similar project scope, Hellyer says it’s a good time to consider going ahead and also raising the ceiling of the new space since much of the re-routing has to occur anyway.
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Submitted photo The home’s kitchen, pre-renovation, was smaller, darker and more isolated. The original floorplans of homes in the area aren’t working for today’s homeowners.
stalling a support beam, rerouting affected plumbing, wiring and HVAC, rewiring the entire house, replacing kitchen windows and adding French doors with side panels to boost natural light. Any bricks required to match where updates affected the back elevation came from removing a planter at the front of the 1,855-sq.-ft. home. Related tasks, added later, included relocating the home’s electrical service from the back of the garage to the back of the home, something handily tucked into a new breezeway connecting the two structures. Helm declined to share the budget, but said she “knew going into the project that it was going to be costly.� It’s not just the choice of finishes or whether to add an island that can rack up the expense of this kind of project, Hellyer says. A lot depends on the potential challenges of removing the wall. Is it load-bearing? Does it contain plumbing or wiring? How wide is the span once the wall is out? While a ballpark budget range of $50,000 to $75,000 is
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By Betsy Denson bdenson@theleadernews.com
Passerby at the Oak Forest Shopping Center on 43rd Street may have noticed some new activity at the center, including plywood up near Watches by Paulin and scaffolding at the Biomat USA Plasma Center. Interestingly, the center is owned by more than one entity – Weingarten Realty has everything from the Verizon store near the Oak Forest Library down to the Super Cuts. In addition, they lease to Kroger across the street as well as to the tenants in the building that is home to Baskin Robbins and Therapy Village. Karim Nooruddin is the owner of the portion of the center that includes Pizza Hut, Ideal Family Dentist and the plasma center as well as the land that houses Compass Bank. Park Blair owns the Oak Forest Berryhill and the Walgreens property, according to HCAD, is owned by Trilateral Investment Holdings. Carrie Murray, the marketing and communications director for Weingarten, said that the storefront with the plywood is the future home of PetSmart, which is scheduled to open in a 7,000 + square foot space in late 2015. Murray said that the small shop tenants on the south side of the center and PetSmart are being refreshed with a new fascia.
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** Dental Exam & X-ray Photo by Betsy Denson The exterior of the Biomat USA Plasma Center building is getting an improved facade. The company’s lease renewal comes up in January.
There is one space for lease in the Weingarten section of the complex – a 1,400 square foot space next to SuperCuts. The building that houses the plasma center is getting a refreshed façade, and the Ideal Family Dentist space already got spruced up. Nooruddin, who owns property off Highway 6 as well as in Dallas and San Antonio, has had his part of the Oak Forest property for three years and would
like to buy more in the vicinity if given the chance. “I love that area,� he said. Nooruddin said that the Compass Bank owns their building and does a ground lease on the land. They are in a 30 year lease with 17 more years to go. The dental office is new and Pizza Hut has been there for a number of years. The plasma center has a lease coming up in January. Nooruddin said he does not know if they plan to renew.
Lyn Jackson
Oak Forest • 4-3.5 4818 W. 43rd Street
All Ages
832.891.5081
Total remodeled granite kitchen, dream closets, lots of square footage. A MUST SEE! • MLS #19623941
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Karen Vicknair
713.822.8072
Norhill • 3-3 1032 Peddie Street
Completely remodeled Craftsman style home down to the studs! Move in today & relax in your backyard retreat. • MLS #42530234
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1803 W. 43rd • Houston, TX 77018