Your Home

[Big Lou]

Welcome to our home which we loving call "Burr Oak House"!

Our home is named for the majestic Texas Burr Oak in our front yard. Our home sites on what is termed a "zero clearance" lot. That means our property runs right up to the side of the neighbor’s house. This unique method provides maximum space from our mere 60' x 100' foot postage stamp sized corner lot. All homes in our small three street neighborhood have zero clearance lots. We have used just about every square of yard to create a nature filled oasis in this suburb of Dallas. Burr Oak house has about 1,964 square feet of living space plus two car garage. The cozy downstairs contains the living room, a small library, small dining area, galley kitchen, guest powder room and laundry room. Direct access to the garage through the laundry room is a great convenience. The larger upstairs contains our master bedroom suite separated by French doors from my study, a second roomy bedroom and open concept large third bedroom. There are two full bathrooms, one in our suite and one shared by the other two bedrooms. Almost immediately after moving into our newly build home some 19 years ago Cathy and I remodeled the interior from a typical sterile white contemporary look to a tasteful yet colorful interior reminiscent of a 1920's Louisiana country home. All woodwork including the kitchen cabinets and stairs are hand built. And yes, the wooden stairs do creak!

Our yard is full of trees. In the front yard there is the aforementioned large Texas Burr Oak, a rare one trunk pink Crepe Myrtle, four white Crepe Myrtles planted together to form a wonderful visual effect and the corner of the yard along with a smaller scale Houston Holly and two twin thorn less Hollies. Four colorful watermelon Crepe Myrtles run along the south of the house along with a blooming Desert Willow tree. A lovely white Dogwood and (I forget the name) Holly tree border the house in the north side narrow garden. The back yard contains my two beloved Louisiana Bald Cypress Trees and another white Crepe Myrtle. Of course there are various other plants in both the front sides and back.

As you exit our home through the dining area you cross a stone patio then step up on the covered main deck with outdoor dining table and chairs. This deck also has a traditional three person wood glider swing and blessed breeze producing ceiling fan with light. From the main deck you can walk around the small grass lawn and narrow north side garden or you can walk down the wooden walk way that leads you to either the driveway or to the smaller deck where you can sit in blissful peace beside the pond.



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[Waterbug]

My home.

 

[koiguy1969]

i had a simular idea a few years ago...... http://www.gardenpon...nds-of-members/

 

[CliffandJoann]

Hey BigLou...seems like we have a lot in common. I very much
like what you did to your house...We have a galley kitchen as well.
Five years ago we remodeled our kitchen and breakfast room. Made all the cabinets ourselves
as well as the breakfast room tables and two small chairs. We designed it all ourselves and
just last winter I dreamed up two more cabs to make for the breakfast area.
We taught ourselves woodworking (we make a lot of our furniture) upholstery (we reupholster
our furniture frequently) We taught our selves drapery making and stained glass windows.
Everything we do we dive in head first.

Two years ago our son called us and said they were tearing out the old oak wood kneelers
in his church and they were dumping them....so we rode over and rescued a huge load of oak kneelers (some
are quartersawn oak) we make tons of stuff with them.
Michealangelo saw David inside a hunk of stone and started carving.
I see a pile of wood and see a cabinet inside.

I know of two others that have ponds and both are people that like gardening and woodworking, go figure.
BTW. our house is named Seven Oaks...our house number is Seven and we have seven oaks
in the front yard.

How do you post thumbnails?

 

[capewind]

Welcome to our home which we loving call "Burr Oak House"!

Beautiful house and yard Ive never heard of zero clearance lots. So if your property line runs up to the neighbors, where does his go? What happens if you want to fence your yard for kids or pets? Also, thanks for the great description of the interior... my drafting brain has half the house laid out LOL.

 

[j.w]

How do you post thumbnails?

First you click More Reply Options down in lower rt hand corner. Then you click in the lower left corner under Attach Files...........Choose Files, then you will have to find where you store your pix in the pop up box and click on the photo you want to add and it will download at the bottom of the page and then you click add to post and voila it is added and you can add more and more. Click preview post to see that everything is where you want it and then you are done so hit add reply.

 

[capewind]

My home.

OMG Waterbug, just love the originality of the work that went into your home! I was loving the "built in bookcase" and THEN read it was a hidden door... that is sooo awesome!

 

[CliffandJoann]

Thanks JW...I'll try it next

 

[Big Lou]

Hey BigLou...
How do you post thumbnails?

We do have a lot in common. My forefathers were all craftsmen of one sort or another. I truly believe such appreciation such skills come from the heart and soul. Wifey has always been by my side during our home work. Back in the 1970's & 1980's we rebuilt our old home in Southwest Louisiana. As for the thumbnails, I created a Gallery, uploaded the images and was given the choice of large thumbnails.

Regards,
Lou

 

[Big Lou]

Beautiful house and yard Ive never heard of zero clearance lots. So if your property line runs up to the neighbors, where does his go? What happens if you want to fence your yard for kids or pets? Also, thanks for the great description of the interior... my drafting brain has half the house laid out LOL.

QUESTION - So if your property line runs up to the neighbors, where does his go?
ANSWER- The neighbors yard is on the opposite side, in front and back of their house. In turn, their property line runs up to their neighbors house.

QUESTION - What happens if you want to fence your yard for kids or pets?
ANSWER - The neighbors wall "is" on the property line. House walls on the property line has no windows. The only exception is for houses on corner lots. Fences in front yards are not permitted per HOA rules. Fences along the rear and yard extending past the neighbors property line wall are permitted.

I welcome more comments or questions. More photos can be provided.

 

[capewind]

Property line wise, that just seems so different to me. Most yards, the line is somewhere between the houses... for the neighbors not on a corner lot, it could work out to the same square footage of yard....

I'll hold off on more questions for now LOL... If I ask too many, my head will be spinning and will find myself DRAWING everyone's floor plans LOL. When it comes to this topic, I have a touch of self dx'd OCD LOL.

I didnt know we were going to get into interiors in this conversation, so a bit more on our house. The reason our house was a complete rebuild is we lost the house in 2007 to a fire. The house and contents were a total loss, so we had to totally start over. The old house was a 4 bedroom/4 bath house, built in 1870... Ironically, we had built a new house, didnt like all the NEW, so sold it, and bought OLD... after the fire, we went round and round with the mortgage comp. They kept insistiing on the same number of rooms as the old house, yet couldnt understand we could not put them all into a new structure, under current building codes, in the same 2400 sq ft. Ended up a bit bigger than planned at almost 3300 sq ft, but is designed in a way that they kids can all stay here until they are ready to buy their own homes, etc, and there is enough room for their boyfriends/girlfriends, spouces to move in too... So the end result is a 4 bedroom/5 bath house ... at this point all 3 kids are at home (they are 17-21) and just moved a friend into the den this week since he didnt have a place to go... Other than the bathroom count, nothing fancy in the house, except for the kitchen, and with all the swet equity we put into the project, it gave the budget room to splurge there. Will post a pic of the kitchen We did ALL of the work. Hubby hung the cabs/installed the appliances and laid the tile... son did all the grout work... I did all the painting, and with the help of our youngest, I did 90% of the finish carpentry work.

 

[Big Lou]

Sounds like a fantastic home. Sorry your original home was lost to fire. Same thing happened to my family when I was 4 or 5 years old. Devasting is the least I can say. Zero lots are not common place. As for the perceived extra space on a corner lot is actually made up of the city's easement. Nevertheless, we have used the easement as we please without trouble from the city.

 

[CliffandJoann]

test old photo

 

[Big Lou]

Looks great. There is one thing I do not like about this method, you can't move to the next or back to the previous image. Is this only because I am using an iPad to view?

 

[Big Lou]

I was in such a hurry with my photographs yesterday and did not closely read my captions. Makes me seem like such a dunce!