Our New House in Austin!

Austin House number 2	The new house was built in 1959, which is only 13 years after our Ramsey Avenue house was built. In terms of difference in style, you'd think that 50 years had passed. The new place is a ranch-style house, so it feels more suburban, but we're only about a mile north from our previous neighborhood. The backyard was the clincher for the new house -- it's huge and beautiful. Emmaline refers to it as "the park."
Yes, it's odd that we made a move after only being in Austin for two and a half years. Our first Austin house was a cute cottage, but the floor plan wasn't the best for a family, and the backyard was small. We thought about remodeling the house, and we wondered if we could magically increase the lot size...then the new house came on the market. We decided to look at it for "fun" and once we stepped into the back yard, the plan to remodel the Ramsey Avenue house went out the window!


Our first Austin House	This picture was taken in late September 2005 be before they cut down the hackberry tree to right. It was sick and would have fallen down sooner or later -- sooner according to the arborist. Here is our house in August of 2006. Post landscaping and with small replacement Monterrey Oak
Yep, we finally made the 150 mile move west to Austin. It's great place, much more outdoor focused than Houston. Our new house is quite old (built in 1946) and smaller than our Houston houses. We love it just the same. If there was just a little bit more room!



Our temporary house in Houston
We rented this house after our house sold and before moving to Austin. It was pretty generic, nothing wrong, but absolutely nothing right either.


This is our old home in Houston	The living room showing the nice new pre-flood flooring The backyard, including a 12 year old girl and cat The alternate lawn suggested by Adam F. An aerial view of our neighborhood Panoramic view of the neighborhood and the girls - This is a very wide picture and large image (6700x600, 1.8 MB)
We bought our house in August of 1999 and spent the next few months remodeling. The remodeling included removing the wall between the living room and dining room, installing a new front door, replacing some of the old kitchen lights, replacing the front door with a new solid wood door, and installing wood floors in the kitchen and living room. The whole process took a lot longer than we expected. We moved in on January 31, 1999. We loved the house, but it was time to say goodbye for us.
This is Tropical Storm Allison	The flood The recovery
The storm dropped 35 inches of rain in just a few days in early July 2001 around Houston. It also left a couple of inches of water in our house. We spent our summer rebuilding and learned much more than we wanted to know about disaster recovery
This is our old old house	The open floor plan was the best part about the old house The new tile counters we put in just before we moved
It was also known as "Alan's Bachelor Pad, or once Anna moved in "The Fixer Upper". That's Uncle Harry and his big Oldsmobile. It was looking quite nice by the time we moved.

rowebenson home

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