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Welcome to Pleasant Valley Ranch


The (ongoing) story of a guy, a girl, and a house in east Austin.

Follow our toil, trouble, and triumph as we attempt to remodel an average 1946 bungalow into our dream home.

More below...

Chapter 103: It Might Not Be Fast, But At Least It’s Pretty

August 29, 2020

It’s taken us 14 years to get to this point, but it’s starting to come together.

Chapter 102: All Hands on Deck

August 29, 2020

Finally got to put the deck on the roof, and it’s marvelous.

Chapter 101: From Enclosed to Awesome

August 29, 2020

Making it all so much more comfy with AC and insulation and lights and internet and toilets!

Chapter 100: Digging a Ditch…Again

August 29, 2020

This better be the last ditch we ever have to dig, because it’s getting really old and so are we.

Chapter 99: Buttoning Up the Outside

August 29, 2020

Finishing out the back building with siding and some pretty purple paint.

Chapter 98: Let There Be Light

January 6, 2019

Finally, we have electricity and lights in the new building.

Chapter 97: Windows for the Treehouse

January 6, 2019

Oh my goodness, what is this? More windows!

Chapter 96: Finally, an Enclosure

January 6, 2019

Finally, enclosing these spaces with doors and windows.

Chapter 95: This Porch is On Fire

January 6, 2019

Made the porch look gorgeous, and almost caught the house on fire. Just another weekend at PVR!

Chapter 94: Hit the Deck

January 5, 2019

Time to build decks over our fancy new roof.

Chapter 93: Stairway to Heaven

January 5, 2019

No more climbing a ladder to get to the roof. We have a spiral staircase now!

Chapter 92: Let’s Put a Lid on It

January 5, 2019

Time for a roof on the new building.

Chapter 91: Another Brick in the Wall

January 5, 2019

Check it out, we’re adding some actual design features to that new building in the back.

Chapter 90: Building the Right Kind of Walls

June 23, 2017

Metal and fire! Metal and fire! Metal and fire!

Chapter 89: Be Steel My Heart

June 23, 2017

When walls go up, that’s when shit gets really real…

Chapter 88: It’s Time to Start the Second Building

June 23, 2017

Getting ready for the new building starts with demolition and playing in the dirt, as usual…

Chapter 87: Pretty Purple House

June 3, 2017

Oh my god, I thought it would never happen, but the house is pretty again…

Chapter 86: Prepping for Paint

June 3, 2017

It’s almost time to paint the house…almost…

Chapter 85: Back in the Bathroom Again

June 3, 2017

Finally finishing up the second bathroom…again…

Chapter 84: Back in the Saddle Again

June 3, 2017

A little bit of history in the making…

Chapter 83: The Neverending Saga of Siding

April 15, 2015

Finally closing in this big box…

Chapter 82: One Gourmet Kitchen Coming Up

April 15, 2015

Holy crap, it’s finally our perm kitchen…

Chapter 81: Kitchen Floor Goes Metal \m/

April 15, 2015

While tile is awesome in the bathroom, it’s only metallic epoxy for us in the kitchen…

Chapter 80: Bathroom Porn!

April 15, 2015

My favorite category of porn, well that and chandelier porn…

Chapter 79: Tile Time, Excellent!

April 15, 2015

Turns out, tile is one of my favorite things. Really makes a group of walls look like a bathroom…

Chapter 78: Grown Up Furniture for a Grown Up House! Say What?

April 15, 2015

Time to get rid of the old dorm furniture…

Chapter 77: Say Hello to Curb Appeal

February 22, 2014

The house is getting prettier on the outside too…

Chapter 76: Wait, There’s More Bathroom News? Yeppers.

February 22, 2014

Even more progress on the bathroom. Almost tile ready…

Chapter 75: Is That Granite in Your Bathroom, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

February 22, 2014

This house is starting to look like a…well…a house…

Chapter 74: Our West Side Story

February 22, 2014

This room feels pretty, with such a pretty wall, such a pretty stove, such a pretty window…

Chapter 73: Let the Dream Kitchen Begin

April 4, 2013

First step toward our dream kitchen magic…

Chapter 72: E.A.S.T. #5 at PVR

April 4, 2013

Another fantastic EAST experience…

Chapter 71: Walls & Ceilings & Lights, Oh My! Part Deux

April 4, 2013

Getting up more ceilings, walls, and lights…

Chapter 70: Walls & Ceilings & Lights, Oh My!

April 4, 2013

One of the sexier posts in the blog. Chandelier porn!

Chapter 69: Whole-house Igloo? Yes, please!

April 4, 2013

Walls are good, but insulated walls are better…

Chapter 68: Tub Love

July 12, 2012

Nothing spells awesome like J-A-C-U-Z-Z-I-T-U-B!!!

Chapter 67: I Want To Whisper Sweet Nothings To The Porch

July 12, 2012

Nothing brightens your day quite like a beautiful new porch…

Chapter 66: Kitteh Intermission

July 12, 2012

Every blog needs a kitten intermission, here’s ours…

Chapter 65: Errek’s Skin Vent & Other Wood-Related Stuff

July 12, 2012

Finally getting the prettier walls on this place, as well as Errek’s ingenious skin vent for efficiency…

Chapter 64: Igloo & EAST

July 12, 2012

Finally moving from temp to mostly-perm, and also more EAST…

Chapter 63: Rooms with a View

September 20, 2011

What a difference a window, or several, makes…

Chapter 62: Creature Comforts

September 20, 2011

A new AC and electrical system can make all the difference, lifestyle-wise…

Chapter 61: The Saga of the Dream Tub

September 20, 2011

Sometimes buying a tub is one of the more traumatic thing you have to do…

Chapter 60: Building History

September 20, 2011

From the past to the future, and we’re still completely insane…

Chapter 59: From Temp, to Temp-to-Perm

March 1, 2011

Moving the kitchen to it’s new permanent home, and making the walls straight…

Chapter 58: Party Time, Excellent!

March 1, 2011

It’s time to party like it’s really, really cold outside…and inside…

Chapter 57: Two Halves Make a Whole

March 1, 2011

Finally, at long last, we’re connecting the new house to the old…

Chapter 56: Building a Bubble Room

March 1, 2011

Out with the cold, in with the igloo room…

Chapter 55: At Last, Walls Glorious Walls

March 1, 2011

Stud walls are only theoretical “walls.” It was time for some honest-to-God walls…

Chapter 54: E.A.S.T. #4 at PVR

December 16, 2010

Celebrated another year of art and friendships at E.A.S.T…

Chapter 53: Full Metal Jacket

December 16, 2010

Seriously though, nothing is quite as precious as a good roof…

Chapter 52: A Roof With a View

December 16, 2010

Tearing up the roof is not actually as fun as it sounds…

Chapter 51: Sky, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Us?

December 16, 2010

Getting a new roof is awesome, unless it rains after you’ve removed the old roof and before you’ve covered it up…

Chapter 50: Holy Crap, Roof Rafters!

December 16, 2010

Whoa, a roof…well it’s sort of a roof…

Chapter 49: Puttin’ on the Ceiling

December 16, 2010

Adding roof rafters to the back of the house…

Chapter 48: Walls are Popping Up Like Weeds

July 21, 2010

Progress, measured one stud at a time…

Chapter 47: Houston, We Have A Wall!

July 21, 2010

Nothing says progress like new walls and fireworks…

Chapter 46: New Subfloors, Meet Hurricane Alex

July 21, 2010

Who would have thought that putting down new subfloor would be this awesome…and this challenging…

Chapter 45: Prepping for Newness

July 21, 2010

Taking down some old walls in order to building some new ones…

Chapter 44: Tribute to Lucy

July 21, 2010

We lost a beloved member of the family. So this is her tribute…

Chapter 43: Deja Vu, Plumbing in the Dirt, Part 2, the Water Main

April 27, 2010

Time to fix the water main pipe that the dump truck crushed…

Chapter 42: New Foundation, aka Progress! Woot! Woot!

April 27, 2010

Now we’re talking. It’s time for the heavy construction to begin. Gotta start from the ground up, right, so first thing’s first — new foundation…

Chapter 41: Porch Be Gone!

April 27, 2010

To put in the new foundation, all we had to do was take out the old concrete porch. Yeah, that’s all…

Chapter 40: Out with the Old, In with the New…Water Heater

April 27, 2010

Time to replace that evil, villainous water heater with a new on-demand unit…

Chapter 39: Ring Around the Carport, We All Fall Down

February 14, 2010

In order to expand the footprint backwards, we had to first get rid of all the stuff behind the house, like the carport and the shed. Fortunately, we had some help…

Chapter 38: Condemned Kitchen Doom

February 14, 2010

Time for more demolition. This time it’s the kitchen that’s on the chopping block…

Chapter 37: Farewell 2009 and Laundry Hut

February 14, 2010

Finally, with the permits in hand we can start construction in earnest and the first step is demolition…

Chapter 36: Best New Year’s Eve Ever

February 14, 2010

Strange that the paperwork is more if a hurdle than the construction itself, but alas…

Chapter 35: The City of Lost Hope

December 28, 2009

When you live in a city like Austin, nothing gets done without a permit. Welcome to the wonderful world of bureaucracy…

Chapter 34: Making Room for Laundry

December 28, 2009

Time to take down the laundry room, but first we move the laundry into the house…

Chapter 33: E.A.S.T. Art Show: Year 3

December 28, 2009

Our third year on the East Austin Studio Tour was a huge success and a lot of fun…

Chapter 32: Meet The Architect

December 28, 2009

Explore our plans for the future dreamhouse, as they’re finally put to paper…

Chapter 31: The Dollar Yard

December 28, 2009

Fences make great neighbors, but the absence of a fence makes mowing easier…

Chapter 30: Ah the Joys of Appraisal Values

December 28, 2009

When you want to borrow against the value of the house, and your house is a wreck of a construction site…

Chapter 29: The Compromise of a Temp Kitchen

April 4, 2009

Since the dream kitchen is still several years off on the horizon, it was time for an improvement to our temp set up…

Chapter 28: Art Walk, Year Two

April 4, 2009

We participated in the East Austin Studio Tour for a second year…

Chapter 26: Oh my Gosh, so Many Bathroom Updates I Needed Two Pages

April 4, 2009

Now that we have silky smooth finished walls, it’s time for some woodworking…

Chapter 25: Stop! Bathroom Time!

April 4, 2009

Time to actually paint some walls in this place…

Chapter 24: Really, a Comfortable Living Room?

April 4, 2009

Adding some layers of the floor to the living room is no small feat…

Chapter 23: Leveling the Front Porch

May 11, 2008

Every time we level a different part of the house, the porch droops just a little more. Time to level that baby up…

Chapter 22: Oh and the “Fifth” Wall

May 11, 2008

Five walls, what is this room a pentagon? No silly, we’re attacking the top of the box — the ceiling…

Chapter 21: Breaking Through the Fourth Wall

May 11, 2008

Time to build another wall…

Chapter 20: Finishing Out the Living Room…Mostly

May 11, 2008

Framing the center wall and adding a pocket door for the bathroom…

Chapter 19: Replacing the Sewer, Yeeha!

May 11, 2008

Some jobs are just pure crap. The sewer line replacement was (in every possible way) that job…

Chapter 18: Our Art Show

May 11, 2008

Join us as we join the East Austin Studio Tour…

Chapter 17: Making the Living Room Livable

July 25, 2007

Finally, it’s time to tackle the living room…

Chapter 16: Bedroom, Ho!

July 25, 2007

Finally, we’re ready to add a second room to our living space…

Chapter 15: Coming Out of the Closet

July 25, 2007

With the bathroom in a good place it was time to convert our one-room house to a one bedroom house…

Chapter 14: Let There be Light

July 25, 2007

Not only do we have a working toilet and shower, we have lights in the bathroom…

Chapter 13: The Wildlife at Pleasant Valley Ranch

April 6, 2007

Ducks in trees. It’s like “Where’s Waldo?” if Waldo were a duck…in a tree. Also, so many cats..

Chapter 12: Hot Water Heater Hell

April 6, 2007

The epic story of what happens when hot water heaters attack…

Chapter 11: Can We Get a Shower, Please?

April 6, 2007

Building a shower is hard, and it turns out the endless tiling was the least of our troubles…

Chapter 10: A Tale of Tile and Toilet

January 25, 2007

It turns out that tiling is some sort of test of faith. Faith in what, I do not know…

Chapter 9: Blood, Sweat and Tears…Mostly Blood

January 25, 2007

Adventures in remodeling often involve blood, sweat, tears, and even some weird porch sex…

Chapter 8: Bubbleboy’s Bedroom

December 4, 2006

With a cold front in, it was time to make the house temperature controlled(ish)…

Chapter 7: Bring on the Shower…Please

December 4, 2006

Time to finish out the bathroom so we can shower at home. Turns out, this is actually really complicated and takes a lot of time…

Chapter 6: Floors Throughout…Finally

September 10, 2006

The living room, with its two foot span joists straddling a three foot drop, was…well…not safe. Time for floors…

Chapter 5: Running Water…Sort Of

September 10, 2006

For a toilet to work, you need running water, and a garden hose is only funny for one or two flushes, then it’s annoying….

Chapter 4: Plumbing is Progress

September 10, 2006

Hip hip hooray. We’re seeing progress in the form of a flushable toilet…

Chapter 3: Reconstruction

September 10, 2006

By the end of demolition we had a house with no floors or bathroom, but we had a plan…

Chapter 2: Let the Demolition Begin

September 10, 2006

Originally there was this whole big plan, but then we just started ripping…

Chapter 1: Sold As-Is

September 10, 2006

The house is cute…though crooked and tired. Still, look at that porch, and the window screens…

Preface: In the Beginning

September 10, 2006

This is how it all began, the story of Pleasant Valley Ranch…