Page 40 - Galveston Monthly Apr2019

arOuNd The islaNd | iSLANdER SPOTLiGhT

during the renovation process. There could be lead to which her husband replied, “you’re not keeping that!”
paint, holes in the floor or any number of dangerous “With only half the floor done, it was just going down
situations,” she says. randomly, and then it would become a challenge to make
“One of the houses is on a half-street by Menard house, the entire floor look random,” he elaborates.
and was difficult for me to even find when Michael was “Pinks and blues and greens and purple,” Ashley laughs.
directing me to it.” “So you had to make sure not to run out of green,” he
Michael adds, “it was a 1,200-square-foot house on says.
a tight lot, and we had to tear off part of it to make a “Then it wasn’t possible to come in with a big sander,”
parking spot because you can’t park on the street.” Ashley shrugs. “it became a process of strategically
his wife quickly adds, “So that one little parking spot sanding with your hand, and hand polying but it turned
is valuable! it is the cutest little house, but to say it was out so well.”
a shack would have been an understatement. We’ve “We don’t really know how old that house is,” he says.
bought several houses for $30,000, but this was the one The history of the homes the couple restore is one of
time we paid that amount and friends and family told us the major points of interest to them. “We traced the
it wasn’t worth it - and now it’s so cool. it’s the first one paperwork back to about 1913. it could have been
we sold, the first day it was listed for over asking price.” moved or rebuilt there at that time.”
There were eight identical rooms in the house, each “insurance documents give a lot of information about
painted a different color. the historical properties,” she says. “With this property,
“We took the wallboards down while we were working, the windows were six over six, and it also had other
and as the pile got shifted from room to room it got all features that date back further, so, in our opinion, it was
mixed up,” she says. older.”
“The original floorboards were completely rotten from Ashley took on the responsibility of decorating and
roof leaks, so we used the old wallboards on the floors. staging each of the homes for reveals at the end of the
The plan had always been to sand the floors and make show episodes.
them look like ‘new-old’ floors. But since we had moved “Right down to the chairs, couches, pillows and even
the piles of lumber from room to room so many times, the books on the shelves,” Michael says. Photos by Kathleen Maca
the wood got intermingled. When the flooring guy laid it When asked what the biggest challenge was during
the first half of the floor down, it was multi-colored.” those busy few weeks, Michael quickly responds: “Time.
Ashley recalls with delight how much she loved the look, At one point all eight properties were in progress. The

40 | GALVESTON MONTHLY | APRIL 2019