KatieDidIt

Thanks for all the input. I was going to cout out Seven Lakes H.S., but we'll go ahead and look at homes that feed into S.L.

Now, tell me about the shopping. I live up here in the Woodlands and I am begining to realize I'm fortunate to have access to this great shopping.

Does Katy Mills Mall have any regular stores like Dillard's, Macy's or Sears?

Do you have a Kirby's close?

What about a Berryhill's?

Thanks!

You are minutes from West Houston in Katy. Memorial City Mall is much better than The Woodlands Mall IMHO. Also they are building a huge mall at the Grand PArkway and I-10, not to mention there is La Centera which is exactly like Market street. Also, CityCentre is being built, which will be like a Beverly Hills version of Market Street.

If you buy somewhere close to the Westpark, you could be at Nieman Marcus/Galleria within 20 minutes at non-peak hours.

We have better steak houses than Kirby's out this way.

My children went to Valley Oaks, SBMS and Memorial. We live on the north side of the freeway in a neighborhood that adjoins Spring Valley, it is in the city of Houston. I have a freshman at LSU, a freshman at memorial and a 7th grader at SBMS. We don't make a lot of money and the kids were never treated differently and they got a great education. There is some snobbiness there as there is in any school. For the most part it wasn't/isn't an issue. The kids mostly hang out with the kids in the activities that they do, my son played football he hung out with the football kids, the girls are in orchestra and they hang out with the band/orchestra kids.

The only issue at Memorial for us was with the top 10% rule. My son grauduated with a 6.5 GPA and was in the second quarter of his class.

I agree this is the issue in the Memorial area schools. You have kids from very smart and successful families, that are very into helping and being available to their kids. Most of the mom's are stay at home. The end result is a lot of kids making great grades and have good extracurricular activities. Getting that top 10% for UT is difficult. But who says you have to go to UT? With the education you are getting there one can go anywhere in the country. I hope my guys want to go to UVA or Duke and even Clemson. I think getting a little more broad experience will be good for them, because I know they will always be Texans and most likely Houstonians. We may join the public system when HS comes around. It just depends where they are in life.

I don't think the schools are snobby, but they are proud of what they have created, and many are proud of the sacrifices they make to get into the district. But if you really want to look at that as snobby, so be it and then its not for you.

WTF is an Islamic Sugarbrick? Never heard of it and neither had Google.

Oh its just a nickname we personally call the 90's style. Bright red brick house, with a two story front door area that has an Islamic shaped arch, and a tiny little hanging lantern.

Ouch! Me and lots of other folks on the Mod forum love 60's ranches and moderns. In many areas, they too are going the way of the dodo. I grew up in a MCM that my father designed himself. It's still standing but has been remuddled so much you can barely recognize its bones anymore. Tearing down ANY perfectly good home just to put up a bigger, uglier home saddens me.

Yes, but many suffer common Houston stick built problems, and the fact people let the landscaping go over the foundation line. Mold and settling (sometimes a total failure) in many of them. Not a ton of craftmanship in comparison to earlier homes.

I just think its becoming to darn expensive to buy the new construction, even for the moderately wealthy. "Dream homes" start closer to 2 million now and are on smaller lots.

We bought a Georgian style built in the 60's in West Memorial, relandscaped and cleaned up its curb appeal and did a lot of underwear work on the inside. The people behind us razzed their English style and are building a hideous west Texas limestone and siding/David Weekly looking thing. The house needed updating, but it was a good sound house that most people would have been happy to live in. From a traditionalist standpoint, guess which one look's better and fits in the neighborhood.

center hardly registers any stimulation anymore.

The "Northern Italian" style really just looks like a random assemblage of Home Depot materials, probably computer generated. The builders must be laughing all the way to the bank.

I agree danax. Its very a cheesie style. And the furnishings they put in the "showcase" homes are the worst fake, repro garbage. The velvet drapes and gold, resin candle sticks make us giggle.

I don't like the type of house you can label being from a certain decade of production building. Driving through most of the suburbs you can literally say "Built in the 80's, oh that was the 90's Islamic Sugarbrick style, oh and there is the Millennia Tuscan style."

When a house is built well the most you can say is "oh that's Georgian or Ranch or Colonel or Tutor or Modern." You might have a idea when it was built just by its location, but there is nothing that seems to decade brand it.

how about 4500 sqft on a 6000 sqft lot?

http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cf...mp;backButton=Y

I despise this one the most. Don't know what was there before it, but it just kills me that they'd plop down something like this in that neighborhood. No other house on that block has the garage/front yard combo. While I'm a very responsible pet owner, I kinda hope my dog poops in that yard sometimes (while it's still for sale). I'm just a renter, btw.

Why are they bringing suburban architecture to a place like the museum district?. Garage in the front stuff KILLS me.

nope..it's cute though

It doesn't bother me when people razz the 60's ranch or modern. Its tract trash anyway.

( I can say this because with the exception of a few years we have always lived in 60's construction) But when they go after these old 20's and 30's charmers I feel a twinge. Some of the ones they have taken down lately most people would only dream of owning. They were actually built with craftmanship and style.

My big fantasy is to find a creative and skilled craftman and have him do all the wood work in the house to make it sing.

I've never heard that The Woodlands was to get a store.

Its still on there construction website to be coming Fall 2008. A Wild Oats, of course it got bought out by Whole Foods but its still up on it. Of course this site is notorious for saying really neat things are going to come, and then it folds. <just looked at the site again> And now its not listed.

They're closing the Whole Foods store at Woodway and Voss.

Bummer, this is one of the easier locations to get to and find parking.

I noticed they don't have anything listed for the Woodlands. I thought they were getting one up there.

From the website:

Houston (Post Oak)

Whole Foods Market

Post Oak & San Felipe

Houston, TX

78,000 sq. ft.

Relocation. Opening date to be announced.

Does "Relocation" mean they are closing another store? Half the stores on the site have this while the other half just say the "opening date to be announced" part. Can anybody in the biz elaborate?

I know they just bought Wild Oats, so maybe they are restructuring. From what I've heard, its still a go.

I wonder why they call it City Centre. It's not very near the geo center of the city. Perhaps closer to the pop center. Still... come on...

Well, its the center of "West Houston." The city is getting so large and so hard to get around its causing the trend of all these centers and market areas to be constructed. They serve the "little towns" that are within the city.

This project has to be careful with the tenants though, unlike the suburbs the shopping could be very redundant if they don't choose wisely. So far I think they are being a little more original, except for Bistro and Flemings.

who the hell is gonna buy those townhouses? the frames are already up, if the project stays at this rate, move in date will be just in time for 1.5 more years of construction all around you.

the street they face is highly trafficed now...just imagine when the 5-7+ more buildings get finished.

maybe im crazy but i never imagined my $500k+ townhouse being positioned between 2 huge shopping centers and a row of restaurants, bordered by the 2 biggest landing strip freeways in texas. with only 5 friends beside you to share in the misery

and yes i realize this sounds IDEAL to some, but i cant get into that mold. the conjestion would annoy me to no end. at least with high rises you can be in the middle of it all and still Above everything

Too me buying a Brownstone for over 850k in Memorial makes far more sense than buying a Brownstone for the same price in Kingwood or the Woodlands. You can get a McMansion for that up there. Urban living in an urban area is desirable.

I agree, you can't hear the freeway from there. Once more buildings go up, the more the noise will be cut down. Its urban living in an urban area.

Yes, I believe Owens Road leads into the prison. That's over there by the big brown area that is keyed as "future development." Also known as, "um ... we're not sure what to do here."

With all the choices of places to live in Houston, why would anyone plunk down a large sum of money to live near a prison? I think its funny, The Upscale Living-Prison Included package. When signs in the area say, "Don't pick up Hitchikers," that ought to tell you something.

Are you stating that Trendmaker Homes is purchasing this home?

No I was merely observing that they have a 2-3 signs up in that section.

The status changed on 2/2 to option pending with a new buyers agent and a estimated close date of 2/11.

Trendmaker Homes has certainly picked up a few lots along this strip.

It still has attendance zones. Its very hard for the average student to switch out of said zones. Its not an open system.

I hope its the corner with CPK and Linens-n-Things. That complex needs to be redone and go upwards. Post Oak is getting too high dollar for strip malls.

DEAD - Condo project flops as seniors fail to buy in

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/sto.../31/story5.html

Did the Woodlands one flop too?

Still, nobody knows?

This is what live.com is showing as the address, but when I drove by it was cleared.

Live.com aren't atually live or even current., so its probably that same one. The shots of our house are at least 8 months old. Previous owners cars are in the driveway. Shot of our previous house are at least 3 years old because the yard hadn't been landscaped.

Demo and Plumbing permits pulled say Baypark is the owner. WOnder who that is. Swamplots says its going to be commercial.

This ad lends me to believe it wasn't created by a Houston Ad Firm. Most people in Houston, rich or poor, call Post Oak BLVD plain ol' Post Oak. You say "on Post Oak" to a Houstonian and they know the area you are talkining about. Post Oak is already swank yet this ad seems to want to add more flare to a street that needs no additional identity.

You say Boulevard, most think River Oaks.

I thinks its the time of year, criminals are too lazy to work to buy Christmas gifts so they start waving the guns... and its just not Midtown. Out here in lazy Memorial we have had two cases of attempted aggrivated assaults, pistols involved, in the past week. A couple of reports of being followed home and into the driveway. One guy pulled a Coog and slammed his car in reverse and rammed the guys.Two Crips were busted not a few blocks from here about a month ago stealing a yard guys equipment.

So I thinks it everywhere and it just gets worse around Thanksgiving to New Years.

LOL

Seriously though, Bubbles used to be good, now even there really expensive, basic wash is bad. I go to the Mr. Car Wash on Voss. They seem to do a better job, basic wash is less and there is a Monday special that takes 10 dollars of the Red Carpet Wash. Its like a mini-detail. For$19 a month you can go through the Express Wash as much as you want. I just get so much brake dust that I have to do the wheels all the time, so that wash doesn't work for me.

My question is why none of these places will clean out the cup holders?

PS- Hubby used to take the cars to the hand detail place on Richmond, east of Hillcroft.

Hey Vertigo, now Lake Travis is starting to bust at the seams. And worse, with lots of transplanted !gasp! Californians. Sometimes progress is sad to see. The Hill Country I grew up loving hardly exists anymore. And the days of the common man buying a lot and putting a simple house or a trailor on it are loooong gone. Luckily, South Texas is still fairly wide open.

Heck even almost all the way to Lake LBJ/Horshoe Bay has been broken up into ranchettes and burbs. We had to say, "Ok boys put your hands on either side of you eyes and look right there. See that? That's what this whole area looked like 10 years ago."

G- What's the current atmosphere at Landrum Middle school? Junior High is the toughest time for kids. Spring Branch is still pretty good I know and Memorial is probably the best junior high in that zone.

We took the dogs to stay at the Houston Dog Ranch, right where Bunker Hill T's into Long Point. Big Lots back there but still extremely mixed. Its tempting to buy in these areas, almost like a land grab, with the way Houston is growing. Those with the biggest lots win kinda mentality.

tried to search but didnt see anything...we are trying to move out of the east end to a place with better schools. A friend said the schools are really good in the area, but I didnt see anything to support on har. Is this a nice neighborhood, or ghetto? I love the mods over there, but also notice prices are a little low...what gives?

Greaser, you can get into 77079 in your price range. Most homes are zoned to Spring Branch ISD, some to KATY ISD in Fleetwood and Barkers Landing, and on the South side of I-10. Granted there aren't a lot of them, but they do come up. They are zoned to Stratford HS, but inside Buzz is that Stratford is more grounded than Memorial right now.But you know there is always something going on between "he said, she said" with those two schools. Both are good though.

Anywho, just another zip code to add to your search.

Commuting sucks and its only going to get worse coming in and out of Houston.