610 Janisch rd 77018

[Icarus]

Looking for the original layout of this house 

[Purdueenginerd]

Your starting point is to do an open records request for any drawings on the property. City of Houston has commercial permit drawings from 1974 to now, with some gaps borne from storms/hurricanes etc that took out plans before they were digitized.  Looking at historical satellite photos. (see image below) the building first appears in 1953. It looks like there are no major expansion until the 1990s... though some of hte images are hard to discern. For residential, I think the records only go back until the early 1990s... so you might have luck there, especially if the architect of record in the 90's renovation provided demo-plans. 

The 2nd path, is to find out if the architect was somewhat prominent in the area. Sometimes his or her records are archived with archivists. City of houston has a few, universities, libraries, etc --- I will say thats not super common for a middle-class tier home from the 1950's. You can use the Houston Chronicle archives via the public library to see if you can find if the home had public bids from contractors just prior to its construction. You might be able to find the architect of record.... if youre lucky. 

3rd path is for small buildings like that, you might be able to ascertain the rough layout with a site visit and documentation of where the roof framing sits relative to the foundation elements --- this can give you an idea where the original walls etc may have been. Especially if you see things consistent with 1950's era wood frame construction. 

 

I will say that single family homes in what would have been rural houston at time of construction --- are not easy to find original drawings for.