Updating a blocks texture/render state (1.5)

I've created a block using the metadata/damage value method of creating one (ItemBlock, TileEntity for data etc) and I'm wondering how I would go about updating my block on the fly like when placed or periodically so it's shape/texture renders correctly at the correct angle and all that.

If you don't understand what I mean, I mean like say you have a custom pressure plate or button and this plate when pressed updates it's height (y-) well if you were using metadata you could simply update it's metadata with a notify and the bounds would change (y-) then when the updateTick kicked in it would render it's bounds back to normal (y) when you ran another metadata notify. All this is well and good but I'm using a tile to store "pressed" for example so this is not metadata therefore I can't have the block update itself using the metadata notify method.

So my question is:

How would I go about forcing my block to update it's shape/textures and re-render itself without using metadata (metadata is taken) ?

Edit: I'm on the recommended version of forge (7.7.0.582).

Re-edit: I got around this by creating a fake (invisible) block around the block which requires the update (it destroys itself on a 20 tickrate), obviously if there aren't any free spaces it will still be "broken" but until then it's a workaround.