Tell me about your house.
My three children and I live in a 1500 sq ft craftsman cottage built in 1930. It has a single bathroom. Hardwood floors - some refinished, some still all banged up. Big yard and sidewalks. Downtown, city neighborhood full of old houses. Our particular historic neighborhood hasn't yet gentrified yet, although it's surrounded by those that have. So I guess we are sort of urban pioneers. House needs some cosmetic work, but is pretty solid. No cable TV. My kids believe we are the only people on the planet living without cable TV and with a single bathroom. Most of their friends live in very nice, very large houses in madly affluent neighborhoods.
What's your house and neighborhood like?
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I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
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22 comments:
Lessee. Patchwork neighborhood mix of elderly porch sitters and garden weeders, pitt bull raisin' rednecks, possibly a meth lab up the road, and a smattering of modest well-kept homes. I'll see your urban pioneer and raise you one.
My house is circa 1920 with maybe two or three additions to the original core. A rolling acre of ass-bustin' yard. Lots of trees, ivy, wildflowers, privacy. The remains of an old springhouse is a short walk away through the woods and it still functioning although getting the water can be tricky.
I have a pony barn and a workshop, neither of which is used for its intended purpose. My main gripe with my house is the tiny tiny single bathroom.
Sounds lovely!
We (me and my 3 kids, soon to be 4)live in a maisonette above our family shop. Built late 1800s. 4 bedrooms so 2 are going to have to share pretty soon. 1 bathroom (but 2 toilets which is handy) We even have a small garden out the back! we live in mid-wales, in the rolling countryside so our lack of garden is no big deal. There arent many luxury houses around here. Lots of new builds though, all red brick, all the same design. Our home is quirky, the floors are uneven, the windows are ancient and not double glazed. Its a listed building so we cant change anything! When we eventually move to a proper house theres no way we will have something as big as this. This flat (sorry, maisonette) is massive. Huge living room, playroom, adult playroom with computer/decks/x-box, kitchen, 4 bedrooms, 2 toilets and a bathroom.
Well you dont know me so probably not in the slightest bit interested but you did ask!!! LOL
Our house is part of an old Victorian on a hill in Somerville, MA. Originally the building was part of the Hood dairy, and until fairly recently was a lesbian commune of sorts. One of the previous owners from that incarnation lives in the other half. I think we have about 1800 sq feet, on three floors, with another 1200sq feet in the basement that could be remodelled.
All 3 floors have high ceilings, hardwood throughout, and my favorite feature: exposed brick running along the entry hallway and landing.
But...we have a non-existant kitchen (and I love to cook!) and only one very small, dismal little bathroom. We have major renovations on tap for the near future, including a roofdeck that will have a view of Boston's skyline.
I love this neighborhood. There are several older lesbian couples who moved in the early 90s before the boom and renovated, and unlike our old neighborhood in Cambridge, there are lots of families.(and playgrounds, 2 community gardens, and a field where concerts are held in the summer.) A few of the homes on my street are absolutely gorgeous, and I've only seen landscapers or other people working on the properties. Generally though the vibe is fairly laidback.
We put a few pictures up before we moved in:
http://homepage.mac.com/welborn/PhotoAlbum37.html
Correct link for house pictures
Fun to read about others' homes!
Ours is a 12-year old country home that was built by a local architect/builder - we ended up meeting and becoming good friends with his family, who live a few miles down the road and are horse-loving homeschoolers w/ similarly aged children! One of the wonderful surprises when we first moved in... :)
Our house sits on a hill in the center of our property, and has master bedrm. downstairs w/ large bath, a big living room/kitchen/dining room combined area w/ guest bath and laundry room, and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. There are also two "studios" upstairs, one of which is my writing garret, and the other my daughter's art studio.
We have a 2-car garage in the basement and my son's woodworking workshop.
Huge front porch and back deck that both feel like additional rooms - the porch overlooks the front yard and pasture, as well as a fabulous tiered flower garden that has been blooming since March and still going... none of which I can take credit for, but I'm loving it, as we left a wonderful landscaped yard and berry bushes and fruit trees, etc. at our old home.
Hardwood floors throughout, no carpet, and tile in the bathrooms and laundry room. Natural wood baseboards and windows, woodstove in the living room. Lots of natural light and upstairs, a loft area with a huge window and cathedral ceiling that serves as a reading "area."
We live on 6 acres and we have a 5-stall center aisle barn with tack room for our 4 horses. The previous owners built the matching barn with the help of the six families who live in our little "neighborhood" - a gravel road cul de sac off a paved but very rural road. There are two other families with horse farms and one with ATV's - not always a good mix!
We have a lighted riding arena behind the barn, and two larger pastures plus 3 grass paddocks. Our property is bounded on one side by an 11-acre wood, and behind us, 102 acres of forest, so we have access to hiking and riding trails. (also ticks, redbugs, and biting flies!) We have a canoe access a few miles down the road that feeds into one of the two rivers we live between, and another access to a large lake - no canoes or kayaks yet but would love to get them at some point.
We're in NC - but the terrain here is very hilly and the road to our house winding - it reminds me a little bit of the Townsend, TN area, one of our favorite places to go camping and vacationing. It's fun to have a bit of that feeling here...
it's a new house that we had built three years ago so it is an uber energy efficient...a must in this neck of the woods and with our circus. It is a five bedroom, 3 bath 2700 square foot 2 story house. Now before anyone says WOW that's big one must realize it houses 7 peoplea cat and a dog and the occasional boyfriend of our adult daughter. It is also one of the smaller homes in square footage in our neighborhood as most are 3,000-3,500 square feet. I like it a lot. The only drawback because it is a new neighborhood is there is little shade as the trees planted around here are young. It also seems that many of the neighbors opted to not plant trees. Not us though. We currently have nine trees on our property and hope to add 2 or 3 more. In a few more years we will have the shade a much desired commodity when the temps are above 100 as they are around here for 4-5 months out of the year.
Our house was built in 1889. It's a Queen Anne style two-story, blue cedar-shake shingles on the top half, pale yellow siding (alas!) on the bottom. Nice front porch in need of much work--the gingerbread is falling off and there are holes covered by plywood. Unusable back deck overlooking fair-sized lot for the neighborhood, half-jungle. Nice front yard with rickety picket fence, gorgeous roses, enormous but unfortunately dying oak tree.
Inside: all hardwood floors except for bathroom, laundry room, and kitchen--which is brick. Floors are painted or in need of refinishing, but they are all the original wide pine boards! All the house could use some TLC--some rooms are redone but not all, and there are plenty of holes/cracks in the plaster. Five bedrooms, two baths (one with clawfoot tub and original stained glass window, one of two in the house). Also a den, a parlor, a huge front hall with a chandelier, and an enormous dining room. Five fireplaces, none working but four with the potential to work. A cave-like basement and a walk-up attic with a ladder that goes onto the roof if you like that sort of thing.
It's 3,000 square feet and we need every inch, as there are seven of us. It's probably the biggest house on our street and one of the three (I think) oldest. It's an ungentrified neighborhood just across Broadway from Old North, and I don't think it's likely to gentrify, at least not completely, due to the mix of late 1800s Victorians, early 1900s bungalows, and 1940s nondescript boxes, and the busy street it's on. Currently there seem to be a lot of renters, with some of the larger homes being divided. It's certainly a "rough" neighborhood compared to where most people we know live, but I like being able to walk anywhere if I want or need to, and I like my kids to see the very real people who walk up and down our street on the way to the bus stop or the grocery store.
And we don't have cable either, which effectively means no t.v. at all--only DVDs and tapes--and only one t.v. for the seven of us. :-)
We live in a two bedroom single-wide trailer. But don't judge me. The trailer has TWO bathrooms and a large kitchen (though narrow). It is decorated in MODERN style with lots of wood trim (not real wood but the shiny pretty kind). I planted some trees or bushes or something outside and they really prettify the underside or else you could see under which is where my two dogs and my cat sleep when they aren't in the trailer (don't worry - they poop and pee outside guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I collect vintage glassware (like the kind with blue and white in it) and some of them I hang on the wall. I have woodlike paneling on the walls that is brown but it holds up real well to kids handprints and the other sorts of fluids and what not that can get on a wall. I feel guilty saying this because of what Katie wrote but we have cable - the full package. I love TV. Does that make me a bad mom?? I wan't to be a good mom so bad. I LOVE MY KIDS!!!! THAT IS WHY I LOVE THIS BLOG.
Meant to add:
nothing wrong with having cable, imo, but we don't have it. We get Netflix DVD's and also assorted and sundry DVD's/videos from the library. One TV - the idea of different members of the family in different rooms watching different TV's squicks me out! But that's just me... :)
No garbage pick-up out here either... we have to take our own to the dump!
We (family of 6 but only 1 child at home) live on a farm in a early 1800s farmhouse with a big front porch which faces the river. It's like living with a beloved great-great-great-great granny----all the quirks and things we'll never fix, but we love her anyway. The house has a spirit. I'm not sure how many square feet, but we have 4 bedrooms---2 up and 2 down, and a walk in attic. The original home was 2 story, one room over the other but its no longer configured like that because of additions in the early 1900s. Our garden is overgrown and borders a forest, but we've made the most of it, with stone pathways, fairy houses, and shade loving plants. The thing I like best about my house is the biiigggg bathroom/laundry---as big as a bedroom---with a claw foot tub and an upholstered small couch. The room also has built in storage (new) with cedar lining, with shelves for each child and parent to have their clean clothes. Lots of room for ironing, drying, and hanging. Its my "center", even more than the kitchen. BTW kitchen is relatively small and galley-ish with not enough workspace, but a big dining area with bookshelves and reading lamps.
I love old houses with personality, and with beautiful front porches. Yours sounds/ looks awesome. I live in FL in a gated community, which is all too common down here. I hate the gates but do like where I live. My house is 4 years old, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms with a screened lanai (that is what we call porches down here) on back. Not as friendly as a front porch. It is an open floor plan, with a bar from the kitchen overlooking the great room. The master bath has a separate shower and whirlpool bath with his and her sinks. This is a huge luxury. It is about 1,700 square feet under air. It is spanish mediterranean style with tile roof, built with cinder block (hurricanes) with stucco. Cookie cutter as a very common style in new homes down here. Most of our neighbors are old and retired though there are a few other young families. We do love our house. More than that we love where we live. There is an awesome many-mile long bike path which we use often. We can bike uptown to quaint restaurants, stores and ice cream shops and to a childrens fountain. There are lots of parks to take our daughter to play at nearby, not to mention the beach. We moved here from a typical 1950's Florida cinder block ranch, 1,000 square foot 2-bedroom, 1 very small bath.
That Dawn Hawkins sounds like a real hillbilly. If she really loved her kids she would move into a victorian / craftsman bungalow like my family (ours was lovingly built over a forty year period by freed slaves supported by my family). And what's up with the cable? I am a republican and even I don't have cable. Maybe she should cancel her cable and Internet. This would allow her enough money to move her family into a home that might survive a stiff wind AND it would save us from her awful posts.
I suspect Dawn and Lydia are...ummm... close.
And they are both damn funny.
My family lives in a 12 year old Charleston-style house in Decatur, GA which is a groovy little city just East of Atlanta. Decatur is full of renovated houses and gentrifying, but still diverse and eclectic, neighborhoods. My house is part of a roughly 50 house development near downtown Decatur. We moved here from a tiny 90 year old bungalow in an Atlanta neighborhood near the zoo and wanted to buy an older house in Decatur, but there were none in our price range that didn't need a lot of work. Our house is a 3/2.5 with garage, hardwoods, plantation shutters and a back deck. We used to have Charleston style porches both up and down but we enclosed the upper one and made it a library. We have nice trees, a back deck, a herb & perennial border, a vegetable garden and a compost pile. We also have a private neighborhood pool (shared with an adjacent townhome complex) which, this time of year, is worth everything to us and our two boys. Our house is within walking distance to many places we go regularly - school, my husband's office, bank, post office, grocery, drugstore, restaurants and shops, and more. There's no place else in the metro Atlanta area I would consider living. Though our house was not my first choice at the time, we have made it our own and its location cannot be beat. And my youngest was born upstairs in our bedroom, and his placenta is buried in the back yard, so we can never move. ;-)
Here are photos of our house during the enclosure three years ago (the vegetation is much more lush now).
http://home.mindspring.com/~michaels_dad
We (one toddler, husband and I) live in the best neighborhood in our city in a 1950's house under a huge (and around here rare) Mulberry tree. We have three bedrooms although one is a very small and odd and so serves as our home office, with hardwood floors throughout. We have a huge wall of built-in bookshelves we added and lots of other oringal built-in shelves in living room and dining room. We have a den to hide TV and other electronic equipment and the ugliest kitchen in the world.
We have about 1600 sq feet total. The longest I have ever lived in one house is five years and we have been in this one almost three---I plan to stay a long long time. I love my house.
This is a great question and so much fun.
My husband and I live in an 1100 sq. ft. apartment (condo I guess b/c we own it) near the top of a highrise in the heart of a large US city. One bedroom, one bathroom, BIG kitchen and two giant closets. It's a total dream come true for us b/c normally this type of place would be out of our price range, but we stumbled upon a gold mine at the right time.
The vast majority of our neighbors are retirees and we are probably the youngest people in the building. We've gotten involved in the neighborhood association and have met some great people. Urban living suits us perfectly. I recommend it for anyone!
Fort Sanders resident here. (that means close to downtown Knoxville, near the university to you out of towners.)
1800 square feet + full attic and basement. Built around 1925.
3 bedrooms (the one we sleep in is large, the other 2 are small. One is 'my' room and one is 'his' room)
A study that we share.
The usual living room and dining room (small DR)
1.5 baths
Hardwood floors
Fenced in back yard
Home has character but still needs some work; mainly cosmetic.
Residents: 2 adults, 2 dogs, 2 cats
Advantages:
Roomy cheapness for 2 people and it's paid off so no mortgage.
Close to everything we want to do in town. We can walk to lots of stuff.
House has a wonderful homey feel we may not get anywhere else.
Lots and lots of songbirds.
Beautiful trees in our yard and neighbors' yards.
Easy to exercise pets--it's a great walking neighborhood.
If we do move, renting it to the same students mentioned below as disadvantages could be lucrative.
Disadvantages: Have to park on the street.
Some of our neighbors are noisy, glass-breaking college students.
Some less-than-savory characters who may not live in my neighborhood, but hang out to prey on foolishly generous or careless college students.
Game days--6 days in the fall are complete insanity around here.
For such a roomy house, the kitchen is tiny.
the foundation will need some work soon.
All in all, I can live with the balance of good and bad.
Under 1500 sq. ft. cape cod in a suburb of Milwaukee (suburb with the BEST schools :)) on a less-than-1/4-acre lot. House has 3 bedrooms, nice-sized living room and kitchen/dining combined, 1 bathroom and small second bathroom (toilet and sink) in the basement). Three kids and two adults (and NO pets) live here.
We currently live in a "nice" neighborhood in Portland. Everyone says, oh, that's a nice area! You must love it. But I wish we lived in an area that wasn't quite so isolated and unreal. I'd like to see more diverse people walking in front of our house. And, we probably can't afford to buy in this neighborhood anyway (funny how you can afford to rent, but not buy, in a certain neighborhood). We do hope to buy something and settle in for the long haul within the next six months or so.
Our house is about 1700 square feet total, 400 of that is unfinished basement. It's got three levels, but the attic is locked and unavailable to us, as the owners are using it for storage. It's an old Portland home, close-in (meaning not on the outskirts of town, but close to downtown) with mostly old, well-maintained wood floors, just a bit of carpeting in our basement bedroom and the stairs. It's technically a two bedroom, but there are three rooms which we consider bedrooms and we're really not sure which is not a regulation bedroom--we think two of them could qualify for not being regulation. There are two bathrooms--the first time we've had a full two bath house. In our last house (this might be something for you to consider adding, Katie) we had a full bathroom, and then right next to it was just a small room with just a toilet. Sometimes that's really all you need.
The basement is really nice to have right now--it's finally gone from 68 degrees in Portland to 100. There's no air conditioning in most of these old homes (ours was built in the 20s) and so the basements are a blessing. We think that's probably a big reason why they built basements back then! Our bedroom is in the basement but the kids have been sleeping down there too on these hot nights.
Manhattan Apartment on the 20th floor of a high rise, with a large terrace. We have two bedrooms plus the other necessary rooms to make it comfortable for a family of three. (It's considered a big 2 BR by Manhattan standards.) Which means its a bit larger then a shoebox ;-)
Our apartment is on a Central Park West block, we have a park view from the bedrooms and from the living room, dining room and terrace we see the Hudson River and New Jersey.
We moved to the Upper Westside in the days of crack whores giving $5. blowjobs on every corner and junkies looking for the next fix, and empty lots filled with trash, this was before it was completely gentrified. It still has a nice diverse mix of race, religion and ethnic backgrounds, but now too many millionaires, a lot of celebrities, yuppies, and the original neighborhood folks like my husband and I socially progressive liberals with jobs in the arts or helping people.
"Most of their friends live in very nice, very large houses in madly affluent neighborhoods."
Maybe it would be helpful if they had more friends who don't live in those places. Let's hope the new neighbors turn out to be friends.
nope, my kids don't have cable either, and we only have one bathroom. but most of my kids' friends live under similar circumstances, so they don't know the difference!
we live in a rowhouse, maybe 1200 sq ft? tiny front yard, tiny patio in the back (we are about to buy a vacant lot around the corner from the city where we have been gardening for years). our neighborhood is historically african american, solidly working class to middle class. in the last 10 years, we teeter between gentrification and ghettofication, neither of which feels like a great option.
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