Our House: Is Very, Very, Very Fine House

[Posh]

Nice to see you back Posh...Look forward to more of your amazing writeups.

I really appreciate that, Sox. I've been away for way too long! I have a duty to you guys. I've seen more and more Crocs since the economy went down the tubes. I believe polyurethane plastic shoes are making a comeback. So one has to fight this.

I´m impressed

I am impressed by YOU and those clapping hands. How did you do that?? LOL

Posh, we have similar taste.

Nice write up

That house has classic charm. Congrats!

Hope to see you around more often...

Thanks, Bones! I am traditionalist as far things like architecture goes. Palladian, Georgian, Colonial. Very traditional styles where symmetry is important, verticality, formality. They're comforting and have a sense of permanence that these new construction mish-mash Tuscan-esque, quasi-Mediterranean McMansion crap does not have. The owner's daughter told me that the house took a while to build as it was done by a small crew that actually lived on the property while doing it, which I found to be crazy!

Want some art to go with that house

Um , actually I do need some! I plan on amassing a small collection I can bequeath to some museum somewhere. I plan on giving Harry and Jeannette Weinberg a run for their money.

Welcome Home, Posh.

Your fellow RepGeeks have missed you.

Great to see you back.

Cheers and looking forward to more of your stellar reviews/posts/lifestyle threads.

Awww, that's so sweet! It's nice to see some people did. I will be contributing regularly again. Chaos in real life has died down to the point I can deal with it again in the cyber life.

Good to see you back Posh

Thanks, Jack and Mrs. Jack. I missed you both! Never again!

Welcome back Posh, and that was a very interesting read. I'm an architecture/design buff and find these old houses absolutely fascinating. They sure don't build them like this anymore.

We're currently looking at upgrading, we have a vacation home in the Indiana Dunes area, most of the homes we've looked at have decor flash-frozen in the 1950s -60s, it's been very interesting.

Thanks, Rek! I gotta tell ya, the time period after World War II was, in my estimation and from what I have read, is definitely a low point in home construction quality. They had to build them so fast and for less money that a lot of the building techniques that had pretty much been in place for centuries (millenia, really), had been upturned in order to get more housing for people. From the very first concrete slab poured directly on the ground, it was over. You got hollow core doors, windows made out of anything but wood and a hip roof (I HATE a hip roof!).

I don't really like open floor plans but thought that was what I had to get. There's not one new house built that offers you the ability to close doors to rooms, like the kitchen from the dining room; it's all open. That actually is less efficient for heating and cooling a home, which I never really thought about. Those soaring foyers, that I thought were absolutely necessary to give the impression I thought I wanted to make on guests, were actually energy nightmares! And made cleaning a real chore. I am religious about cleaning my house so anything that would hamper me getting every nook and cranny spotless would drive me bonkers!

While my home is much larger than one would expect, I had to read about why a house like this would be a good purchase for me because, honestly, I had some doubts.I could've gotten something even larger and new but it didn't seem right for me. I started researching and stumbled on an article that perfectly captured the conflicts I was having and what I wanted to know in order to make this decision make sense. The article mentioned a book which I immediately ordered from Amazon. The book, Little House on a Small Planet, came and I read it cover-to-cover the first day I got it and it convinced me that what I was doing was not right for me but also right for the planet. What house can be greener than one already built and time-tested? LOL My utilities are very low and I saved money by buying less house than I "needed." I certainly do not feel in any way that my house owns me.

welcome back
congrats on the house as well, i luvvv 'em red bricks

Thanks, Chrono! I love them too. I'm not clapboard house fan unless that house is the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House in Maine. When I spoke with the owner's daughter, their only child, she talked about how much they loved the house and never really wanted to move, which shocked me. People move ALL THE TIME. Carole King was even flabbergasted by it! Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore? Apparently not.

But you can tell the history of the house, the lives that enjoyed the house. She told me and showed me how they made the cable television installers run the cables up against the cap toe of the base boards in the living room, painstakingly, and then drill holes no larger than the diameter of the cable wire to each bedroom. I didn't even know the house had cable! It was done so clandestinely. The phone wires were done the same way. I had the Realtor show me where the outlets were. But a funny thing she showed me was the small dirt residue on the large molding around the doorway in the kitchen where her father would steady himself to get up from the breakfast table. She said he always put his had right there and I could see exactly where. I haven't even cleaned that spot because I found it so cute. It kinda puts me in touch with the people who lived here through wars, blizzards and just over 75 years of history. I just love that.