Tag: houses

Goodbye to house.

I can’t say I’m sorry to see this house go as it has been boarded up since at least 2007, when I moved to the neighborhood.  Plus, once a gang of homeless people had a huge fight in the backyard while I was walking by and the bad vibes have never dissipated.

I felt compelled to make a record of its being though.  Poor house.  Too bad no one took care of you.
Any bets about what will replace it?  It’s sandwiched between a gas station/cheap tobacco store and a house that has a coffee shop.  I’m guessing it will be commercial rather than residential, but you never know.  Then again, it could just become a vacant lot.

New Glass!

My Aunt Carol has been on a clean and purge streak and boy, did I win.  Do I want the cactus glasses that were my Great-Uncle Tom’s?  Yep.  Do I want the cocktail glasses that were my grandmother’s?  Yes ma’am.
Uncle Tom’s cactus glasses. There were 12, but I’ve learned that they don’t stack well, so now there are 10.

Grandma’s cocktail glasses, which would be even more amazing if I had put them against something white, so you could see the fabulous color.

They have these pretty roses etched on them.

And this is fabulous.  It has a glass stir stick and I love the shape.  Plus, the cups stack.
And now I must purchase something to contain all this glassware.

The most wonderful time of the year.

There’s a Christmas song that purports that Christmas time is the most wonderful time of the year.  I enjoy Christmas, but that holiday is a lot of work.  MY favorite time of the year is when my tax return comes.

I ignore all the financial advice in books and have the government withhold more than they should to ensure I get a good refund.  I know that I could do a savings program of my own, but quite frankly, interest rates are pretty much non-existent so it’s not like I’m losing much interest.  And it’s just more fun to get a huge chunk of cash at once.  I use it to put aside money for Christmas and the meat purchase and I buy big-ticket things I’ve been needing which usually means a pair of shoes.  And then I buy big-ticket things I’ve been wanting.  This year: Knife sharpening kit.
 

Also:  potato ricer.  In this case I riced the last of the potatoes I grew into mashed potatoes for Easter dinner.  The cookies were the Easter Bunny treats for everyone.
 

Why I can’t currently live in a tiny house.

The coat closet rod is full of MY coats. Matt’s are on the door.

From left to right:
  • Red rain slicker, for when it’s really pouring.
  • Bright yellow flagger coat I wear when bicycling
  • Tan mid-weight jacket and matching fetching cap
  • Cute jean jacket
  • Tan vintage car coat whose button fell off and I need to replace
  • Red vintage dressy coat with fabulous button
  • Vintage red wool coat for when the temperature is below 40 degrees (also includes fabulous black hat with built in scarf and matching thick suede gloves)
  • Cream cashmere blend winter coat for when the temperature is above 40 degrees (also includes cute checked cloth cap and leather gloves)

Ideally, I would have one coat that could go on the bike, dress up, dress down and become warmer and cooler as the temperature allowed. I’m sure such a coat exists, but I have yet to come across it, especially at my store of choice, Goodwill. But if I found such a coat, I would have to give up all the other ones, most of which I like a lot, for one reason or another.

New plan for old comforter

Readers with long memories and ample room in the brains for the smallest detail of my exciting life will recall that I bought the blue duvet cover to put on the much loved, though wearing out Holly Hobbie comforter from my childhood. Well, as time went on, it became more apparent that the full-sized duvet cover was too much duvet cover for my not-really-full-sized Holly Hobbie comforter. But I had paid all this money–actually spent a gift card, so not really– and I didn’t want the blue duvet cover to go to waste, so what to do?

Eventually, the solution came to me. For years I’ve had a full-sized duvet that I never got around to buying a cover for. In fact, said naked duvet has been on my bed all along. Eventually, I had the “Eurika!” moment wherein I realized I could put the blue, full-sized duvet cover on the naked full-sized duvet! Then, I would be free to buy a (much cheaper) twin sized duvet cover for Holly Hobbie and continue on with my placid life.

All of this came to pass, as you can see: naked duvet, covered, Holly Hobbie ensconced in a new solid square print twin-sized duvet cover, which fits much better.

Phew!

Tiny house not long for this world

I’ve long enjoyed the section of North Omaha Avenue north of Lombard. Five blocks north of Lombard, the street runs into Winchell, making for a nice quiet place to walk. The houses are mostly small and look a bit disheveled in the positive way that says to me, “we love our houses and we are doing things to them as time and money allows, but alas, we have many interests and not much money, so things are what they are.”

This house is located at 7626 N. Omaha Ave. I’ve liked this house for years for a lot of reasons. It’s tiny, and has a large lot. My mom and I happened to go to a house sale here, so we got to go inside. The woman who was having the house sale was an artist, so there was a lot of art, which always gives me a good feeling. There was even a nice chicken run for chickens. Sadly, it seems the owner was moving because she was in foreclosure.

Portland Maps (An Information Service Provided by the City of Portland) tells the sad story. In 2007, the house sold for $175,000, which is overpriced, in my opinion. I suspect it went into foreclosure in late 2009 when it sold for 105,000. It was on the market a few months ago for $125,000. I was wishing to buy it, but am currently lacking in cash for superfluous house purchases. In December of last year, the house sold for a remarkable $70,900! The new owners (Mark & Lorena Connelly) have applied for a permit to tear the house down, that is the sign on the fence to the right.

I’m sad to see this house go, and hope that the house that replaces it will have the charm that this one does. I’ll keep us updated.

6/3/11 Update. I walked by this morning and the house was gone. Thank goodness I took the picture when I did.

Infill, is there another way?

I’m a fan of infill. As someone who was not born and raised in this great city, but happily live here, I support people who love Portland moving to Portland. Projections are that roughly one zillion people will be living her by 2050 and I want my compact urban environment to be maintained for all those newcomers. I’m not a fan of sprawl. I don’t really care that the infill houses don’t match the existing ones in the neighborhood or that infill houses look alike. After all, a lot of neighborhoods don’t have “matching” houses and most neighborhoods have banks of houses that were clearly built by some developer of the past as a row of them will be strikingly similar.

Infill in Portland mostly looks like variations of this:

Houses are 1500-2500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with a garage and a tiny front and back yard. My problem with infill is that this standard 3 bedroom/2.5 bath doesn’t really make sense for a lot of Portlanders. For a family of four, 3 bedroom houses are great. But there are an awful lot of Portlanders who are not a family of four. There are also an awful lot of Portlanders who would rather have less house and more yard. I’m wondering if we can’t look to a different model of infill for them.

One of my favorite things about North Portland is that it has a lot of very small houses on big lots. What worries me is that these are not seen as being worth preserving. Often, when they go on the market, they are bought by someone who tears them down and replaces them with the standard infill house.

But what if the tiny house, large lot became an infill choice? Tiny houses are much easier to maintain, heat and cool. If placed on a standard sized lot, they leave room for a large garden. They are all about sustainable. And they are cute. Take a look of some of these:

The Sebastarosa is 750-847 square feet:
The Enesti is 746-843 square feet:
The B-53 is 777-874 square feet:
All of the above tiny houses can be found on the Tumbleweed Tiny House website, which is also where the pictures came from. Somewhere in Portland there must be an infill developer who wants to focus on tiny house infill for the rest of us.