Friday, March 7, 2008

Friday.

God just gave me a little smack on the wrist for bad behavior. Everybody’s talking about tee shirts today, so I attempted to post one I found to add to the mix:













As soon as I reached with my mouse to click “publish,” however, I knocked my coffee over and it spilled all over my desk – including my desk calendar and the contract I was working on. Apparently God doesn’t reward tackily partisan statements like that.

But anyway. Last Saturday we had beautiful weather here in Denver; so lovely that we decided to get out for a walk.
















We headed to Wash Park, where the crowds were out in force. We found our own little patch of grass, and Eeyore had his first frolic outside:















This weekend isn’t supposed to be as nice. I am tired of winter. I want to be able to sit out in our back yard and have my morning coffee, maybe put a blanket under the tree and watch Eeyore crawl around. And the best: get out the baby pool! This year we have an actual baby for it, so that should be interesting.

















Meanwhile, R. and I have been discussing what we want to do about our housing situation. We love our neighborhood, but we also really want a bigger house and we’d especially love something that he designed for us. We’ve talked a lot about buying some land in the mountains so he can design us a mountain house, because it’s hard to think of any part of town we’d like to live in, including our own, where we could afford the land to build something. We’ve talked about “popping the top,” which isn’t something I’d ever really heard of until we moved to Denver, but everybody is always doing it here for the extra space and the end result is almost always hideous. It’s hard to do anything attractive with a little Craftsman bungalow, which is frankly already designed to be its own little perfect self as is.

But here’s our little place:
















As you can see, from the outside it’s no great shakes. It’s just this random, brick box, and I don’t even like brick unless it is served up as “exposed” or painted a nice, light color. Still, inside it’s very cute; light and bright with lovely wood floors, a good, open flow, nice arches between the rooms, and a great back yard. So it seems a shame to just rip it down and start over, but that’s what we are now thinking about doing. Our mortgage is not very large, so we could feasibly just scrape the house and build a new one and still have a smaller mortgage than we’d have if we bought a house in our neighborhood that was as big and nice as we would like. The downsides are (1) then potentially having a house too nice for our street, and (2) wondering whether a modern home would stick out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood full of houses from the 1920’s.

Still, others have already started scraping in our neighborhood, so we wouldn’t be the only ones. So far, the new houses have a tendency to look like this, however, so this could be our opportunity to improve things a bit.













I guess my real reservation is whether I think it’s appropriate to tear down a perfectly sweet little house that is just right for what it was built for.

4 comments:

Cindy said...

You outdid me on the t shirt post! Given that I live in Berkeley, I could probably wear that without offending anyone.

Your house is very cute--maybe a good architect could advise on adding on in a way that would preserve the integrity? It would be a shame to raze it.

Happy late birthday! You're right: you're the mom. It's tough sometimes. Ok, a lot of the time.

Melissa C Morris said...

your house is really cute -- not as cute as you and that ADORABLE baby -- but definitely attractive. i love that you're posting more photos!

our renovations are turning my hair grey... i can't imagine doing them with a baby and a high powered job.

Anonymous said...

Hey Lady! Did you get my birthday email! Happy Birthday if it was sent to spam.
1.) Your family is so cute I can't hardly stand it.
2.) What's that baby doing on the floor?
3.) Love your home, but love what the Mr. does... as options seem creatively limitless (monetarily, maybe not- but already owning a home has you leaps and bounds above the rest).
4.) I MISS YOU!!
XOXO

Anonymous said...

The beauty about your crib is that it's not trying to be something it isn't.....(a nice trait in people, too...(!!!)
As for tear down, we just did he same - but in the country on Lake Michigan - where our style did not conflict with the "look" of a neighborhood.
Took down a 50 yr old cape-y ranch (left 2 fireplaces standing only) and re-built a Robt AM Stern shingle style - after exactly a year, moved in last week.
Whatever you do, it will be the first house Eeyore remembers.....(and the one you'll never forget...!!)
Alison