What’s happening in the ‘hood

Gallery

Posted on by

Source: Pinterest

I live in a mixed neighborhood. There are some homes that go for over a million dollars (no not ours) and some smaller homes that look more like cottages. Ding, ding, ding!

Right now there are several for sale. One is around the corner from us. It’s a very large home with a huge circular staircase (think Gone with the Wind) inside the front door.

However (and there always is one) the people who live there are sort of gaudy in their decorating tastes (not that there is anything wrong with that!).

An example – last summer they repainted the shutters and front door. The first color was a bright cherry pink-red. I love color on a house but this was more suitable for a toddler’s outfit than house trim. It would also be a great color for sneakers for a 5K.

They had it repainted in the fall to tone it down.

They are not outdoor people so the landscaping is Wal-Mart style. With weeds.

We went to the first open house. Aside from a purple toilet, the house was tasteful although slightly dated. The colors weren’t over the top (but there were no neutral walls either) and the window treatments were professionally done.

I relayed my surprise to a neighbor who rolled her eyes. She explained that they had silk grape vines with clumps of plastic grapes that hung over the top of their kitchen cabinets and up the staircase. Lots of tchotchkes, all of which they had to remove to prepare for sale.

She also told me the story of the orange toilet and vanity that was replaced because it was…well…ugly. The purple one was a light color although they should have replaced that one too.

Homes are a window into people’s lifestyles. Some are more colorful than others.

58 thoughts on “What’s happening in the ‘hood”

  1. You provided a very thorough description and I could quite easily “see” the decorating style in my mind, but I really want to know more! LOL! Somehow I think that the people who live there must be the most colorful of all! They are quite unique. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • When I was looking for a “starter” home I couldn’t believe the home improvement projects people did. They were so proud of a rickety metal staircase or a paneling job that didn’t match. I bought a house that had a wallpapered dining room. I knew I would remove it so I didn’t care. It was very busy and they didn’t bother to match ANY of the strips. This wasn’t a starter home either. That house had a lot of “what were they thinking” going for it.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  5. “..landscaping is Wal-Mart style. With weeds.” Got the image perfectly. (and we are concerned that is what we now have moved in behind us…which may or may not be an improvement from the raising dog people who had purple walls and colorful bathrooms from their realtor’s photos)
    Oh, well, as long as it’s picked up and kept neat, I can take most colors…but neatness counts!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • I know. We have two neighbors around the corner that don’t mow their grass. They wait until it needs to be harvested by a combine and then there is dead hay all over it. They get it done professionally. I have no idea why they refuse to go on a schedule. Also had a car parked on the street with the headlights bashed and no license plate. It had obviously been hit. A neighbor called the police as you can’t park a piece of junk on the street. I live in a nice neighborhood but once in a while you get someone who can afford to buy there but they haven’t learned the rules of being a good neighbor.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  8. For the first twelve years that I lived in our “planned community,” all our houses were the same cream color. Finally we voted to change the rules, and now our neighborhood looks so much better. We found out, though, that it was harder to choose a good color than we expected. I chose “blustery sky” and a red door. The “sky” turned out to be a little bluer than I expected, but I still like it.

    Variety is nice. When we took our daughters to look at colleges, I noticed that some schools tried harder than others to make all their new buildings fit in with the old. In some cases, the new buildings didn’t fit in at all. The ugliest school, though, was Johns Hopkins. All the buildings looked the same.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  11. The house across the street was purchased by a flipper who then did a lot of high-end renovations. The house looked great when they were done, especially when staged by a professional, but it didn’t quite make sense as a house you’d want to live in. It appears to have been sold (for less then the flipper wanted, but a lot more than us in the neighborhood thought it would sell for) so we’ll see. Its always interesting to see who moves in and what kind of neighbors they turn out to be. Fingers crossed.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • My girlfriend bought a house from a flipper and it was nice. The kitchen was IKEA but attractive and great for her. We looked at a home that was being flipped and I was impressed with the changes. It was an old standard 1950s ranch. They took out walls to give it an open look. Switched the kitchen location and it looked new and stylish. It all depends.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  12. Our neighbourhood is full of San Francisco-style houses, built by the same people long ago. They used to be happy and varied in colour, and now we lament the greying of Mt Victoria.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  14. ha ha sold our home last year — had a professional staging done and the first thing they did was make us rent a storage unit… you guessed it — EVERYTHING went in there … they did not mind telling me either… ok my mom and grandma had just passed so I had inherited loads of stuff… well grandma passed in 2005 and mom 2014! now I have furnished three homes (one for my son) mine and a renter… and did not have to buy a thing… even down to the silverware…. it is nice de cluttering I must say..

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply ↓

  15. I like a little color but I think that toilet seat would make me want to throw up. I must say that my bedroom when I was a teen was painted a bright yellow with black shag rugs and my first apartment had orange walls in the kitchen with one wall papered with a chicken and eggs pattern. I was young, what can I say?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

  16. An orange toilet and then a lavender toilet . . . I guess they are expressive, unique people. That’s fine in my book except I definitely would have painted all the walls beige (yawn) and installed a white toilet before putting the house on the market.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

  17. I went to an open house in this subdivision where I saw a house whose interior was all blue. Everywhere. All surfaces, toilet seats included. And not the same shade of blue, I’d like to add. I thought at the time that these people are NUTS. Neighbors told me I was on the mark. Sounds like you visited the home of a relative of our former blue neighbors.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply ↓

  19. Oh my gosh Kate you should see all the difference in homes where we live rural. The county doesn’t even know or care that we added a sun porch and another full bathroom or took the roof off the family room and put a new roof on that matches the roof line of the main part of the house. We have 500, 000 dollar homes and up around us and shacks with rusted out cars. We have nice homes that the peeps don’t give a hoot about how their house looks. Our neighbor’s chickens visit our yard… yeah, they cross the road for our flower beds. We do love when they visit… :D… the chickens, not the neighbors. And our north neighbor’s cows are always getting out into our west pasture. “Green Acres is the place to be”… not always! Sorry I have been missing, been doing jury duty.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply ↓

    • You are very brave. When we were looking for a lot to build on we looked at several rural properties but it always seemed to be surrounded by tobacco road houses. We ended up in a development with “do’s and don’ts” although they are not onerous. I don’t think you can have above ground pools (the big ones) in our neighborhood or park large RVs on the street for extended periods. Good to see you back!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply ↓

        • Locally we only get called to jury duty for a day (local) or three days (federal). The night before you call to see if you need to show up. A lot of times you are given a date when they aren’t picking a jury. JD is the most boring thing I ever did. I once had a drug trial but the prosecution muddled everything up and we had to acquit even though all of us were sure he was guilty.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply ↓

  22. I grew up in pretty sedate, traditional houses. Moving to a place with multiple architectural styles was eye-opening, for sure. Mediterranean houses painted flamingo pink sit right next to modern monstrosities that look like prisons. All on a block with original bungalows and haciendas.

    The ritzy neighborhood a mile away mandates that all houses are white or cream and have red tile roofs. So apparently you can try and legislate good taste?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Some of the over 55 community houses we looked at were like that. You had to use their builder and while you could build any house you want (almost) you had a selection of the exterior materials and paints and had to chose from them. Our development is about 30 years old. You can tell when the houses were built by the different exteriors as different styles came in and out. We have a New England farmhouse style which is timeless (I hope).

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

Don't be shy, I'd love to hear what you're thinking!