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Show us your vintage home!

Messages
13,466
Location
Orange County, CA
Didn't want to jinx it until we knew for sure, but now we do, so......

This is our new home:

949912a.jpg


I did a little research on the woman that had it built in 1929 and found her picture that was taken about ten years prior:

po0737pb.jpg


More pictures of the house when we move in and I get things put away.

What a lovely house. It reminds me a little of the 1924 house where my grandparents lived.

granparentshouse.jpg
 

Kirk H.

One Too Many
Messages
1,196
Location
Charlotte NC
Didn't want to jinx it until we knew for sure, but now we do, so......

This is our new home:

949912a.jpg


I did a little research on the woman that had it built in 1929 and found her picture that was taken about ten years prior:

po0737pb.jpg


More pictures of the house when we move in and I get things put away.

Wow, that is a great looking house. I love the old houses they have so much character.

Kirk
 
Messages
13,466
Location
Orange County, CA
I'm sorry to hear that :( Is it still in your family?

No it isn't. My grandfather died in 1976 and my grandmother lived there until 1981 when a home invasion robbery convinced her to move to a safer area. Because she was a smoker and was afraid of being trapped in case of a fire, her house was the only one in the neighborhood that didn't have bars on the windows. :(

My grandfather built a fishpond in the backyard that had a little lighthouse in the middle made out of lava rocks and stained glass. I remember how he used to always feed bread to the fish (they were koi). Strangely enough, after he died the fish refused to eat despite my grandmother's efforts and they eventually died.
 
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rue

Messages
13,319
Location
California native living in Arizona.
No it isn't. My grandfather died in 1976 and my grandmother lived there until 1981 when a home invasion robbery convinced her to move to a safer area. Because she was a smoker and was afraid of being trapped in case of a fire, her house was the only one in the neighborhood that didn't have bars on the window. :(

Wow.... how awful for her that she had to be chased out of her home and neighborhood. That must have really upsetting :( I hope she was able to settle into something that she was happy with.
 
Messages
13,466
Location
Orange County, CA
Wow.... how awful for her that she had to be chased out of her home and neighborhood. That must have really upsetting :( I hope she was able to settle into something that she was happy with.

She moved to a small apartment which was closer to my aunt and uncle (her son). She eventually became apartment manager and did that job right until shortly before her death in 1999.
 
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lolly_loisides

One Too Many
Messages
1,845
Location
The Blue Mountains, Australia
Well this isn't my house, yet. It is my dream house though. It's about a half an hour from where I live & every time I drive past it I think to myself, "What a lovely house, I wish I lived there". I'm assuming it will go for well over one million, so I'll have to buy a few lottery tickets & pray to the real estate gods.....
http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-Sale/House/NSW/Katoomba/?adid=2009155822
2009155822_20_FS.JPG
 

Stray Cat

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Home Buyer’s Check List 1954 Edition

So, I've found this.. and I'd like to share:

The pamphlet's lists and check-boxes instructed home buyers, item by item, how to choose the right house in the burgeoning suburbs of the postwar era. The authors worked for the Southeast Research Institute under a project called the Housing Research Foundation.
In every list lies the assumption that you can insist on a certain standard, one that went well beyond what most people experienced at the time. The pamphlet said that home buyers should ask how close the house stood to others and how the streets lined up. They should decide if they liked the neighbors, how easy it was to park the car, and if the house was too different in appearance from the others.
The pamphlet tells buyers to give high scores to houses that conform—without matching each other exactly—and are situated in a park-like setting. Anything else would not do.
The section “The Neighborhood” asked buyers to score houses they were considering. If they answered “no” to any questions, they were advised to “score 0” on those questions. Here are some sample questions, with occasional advice in parentheses:

Is the neighborhood attractive?
Are the people you see the kind you would like to have as neighbors?
Do the streets curve occasionally? (Discourages through traffic and improves appearance.)
Do the houses seem crowded together? (If so, score 0.)
Are the houses so nearly identical that the effect is unpleasant? (If so, score 0.)
Are the houses so different that the result is a hodge-podge? (If so, score 0. In the effort to avoid identical repetition, builders sometimes go too far in the other direction.)

The pamphlet's writers urged buyers to make a spot judgment of the neighborhood and its people. All city neighborhoods “score 0.” The houses must look different, and yet not so different that any one stands out too much. The effect the authors wanted could exist only in a specific kind of postwar suburb.
In the section “The Outside of the House,” they asked:

Is it simple? (That is, are there few materials, few breaks or projections in the walls and roof, few applied decorations.)
Does it imitate some style of the past, such as Cape Cod, Georgian, Spanish, etc.? (If so, score 0.)
Does it have a number of quaint or “cute” features, such as cupolas, bird houses, scalloped valances, lamp posts, ox-yokes, wagon wheels, fences that do not enclose anything; and shutters that do not shut? (If so, score 0.) You will tire of these very soon and wish that the builder had spent the money on better plumbing, say, or more insulation.

In the section “Inside the House,” the writers indicated that the kitchen should be partly open to the dining room but possible to close it off entirely for formal meals—people should not have to walk where the cooking went on. The counters must be long, with large areas for storage, hobbies and maintenance projects.

Wow.. And, it goes on:

Prioritize each of these options into MUST HAVE or WOULD PREFER:

Yard (at least _____)
Garage (size_____)
Patio/Deck
Pool
Bedrooms (number _____)
Bathrooms (number _____)
Family room
Formal living room
Formal dining room
Eat-in kitchen
Laundry room
Basement
Attic
Fireplace
Spa in bath
Air conditioning
Wall-to-wall carpet
Hardwood floors
View
Light (windows)
Shade

I haven't had the clue that it's SO HARD to get the house.... lol
 

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