Spent the day running errands and doing shit on the house despite feeling like hammered shit- this moist cool weather just kills my shoulders and fingers, and messes with my sinuses, too. I wish it was just 15 and snowy until the middle of March and then turn into spring.
At any rate, picked up a tension shower rod and curtain, picked out a faucet for the sink, and a a bunch of other stuff. We had originally planned to put a glass door that open outwards and a different vanity in the bathroom upstairs, but dad ordered them prior to the decision to put the washer and dryer upstairs in that bathroom, so those two items (and I do not want to tell you the price) no longer fit. Not pinning this on dad- I picked them out, he just ordered them, and none of us thought to remeasure those items because we were too focused on whether the washer and dryer would fit.
I am trying to return them, but because every company in America is run by a bunch of fucktard MBA’s, they are being pains in the dick. So I am just putting in a shower curtain for now and bought a vanity that fit, and when I can (if I can) recoup some money from those losses, I will do a shower door. Live and learn, I suppose. Here is the faucet for the kitchen sink:
Before anything else, here is a picture of the arches in the living room and dining room to settle the internecine struggle going on in the comments section about what kind of house this is:
Those pictures of the arches are obviously from right after we ripped out the carpet months ago. Moving on to the bathroom. New vanity is in, shower tile is done, toilet goes in tomorrow, as well as the washer and dryer. Hope to have the plumber here by Thursday or Friday to have all plumbing done (bathroom, kitchen sink, refigerator). Here’s a before picture of the bathroom, where they had that shower/tub unit covering half the window:
Here it is now, and pictured is Herb, my friend:
As you can see, where we could salvage the molding we refinished it, where we could not we put in wainscoting and new trim, and I thought that was a nice brown for the room.
Moving right along to the kitchen and living room. The before, to refresh your memory:
Stage 1:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Stage 4:
The happy looking guy is Dean, who is doing most of the work. Obviously he is happy because he is the owner of Xubi the wonder pup.
Finally, behind the door we installed in the living room, we left the half bath:
The sink and cabinet in the half bath also go in tomorrow.
You can not really tell it, but the kitchen and the halfbath are the same color, while the diningroom are a much more neutral color (but give off a blue hue in these photos), and both are separate from the entryway:
We’re getting there.
Baud
Nice.
schrodingers_cat
Nice! I moved into my new house almost 2 months ago and half the rooms are still empty.
Sarah in Brooklyn
I’m amazed. I’ve been working on my house since June and I’m nowhere near as close to being done.
geg6
When my ex and I redid our 1905 brick colonial, we lived in Stage 2 for about a year. We had a toilet and an old shower in the basement and that’s how we lived. You and your crew are doing a bang up job.
RSR
Looks good, John.
Shell
Will the bathtub be by the window? One should always have a nice view while taking a relaxing soak.
Patricia Kayden
Everything is falling into place pretty quickly. Lovely, John. This all should have been documented on HGTV.
Lurker
Your house will be fabulous! Congrats! The piglets will be happy too.
SiubhanDuinne
John, I don’t know if you could do this, or would want to, but if you have a really basic floor plan sketch of the house (different floors), it would be neat and convenient to follow along. Nothing detailed — I don’t need to know where the electrical outlets are situated — but just basic, rough-scale showing walls, windows, doors, etc.
No worries if you don’t have such a thing. The house is going to be absolutely gorgeous.
Days
Amazing job and a lot of progress quickly!
bago
What nozzle makes the sink pour fruit like that?
Elmo
@SiubhanDuinne: Co-sign. I’d like that too.
We moved into this house in 2013, and have managed to (a) redo the floor to bamboo and (b) tear the shit out of the basement and guest bath. My wife starts demo projects and then either has a bad spell where she has to stop work or runs out of project lumber and keeps forgetting to tell me what to pick up. I hope to live in a finished house again by 2020.
frosty
This is coming along so fast! It’s a beautiful house and you’re really doing it justice. Congrats!
stinger
Absolutely beautiful.
JPL
It’s beautiful!
laura
It’s going to be so satisfying to see the finished, the moving in, and the “damn these companion animals” posts. The progress from not very habitable and unspeakably cruel to a lovely soon to be home is moving at a pace that to everyone but Cole is like greased lightening.
Anyone besides me thinking about Walter and his unspeakably cruel circumstances and passage to Debit and heaven on earth?
Both renovations have been a tonic in these troubling times.
Jerzy Russian
In addition to owing a wonderful pet, your friend is also happy because he has all of your money now.
raven
Nice, man. I’ve been working on the big spaces between the heart pine flooring. I have different widths of hemp rope and flats cord that I soaked in stain and then dried. I fit them as I can, put Aleens Tacky Glue down and then pop some staple in to hold them tight. We’ll see how it works over time.
Oh yea, I’m melting bee’s wax and dipping the end of the cord and rope hoping it prevents fraying.
Juju
When all the work is done, you will have a lovely house. Just remember to enjoy it all.
ruemara
It looks great. You should be proud and everyone who is chipping in. I really enjoyed working on my house, even though it too was an old home. Plus it looked great.
Pardon me treating it like an open thread. A podcast I’ve been performing in came out yesterday and is available on iTunes and Soundcloud. It’s a sci-fi mystery that starts a bit slow, but holds you.
Ruckus
A remodel doesn’t have to take forever. But you either have to have the time and skills to do the work yourself or the money to pay someone like Dean to be there full time. I’ve done a house about the same size, similar amount of work in four months full time as I was between gigs then. Purposely, I took the time off to do the work. It also was a lot cheaper to do it myself but I’d done all the jobs necessary in bits and drabs before so it wasn’t as tough as it sounds.
And John, the house looks great and it really is coming together in a timely fashion, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Pogonip
Cole, your faucet looks like it is ready to settle down with a nice lady faucet and have little faucets.
Well, no, on second thought, it looks more like it wants to find a slutty faucet and hump like bunnies all night.
Betty Cracker
It’s going to be fabulous!
rikyrah
Bravo ??? to you for putting the laundry on the same floor as your bedroom – you will never regret it.
Also- good for you on keeping the half bath.
It’s looking good, Cole.
Fordpowers
Wow!
Kay Eye
This may not work for your bathroom, but if you can get by without any shower curtain or door, it makes for a really nice shower experience, plus no extra folds and crevices for growing mold.
Jean
I can’t believe how much has been done on your house in so little time! It is beautiful.
hovercraft
Looks beautiful, great job.
debit
Again, I really love the colors you have downstairs. It looks so serene and soothing.
glory b
@Elmo: I’m toying with the idea of bamboo flooring, but I’ve heard that it isn’t compatible with dogs and it scratches. What do you think, if you don’t mind?
opiejeanne
LOL, internecine struggle!! Where is Mnemosyne, anyway? I love her, she knows it I think.
Nice arches, but it still just looks like a 20s mixed-style house to me :-) It’s becoming a very nice house again thanks to you and your dad and your money; it always takes more money than you expect. I’m really happy to see the photos documenting your reclamation of this place; thanks for bringing us along on the adventure.
Suzanne
Looks awesome, John. WTG. FWIW, I hate those shower doors. They get nasty AF. In healthcare environments, most of my clients are doing wet-room showers, so everything in the entire room is able to get wet (no greenboard, tile everywhere, sloped floor, etc) and then curtaining off just the shower area. It is much more hygienic.
MazeDancer
Such impressive work. And the speed is remarkable. It may not feel fast to you, Mr. Cole, but really, truly, this was speedy stuff. Congrats!
BGinCHI
That blue in the last pic is nice.
We just did paint and it looks great.
House is going to be great, John. Hope you get to enjoy it before we all get sent to internment camps for having brains.
Pogonip
@debit: Hi Debit how is Walter doing in the cold weather?
Elmo
@glory b: My dogs have scratched the absolute living hell out of it. I thought bamboo wouldn’t show dog scratches, but I was so wrong.
Also the installers did a shit job, and about a quarter of the boards are bowing or worse.
It’s still 1000% better than carpet and I’m glad we did it. I just wish the installers had been better. Stay away from Lumber Liquidators’ house team.
Suzanne
@glory b: Bamboo is all about the hardness of the coating on top. Teragren is a brand used in a lot of commercial environments, so it is better.
As a rule, stuff sold at residential home improvement stores is of much lower quality than what is used in commercial, educational, or institutional interiors. If you know anyone who can get you a trade discount on that stuff, do it.
karen marie
@Shell: Someone probably alread asked but … view for John Cole or the neighbors?
(Can’t believe everyone ignored your gimme.)
raven
Well no one gives a shit how I am fixing my floors but, when I posted it on my Facebook, lots of people are!
Olivia
When I saw the first photo, I thought for a very brief moment, “Wow, that house is really coming along well, nice decorating…but how did they fit an island in there?”
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne: I can not express how much I despise those arches.
hitchhiker
I find myself soothed in the extreme by these posts — by watching something beautiful and useful come into being. I know in the doing it’s all a pain in the ass, expensive, and frustrating. But from here it looks like you’re adding a dose of goodness to the world. Given the newly exposed and celebrated hatefest all around us, it’s just refreshing.
Corner Stone
Wasn’t there a pic of a farmhouse sink recently?
Yarrow
John, the house is gorgeous. You are going to love it when you move in.
Has John ever said when the house was built? That date might help in determining what style it is.
@raven: I’m interested! I did not know that using rope was a way to fix flooring. Where did you discover that technique?
debbie
@raven:
We morning people care. Am I right to assume this is for insulation?
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: What do you have against the arches?
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: My next house, if I ever have one, is going to be a shower en suite wonderland.
raven
@debbie: No, it’s filling the cracks where the thin part of the tongue and groove has separated. You shouldn’t use filler because these old floors expand and contract. They used to fill the cracks in wooden boats with hemp rope.
Kristine
Looks lovely, John–can’t wait to see it all when it’s finished.
lamh36
Nice!
I wanted to say in the last house thread that i love the blue color you had on one of thw walls? Can’t remember which room though…Blue just so happens to be my fav color! What color blue is the paint y’all used?
raven
His farm sink pic, maybe he has a sink on and island too. Ritzy.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I have an en suite bathroom, with a nice tub, but the shower is meh. If we were going to stay in this house, I would consider redoing it, but my mom moved in a couple of years ago, and we need a place with a double master or guest suite or casita or basement apartment or something. I also am anti-open concept.
raven
@raven: Something fishy here, the fridge behind the sink on this page is stainless and he has black appliances.
Bumper
So our 65 year old oil furnace is in need of repair and rather than spend minimum $1500, we’re looking at changing out for geothermal. Redshirt from Maine talked about that awhile back but haven’t seen her lately. Does anyone have thoughts or recommendations?
raven
Damn, PSU is kickin ass, where’s EF to give us the social aspect?
danielx
Teh awesome.
Suzanne
@Bumper: YES I have thoughts: geothermal is the shit. Do it!
mai naem mobile
@Elmo: a lot is in floor prep for the new floor install.
I like what you’re doing to the house but don’t understand the floor plan. Also,how did you change the sink to a double sink:) Don’t know what brand faucet you got. Hope it’s not Price Pfister or Moen. Deltas a good economical brand.
JPL
@Suzanne: My son loves the open concept, but also wants the master and bedrooms for children on the same floor. He also wants the house with a front porch. Yeah, he’d be an architect’s nightmare. lol
mai naem mobile
I like the arches but i love most arches almost anywhere.
Corner Stone
@Bumper:
Yes, just as happy that she hasn’t been around and I recommend that trend continue indefinitely.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@raven:
I was wondering if you could pour polyurethane or something in the gaps to level it out.
Once I used drywall spackle in the edges of a solid-core door that I cut down to make a desktop. Looked okay after sanding, painting and finishing.
Elmo
@mai naem mobile: So I gather. They didn’t do any. It’s really upsetting.
But I’m still glad we got away from carpet!
Bumper
@Suzanne: What would be a good brand?
mai naem mobile
@Suzanne: I’m still trying to work out the copper countertops. Is it true that they smell? Does the smell go away once theyre sealed?
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: I currently have a master en suite but the closet is too narrow and I have specific fancy pants requirements for the next shower area. I also would do something about it if I planned to be here for 10+ years but as soon as my son goes to college or etc, I am out of here. If not sooner, depending on work changes. I would have also installed solar panels as I have the perfect full sun spectrum to the southeast sky all day. And thermal water heaters and etc and etc but there is no return for my hopefully short timeframe.
raven
@Steeplejack (tablet): Nothing hard will survive the movement. The rope or cork will take the expansion and contraction because it is malleable.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Corner Stone:
Yesterday.
raven
A track meet at the Rose Bowl!
Corner Stone
I am thinking after looking at it that the faucet is just the faucet he is going to install on the farmhouse sink. But I am confused at this point, so who knows anymore?
raven
@Steeplejack (tablet): I re-posted it above.
Corner Stone
@JPL: I also want a nice 1200 or 1300 sqft open concept, but with two masters, including en suites, a half bath for guests and a kitchen on an outside wall so I can have large windows looking outside.
Not sure I am going to invest in another house after I sell this one. But if I do it is going to have some of the items I have also wanted like a full gas range as well as a flat top/hibachi in the kitchen.
J R in WV
@raven:
A trick I’ve seen is to make fines or save fines from sanding the wood after it’s stained, and then mix the dust with white glue to make a thick paste, and force that in over the crack filled with rope. You can adjust the color before you start using it in the cracks, and you want it to be mostly wood dust, just wet with the glue enough to hold it in the cracks.
How wide is that crack, anyway? It looks big, and the floor shouldn’t have shrunk that much.
Olivia
@Olivia: Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused by the top photo.
Suzanne
@Bumper: I don’t know brands, but I will ask my MPE engineer friends for recommendations.
@mai naem mobile: I haven’t noticed any smell problems with copper countertops (or any copper building materials, for that matter). What does it smell like? Is it like a burning smell?
@Corner Stone: I hear you. Most of us live in production housing of whatever timeframe, and improving it is such a pain in the ass. If I had an influx of cash, I’d do my own. It’s often cheaper in the long run to scrape and start over.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@raven:
Ah, I forgot (or never knew) that it’s tongue and groove.
@raven:
The picture of the faucet on this page is a manufacturer’s sample picture. Cole doesn’t have furniture and a TV installed yet.
schrodingers_cat
@mai naem mobile: Why? Copper reacts with everything and verdigris is poisonous.
raven
@J R in WV: I’ve refinished floors in this house and seem pro’s do others. They do are you suggest and it lasts for a while. That is just one of several and it it about 1/4 wide. The flat cording fits quite nicely and I actually found some old rope in some of the cracks when I cleaned them.
J R in WV
@raven:
That’s a catalog pic, just to show us the faucet! Come on, you know that!
raven
@Steeplejack (tablet): I didn’t think so. That splains it.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: The “problem” with what you’ve just described is that most people that either only want or can afford 1300SF do not want only two bedrooms, especially if they are en suites. Having three bedrooms really increases a house’s value. Also, having high-end kitchens in smaller homes usually means you don’t get it back on resale, because if most buyers who want the nice stuff also want more square footage.
This is why production housing is designed the way it is, and it sucks.
raven
@J R in WV: Actually I didn’t pay any attention to it until the dude I don’t talk to posted about it. Cole should have labelled it such anyway.
debbie
never mind.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: Copper is the most hygienic material for countertops, so it is starting to be the thing in hospital labs and high-end commercial kitchens. It kills many pathogens on contact that stainless doesn’t kill.
Also, copper is beautiful.
raven
@Suzanne: We really like our Trespa.
opiejeanne
@raven: I am interested. I’d like to see more photos of what you’re doing with those floors. I didn’t quite understand the photo you posted the link to.
J R in WV
@raven:
Ah, sounds like that will work. You gonna polyurethane it when you’re done fooling around with it? I used a matte poly with a catalytic hardener, seems to have worked out pretty well, still good after 24 years of a herd of big farm dogs.
GregB
I assume Cole will host some sort of toga party with the old frat crew after he’s done with renovations and the place will end up looking like post-Trump America.
opiejeanne
@Corner Stone: I’ve never had a house with arches like that, and I’m short, so I’m going to ask if it’s because you bang your head if you don’t walk through the center of the arch?
Aesthetically they don’t offend me, but they belong in a house with high enough ceilings that the low parts of the arch are about 6 1/2 to 7 feet above the floor.
glory b
@rikyrah: Yes! I rented an apartment that had the third floor turned into one large bedroom. A closet in the bedroom was turned into a tiny laundry room. It was an act of genius.
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: Its an extremely good conductor of heat and electricity, not sure that I want it as a kitchen counter-top no matter how much in-style it is. Plus verdigris is poisonous, so upkeep is not going to be easy.
ETA: Plus, I am sure its out of my price range anyway.
raven
@J R in WV: Maybe, we’ve been in this house for 15 years and I’m just now fooling with this.
mai naem mobile
@Suzanne: I’ve been told anything from a ‘distinctive’ smell to a ‘bad’ smell. I walked near the copper plumbing stuff at Lowes. I didn’t smell it.
@schrodingers_cat: I think that’s the reason you seal it. Why? Because I like the look and it’s something different. I don’t like quartz.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: Yep. Agreed 100%. But if it is going to be my next house then it will be in Austin and one I keep until I am forcibly moved into an assisted living facility, keel over, or go out in a blaze of glory against the fascist civil war uprising. So I want it to have what I want and there are a number of neighborhoods in and around Austin that can be redone to make all those things happen.
It is much more likely I expat myself once I have the opportunity and don’t throw really good money after bad on a new housing investment in the US. I have lost so much money on this house “investment” that it ticks me off every time I consider it.
JPL
@Corner Stone: I want a pony!
glory b
@Suzanne: Thanks!
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: It’s really being done in high-end commercial kitchens and laboratories, where they have very strict requirements for maintenance, and they’re replacing stainless steel. I think they’re also alloyed with something else to minimize oxidation.
@mai naem mobile: I’ve never noticed a smell when I’ve seen them in use. I’ve also only heard good things from end users. But I also don’t do residential. I do like quartz, but only specific colors. I don’t like any of the stones except on dry counters.
opiejeanne
@Yarrow: The Craftsman style ran across at least two decades, morphing a bit as it went along. There were a couple of them built in the 1930s in one neighborhood, but after that it gets kind of fuzzy as to which is a Craftsman house.
I’m pretty much blind to any Craftsman house other than the bungalow, aka Arts & Crafts bungalow; I’ve owned two, one small one built in 1924, and several years later a grand one built in 1910-1912. We’ve owned 8 houses over the past 47 years, currently hold 2 of those. One was built in 1923 and is NOT in any way, or shape, a Craftsman house, despite its age. It’s a cabin. It started as a single room with a big fireplace, no kitchen, no bathroom, no bedroom, and like Topsy, it jes’ grew. it was goofy for a long time, but it’s been reorganized and added onto enough that it now makes sense, as cabins go.
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne: It’s just such a waste of light and flow. I prefer a much more open look and want to share light from room to room. Just not my thing, I guess.
opiejeanne
@Yarrow: i’m going to guess that it’s a pretty old way to repair a floor. It’s similar to the way wooden boats are made water-tight.
raven
@opiejeanne: Here’s a closer shot of a section where I used both round and flat rope. The part where the round rope is was deeper and the other section was shallow and the width and depth were just right. I have used glue and staples but have not used the sharpie on the staples to mask them. This is a very old house but the floors are certainly worth preserving. This look is not intended to make them look perfect, they are funky and they are going to stay funky.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I like that part of open concept living. I hate the noise transmission part. All I can think of when I see the HGTV shows with all the living areas in one big room, is, “GOD I HOPE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER”.
opiejeanne
@raven: You beat me to it.
When we sanded and refinished the fir floors in the cabin we were told to save the sawdust, mix it with something, varnish? and work that into the cracks. We never did get around to it.
The floor is so old that it’s like iron, despite its beginning as a soft wood. We were told it was oak when we bought it, but it was hidden under some really ugly carpet so we weren’t sure, and we were shy about just peeking under the carpet in a house we didn’t own. Not so shy now, not if we’re serious.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
Yesterday
raven
Here’s a section that is broken and I put a penny there for scale. Remember this is tongue and groove and, after years of wear and refinishing the part with the groove is quite thin so it breaks, that’s what I’m fooling with.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Suzanne:
I also wonder about cooking something pungent and having the smell permeate the “open concept.”
opiejeanne
@raven: It’s just a picture of the kind of faucet he’s putting in. Not a picture of it in his kitchen.
raven
@opiejeanne: Heart pine is really really hard. When we put a subfloor in the attic I bent nails for hours until my FIL laughed at me and said “son, you can’t drive nails in that old pine with out drilling a pilot hole.
raven
@opiejeanne: I got it now, thanks.
Yarrow
@opiejeanne: Thanks! That’s interesting. I love older homes but don’t know a lot about various styles.
Suzanne
@opiejeanne: Fun fact: “softwoods” come from coniferous trees, “hardwoods” from deciduous trees, and neither has anything to do with the actual hardness or softness of the wood. For example, aspen is a hardwood, but is actually pretty soft.
Yarrow
@Steeplejack (tablet): In a smaller house the smell goes everywhere, open concept or not.
debit
@Pogonip: Walter’s doing okay. He doesn’t seem to mind the cold too much and is no longer shocked and appalled by the snow. He does take off like a rocket out the side door and has slipped a few times on the ice so I’m letting him out the front now. He’s gimping again, despite resuming Adequan treatments, so I’m going to take him in for some hip xrays and see what vet thinks we can do to help him out.
But otherwise he’s happy and looking good; great appetite, always smiley and wagging his tail and super sweet. I had a house full of little kids over the holidays and he let them use him as a ramp for their cars; just laid there all blissed out with the tip of his tail going while they vroom vroomed all over him.
raven
@Suzanne: Damn!
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: In literature they always describe blood as having a coppery smell, so I’m going to guess that copper smells like blood?
Yarrow
@debit:
That is awesome! Did you take pictures?
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I love all your architectural and design comments. It’s stuff I know pretty much nothing about and it’s really interesting.
Suzanne
@opiejeanne: I don’t know. Whenever I’ve been in a place with copper countertops or a copper ceiling or whatever, I’ve never noticed a specific smell, especially not a bloody smell. Like I said, though, copper countertops are typically alloyed with other metals, so I think that has to do with the smell thing. Copper piping doesn’t have a strong smell.
debit
@Yarrow: No, as per usual when I entertain I had duties in the kitchen. I would peek out to keep an eye on things, but my phone was nowhere near me. I wish I would have. Next gathering is this weekend, with more kids, so I’ll see what I can do.
ETA: I will be so happy when I can stop entertaining and go back to being a crabby, anti social curmudgeon.
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Aw thx. I have spent my career thus far working almost exclusively on big buildings (hospitals, airport terminals, aircraft hangars, large office buildings, K-12, etc), and I actually refuse to do residential, but it’s fun to look at everyone’s renos.
opiejeanne
@raven: Thanks. That wood is beautiful. How wide are the boards?
raven
@opiejeanne: 3 inches and ours are oil finished not poly.
MallyGoogle
@debit: I’m near tears at the idea of him being a plaything with the kids! What a great experience for both him and the kids.
Yarrow
@debit: Yes, please do! Walter is such a sweetie and can just picture his patient, happy face while kids ran cars up and down him. He must think he’s hit the doggie jackpot ending up with you.
@Suzanne: Those big buildings must be so interesting. Having to take into account all that movement by all the various people, and all the different types of usage.
Betsy
It looks like an American “foursquare” house, mainly Craftsman style. This is a “vernacular” rather than a “high-style” house, so it mixes some general prevailing styles of the 1910s and 1920s into a basic foursquare, Craftsman floor plan that was very typical of thise decades. The arches are influenced by Tudor Revival or “Moorish” vogues that were also around, but I don’t see anything else that is Tudor about the house, otherwise. Were there some diamond-paned windows in a previous picture, maybe? That would be part of a fuzzyish Tudor or Old English theme that often went into the detailing of shingled, stocky Craftsman houses.
The horizontal-panel doors are a stylistic reaction against the generally tall and narrow paneled doors and visual themes of the previous Victorian and Edwardian eras. They would seem modern and stylish at the time the house was built, as they relate visually to the then-popular and very horizontally oriented Prairie and Craftsman styles.
The bullet or bullseye trim at the corners of the door frames (circular motifs in a square block) are actually a holdover from much, much earlier Greek Revival styles from the 1820s and 1830s. They have nothing to do stylistically with the rest of the house. What kind of happened was that these had become a standard door trim treatment for many decades after they were introduced as consciously being part of a “classical Greek” architectural language in the early 1800s. Because they were simple and attractive, they then became a standard, commonly expected part of frame trim, and just continued to be used widely by builders who never had any idea of them being associated with Greek temples or imitations thereof. Kinda the same way that nearly every ordinary traditinal house built today anywhere in the eastern U.S., even if it’s not colonial in style, defaults to the six-panel “Colonial” interior door. We tend to think it looks “normal.”
So to sum up, what we have here is a stylistically modest, but physically substantial, vernacular rendition of prevailing house styles of its period.
Because it’s two full stories and not a bungalow (which are one or one-and-a-half stories), I’d call it a “vernacular Craftsman foursquare”. “Foursquare” because of two full stories, even though the floor plan appears to be one-and-a-half bays wide, not two bays wide as a classic foursquare house would be. “Craftsman” because that’s the overall shape, era, and style of the house and its main features. And “vernacular” because it’s clearly a local or regional builder’s mix of prevailing styles and not an architect’s set-piece.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (tablet): I currently have a 2300+ sqft one story and if I pan fry a hamburger I wake up to smell it in the AM.
One reason I want my next kitchen on an outside wall, so I can install a much better ventilation system. Especially if I put in a flat top grill indoors. In Austin, TX the idea of a backyard kitchen is much more feasible so I could do something outside, including a coal fired hearth oven.
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
So where are you considering being an ex-pat? I ask for a “friend”! No, not really, I’ve been considering it for quite a while. even before this election. The cRazies have had me backing up and strapping one on for years now.
So welcome all suggestions. Belize speaks English, Costa Rica has no army, but they are in Central America. We liked Spain, but it isn’t a wealthy nation. Portugal has stopped participating in the “War on Drugs” which is pretty smart. But learning Portuguese would be hard for me.
We liked France, but there again there’s the learning a new language issue.
Anne Laurie
@Bumper:
Don’t know where you live, but if our experience in New England is relevant, get that thing outta your house ASAP. (We were told, by experts, that anything over 40 years old in this climate was an accident waiting to happen.)
And make sure the contract you sign to do so includes removing the oil tank, and any “remediation” that’s required to get any contaminated material around the tank off the premises, because unless you live in some anti-gubmint hellhole like Texas the rules about keeping your heating oil out of the groundwater are only going to get stricter. Even if you do live in a red-state hellhole, having a heating system that’s not an insurance liability will greatly improve your home’s resale value, too.
raven
@Betsy: That is spectacular!
Corner Stone
Maddow just spent 20 minutes telling us that the guy Trump is doing business with in Indonesia is a crook.
Shorter: “Hey! See that guy Trump is touting who is there from Indonesia to see him on business deals? He’s a fucking crook!”
And…scene.
karensky
@hitchhiker: I agree 100%. Mr. Cole will be happy in this home!
Suzanne
@Betsy: I live in a split-entry modified ranch home of the pseudo-Mediterranean style commonly seen in the American Southwest, circa 1988……and one of the interior framed openings has the Revival corner trim on it. STILL. It makes no sense.
Most houses that we all live in are production housing of whatever time period they were built, and weren’t designed by architects at all. They don’t really have a style, per se. Like most American things, our stylistic movements are mostly a blend of indigenous innovations mixed with the European style of the time. It wasn’t until after WWII that the US really started innovating in its own right in art and design.
Lizzy L
John, the house is coming along beautifully. I like the faucet design; it’s graceful and sturdy at the same time.
I’ve lived with shower doors and I hate them; they get scummy and attract mold, and if you lose your balance and fall into one — nuff said. When I built my casita two years ago I put in a full size shower (no bathtub, I never take baths), and it has a curtain on a tension rod. Super-easy to clean the shower pan and the walls, and when I get bored with the look of the bathroom, I get a new and different shower curtain.
Thank you for sharing your house with us.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: Open concept seems like a cheap way to build a house, but it’s *New* and *Moderne* so it must be great.
Our concession to open concept was opening the kitchen to the dining room. I hate the whole idea as a fad, never wanted my dirty dishes on display while company is eating, but it makes the kitchen and dining room much more useable. I want the walls for art and photographs, and open concept removes places for those as well as places for furniture to stand. Some idiot we know asked why we hadn’t taken down the wall between the living room and the dining room, and the entry hall.
I wanted to tell him, “Because the whole house would fall down” but yes, we could have put even more beams up, but then we would have needed columns to support them where they cross. Meanwhile, that watercolor in the living room over the small linen chest, and the oil portrait of my great grandmother hanging over the wreck of a Scottish Victorian cabinet (buffet missing its top, venerable piece of junk) against the other side of the same wall, none of these would have a home. I suppose we could put those pieces of furniture back-to-back and suspend the artwork from the ceiling above them, again back-to-back, but it would look like a loft and if I’d wanted a loft I would have bought a loft.
The exterior of the house is Federalist box; it can be kind of a shock to walk into a house whose interior has nothing in common with the exterior.
opiejeanne
@raven: Now it all comes into focus, so to speak. Thanks.
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack (tablet):
Now you know why commercial-style ‘stove hoods’ have become so popular in upscale residential kitchens!
(Not that 85% of the people buying those elaborate setups use them more than twice a year, but the first time someone burns the Moroccan-Korean ginger-garlic-kimchi reduction and they have to get all the upholstery dry-cleaned because it smells like smoke and unfortunate choices… )
debit
@MallyGoogle: It’s actually terribly sweet; Walter always follows me from room to room. He’ll even lie down in front of the bathroom door if I close him out. But when there are little kids? It’s like I don’t even exist. He plops down by them and refuses to move. He just adores them.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: One of my requirements when buying a house was an exhaust for the kitchen stove that vented outside. I have bought a gas stove but I have to wait until spring to install it. My kitchen has one exterior wall and it has a lovely view of a mountain range in winter. In summer and spring the leaves on the trees obscure the view.
opiejeanne
@Yarrow: I don’t know a whole lot, but I read about house styles and belonged to an old house club for several years in a town with a lot of grand old houses.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: I did not know that the term didn’t apply to how soft or hard the woods are. Thanks.
Pogonip
@debit: Awwww. Do you have pictures? You could blur the kids’ faces for safety.
JimV
Worst pet photos ever.
Betsy
@Betsy: Oh screwit, I take it back, just looked at the outside ofthis house from the older sts, and it’s totally a 1910 plain Colonial Revival style onthe outside.
John, it’ a great house, and it matches your heinz 57 variety critters perfectly.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: I was being a smart-ass. I’ve never really noticed the smell of blood OR copper. It’s kind of like Terry Pratchett saying that snow smells like tin. That has always startled me because I don’t think of tin as having a smell, let alone snow.
And you’re the architect. Please feel free to correct anything I say about the subject that’s ignorant. I have kicked myself for years that I didn’t sign up for architecture when I went back to college in 1973.
Betsy
@raven: not really. See my subsequent comment!
John’s house *is* awesome, though.
debit
@opiejeanne: I’ve actually entertained the idea of knocking out a wall (or part of it) between my living room and one of the main floor bedrooms. I don’t have have an actual dining room, so what should be the living room (right off the front door) doubles as a dining room too. I have enough room for a love seat and a couple of chairs along with the table. The bedroom that shares a common wall has become the “tv” room, with a comfy couch, a couple of deep chairs and the entertainment system. Funny though, after a couple of months here I discovered I liked having a room with no tv, and that guests would gravitate to the loveseat and chairs by the fireplace, and that actual conversation was possible when there wasn’t a tv or stereo blaring away in the background.
So, yeah. Open concept looks and sounds cool, but I think I’ll pass.
opiejeanne
@Betsy: I think said something like that a couple of days ago when Mnemosyne and I had our discussion, that it looked like a four-square to me. Can’t remember.
But you said it much more eloquently than I did then. And I didn’t realize that four-square was considered a Craftsman style; I thought it was a Victorian style.
About your comment about the vernacular trim/style, my nice, architect-designed Arts and Crafts bungalow had a few pieces of trim in the back hallway that were left over from the Victorian period. Everything else was correct for the style, except the kitchen which had been muddled around in the 1950s. Red formica with boomerang design and jalousie windows, in a hot, dusty climate with Santa Anas. We replaced those windows to match the originals in the rest of the house.
Corner Stone
@opiejeanne:
My current house has both a formal Living Room as well as a Dining Room. It’s such a waste of sqft. My next house will be smaller and with a more useful open layout. I could go on and on about buying this house in this location but I won’t, right now. My next house will be smaller and what I actually want.
raven
@Betsy: I did, I also read your entire first one to my bride!
Bumper
@Anne Laurie: thanks for the tips. All good stuff to keep in mind. We live in a poor, rural area in Washington. Have no idea about regs but things are pretty lax around here, enforcement-wise. Service technicians haven’t mentioned problems like you talked about and have said the tank seems solid but we are down to only one company with only one guy who can service oil anymore. So we’re thinking it is time to change. We’ll definitely make sure the soil is checked too. I will feel lots better with a different system!
opiejeanne
@J R in WV: We consider France every now and then as a good place to be an ex-pat, and learning a new language wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
My kids are pointing at Costa Rica, but which coast? The west coast is more commercial but doesn’t get the terrible storms that the east coast, hippie coast gets.
I’m looking at New Zealand as a possibility. I’ve never been there or Costa Rica, so I have no idea if either is really a smart move.
Omnes Omnibus
I do not have the desire for a house that many of you seem to have. A 1200 sq. ft. condo in an interesting neighborhood with 2 bedrooms, two baths, an office/den, and an open kitchen/dining/living area is enough for me. Oh yeah, and parking.
Corner Stone
@J R in WV: I am actually not looking for a perm relocation spot. I don’t have citizenship anywhere else. My thoughts were to move around a bit for a few years, as possible. I can get a job anywhere, basically, as long as there is internet and an intl airport somewhere accessible.
I am semi fluent in Spanish but thinking maybe Asia/Southeast Asia for a bit. I have friends in Turkey but that doesn’t seem to be too steady for the next couple years. Maybe Amir will shelter me for a small fee?
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: Netherlands.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I would be happy to rent one in an interesting neighborhood that’s walkable to neat places but not going to buy a condo. I think you also mean renting, which is absolutely on my radar in the near-ish future.
Suzanne
@opiejeanne: Part of the confusion is that when we talk about architectural styles, we’re talking about a few different things. The plan of the house, or parti, is the basic organizational scheme of the rooms, how they flow, and their proportion to one another. Symmetrical plans organized around an central entryway are common in Georgian and Federal homes. Then there’s the number of stories, and whether or not the house is “engaged” on either or both sides. “Bungalow” or “ranch” typically refers to a one-story rectangular plan, bungalows typically go with the short side of the rectangle facing the street, while ranches go the long face to the street. Row houses are multi-story, engaged on both sides, typically directly abutting the street. Then there’s all the actual architectural elements like roofs and gables and eaves and overhangs, and window frames and trims, and then the actual building materials. What we usually call, for example, Colonial, usually has high roof pitch with little to no overhang, and often decorative cornices. Houses in the South have big wrap-around porches, because of their climate. But you see this stuff on modern housing, too, but it’s usually done with modern materials, because it speaks the semiotic architectural language of “home” in much of the country. That’s why, unless it’s a specific example like a Wright, or Monticello, or a historic property…..the correct answer to “what style is it?” is typically just “American house-ish style”. Because the vast majority of houses are built by builders, rather than designed by architects, and usually are a pastiche of many styles, but interpreted through what was cost-effective and available to build, and what would work with the local conditions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Renting vs buying depends on lottery results.
joel hanes
re: Shower curtain
vinyl shower curtains sucketh – they don’t go in a washing machine
get the clips with roller beads (Bed, Bath, & Beyond has them I know)
and buy a plain white fabric inner curtain and an outer curtain to match the decor
bleach those suckers at the slightest hint of mildew
I’ve had both:
I’d a lot rather have the double-curtain setup than the glass doors I have now.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: My dream house would be a little cottage with a red roof by the beach with tall swaying palms and miles of sand.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: If I didn’t have kids or my mom living with me, that would be perfect. We have 2250 sf and I don’t really want more, but I need a better setup for my mom. I love condo living.
Much of AZ has zoning regs that make it difficult for builders to do good row housing here. That’s my dream. I don’t really enjoy having yards. Row houses are good for children, too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: My parents have something similar size-wise in a package that looks smaller from the outside. Building on a hill has advantages. My parents are also the only people I know who became empty-nesters and bought a larger house.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I could buy in downtown or midtown Houston but much more likely to rent in SoCo Austin. If I can’t manipulate it to be what I actually want then I would rather rent for a bit and move on. I am looking to drastically downsize in the future, anyway. Some clothes, a few knives I love, my teddy bear. Everything else has to go, eventually.
Obviously the pricier cities are way out of my reach as I am not spending base seven figures on a condo.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
“I’ll cut a bitch” knives or chef’s knives? Me, I am thinking of Milwaukee. The kind of condo I am talking about is $250,000 to $400,000. Currently, too rich for my blood, but not insane.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Mainly my Santoku. But I do have a few Emersons that I would probably keep or bequeath.
I am trying to mentally divorce myself from all the “things” that are ultimately replaceable. It is a slow process. Glad I still have a few years.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nope. My parents did that too, and then started to go to DisneyWorld on vacation for weeks at a time. The last bit made more sense when the grandkids showed up on the scene.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Cool. Good luck.
Denali
What’s wrong with Moen faucets? I just bought one.
Yarrow
@seaboogie: That’s the problem with downsizing if you end up having grandkids. You might want them to come visit and then you need more room.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I used to machine copper alloys quite a bit and some of them did have an odor when heated but it was very faint. The alloy mostly used was beryllium copper. Have also machined pure copper and done soldering of copper pipe didn’t notice any smell.
Omnes Omnibus
@seaboogie: My parents always liked the house and one day it came on the market with an asking price that they could afford – plus a desperate seller (had built a new place and had two house payments). The house fits them and their lifestyle.
NotMax
Personally, find 99% of the MOMA-inspired faucets in vogue intrinsically unappealing. Just more surface area for muck, scale and scum to deposit on that has to be scrubbed. YMMV.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: Yeah, the hot metal smell is the only smell I’ve ever noticed. And any hot metal has that smell. I notice it most on the job sites when they are cutting studs and pipe.
@Omnes Omnibus: It kills me to think of spending a quarter million bucks on a condo that holds two people. I wish more builders would make affordable options for a wider range of families.
Mnemosyne
@opiejeanne:
Sorry, I just got back from the Huntington and some shopping. I remain on Team Craftsman, especially since IIRC the house was built in 1910.
I was showing G the pictures and he pointed out that it’s probably been remodeled before, so that’s probably why it looks more mixed (and will be even more mixed now). But I maintain that the original style was East Coast Craftsman.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: It is in a very particular neighborhood. Wisconsin’s version of hipster Brooklyn.
opiejeanne
@Bumper: You’re in Washington state? You may think the regs are kind of slack because you’re in a red area (guessing) but when you try to sell it all of those laws and rules that are being ignored may fall on you like a load of bricks, so making sure you don’t have a problem now will make it easier to sell down the road.
This is a blue state and a house sale is the kind of legal transaction that attracts the attention of the rule-enforcers. .
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I get it. We at looking at stuff in that price range, but we are looking at single-family homes. It just annoys me that housing has gone up in value so much when compared to wages.
I bought a house in 2004, and I said at the time, “Housing is going to go down bigtime.” And no one believed me, and shit continues to get crazy for a few more years. But I pointed out that housing cannot climb faster than wages forever, and that the ARMs and 50-year mortgages that they were coming up with in order to offset that were only stopgap measures. Total no-brainer. And now we are back in another climb. I just hope this one is slower so gains are more enduring, and that we can do more to help people get into homes at all.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: We will eventually get to what you want, when we can’t take care of this property any longer. The garden is starting to be a strain on us physically, we’ve been here 6 of the 20 years we thought we’d stay, but we might not make it. I will want a single story whatever we live in, everything on one floor. Stairs get to be a challenge as we age, and while I’m fine right now with going up and down, I won’t always be, and mr opiejeanne had to have a little surgery on his back in 2015 so he may need the single story before I do.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Foursquare hybrid. Don’t see all that much in the exterior design that is typical of Craftsman.
Aleta
Last week I hired a new carpenter, and I like him. I thought he might start today but he didn’t. (John’s house progress amazes me because it takes me years to get relatively simple things finished. They get started and never finished.)
Hence the new carpenter who’s a full time pro. He knows and likes this dog here, and he has a rescue dog who, similar to my dog, had to learn a lot of things about living in a house. Come to think of it, it was only after he met this dog and talked dogs in the park a number of times that he agreed to take on jobs here.
But I had a stroke of luck today, also thanks to the dog, who was dawdling in the park and then froze for awhile at the sound of heavy machinery on the street. Finally got him going again, just in time to run into an amazing tree guy who I still think about. He was on the crew that took a tree off my house 5 years ago. (It was a huge spruce, over 150 years by the ring count, and gently lay down one morning across the whole house. But did minimal roof damage. The branches were that thick and springy; they just cushioned and absorbed the shock.)
This guy was a joy to watch in action, running around the roof limbing it and getting it into pieces their rig could lift off. He looks a little mythical on a roof. He was so treetrunk-like and at ease I took pictures.
Just two days ago a limb fell off this basswood tree on my vacant lot onto a neighbors lilac. I had to get it off but wanted someone who could help me save the wood and get something made of it. He talked to me about the wood, said it’s probably not real straight but is great for whittling decoys. Floats right on top of the water.
Anyway, he came right down the street, took off the limb in long pieces and brought it up to the house, put it neatly aside, all in about 3.2 minutes. And he looked at a bunch of other tree work in my little yard from a few ice storms over the years. I’ve had a call in to another guy for going on 2 years to do this, but he doesn’t get around to it, doesn’t return calls. Broken limbs on an old apple and on a cherry (which he said is done for), and a mess of other problems because the previous owners planted a lot of specimen trees too close to each other and they all competed for light, got too high, shaded each other out, not enough air. I was careless and didn’t understand what to do until the apple got way too high and lost its beautiful lower boughs, which I really torment myself for letting happen. I did ask various people to prune it over the years, but each said old apples were not their thing.
Mythical guy also told me that a locust tree the first guy had recommended to remove doesn’t need it. I like that kind of tree guy, because some of them like to cut trees down more than they like live trees. I like ones who will say “don’t take that tree down. It’s the best kind of sugar maple,” as one said to me once.
I also like that even though the trees are covered in snow, this tree guy could tell me from a distance things about each that surprised me. Also he looks like he lives way out in the country and basically I think he loves trees. (I’ll probably find out all my assumptions are wrong, but I’ve gotten used to that.)
Suzanne
@NotMax: It looks like a foursquare, but four squares have a very specific plan arrangement, and we haven’t seen a plan yet. A lot of foursquares have a hipped roof with dormers, and I seem to recall that John’s has a gable roof with no dormers, but I could be wrong on that.
Like most houses, it’s a mashup of styles. That’s what makes it cool.
Mnemosyne
@Betsy:
That built-in bookcase that’s in the living room is the other feature that screams “Craftsman” to me. As G was saying, the house has probably been remodeled more than once, so it’s even harder to say what the “real” style was originally.
@Suzanne:
It also depends on the area. In this part of Southern California, we have a whole lot of Genuine, No Shit Craftsman bungalows because Greene & Greene were active here, so either they built it or other local builders imitated them as closely as they could. The UU church where we got married in Pasadena is next door to the Gamble House and has a Greene & Greene on their property that they use as an administrative building.
ruckus
@Suzanne:
Having been a machinist for decades I’m very used to that smell. At least when I could smell. Now it’s just by sight of metal turning blue. I
Aleta
@Steeplejack (tablet): Once someone told me to remove odors in the kitchen just simmer some vinegar on the stove. I did this and the house smelled horribly of vinegar for the longest time. Not joking.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
As Betsy said, Foursquare is actually a subgenre of Craftsman (okay, technically, they’re all subgenres of American Prairie). I’m guessing some exterior remodeling was done at some point to remove a lot of the more Craftsman touches. I could show you a house in this area where somebody tried to turn the exterior of a Craftsman bungalow into a stuccoed Spanish-style house. The result is just as hideous as you’d think.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, it depends mostly on the area. There is a lot of Prairie style here, because Frank Lloyd Wright worked from Scottsdale half of the year and he built a lot of houses here. And we have some actual Pueblo and Hacienda style buildings here, some still built from mud brick or rammed earth. And we have some historic neighborhoods with Craftsman, too. And some fabulous mid-century modern by Al Beadle and Ralph Haver. But then you get just a little ways out from that, and it’s a mashup again. It’s okay. It’s a part of the American character to mix things up and look both backward and forward, and architecture is no different.
Or, to quote one of my heroes, Robert Venturi, “I like complexity and contradiction in architecture.”
Omnes Omnibus
@ruckus: I love the smell of that and oil. It reminds me of my grandfather the tool and die maker. He was really a guild guy at heart. He walked away from a high paying manufacturing gig for a vocational school gig because teaching the craft was important.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Thus the use of the word hybrid. Third floor room, interior view with roof line, of JC’s house.
Suspect the current third story may have been a later expansion/renovation of what was originally an attic.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I grew up in FLW country (both of the towns I grew up in have houses on this list) and G is from Oak Park, so we feel reasonably confident of our amateur ability to say, Yep, that’s a Craftsman.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: That Mr. Ruckus, he dead.
Suzanne
@NotMax: I know, I was mostly agreeing with you. That picture indicates what I remember, which is that it’s a gable roof with no dormers. The term “foursquare” really refers to the plan—four rooms on each floor with the stairs in the middle, with two full stories plus a basement or crawl space and an attic or small third story loft. People have just asked a lot about what style John’s house is, and I am saying that some of the words we use to describe style are referring to the plan and massing, and some are referring to the detailing and decorative elements. And all of these styles get reinterpreted in different parts of the country due to climate, culture, availability of materials, etc.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I love Amsterdam, could probably make myself understood there with my HS German, what little I remember of it.
Mnemosyne
On a completely different topic, why does it appear that I can only get the Uniball Jetstream 0.5mm pens I’ve come to love directly from Japan? Why don’t the big box stores sell them?
/First World Problems
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I looked into moving to NZ after I took a trip there in 03. It is lovely and the people were amazing. However. If you are over about 50, it’s a tough go unless you have a fair amount of money. And I don’t mean fair amount from a blue collar point of view. It would be a wonderful place to retire but the weather can be a bit tough if you don’t like that sort of thing. I was there in the summer and saw temps of 40F during a rain storm. Nice motor bike riding weather. This was on the north island. The southern tip of the southern island is the second closest piece of land to Antarctica, and second not by much. I’d move there in a heartbeat if I could. Also they speak the Kings english so you still need to learn a new language.
I’ve know folks from Costa Rica and they tell me it’s lovely. In certain places. They own a restaurant in San Jose and live 90 miles away. The places that most expats move to are basically as expensive as living in the states, the nice tourist areas are much more expensive. But it is one of the places that seems to like expats.
I also have a friend living in Panama and he says it’s better than Costa Rica. I’m long range planing to visit him and check it out.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I haven’t been to any of the northern countries in 45 yrs but I loved them then. It was a joy everywhere I went. But you want expensive? Any place in northern europe. Do you know how to speak Norwegian? Or any of the languages? I’ve known several people from there over the years and I’m not sure I could learn them, they are so different.
mai naem mobile
@opiejeanne: I looked into New Zealand. They’re stricter than Australia. Not interested if you’re older than 65. For investment immigration you have to have USD$750K. I don’t remember Australia’s reqs but they were easier. I have cousins and an uncle who live in Perth. He’s my youngest uncle and he was at least in his 60s, probably not 65 when he moved there but my cousins were already there before my uncle and auntil moved there.
@Denali: I had an old plumber client and he told me to stay away from Mien and Pfister. As it was I got Moen faucets a few years ago because it matched the rest of the bathroom stuff (antique brass,hard to match) and sure enough it corroded within a couple of years. The old ones which I am guessing were from the 70s took 30 years to corrode.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: Did you ever see the magazine in the 80s about Craftsman and other old houses? It was a delight, full of Italian Revival, Prairie, Arts and Crafts bungalows, Foursquares, some Victorians, and more. The last page of every edition was the best of the Worst Things to Happen to a Nice Hous. They called it Remuddling.
We saw a whole neighborhood of Eichlers in Castro Valley, CA and some of them would have qualified for that page, Just hideous. Aluminum siding, atria that had disappeared, second stories with no windows facing the front. Makes you wonder why they didn’t just move to a house that they liked.
Aleta
@J R in WV: About Central America, buying a place there, that is: A friend who grew up in C America (still works in two countries there, and his mom still lives on a large operating farm in a third one) told me he thought Americans who are buying property anywhere there are risking losing it as governments change. It’s what he said.
I’ve thought about Canada especially now. My mother and father talked about moving there over the years, and I liked the idea of it too. I don’t think I’d qualify for citizenship though, despite father and gparents. (He gave up his Can, citizenship in disappointment after the Canadian Air Force rejected him.)
I drive through Quebec every year, and the countryside down by the US border feels mild and rolling, so different from the rocks and wilds in Vt, NH and Me just south. The food there can be fantastic and relatively cheap for the quality.
Sweden is really wonderful if (big if) you can afford. My US friend in Scotland has been there 30 years, though I don’t know the particulars of how she does the requirements. The winters are raw (damp) cold inside her house though. I lived in SE Asia for my formative years, and many US people enjoy being there while just getting by on English. I miss the places I lived a lot, but I think it is not that way anymore, and myself I think, even if I could get work, which I doubt, it might not be much fun without being integrated with a neighborhood and friends and relatives.
In my dreams I would like to live somewhere with copious hot springs. Outdoor ones, and in the winter piped under my floors and into the bath.
opiejeanne
@mai naem mobile: Investment relocation, as in buying a house? We are both over 65, and if we cashed out everything, and I mean every stick of furniture, every bit of art, all of our household goods, I think we’d be short of that.
Oh well, it was an idea.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
When my dad owned the shop he always had at least one apprentice and often two. I did that as well and kept up that practice as long as I could when I owned it. I still try to teach theory to the young guys at work, it’s how you become invaluable to the boss, know as much or more than he does. There is a lot of theory involved in the learning but not as much in the doing. And the doing part is what pays the bills, so that’s the part that most people focus on. But the theory is not unimportant. It helps you make decisions that can have ramifications for years. What type of steel to use and where. And maths. Etc, etc. That’s something a lot of people never learn properly in school that it really helps to know. It’s really like any job, you have to practice and you have to understand the parameters to move ahead.
opiejeanne
@Aleta: I do know that in Mexico you’re risking losing your property if you buy there, especially if your property is on the beach. I know the government has claimed foreign-owned houses on the beach at least twice since the 70s. Developers trying to sell to Americans have a complicated ownership method that’s supposed to keep that from happening, but it hasn’t been tested yet and the government can change the rules any time they want.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Have a good friend who just moved to Mexico and bought a small farm. I think she said she is raising organic fruits. I don’t think it’s as much of a problem in the interior to own but any place near a tourist area is prime property and if they want it for development, they take it. Gringos pay a lot to stay in nice places and that brings in lots of tax money.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I think you’re right about it not being as much of a problem in the interior, away from the tourist places.
Aleta
Speaking of housing
-part of an editorial in the NYT. It goes on to suggest what could be done by Congress to correct this, but sad! to say none of their suggestions seem remotely possible now.
Ramalama
@Corner Stone: Guadeloupe is amazing (though not Spanish but French). Tons of snow birds from France. Not too many Americans. People generally friendly unless you show up in beach attire at certain French restaurants that border the beach. For some reason lunch is considered a formal affair. Might just be the town (St Francois). You get amazing beaches. Great weather (6 months of the year is ‘warm’, fun a bit rainy, the other 6 really hot and desert-like). And even in complete po-dunk towns that are shanty by nature, they’ve all got amazing French pastries and baguettes. Boggles the mind.
Plus, the Euro is on par with the US Dollar.
Sandia Blanca
@J R in WV: I have heard that Panama is a good place for expatriates. The income requirements are low, and English is spoken widely. Low entry barriers.