Local Houses

This will be just a short post regarding two local houses. One is a "good news" the other is a "bad news", so as with most people's usual choice, I'll start with the good news. This part is cross-posted (with slight tweaks) to "Old House Web Forums" under the Hangout section.

This is a house I've passed by on many occasions, and for the past couple of years (at least) it's been completely boarded-up and uninhabited. Just recently (early summer?) I noticed that the house had been opened-up again, and it looks like someone is living there again.

It's a rather plain little house, but it has some great charm and a ton of original features: original wood siding, original windows with wavy glass, stained glass, full length front porch, etc.



It's gonna need work, (mainly paint and new roofing) but it's a cute house.

It's also not visible in this photo, but the decorative window over the porch is decorated with stained glass squares around a clear centre glass. I believe some of the squares were an aqua blue, and one or two other shades, which I can't recall just now.

I should also mention that this is on the same street as my house, but about 4 blocks down.

Now the bad/sad news is regarding a lovely old Victorian house. This is one of the few remaining old houses in this particular area of town. I would guess that the house is from the late 1800's at least. The porch details match a similar house that I visited back when I was house hunting, and I think I might post one of the photos just for comparison, since I love the woodwork.

So yeah, just recently, maybe a few months ago, I noticed that they boarded up the house, cut off the power (literally), disconnected the gas, and I also assume the water is cut off. It's really looking as though it will be demolished, which breaks my heart, but I understand how much work, and how insanely expensive it would be to restore this house.

I actually have a friend who knows the people/family who owns the house. She told me that it was an old lady who's lived there probably her whole life. She said the family is probably going to keep the land, but she has no idea what's going on with the house. If I wanted, I could probably get in contact, and find out, but I'm undecided. I also have a feeling that there's a possibility that the old lady died it the house, which could be a factor in why the house is likely to be demolished.







This is the other house I had looked at, which has similar porch details (top brackets). That house was dated 1890, I think.