Grabbing a photo of this house while I can.

I’ve always liked this cheery little house on Interstate, one block north of Killingsworth.  I’m a fan of houses that have most of their yard in front of them. However the “zoned RH-D” sign in the front yard tells me this fellow is not long for this world.  The shadow encroaching on the house is a multi-story mixed-use building of condos that went in a few years ago. Which means someone is going to want to put three or more townhouses on this lot.

Comparison Contrast two houses on Belmont Street.

Waiting for the #15 bus, I got to looking at these two houses located on Belmont just off Cesar Chavez.  They seem to be the same house and presumably built the same time, so I thought it would be fun to do a comparison.  Plus, I get to geek out with Portland Maps.
This is 3921 & 3923 SE Belmont.  It was built in 1908 and is a duplex. It has 2,169 square feet.  Both residences in the duplex are owned by a couple with an address in another part of the city so this is presumably a rental.  The couple purchased the house in 2001 for (get ready to clutch your hearts, real estate hunters of today) $132,000.  Portland Maps tells me that it also sold in 1992 for $59,000 and in 1991 for $42,500. It’s current assessed value is $198,500 and its market value is $273,700.  There are some fun historic permits on file for plumbing inspections.

This is 3927 and 3939 SE Belmont.  It is owned by a couple who live in the house, though I assume they rent out the second unit.  It was built one year earlier, in 1907, and is a tiny bit bigger at 2,171 sq feet. The couple bought the house in 2003 for (again, get ready to clutch your hearts) $47,800. The type of sale is listed as Bargain Sale and Deed and I don’t know if that’s why it was such a steal, selling for so much less than its neighbor.  The historic permits on file list Albertsons, Inc. as the owner in 1965.

The upper story: you can see the type of siding and the roof which I would characterize as in good condition.
This one has shingled siding and what I would guess is a new roof.
Second story.  It looks like the windows have been replaced with newer vinyl-style.  You can also see the “peak” of the porch is placed to the right on this house.
This house still has the old aluminum frame windows and the “peak” is placed further to the left on this house.
Here, our house has an open porch, probably retaining the same style as it was built with.
This house has an enclosed porch, which I am not a fan of.  They seem less pleasant to hang out on and they tend to become a place to stack things.
One thing that interested me was that both houses have heavy 60s/70s era doors that don’t match the rest of the house.
Based on this, I assumed that both houses were owned by the same owner some time in their past. But no!  Was there a traveling door-to-door door salesman with an irresistible pitch?
The carved wood, the dark stain, the brass mail slot!  Does not match!!!
It looks like these steps have been scraped.  Perhaps they are getting ready for a new coat of paint?
The steps on this house are not as wide.
These columns look as though they’ve been renovated at some point.
I would bet these are original.
Thus ends our comparison/contrast.

Buckman Wonder Wander

Khris Soden, an artist living in the Buckman neighborhood, gave three walking tours of the neighborhood.  They were called Wonder Wanders and each was about an hour long.  On the Wonder Wanders we looked at details of the neighborhood, heard historical facts, and told our own stories. I was only able to attend the first one, alas, but here it is.

We started our wander at Crema.  Emily, the woman with the dog in the above photo, talked about how the building’s construction made use of inexpensive materials like cinder blocks.

The builder also installed art on the exterior of the building.

Emily lives in an apartment above Crema, so she took us to her apartment.

It’s a loft-type studio with a lot of light due to the garage-door-as-window in the unit.

The builder purposely left each unit very sparse in design because he wanted the tenants to add their own touches.  Emily makes bicycle bags in her apartment.  

We then walked across the street to get a better vantage point for Emily’s neighbor Thom Ross, who is a woodworker.  He and two other people bought this building to use as work space.  Thom still has a work space, but he also has built a house in his portion of the building.  You can see how it has risen up out of the one-story building.

This is Thom, and Khris.

Thom let us go into his house.  The entry door preserves the exterior of the building.  

There’s a small growing space that Thom is still working on.

Before you enter the house proper, you can look up and see the house rising out of the building.

This is the first floor which has the kitchen, dining room and a breakfast nook. Also, a really nice garden.

The kitchen, which Thom has designed so it can be shut off from the rest of the house so the smells don’t permeate all levels of the living space.

A view into the kitchen from the dining room.  I’m guessing he made that bread as he mentioned he likes to cook.

The incredible garden with plant wall.

And eco roof.  Thom said the wall was hard to figure out how to get the right ratio of water.  There were a lot of dead plants and getting out the ladder before he figured out that the plants needed to be saturated with water regularly.

A look through the dining room at the staircase.

You can see where the picture can be lowered, cutting off the kitchen from the rest of the house.  You can also peek into the second floor.

Orchid in window.

Thom said it was important to have the eco roof  because the upper floors look right on onto the roof.  At this point Thom asked us if we wanted to see the other levels.  Did we ever!

This is the living room on the second floor.  Thom said that it turned out to be a summer and winter living room.  This is the summer living room.

And here’s the view of the eco roof.

Bar area.

Winter living room.

Stairs.  This house has a lot of stairs.  It also has an elevator.

The third level has the bedroom, bathroom, an office and a deck onto the other eco roof.

Thom located the trees on the building’s structural beams, because they can take the weight of the heavier planters.  He also planted the roof so there is color year round.
More roof views.  Thom has installed gardening boxes so he can grow vegetables.
We are now on the fourth floor.  This is a flexible space good for guests to stay or to use for projects.  There’s a full bathroom on this level too.
The view from the fourth floor.
Nice contrast between the eco roof and the regular roof next door.
And we’ve made it to the fifth story, where the cats love to hang out on the deck.
More view (and big picture)
Peeking over into downtown.  We think this hole will become a four-story apartment complex.
The fifth floor sitting room.
And exercise area.
Peeking over Ankeny Street.
This tree is visible in the first picture from the street.
More street views.
Then we took the stairs around (and around and around and around) until we came to the street level and Thom’s sign on his door.  From there, we commenced wandering.
Incoming apartments/condos.
A lot of detail on this porch.
Wandering by Central Catholic and learning the nickname of their playing field.

A peek at the Central Catholic playing field, nicknamed the Boneyard, because there was a cemetery on this plot.  The graves were moved to Mt. Calvary Cemetery.
Khris tells us his own story about the Central Catholic sign.
Learning about the Ghost Bikes.
Here is Nick Bucher’s information on the Ghost Bikes site.
Ghost bikes are often decorated.

We walked by Lone Fir, and I noted it has a very fancy new sign.
I took a picture of this for future note.
Khris tells us about the Dawg Terrace, which is a renovated apartment building designed for dog owners.
It includes fire hydrants in the yard.
And these great bike parking spaces.

Khris explained how Portland once had a goodly number of gullies, which were evened out by sluicing out the roads.  Here he is pointing out that the original level was at the top of this wall (the ground was even with the graves in Lone Fir Cemetery) and the road was dug out and used to fill a gully down the road.
Trolly tracks.
Another view of the cut down street.
Brightly colored house.
Mural of Africa on the garage door.
The signature.
Learning about the grisly box of human remains discovered  in the 1960s on the former trash heap that was on this lot. The house from that time period has been replaced, but the killer is still alive and living in the Oregon State Penitentiary. 
Learning about how the many jogs in the road came about.  It seems that when there is no central planning agency, as was the case in Portland until the 1920s, developers can make their own decisions.
Nice detail on this door.
Our last stop was a Food Cart Pod next to Crema. 
Thus ended the Buckman Wonder Wander that I attended.  Thanks Khris, for the great tour.

Goodbye to house.

I can’t say I’m sorry to see this house go as it has been boarded up since at least 2007, when I moved to the neighborhood.  Plus, once a gang of homeless people had a huge fight in the backyard while I was walking by and the bad vibes have never dissipated.

I felt compelled to make a record of its being though.  Poor house.  Too bad no one took care of you.
Any bets about what will replace it?  It’s sandwiched between a gas station/cheap tobacco store and a house that has a coffee shop.  I’m guessing it will be commercial rather than residential, but you never know.  Then again, it could just become a vacant lot.

New Glass!

My Aunt Carol has been on a clean and purge streak and boy, did I win.  Do I want the cactus glasses that were my Great-Uncle Tom’s?  Yep.  Do I want the cocktail glasses that were my grandmother’s?  Yes ma’am.
Uncle Tom’s cactus glasses. There were 12, but I’ve learned that they don’t stack well, so now there are 10.

Grandma’s cocktail glasses, which would be even more amazing if I had put them against something white, so you could see the fabulous color.

They have these pretty roses etched on them.

And this is fabulous.  It has a glass stir stick and I love the shape.  Plus, the cups stack.
And now I must purchase something to contain all this glassware.

The most wonderful time of the year.

There’s a Christmas song that purports that Christmas time is the most wonderful time of the year.  I enjoy Christmas, but that holiday is a lot of work.  MY favorite time of the year is when my tax return comes.

I ignore all the financial advice in books and have the government withhold more than they should to ensure I get a good refund.  I know that I could do a savings program of my own, but quite frankly, interest rates are pretty much non-existent so it’s not like I’m losing much interest.  And it’s just more fun to get a huge chunk of cash at once.  I use it to put aside money for Christmas and the meat purchase and I buy big-ticket things I’ve been needing which usually means a pair of shoes.  And then I buy big-ticket things I’ve been wanting.  This year: Knife sharpening kit.
 

Also:  potato ricer.  In this case I riced the last of the potatoes I grew into mashed potatoes for Easter dinner.  The cookies were the Easter Bunny treats for everyone.