Tag: houses

Tiny house not long for this world

I’ve long enjoyed the section of North Omaha Avenue north of Lombard. Five blocks north of Lombard, the street runs into Winchell, making for a nice quiet place to walk. The houses are mostly small and look a bit disheveled in the positive way that says to me, “we love our houses and we are doing things to them as time and money allows, but alas, we have many interests and not much money, so things are what they are.”

This house is located at 7626 N. Omaha Ave. I’ve liked this house for years for a lot of reasons. It’s tiny, and has a large lot. My mom and I happened to go to a house sale here, so we got to go inside. The woman who was having the house sale was an artist, so there was a lot of art, which always gives me a good feeling. There was even a nice chicken run for chickens. Sadly, it seems the owner was moving because she was in foreclosure.

Portland Maps (An Information Service Provided by the City of Portland) tells the sad story. In 2007, the house sold for $175,000, which is overpriced, in my opinion. I suspect it went into foreclosure in late 2009 when it sold for 105,000. It was on the market a few months ago for $125,000. I was wishing to buy it, but am currently lacking in cash for superfluous house purchases. In December of last year, the house sold for a remarkable $70,900! The new owners (Mark & Lorena Connelly) have applied for a permit to tear the house down, that is the sign on the fence to the right.

I’m sad to see this house go, and hope that the house that replaces it will have the charm that this one does. I’ll keep us updated.

6/3/11 Update. I walked by this morning and the house was gone. Thank goodness I took the picture when I did.

Infill, is there another way?

I’m a fan of infill. As someone who was not born and raised in this great city, but happily live here, I support people who love Portland moving to Portland. Projections are that roughly one zillion people will be living her by 2050 and I want my compact urban environment to be maintained for all those newcomers. I’m not a fan of sprawl. I don’t really care that the infill houses don’t match the existing ones in the neighborhood or that infill houses look alike. After all, a lot of neighborhoods don’t have “matching” houses and most neighborhoods have banks of houses that were clearly built by some developer of the past as a row of them will be strikingly similar.

Infill in Portland mostly looks like variations of this:

Houses are 1500-2500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths with a garage and a tiny front and back yard. My problem with infill is that this standard 3 bedroom/2.5 bath doesn’t really make sense for a lot of Portlanders. For a family of four, 3 bedroom houses are great. But there are an awful lot of Portlanders who are not a family of four. There are also an awful lot of Portlanders who would rather have less house and more yard. I’m wondering if we can’t look to a different model of infill for them.

One of my favorite things about North Portland is that it has a lot of very small houses on big lots. What worries me is that these are not seen as being worth preserving. Often, when they go on the market, they are bought by someone who tears them down and replaces them with the standard infill house.

But what if the tiny house, large lot became an infill choice? Tiny houses are much easier to maintain, heat and cool. If placed on a standard sized lot, they leave room for a large garden. They are all about sustainable. And they are cute. Take a look of some of these:

The Sebastarosa is 750-847 square feet:
The Enesti is 746-843 square feet:
The B-53 is 777-874 square feet:
All of the above tiny houses can be found on the Tumbleweed Tiny House website, which is also where the pictures came from. Somewhere in Portland there must be an infill developer who wants to focus on tiny house infill for the rest of us.

Houses and Plans

I first noticed this house when it was being renovated. It is a huge and beautiful house with a huge and beautiful double lot. I had plans to buy it and take in foster children and we would have a huge garden. They would learn self-sufficiency skills, I would get to run a large household–without giving birth to any children, the house would be full of life and all would be right with the world. Alas, it seems they are dividing the lot and putting in more houses. I’m a fan of infill, just not sometimes when it keeps me from double lots where I could have a stupendous garden.

Scenes from a bike ride

I meandered a bit on my way to Garden Fever this morning and caught these pictures.

My favorite kind of North Portland house: set back from the road, colorful paint, huge garden, and artistic touch.
The gate had these great trees sculpted on it. Notice also the cinder blocks keeping the gate from falling open. That would be a sign that the artist lives in residence and made this him/herself.
This is one of my favorite houses on N. Williams St. It looks very farm house-y and has a productive front yard with a great chicken run.
Taking a closer look, you can see that these hens are partisan.

Fabulous!

I’ve been watching this work in progress for about six months now and I just have to remark about how very cool it is. First of all, growing things in the front yard is super cool. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Secondly, though I myself have decided that raised beds are not for me, I love how contained this front yard garden is. I think that is the key to success with front yard gardens: make them very aesthetically pleasing. Either that or have a full-on permaculture garden, but avoid that midpoint where things are kind of weedy and unkempt.
Hiding behind that cloche is a lot of kale and collards. I’m a bit jealous.
And look! Soon an espalier fruit tree will grow along the front of the house. I want to espalier fruit trees in my backyard.
And here is that empty lot around the corner from me. It’s still waiting for me to plant a huge garden there. If only the generous owners would realize what a better owner I would be and give me the deed…

Garden Bed

I was intrigued by these planters, which are outside the Portland Village School. I was wondering if I could do something like this for the herb bed I was planning to build out front.

Nice joining.
But this is the cool part. They seem to have been fastened with a metal rod of some sort.
The rod goes all the way to the bottom.
Very nicely done, but I concluded that they were beyond my carpenter capabilities at this point.

This house.

This house is down the street from where I live and I love it. Big porch, huge back yard, right on the Max line. So why does no one live here? When I moved to this street in 2007 I assumed that the absentee owners were getting ready to put it on the market. The house was painted, it got new windows and a new roof. Someone comes once per week to keep the yard up. I waited for the “for sale” sign to go up, but it never did and the house has remained empty.

The only time I like flowering plum trees…

…is right now in the spring when they are blooming. The rest of the time I find them to be an “eh” tree. Sadly, there is one right in front of the house. I think it clashes with the paint job and dream of it taking sick and having to be removed. I could then replace it with a more color appropriate choice. I’m so superficial.