This is located in the parking lot for disjecta. I don’t adore it, but I think it greatly improves the blank wall that came before it.
Tag: Kenton
Layers of a house
Things were happening with this house! Aside from a massive tree being cut down (I think it was off to the left) There are some siding things going on.
Look at the layers! You can see the original boards, the original wood siding and the aluminum siding that was added. I’m quite curious as to what the plan is.
Goodbye to a landmark along the way to Fred Meyer
There is one of those great U-shaped apartment complexes on my way to Fred Meyer. This particular one has three separate structures around a grassy green space. I’ve long admired it. (And, if truth be told, fantasized about buying the whole thing, renovating one of the structures into a single family house, renting out the other structures and having an amazing garden in the green space. You know, with all my spare money. And time.)
At any rate, the entire time I’ve lived in the Kenton neighborhood, the same couple has rented this apartment. I walked by today and they were gone! The apartment is empty.
I never met this couple, but I enjoyed seeing the poster they hung on the wall of some country star. I always thought it was Toby Keith, but I can’t be sure. And they had one of those old-timey photos you get taken at the fair. It was framed. I liked the way they shifted their furniture around every December, to accommodate their Christmas Tree. I maybe liked this couple so much because they always had their blinds open so I could observe these things as I walked back and forth running my errands. 
I hope their move was a good one, and they are happy in their new place.
Babe has been there all along!
I’ve often featured this view of Paul Bunyan from the Max stop, but I’ve recently become aware that Babe, Paul Bunyan’s Blue Ox is standing nearby. Can you see him?
Hint: he’s invisible, or nearly so. Only his hooves are showing. Here’s a different blog post about Paul B.
Say goodbye to two houses and easy street parking.
My neighbor who knows what’s going on in the neighborhood told me the sad news. There’s going to be a development of mixed-use apartments like we saw with the site of the former City of Roses Motel. I don’t have specifications yet, but I’m guessing there won’t be parking, or much parking included. Given that this is one block north of our house, Matt and I can probably say goodbye to easy street parking.
And we shall soon say goodbye to three structures including this beautiful duplex, which is still in great shape. No word on if the tree will survive.
Here’s the duplex from the other side. One of the tenants, now long gone, was the first person to welcome me to the neighborhood, back in 2007.
The commercial building will also go. I had some plans to tear it down and make a big garden. 🙂 But that won’t be happening.
And this pretty little house, which my neighbor says is also really nice inside.
Which means we will also lose this lilac tree.
Again, I must be careful in my lamenting as my current duplex residence also replaced a single family house. And it didn’t include parking either. I’ve been thinking more about this issue lately because the City Club just did a study about affordable housing and the membership voted to amend the report to re-zone single family neighborhoods to increase density. And there was this very intriguing interview with Sonja Trauss of SF BARF saying yes, big projects should be built. I found myself agreeing with her logic, but also resisting because I hate to see houses that are well cared for destroyed for something big and ugly and usually hugely over-priced.
Some observations of neighborhood houses.
Love, love, LOVE this vintage pickup truck and the strange reverse tent-trailer it’s pulling. They match! And it looks like they’ve matched for decades!
I love this house, because the guy who owns it is the guy I aspire to be, keeping everything neat as a pin. The shrubbery is trimmed just so, the grass is clipped, the driveway is shiny clean and I’d be willing to bet not a single maintenance task inside has been deferred. Sadly, I am nowhere near this accomplished.
I went out of town for a week and a house disappeared. Here is what has replaced it. Two huge houses with no yard and costing much more than I’ll ever be able to afford. (Not that I would want a house that big.)
Here’s the view from the back.
And today’s “Only in Portland” sighting:
City of Roses (aka The Northwood Apartments) from the back.
While the residents of that small house south of the development are probably pretty sad that four floors of people on the south side of the development can look into their back yard, their sadness might pale in comparison to the residents of these two houses, who have many windows looking upon them for all time. (Or until either the houses or the apartment complex is torn down.) I never saw the original City of Roses Motel, it was torn down before I moved to the neighborhood. But I’m willing to be it was only one story, or perhaps two. Until the build out of this new complex these houses had the sunset. Now they’ve got some morning sun and that’s it. 
Incredibly small props go to the builders for including any parking at all. Mostly they don’t.
I wonder what the going rate for one of these parking spots is?
I have emailed the leasing office, explaining I’ve been covering the building’s construction and would love to have a tour, but they have not replied. So I suspect this will be it for my City of Roses posts.
My secret piece of property I don’t own
I’ve long been enchanted with this tiny piece of property. I suspect it got truncated by the construction of the Max Yellow line. It’s been a variety of things since I moved to the neighborhood in 2007. Mostly kind of junky things, like storage space for a failed food cart. I’ve just looked it up on my favorite Portland Maps website and learned that the lot was bought in 1993 for $33,000 and is owned by the guy who owns the house across the street. I also just noticed in the permits/cases section that just yesterday–yesterday being 11/6 as I write this from the future–someone filed three complaints for “people living in shed” and “ongoing garage sales.” I’ve observed that both of these things are true.
Anyway, let’s get to my fantasy. The property is triangular shaped, .09 acre (4,038 sq feet) and right on the Max line. It is not a piece of property for those who like solitude or a ton of space. Although now that I write that, I bet a developer could put at least two residences into this space.
But we are talking about my ideas.
I would build a small footprinted house on this space that would take up about half of the triangle in the narrow part. It would be a well-planned two stories. Then, on the wider part of the triangle I would landscape a fun garden, so that people walking to the Max could see things grow. There might be levels of garden. That chain link fence would not be there. Also, there would be parking in my little triangle. No on-street parking for me.
I can just see it!
Improvised window treatment
No blind for the door in the live-work unit? Fine, I’ll make one myself, said the renter. (Update from the future: matching blinds have now been added to the doors of all the live-work units.)
Here’s something I’ve not seen in my eight years of living in Kenton: people parking on this stretch of sidewalk. When it was an empty lot, no one needed to park there. But now that there are multiple units with not much parking, this has morphed into prime territory. Especially for those live-work units.
Found because I walked on the opposite side of the street.
People familier with me will not be surprised to know that I tend to walk certain specific routes from place to place. I encounter this tree on one of my routes home from the library. However, I usually walk under it, not on the opposite side of the street.
But in doing so, look what I discovered hiding.
