Monday stuff
All day I’ve been writing an epic blog post in my head, and now that I’m sitting here at the computer screen with a bit of time on my hands, I’m having performance anxiety. :P
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This morning on the way to work, Rusty and I stopped at LottaFrutta. We drive by there every morning and always say we should go, and I’ve read nothing but good things about the place, so this morning we made a point to finally go. And it was awesome!! I’ve definitely found my new favorite place in Atlanta. I’m still thinking about the fruit cup with yogurt and granola I had this morning. There just aren’t many places where you can get really good, fresh fruit quickly and for a reasonable price – and certainly not at this quality! I chatted with the owner for a minute before we left, and she said that’s exactly why she opened the place – to fulfill what she was looking for and could only get all the way out on Buford Highway.
Before we went inside, when we got out of the car and were walking down the street, it just felt like one of those perfect moments. A beautiful day and I was with Rusty and everything was great. We watched some mockingbirds scuffle over a bite of food. Sometimes I think it would be great to live in that neighborhood, but I love our house and I know I can enjoy all the different parts of Atlanta without actually having to live there. But ever since the first time I went to Cabbagetown in 2005, I’ve just had a special feeling for that part of town. Of course, being with the person I love helps as well. And I think part of it is, some moments bring back a feeling from early 2005, when I hadn’t been in Atlanta long and was discovering lots of its treasures, but had been here long enough that I’d gotten past a lot of the rough stuff from 2004. I love it when I can recapture that feeling. I want to maximize those times and that feeling.
Back to Lottafrutta – in one corner, there was an “Energy Lemon” and I had to take a picture of it. The owner caught me in the act and was giving me a funny look, and I said, “I had to take a picture of your energy lemon.” She said, “That’s okay,” and I wondered if I’d committed a cultural faux pas. Probably not, but you never know.
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Saturday was our housewarming party and it was a success. My mom was up for the weekend and had a good time. I’m still thinking about the delicious deviled eggs we made, and I think I’m going to make deviled eggs out of the 6 eggs leftover from the various cooking endeavors.
We definitely want to have people over fairly often – why not take advantage of our wonderful deck, back yard, and grill? But next time, people need to not leave the back door open! I get eaten up by mosquitoes enough as it is, even with mosquito repellent on and citranella candles and torches all around – I don’t need them inside the house, too! (And I don’t even want to talk about what would happen if a cockroach were to come inside. I would FLIP THE FUCK OUT, because that shit is NOT ON.) I will say, though, that even though they blatantly ripped off the WebMD logo, this BiteMD stuff does help after the fact.
At the party, Nikki pointed out that we have two pine trees in the back yard that are perfectly spaced to accommodate a hammock. As far as I’m concerned, this is going to become a top priority.
Sara’s Coca-Cola cupcakes were amazing, and she has posted the recipe on her blog.
My mom took a bunch of pictures and I still need to get them off my camera. I’m going to finally upgrade our DSL speed sometime this week after my most recent payment goes through, so after that, it shouldn’t be such an ordeal to upload pictures to Flickr. So, I don’t yet have pictures of the party to post, but I do have a picture of me with a weed that was taller than I am:
It grew in about 6 weeks in a corner of our back yard.
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The woman who did the renovation on our house (I would say “the seller,” but since we bought it in January, that seems a little dated now) came to the party, and she was telling me all about what the house looked like when she bought it (mostly because I kept prodding her with questions). I find it fascinating. I asked if she would send me “before” pictures, and she was reluctant, saying that usually when people see the before pictures, they like their house less. I find that really bizarre. If anything, I would think it would make someone like their nice renovated house more. My mom told her I was used to it because I grew up w/ parents who renovated houses, so I saw the whole process. That seemed to make her feel better about it. I need to email her a reminder. Anyway, one of the things she said was that they built out the dining room onto what used to be part of the porch. (They did a fabulous job with the floor, because you cannot tell AT ALL where the original hardwoods end and the new hardwoods begin.) That would mean the original dining area was tiny! Barely enough room to fit any kind of table, much less one that would comfortably seat four people. She also said there was a door from the kitchen into the middle bedroom (what we made our bedroom). Trying to picture everything, it seems like this was a really weird house.
I’ll post the before pictures when I get them. For now, Google Maps shows a blurry version of the house in its pre-renovation state, and the porch does indeed wrap around:
I’m glad they got rid of that big stupid shrub in front of the living room window.
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Speaking of things you can see on Google Maps…
Here’s the aerial view of where my birthday photo shoot took place:
Street names are cropped out since there seems to be some sort of urban explorers’ code of ethics in that regard, although if you really want to know where it is, it’s not exactly hard to find out.
You can track the path of a utility easement for as long as there are treetops to be cut away to accommodate its presence. I followed it for probably longer than I should admit.
And one of the places I followed it to was this, in Clayton County. What the hell is this?? It looks disgusting!
I can only assume (hope?) that it’s a sewage treatment plant or some other waste water facility?
Back in Dekalb, there’s what appears to be a giant dirt lot, right beside “Lake Charlotte,” which appears not to have any water. Or maybe the dirt lot is the former lake?
Shifting gears, Google Maps also has a (blurry, not so great) pictures of an early 1960s condo building that I love, and that I fear might not be long for this world, given all the development going on in that area. Here’s Brookwood Forrest:
One of the condos is for sale – $85,000 will get you a 2/1 in a prime location. Parquet flooring has never endeared itself to me, but I could deal…
Besides, look at those original features in the bathroom!!
I’m dying to see what the kitchen and bathrooms looked like in our house prior to the renovation.
Here’s another condo building I love, this one built in 1950 according to the MLS Listing where I got the following photos. This building is on 26th St., right behind the Mellow Mushroom where we used to play trivia. Every time we would go to trivia I’d see the place and think what a cool building it is.
If I were single and buying a place by myself, these are the kinds of places I would have given serious consideration.
I used to not much care for 50s and 60s architecture, but in the past several years it has grown on me. Sure, some of it is crap; but there’s also a lot of really neat stuff. I think my resentment toward the “urban renewal” from which many buildings of that era were borne colored my perception and made me not able to appreciate the unique features in those buildings. It’s not the buildings’ fault that they replaced something older and probably very cool in its own right. And it doesn’t mean we should continue the cycle of knocking it all down and starting over every ~30 years or so.
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I’m going to wrap this up and keep this post relatively upbeat. This is only a smidgen of everything that’s been typing itself out in my head all day long. I don’t have the energy right now to write a screed about why I’m annoyed with pretty much everybody in my former feminist Blogdonia haunts, not to mention the bullshit happening on Tumblr right now. And I feel like I should save my post about my constant underlying fear of Something Very Bad Happening for another day. (The truth is, I’m scared to write it at all.)
Old houses, personal history, and scarcity
Rusty and I decided, when we started looking for a house, that we didn’t want a “diamond in the rough,” as Crystal says. We wanted an older house, but one that had already been renovated, because neither of us wants to do that kind of stuff right now – plus it takes money, and I’d rather focus on paying off credit cards/student loans and saving. My parents renovated houses (before anyone called it “flipping”) in the 90s and early 2000s, and I know there can be lots of annoyances involved. I don’t want to deal with old systems crapping out and the like. Fortunately our house has a new roof, new appliances, new HVAC, new wiring, new plumbing, and mostly new windows.
However I think that one day, when we’re older and hopefully have some extra money, it would be fun to buy an older house (older than the house we’re buying now, which was built in 1955) and renovate it, preserving its original charm and historical significance. Old houses have so many little details that I just love. When I was a kid, my mom and I would go into old vacant houses and just look around, for fun. Don’t worry, she’s a Realtor; we weren’t breaking and entering! Sometimes we would find really neat stuff in the houses.
Like Steffi at the Westview Bungalow blog, I hate when people come into an old house and just rip everything out and make it look like a generic boring 80s/90s house on the inside. The details like fireplaces, doorknobs, windows, etc. are part of what make an old house special. Fortunately there are people who do it right – look at the pictures in Steffi’s post for an example, and in fact look at her entire blog, which is about she and her husband’s old house and the renovations they’ve done while preserving the features that make the house special.
One of my favorite things about old houses is the windows. Every day on the way to/from work, Rusty and I drive by houses on Oakdale Rd. that have beautiful old windows – many of them stained glass. I know sometimes old windows get a bad rap for being energy inefficient, but recently I was doing some Google sleuthing about windows and read something a home inspector had written about old windows that were well-made being really damn good – not a significant loss of energy, and plus, they’ve held up just fine for 100+ years in many cases, vs. the newer Thermopane windows that have a typical lifespan of ~30 years. (Of course, now I can’t find the link, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.)
And as a quick aside, I know this is all very US-centric! Not surprising since I live in the US. But sometimes I’ll read stuff written by people who live in the UK or Europe, talking about the old houses in their towns… and I realize their definition of old and our definition of old are very different. European countries have way longer histories than the US, so a 100-year-old house isn’t old by UK standards. Across the pond there are 500-year-old houses still standing and in use.
Old houses have personal history in them; they have stories. Even if you don’t know the stories, there’s a certain feeling you get (or I get, anyway) just by knowing that there are stories. There must be, due to all the people who have lived in the house and passed through it. Not to sound too hippy-dippy but it’s like the energy of the people who were once there gets imprinted on the house. It reminds me of a conversation Rusty and I had with the Henry Ghost Hunters, speculating on what “haunting” really is. If sounds can be imprinted and recorded on vinyl, who’s to say other materials can’t capture sound?
When an old house is lost I feel a deep sadness – like all the stories that the house preserved (even if no people survive to actually remember them) are lost as well.
Reading the Westview Bungalow blog inspires me. Just look at their dining room! Maybe one day Rusty and I can lovingly restore an old house like that. When we do it, I want to do it right; I don’t want to do anything half-assed. That’s yet another reason not to do it now – because I wouldn’t want to have to cut corners on anything. I have fantasies of discovering an old house in a tucked-away intown neighborhood that “investors” haven’t discovered yet, w/ its original details intact (if in need of TLC).
Look at these subway tiles around the fireplace:
You just won’t find that anywhere else. It disgusts me to think of people ripping that out!
I surprised myself by, seemingly out of nowhere, having an appreciation for mid-century ranch houses. Not the cheaply built ones, but the really solid, usually earlier ones. I used to think ranch houses were boring, but now I find myself appreciating original details about them, such as brightly colored glazed tile. If a 50s/60s-era bathroom is well-preserved, I think it looks great w/ the bold colors. Look at this one for example:
And look at that sink. Love it. (Is that ceramic? Not sure what the material is.) I love the style of sink with the two legs, towel bars on each side, and empty space underneath. There’s a blog I found recently that’s dedicated to mid-century pink bathrooms. Some of the pictures on the pink bathrooms blog remind me of Catherine’s bathroom; if you’ve ever been to her house, you know her bathroom looks super cool.
Are ranch houses interesting now because they’re becoming scarce? Do we forget what they displaced? Although they were often built in new suburban (read: car-focused) areas, in many cases they displaced older houses that were demolished in the name of “urban renewal.” On the other hand, it’s not the houses’ fault they displaced something. (Arguably I have a problem with personifying.) Does scarcity = appreciation? Will we one day appreciate harvest gold and avocado green, and those godawful kitchen floors? Do people have positive memories of some things simply because it’s what was around when they were kids? Will I end up appreciating the generic boring 80s/90s houses I referred to above?
The last thing I was thinking about that I wanted to write about was “imposter old houses” – for example, here’s one we looked at when we were house-hunting. We thought it was an old house that had been renovated, but we found out it was built in 2007! If the original house is too far gone to be saved, I don’t mind “tear-down” infill housing when it fits the character of the neighborhood like this. It’s the McMansions I can’t stand.
Update: I found out some more info about the blue sink pictured above. The brand name is Crane and the type is Drexel. More info at Bathroom Machineries:
The Crane Plumbing Company was famous for it’s high-end faucets and fixtures. Crane used dozens of sylish and innovative designs, most utilizing non-standard features. Crane was bought out in the 1970’s, and the new owner discontinued all parts. Finding parts for some of these fixtures can be a challenge. Below are some of the solutions we at Bathroom Machineries have managed to come up with with links to our repair parts pages.
And based on this thread (yes, I know, it’s Yahoo Answers), I’m guessing the color is either Sky Blue or Powder Blue.
(De-)Evolution(?) of the Miller Theatre
As mentioned in the latest episode of Mostly ITP, this Thursday Rusty and I will be going on a tour of the Miller Theatre in Augusta. Here’s a recent Augusta Chronicle article about the Miller.
Yesterday I was going through my Flickr photos and discovered I have photos of the three most recent stages in the Miller’s life:
Update: Crap, I couldn’t find my photo of the Miller with “It’s Time” on the marquee. But here’s a photo of it from Flickr user army.arch. (He also has a photo of the Springfield, Missouri Solo Cup plant that’s identical to the one in Augusta.)
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Familial anecdote: when my mom worked at the (now-departed) Book Corner in downtown Augusta in the early/mid 70s, she and a friend used to walk down to the Miller sometimes for popcorn.
ETA: Don’t bother reading the comments on the Augusta Chronicle article. While there aren’t any in all caps (as so often seen in AJC comments) and there are a few worthwhile ideas in there, the majority of them will really make you feel crappy.