Hermann house renovation

[iris lilies]

I couldn’t open any of those. It said invalid link. You are a much more patient woman than me. I would be calling a junk removal company when he was out of town.

You aren’t missing anything by not seeing these old crappy appliances.


The basement is DHS exclusive domain and if he wants to pile a bunch of old appliances in it, that’s his deal. The refrigerator will be useful. One stove might be useful even. I don’t need a dishwasher so I’m not gonna have that dishwasher hold upstairs and hooked up, or I wouldn’t be surprised if one day I come to Herman and find that it’s already in place.

[catherine]

this is a bit off-topic but didn't want to start a whole thread. I just saw this picture on CheapOldHouses of a Victorian in St Louis and wondered if anything about it looked familiar--

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcEkKwuM-kE/

[iris lilies]

That neighborhood is kind of tough, but it’s not totally awful. It’s a few neighborhoods over from mine. The house has lots of good stuff in it. Many houses in my neighborhood were like that when we moved here. My house was much worse because it had been stripped everything including the plaster on the walls.


The listing agent on this house is my neighbor, Bob Austermann.

[catherine]

That neighborhood is kind of tough, but it’s not totally awful. It’s a few neighborhoods over from mine. The house has lots of good stuff in it. Many houses in my neighborhood were like that when we moved here. My house was much worse because it had been stripped everything including the plaster on the walls.


The listing agent on this house is my neighbor, Bob Austermann.

Interesting! The house has so much potential if someone would be willing to invest in it.

I really love checking out those Instagram posts from CheapOldHouses. It's fun! Makes me realize that there are some great deals out there and beautiful old houses--even though they rarely post any in the Northeast or West Coast.

[JaneV2.0]

Interesting! The house has so much potential if someone would be willing to invest in it.

I really love checking out those Instagram posts from CheapOldHouses. It's fun! Makes me realize that there are some great deals out there and beautiful old houses--even though they rarely post any in the Northeast or West Coast.

There are lovely old houses on the West Coast--not as old as those farther east, of course, but nothing that would qualify as cheap. I looked at a nice condo in my old complex that would have gone for 325K a year ago--for sale for 425K. The mind reels...

[iris lilies]

Interesting! The house has so much potential if someone would be willing to invest in it.

I really love checking out those Instagram posts from CheapOldHouses. It's fun! Makes me realize that there are some great deals out there and beautiful old houses--even though they rarely post any in the Northeast or West Coast.

A problem is that a house this big takes a lot of money to renovate and even in this market, in that neighborhood I doubt that it would be economically viable.

[iris lilies]

One nice thing about doing the finish work ourselves is that we can talk through door placement. We’ve already changed pocket doors the architect drew. Architects like pocket doors. Theoretically I like them because you don’t need to plan space for a door swing. But – the contractor doesn’t like pocket doors because they’re trickier to build and as a user it seems to me they get stuck on their track and are not reliable.

So we are changing the swing of the French doors because they currently swing into into an area that will be quite crowded. We’re changing the swing of the door into the sunroom so that it will be swinging into an unused wall.

Since DH is installing all door trim, he can determine where the doors will go. The last two changes have saved a lot of future irritation.

[catherine]

A problem is that a house this big takes a lot of money to renovate and even in this market, in that neighborhood I doubt that it would be economically viable.

Yeah, that's the message I was getting when you said it's an "OK" neighborhood. Too bad.

On a side note and unrelated, the other day I was watching one of those gawdawful HGTV shows and the designer was renovating a 70s ranch house that was left to the client from someone in the family. So she wanted to "maintain character" and in that effort she asked the carpenter to make Craftsman-style trim around the windows for some "old-time character". But this was a mid-century modern home--not a Craftsman at all. These designers are so clueless.

The other thing she did for "character" was to throw up some 1x4s in a pattern to make an accent wall. Of course she had already removed all the true mid-century modern character. These decisions by designers on HGTV remind me of how industrial bakers remove all the nutrients from flour when making white bread and then they add in nutrients later, calling the final product "enriched", but what they really did is take out what was great and replace it with something inferior.

[sweetana3]

We just visited some Frank Lloyd Wright houses and then were watching some Youtube videos. Someone bought one and wanted to demolish it. Someone else painted over all his specially created wood finish.

Of course, some of his ideas were crazy. 21 inch wide hallways, kitchens tiny and some ceilings 6 feet tall. Storage eliminated so people would not accumulate clutter.

[catherine]

We just visited some Frank Lloyd Wright houses and then were watching some Youtube videos. Someone bought one and wanted to demolish it. Someone else painted over all his specially created wood finish.

Of course, some of his ideas were crazy. 21 inch wide hallways, kitchens tiny and some ceilings 6 feet tall. Storage eliminated so people would not accumulate clutter.

The 21" hallways were part of his principle of "compression and release" (I learned this from the tour guide in a tour of Taliesan West--amazing tour.). Here is a description:

"Wright abided by a design principle he referred to as “compression and release.” In his structures, before entering an open, spacious area, one must first pass through a narrow, constricting one. This idea is most apparent in moving from the former drafting room in his home to the children’s playroom.
The drafting room, once an open, sunlit space, is divided by a 3/4 wall in the center, halving the square footage. From this smaller space one transitions into a long, dim hallway with an arched ceiling. At the very end there is a bright light, and upon stepping out, the playroom blossoms before you, vaulted ceiling and bands of windows creating an illuminating and inviting atmosphere.
The change is so abrupt and surprising that you might blink, temporarily blinded by the difference in space and brightness. Then, a moment of relief, as if escaping a nightmare."

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