New house photo tour!!!
Feb. 23rd, 2008 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaWe got into the new house today to take pictures and measurements. Our new landlord showed us around, and then kindly told us we could drop the key through the mail slot when we were done. So we had plenty of time to do the job thoroughly.
The house is even nicer than I remembered. Wow, is it nice. This is a nice house.
I'm going to put some pictures here in the entry, but I've also got a whole New House Photoset on flickr in case anyone is really curious.
Here's the front courtyard. This is a very unusual architectural feature for Baltimore. I think that's runaway sage and thyme growing over on the right.
Apparently, the house used to have a dentist's office in the front room, and the rest was family living quarters. The big front door you can see in the exterior picture is unused. People enter the house through the side door, which is barely visible in the exterior photo. It leads into a little sub-foyer, and then there are double doors into the small main foyer.
We have two good-sized living rooms. We're going to use the first (which is 12 X 18) as a sitting room. It has two red walls and two beige walls, a lovely fireplace, two windows looking out onto a brick wall a few feet away, and French doors leading to the other living room.
This is the other living room, which we plan to use as a playroom. It's 12 x 16.5 and painted an odd sort of blue-grey.
On the other side of the foyer is a 12 x 13 dining room with a lovely, large built-in china cabinet.
The kitchen is not a real selling point of the house, but it's certainly adequate to our needs. Gas stove, dishwasher, and (yay!) a double sink. The cabinets and appliances are brand new. Those cabinets look lovely, but they're so high that I'm going to have trouble reaching above the bottom shelf. Fortunately, as you can see at the far end, there's a pantry with plenty of shelving. The refrigerator is in the pantry. There's also a back door in there.
Going upstairs: OMG, our bedroom is huge. It's 12 x 18, with two big six-shelf built-in bookcases, one 5 feet wide and one 3 feet wide. It has two small closets, one with a lot of little shelves and a small hanging bar, and the other (cedar-lined) with a double (top and bottom) hanging bar. Embarrassingly, our bedroom also has a huge 4ft floor-to-ceiling mirror on one wall.
Our bathroom is small and cute, with a lovely clawfoot tub and inadequate storage. Because there isn't a downstairs bathroom, we'll be sharing this one with guests.
Alex's room is rather small (9 x 12) and nondescript, but check out the sink in her private bath. Isn't it outrageous? Her bathroom is separated from her room by one of those plastic accordion curtains. She has a clawfoot tub big enough to swim in.
The third floor guest room needs major help escaping from the 70s. I think it's about 12 X 12. It does have a lovely stained-glass faux skylight in the hideous panelled ceiling, with a lightbulb beyond it. The guest room has two small closets and an en suite bathroom with a stall shower. The third floor also has a tiny (6.5 x 9) room with a large closet and some built-in shelves. We hope to have a baby to put in that one someday.
In the back of the house there's more outdoor space, shut off from the front of the house by a tall, opaque locked gate. You access it from the pantry. There's a door that leads into the basement, and chain-link fence separating it from the lovely back courtyard of the house next door. Right now it's a mess of construction debris. It's mostly just an oddly-shaped paved spot, but there's a long planter-thingy that I could grow veggies in if the soil tests reasonably lead-free.
The whole house has more awesome little antique details than I can count. Carved doorframes, cut-glass doorknobs, brass fingerplates on some of the interior doors. (And yet, in contrast to the broad-gapped, splintery, authentically 1875 hardwood floors in our current house? The new house's floors are all beautifully finished.) I'm just going to share three of my favorites (besides Alex's sink, already pictured): a gaslamp jet in the second-floor landing, the chandelier and plaster ceiling medallion in the dining room, and the crazy brass doorhandles leading from the living room to the playroom.
The house is even nicer than I remembered. Wow, is it nice. This is a nice house.
I'm going to put some pictures here in the entry, but I've also got a whole New House Photoset on flickr in case anyone is really curious.
Here's the front courtyard. This is a very unusual architectural feature for Baltimore. I think that's runaway sage and thyme growing over on the right.
Apparently, the house used to have a dentist's office in the front room, and the rest was family living quarters. The big front door you can see in the exterior picture is unused. People enter the house through the side door, which is barely visible in the exterior photo. It leads into a little sub-foyer, and then there are double doors into the small main foyer.
We have two good-sized living rooms. We're going to use the first (which is 12 X 18) as a sitting room. It has two red walls and two beige walls, a lovely fireplace, two windows looking out onto a brick wall a few feet away, and French doors leading to the other living room.
This is the other living room, which we plan to use as a playroom. It's 12 x 16.5 and painted an odd sort of blue-grey.
On the other side of the foyer is a 12 x 13 dining room with a lovely, large built-in china cabinet.
The kitchen is not a real selling point of the house, but it's certainly adequate to our needs. Gas stove, dishwasher, and (yay!) a double sink. The cabinets and appliances are brand new. Those cabinets look lovely, but they're so high that I'm going to have trouble reaching above the bottom shelf. Fortunately, as you can see at the far end, there's a pantry with plenty of shelving. The refrigerator is in the pantry. There's also a back door in there.
Going upstairs: OMG, our bedroom is huge. It's 12 x 18, with two big six-shelf built-in bookcases, one 5 feet wide and one 3 feet wide. It has two small closets, one with a lot of little shelves and a small hanging bar, and the other (cedar-lined) with a double (top and bottom) hanging bar. Embarrassingly, our bedroom also has a huge 4ft floor-to-ceiling mirror on one wall.
Our bathroom is small and cute, with a lovely clawfoot tub and inadequate storage. Because there isn't a downstairs bathroom, we'll be sharing this one with guests.
Alex's room is rather small (9 x 12) and nondescript, but check out the sink in her private bath. Isn't it outrageous? Her bathroom is separated from her room by one of those plastic accordion curtains. She has a clawfoot tub big enough to swim in.
The third floor guest room needs major help escaping from the 70s. I think it's about 12 X 12. It does have a lovely stained-glass faux skylight in the hideous panelled ceiling, with a lightbulb beyond it. The guest room has two small closets and an en suite bathroom with a stall shower. The third floor also has a tiny (6.5 x 9) room with a large closet and some built-in shelves. We hope to have a baby to put in that one someday.
In the back of the house there's more outdoor space, shut off from the front of the house by a tall, opaque locked gate. You access it from the pantry. There's a door that leads into the basement, and chain-link fence separating it from the lovely back courtyard of the house next door. Right now it's a mess of construction debris. It's mostly just an oddly-shaped paved spot, but there's a long planter-thingy that I could grow veggies in if the soil tests reasonably lead-free.
The whole house has more awesome little antique details than I can count. Carved doorframes, cut-glass doorknobs, brass fingerplates on some of the interior doors. (And yet, in contrast to the broad-gapped, splintery, authentically 1875 hardwood floors in our current house? The new house's floors are all beautifully finished.) I'm just going to share three of my favorites (besides Alex's sink, already pictured): a gaslamp jet in the second-floor landing, the chandelier and plaster ceiling medallion in the dining room, and the crazy brass doorhandles leading from the living room to the playroom.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:40 pm (UTC)Although I'm somewhat weirded out by your giant bedroom being the only room without an ensuite. Maybe it's really a third living room?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-24 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:43 pm (UTC)Before you got on my flist, we were looking at an old house that had similar neat details. We ended up not buying it--it was WAY too big for three people--but I'm still kind of wistful about it.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:44 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2008-02-23 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:00 pm (UTC)N.
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Date: 2008-02-23 08:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-02-23 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:51 pm (UTC)No, because previous tenants have used it as a little deck. It's that the landlord just had a new roof put on, and the surface isn't meant to be walked on or have weights on it. Alas.
If we ever buy the house, the first change I'm making is putting a deck surface on that part.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:20 pm (UTC)You should put something in that round bed, something that will lift your heart every time you come home. For me, that would be more herbs, but for you it might be pansies or petunias or a topiary.
What a charming little house.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 10:03 pm (UTC)It is a lovely house, I expect you'll all be really happy there.
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Date: 2008-02-23 08:24 pm (UTC)Thyme has wee tiny spear-shaped leaves and is shorter than rosemary -- anywhere from eight inches tall to prostrate.
If you plant some thyme I will give you my husband's recipe for braised pork chops with thyme flowers.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:34 pm (UTC)Back in the 1980's, I lived in a rental duplex with working gas lights. We'd light them for parties, mostly.
K.
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Date: 2008-02-23 11:56 pm (UTC)Oh my gosh, it never even occurred to me that they might work. That would be awesome!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:51 pm (UTC)Our last house had super-high cupboards too, and we just couldn't use them for anything we used regularly. If you need more space for plates and glasses and things, maybe a shelf in the pantry could be used? Or the china cabinet. I miss the built-in china cabinets from my old house.
But Alex definitely has the nicest bathroom. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 08:51 pm (UTC)For small kids, clawfoot tubs *are* big enough to swim in, almost. And they make excellent sliding boards.
Forewarned is forearmed.
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Date: 2008-02-23 09:01 pm (UTC)That looks like rosemary & sage to me, too. we have got it running away in our garden also.
I want Alex's sink.
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Date: 2008-02-23 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:16 pm (UTC);)
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Date: 2008-02-23 09:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-02-23 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:42 pm (UTC)The semicircular "skylight" in the third-floor bedroom is entertaining, too; it looks like it was a window over a doorway in a former life. I'd guess it was probably obtained as demolition salvage and installed in the ceiling about the same time the paneling and such was put in.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 11:54 pm (UTC)Yes, I'm sure. It's very common for Baltimore row houses to have a stained glass panel above the front door, although they're usually rectangles. They're easy enough to find.
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Date: 2008-02-23 10:08 pm (UTC)Wow. I was jealous BEFORE I clicked on the cut tag.
Then I was jealous before I saw the comment where you mentioned what you are paying for it.
That's just not fair. We're renting out two rooms, a bathroom, and a galley kitchen to a friend for $500, and he's getting a good deal at that price.