House Pictures

Right side

Sweezel... Hate brick too (in general, not your house, LOL). I thought your HOUSE was going to be in 2 sections, NOT the photos!

Lake Toxaway is about 1-1/2 hours, maybe 1-3/4 hour from here, a nice drive through Franklin. One of our members lives in Toxaway, woodspirit1, although not in a million dollar house!

If I can get financing to build, you'll be on my list of volunteers!

LOL, should have worded it better.

Yeah I have noticed that woodspirit1 lives there. I thought it was cool when I first saw.

I have only seen a couple pictures of the outside of the house he has. He is part-time and works most of the time out of Houston (I am his secretary) and has been up at the summer house since May. My boss that works with me in my office full time has been there and said it is beautiful.

I have told my husband that my next dream trip together is a week in either W. Tennesseee & E. North Carolina or a trip along the East Coast from Charleston to Savanah. This is with no kids so it will probably be a couple years. Our last trip was back to N. California in March '03, before that was May '00, so I am on track for 2006. :)

Myself, I like the brick.

That's okay, Kelli. I had family members tell me the same when I moved in. The first thing I saw when I drove by the house was rust, dirty looking yellowish beige, and dark brown brick. The colors just did not appeal to me. My realtor finally talked me into looking inside and I knew is just what we were looking for. Also, 99% of the houses built around here are brick so you get tired of it.

And the bright side Sweezel, you won't have to pay someone like me all kinds of money to paint the outside walls of the house! LOL

Good thing not too many people have brick like that down here...I'd be out of business.

Molly
:^))))

Okay, this is our tri-level house. Sioux City is very hilly and there are a lot of tri-levels. Ours however, is a little bit of a rarity as it is on level ground. Most of them have a long stairway to the front door. I'm glad ours is "street level", a lot safer in the winter!

Funny thing I wish my house were built of brick. Then it wouldn't be in need of new siding.

Btw, Darius it was Wright's 'falling water' or 'waterfall' house I meant above, river house not so far off, it straddles the river. well with the bridge to the guest house. lol.
anyway fancy getting regular financing for such a project. Outside corners where glass butts glass - inside/outside pool. stuff.

nice house Merigold - now I'll be able to find you!!

Blooms, I've been to "Falling Water" and it really IS a fantastic house!

I was there about 15 years ago just as they were finishing a million dollar re-construction where all the rebar in the concrete had deteriorated.

I have a large framed copy of his color rendering of the house hanging on my wall, and used to have about 20 of his books.

Well, heres my house in Louisiana. its pretty typical for a Louisiana house in town but we do have a bit more daylilies than the average bear....as you can see they are my favorite flower. We have 9 beds as well as other beds in the back for shade plants that we collect such as hosta, gingers, elephant ears and plenty of azaleas, camelia and many other plants. We enjoy the Louisiana lifestyle which is "let the good times roll on".....

My word, WHAT a display!

I continue to be amazed at the wonderful houses and gardens here, regardless of whether they are upwardly-mobile or the trailer dwellers.

Kooger, Let me know when you can visit. I'll be waiting!

Usually when we go thata way, it's on a last minute notice and too hard to plan but I'll just plan a day sometime, how's that sound?

Old house pics.Early spring 2 yrs ago. Sugar Maple in front.

Here is my old house built in 1933 not a straight wall in the place but I love it. If I could figure out how to put 3 pictures here I would but you will have to humor me This is the front the big empty space on the front porch usually has a swing in it but I am refinishing it you can see it wayyyyyy in the back by the cars. My great- grandfather made it as a wedding gift for my grandfather in 1924 so it gets alot of TLC.

This is the back. Still building beds but it is getting there

and this is the way back. This was last years project. We also finished off the back end of the garage for a sunroom. Whew 3 ton of stone and endless hours but I sure love our bon-fires at night.

As long as noone else has posted I will really take advantage this is a shot from the back property line a.k.a. "the way back"

Enjoying the photo's and the wonderful idea's.

Kooger e-mail me anytime, we can make plans. I work but can get time off fairly easy.

Frankay, was your house built in the 1820s or 1830s?

Old_rose, what a wondeful old Craftsman style house... I love it!

Hi Kelli, The back part was built 1800. The big front part was built 1850, after the Knowltons became more affluent. The little part sticking out on the left used to have a shed roof and was pulling away from the house. We rebuilt it 2 yrs ago. The color is off a bit. The shutters are forest green. We bought for 95k 7 yrs ago. Have spent half that again re-doing stuff. DW loves the place but I'm thinking sell in a few yrs and get a NEW house with a real basement. Yeah, old houses have "character", and lots of stuff that breaks, needs fixing, or a previous owner "fixed" on the cheap.

Here is my House in 2001!!

sue

Now this is November 2002!!!

For those of you that are new at DG, our home burned down November 4, 2002. No one was hurt and we did rebuild pretty quick thank's to my brother in law who just happens to be a builder!!!

I can't believe it's been 1 1/2 year's already, it seems like ages ago that it happened!!!!

sue

This message was edited Jul 12, 2004 7:15 AM

Not a very good picture but here is the new house taken last month!!!!

It look's just a bit nicer than the last picture!!! LOL

sue

Wow, Ruby42! I had no idea, and was about to reply about how cute your house (old one) was. I am glad I kept reading. Your new house is just beautiful too! I am sorry to hear about the fire and loss. That had to have been a terrible time.

wow thats terrible about the fire, ur home now is jsut amazing....(: do u know what caused the fire???

darius, love ur plan for ur sea shell house... great idea and let me tell u i know exactly how u feel and what ur going thru for the financing.. hubby and i are building our house now...and we could not get a loan to save our life, for one we are self employed (hubby is a general contactor) we invest alot of our profit bac into the business, for tractors, tools, dump trailers things like that, for two our area out here is part of the williamsons act. to protect this area from major development, AND it is zoned Ag. 4 and is an agriculture pressurve, so the banks just dont want to give us a loan.. so we are building this out of pocket... we tried for a loan for 2 years, and then went thru plan check for another year or close to it.. now after 3 1/2 years this is where we are on our house, (photo below) yes its small for now (only 900sq ft) BUT we are doing and 497 sq ft addition right after the final on this house.. the reason being is because, the permits for this little house is costing 18,000.00 JUST FOR PERMITS , i dont think we even have that much in lumber, concrete and windows yet.. the bigger the house the more moola they charge and as it is now we are living in a travel trailer and ran off of a generator for electric, this way of living was breaking the bank, $600.00 a month to run the generator alone, more expense in the payment on this trailer and rental of two storage units here on the property.. well we have electric now which was so wonderful getting , almost as good as getting the actual house itself.. lol.. as far as help is concerned EVERYONE offered to help when the time would come but so far, we have had only two neighbors actually help a weeken here and there (they have lives too) we are sooo greatful for their help.. but mostly it's just me and my hubby, which makes it hard cause i just cant lift some of this lumber.. we are working on trying to get the joists up today or this evening (since its 102 outside right now) anyway i have gone on long enough for this posts.. here is the house as it sits right now (except the both beams are up on the front posts, which only one is up in this pic)

Cici, Thanks for the encouragement, or at least commiseration! Your house is coming along wonderfully even if slowly. It's a pain to pay to store stuff, isn't it? I have been a licensed general contractor for years and have lived out of boxes more than I like to admit. Sigh.

cici, I thought Snohomish County was bad for permits and costs, but the politicians in your neck of the woods have ours beat by a long shot.Wish you the best of luck in building your home. Having a contractor in the family is a lifesaver for you.

here is what the house will look like when its done,..but of course i have plans for the gardens for infront of the house.. (:

oh thanx guys... and darius, i'm sorry i didnt mean to be a downer... i am alot happier now , and trust me the reason we waited 2 years to "see" if we could get a loan was because, when we thought of the cost of all of it in one lump sum, we would get depressed and say who are we kidding we CANT afford that... we wont be able to save that kind of moola, (esspecially after going thru a generator every 6 months) we would get in high spirits ready to tackle the county (we live in riverside county not the city of banning) and make plans, then by the time we were done planning (all day or even two days) we would be soooo discouraged.. we would both be in tears.. trust me we went thru some tough times... so finally (after convincing my hubby to go for a small house , then build on later , which was NOT an easy task let me tell u! u being a general i am sure u understand, he didnt want to have to knock out walls and all that, he just wanted to do it once) i made a game out of it (maybe i was delirious (sp?)or insane by this time..lol) i told him u know what, lets not think of what its gonna cost us.. lets just see with every challenge if we are able to pull it off... if not well we may have to wait 6 months to get it done or kill ourselves trying..lol baby steps is what i told him when he would get frustrated.. i said to him .. lets never look at the challenge after the one that faces us now.. lets deal with whats infront of us..and do u know since then, (knock on wood) things have gone aloooot smoother, yeah we might not have all the help that was offered to us on a whim (maybe they never thought we would actually EVER start building) but we just plug away and cherish the friends who indeed promised us their help , refused any payment (well other then a requirement of beer being present ,but nobody got drunk ) and understand how the term "talk is cheap" is really a true statement..lol.. but one good thing is at least we can say we built it together.. right?

balviene, lol.. oh i am sure riverside county takes the cake in @$$#0!$ excuse my crudeness... they make u just want to blurt obcenities at them..lol.. do u know they "required" us to have a fire hydrant within 500 ft of our driveway!!! now yes during a fire i would be ever so thankful that its there and we live in a high fire area.. BUT , the cost of it was estimated at , are u ready for this? are u guys sitting down? from one direction of where the main water line was that estimate was $185,000.00.... and from the other main water line it was $8,000.00, i choked on the first estimate and the second although it was a ton cheaper was still choking me.. they woulndt even approve our plans till that was in.. and they dont take payments.. the lady on the phone actually laughed when i asked her if they take payments.. BUT there is a good end to that story... the super intendant after visiting with my hubby and finding out where and who we bought our land from , told us he grew up with mr. Dysart (the wonderful man who owned all of this land out here and is carrying our loan) so he was gonna put one in for us for 3,500.00 AND put it on a payment plan on our water bill with no intrest... we were thrilled... we couldnt have asked for anything better, BUT it does get better... months go by and there is nothing on our bill that shows they started to charge us even though the hydrant was in... so hubby calls the super intendant of the water company to ask him, he's not there so he leaves a message about the hydrant.. that man calls us back a couple of days before Christmas and says because of this hydrant that needed to go in they found some major water line boo-boos that HAD to be fixed, making them have to repipe 3 miles of waterline.. then tells us, merry Christmas u dont have to pay for the hydrant at all.. we were shocked and thrilled.. we have run into some good luck like that here and there saving us small fortunes , that we were able to put into the building of the house.. so although we have been thru the ringer with the county and i havent even scratched the surface with the [deleted] they have dumped on us , we have had many more good possitive things come our way... i will NEEEEEVEEERRR build our own house again and live out of a trailer, BUT if it were vacation property , and we had a big bank roll saved up i would ponder the idea (still never living in a trailer again though) .. its so hard to build on undeveloped land out here , we may buy property with a shack on it , and build onto or around it, it would save us sooooo much moola.. maybe darius that is something u should look into.. buying the land with something on it then building as u go.. (: hey darius, why dont u move our here, we have 5 acers in the back , myhubby is ALWAYS looking for good steady sub-contractors who knows what the hell their doing, .. they are all either on drugs or drunk on the job out here.. we have so much work it isnt even funny!!! its hard for him to build other peoples houses and ours at the same time.. i am affraid our lumber is gonna get jacked up in this heat sitting out there waiting to be covered with a roof.. plus u garden .. and so do i.. hmmm could u imagine what could be done..??? (:

Cici, Thanks for the invite... but I have NO desire to live in CA, for ANY reason. (Do not take it personal.) Subs here are at a premium, for the same reasons you seem to have. Drunk, drugged, or never show. If I was younger and could just get 2 good helpers, I could make a fortune in this vacation/second home area!

Your fire hydrant story is a good one. Glad it worked in your favor. Your drawing of the finished plan looks a lot like what I drew years ago as a "Typical Watauga Farmhouse" (I lived then in Watauga County, NC) except for the fancier posts.

I am really already doing what you suggested: looking for property that already has a building or an old dwelling, and hopefully a working septic/drain field and a well or a good spring. I can do the rest from there, even if it never looks like my dream plans.

first let me say i'm so sorry for that really really long post above.. it didnt look THAT long in the post box..i'll try to keep them shorter..
darius, cant blame ya for not wanting to come to california, i love california because i was raised here (born in PA though) i love the warm weather and short winters.. but i hear the carolines are beeeautiful.. and i did forget to mention the "dont show up" for workers..lol.. that is another problem, hubby always tells employees, there are a few things that will get u fired. , drinking on the job, drugs and not showing up on concrete pouring day"...(there are others but i dont remember them right now) thats how we know if the half-way decent workers are any good or dedicated..if they'll show up on the day the concrete is being poured, they are either afraid of it , or know its hard work and are just too dang lazy to do the job.. my hubby has one good helper although he doesnt know much , but thats a benifit too.. he can teach him the way HE wants it done, so many of them , my hubby has told them this is how i want it done and i guess they try to show him they KNOW how to do it and do it their own way.. but there is a reason WHY hubby wants it done his way and usually it ends up getting ripped out and done they way he told them to begin with.. its a never ending battle..

oh i forgot to mention the pic of the house (drawing) is backward, when we ordered the plans we had them flip the plans, and we had them remove the fireplace... we want a pot belly stove instead, and where the rock chimney is ,(but flipped) is actually where we put double french doors (which will eventually lead to the addition, which will be a master bedroom and bath) also we are making the space in the attic "living space" so the house will really be 1300 sq ft , and later we are putting dormers on the front of the house.. the drawing of the house shows standard posts but we found the "wood turned" posts at lowes for 83.00 each.. i couldnt help myself , i had to have them..(: also the dirt will all be moved away from the front of the house to have the raised porch look, that was a last minute thing, hubby didnt want the expense at first, he just wanted to get the house up but as we went along , he agreed with me it would look better.. so thats the only way i can think to make it work, grade that dirt down away from the front.. (: u have to keep us updated on ur house project, even if u have to start a thread for it! (: i'll be keeping my eye out for it..(: and good luck, i am sure something will break and it will be better then u could have ever imagined...

cici, thanks for thelong and interesting posts. Keep up the good work.The neighbor next to our cabin is a contractor and hires as many women as men.Says they are more dependable.

Ok, I had a long post typed, then lost it! Anyway, this is my first attempt at posting a pic. I will try to post it and THEN give you a brief summary of what I am attempting to do. Here goes: This is a pic of the rear of my house, located in Northeast Missouri, in Kirksville. It considered a real oddball home! The only flat roof house in town!

Ok, WHEW! A success! :)

Now here is the front of the house (needs paint I know)!

Ok, now if you are still with me, and hopefully interested in my little oddball..... I am the second owner of this really COOL house, it was built in 1959, the first home in our subdivision, by a dude named Louis Baum. He bought the plans after he saw them in a 1958 Better Homes & Gardens, they were a "5 Star House Plan". Mr. Baum was quite the character, he knew the Delorian family, and actually had one of those Delorian cars! (They were the ones with doors that opened UP from hinges at the top of the door frame, hard to explain!) I found a full file of info on the house, very complete, with original house plans, correspondence with the contractor, and the original cost to build the house. They actually LEFT these papers to be thrown out, along with some other mildewy junk from the basement!

Anyhow, as you can see from the house, he must have appreciated modern design, and there are really no other houses of this type (very California ranch style) in our town of about 17,000. It sat empty in a disputed estate, and I was lucky enough to buy it after it was on the market 3 years. (For $45,000 less than the original price!) Yeah, it needs work, but it has some great features (his and hers side by side bathrooms with SKYLIGHTS!, and even the original electric range with starbursts on the top oven door. Very atomic!

Problem is this: The house was completely overgrown when I bought it, with lots of nasty cedar/juniper type shrubs. They were too close to the house to doze out of there, so I am dealing with stumps for a while. I am hoping to landscape the house according to that CA style, but I am in zone 5! SO, for now, I am just kind of throwing things in to have something other than stumps, growing some tropicals in pots, etc.

If someone wants to do me a HUGE deed, and offer some suggestions as to specific plants to use, or books to read/buy, I would be very grateful. I hate moving, it took me 3 years to sell my last house, and I am planning to have them cart me away to the funeral home directly from this place!

The neighbors put in a 6 ft. privacy fence (thank God!) do now I don't have to look at all of their kids' toys, and I have a new place to put shade plants. Here is what I have done with that fence border in one last pic. I don't have tons of money, just a divorced mom of 2 boys.....Email me if you have any ideas, ok? :)

I like the 50's style rambler homes a lot. How cool to find all the extra stuff and have it. Neat!

Junipers are actually very '60s southern California. Our house, built in 1964, had a bunch of them. Just about every house on the street has or had them. Bearded iris, daylilies, and roses are commonly used here, too. I'll try to think of some more things that are used here and will also grow in zone 5.