Heart Pine & “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal”
What’s a home renovation without it’s first complaint issued to the city?
4-1/2 Annoucements
Whew! Very busy lately. But it’s all good busyness so without further ado, our four and one-half announcements:
First, the 1/2: Work begins again at Jefferson tomorrow morning. Our contractor will be removing all of the flooring. This is in preparation for the structural repairs associated with the addition. Unfortunately we were unable to find someone interested in the discarded floorboards and we have no place to store them. So, off to the dump despite my fascination with “Tiny Texas Houses”.
Announcement #1: WE GOT MARRIED! We eloped; it was awesome. (All the commitment, none of the cost!) We took our vows at the City Courthouse, under a kitschy laminated John Wayne clock. Then, we celebrated with a lovely dinner at Staunton Grocery. Eventually, we’ll have a party at the house.
Announcement #2: WE’RE URBAN FARMERS NOW! We started planning last year, and this weekend Lush Farms brought its very first harvest to market at George Bowers. Here’s a link on that. This is a soft-launch; we’ll officially debut the sign and produce Memorial Day weekend. (Now, 18 months ago, if you’d told me I’d have moved to Virginia and started a farm, well, I’d have thought you were on crack. But we’re having tremendous fun!)
Announcement #3: POLITICAL CAREERS? Yes, yes… just joking. We were flattered to become part of the steering committee of the non-partisan, green initiative Staunton Green 2020. (Political twist: the SG2020 founder, Erik Curren, is running for Delegate). SG2020’s mission is to convince the city of Staunton to establish a Green Task Force. If you are local, please sign the petition.
Announcement #4: MICRO-LENDING! We are really grateful to the Staunton Creative Community Fund for loaning us money to start the grocery store. Now, they’re expanding. They asked us to sit on a city board to develop and distribute micro-loans to low and moderate income borrowers (meeting the same requirements for creativity, sustainability, economic viability, etc.). We’re excited to play an active role in this yet-unnamed program for economic development. We feel our involvement will be a great way to give back as well as gain some new skills.
So, this blog will continue to be about our house project… but likely, with some smattering of other projects mentioned as well.
katie @ May 17, 2009
Should We Save the Suburbs?
urbanism, walkable Comments (1)
I call my experience here “New Ruralism”, but in truth, I’ve traded one very large city experience (Manhattan) to a microcosm city experience (downtown Staunton, VA pop. 25,000). At both locations a sidewalk leads to restaurants, cultural events, and the arts!
And yes: I know I’m lucky. I could live in the suburbs. <shudder!>
Here’s a fascinating article you should read if you are interested in the shift away from the 50+ year phenom of building car-centric “suburban” homes.
“Gen Xers and Millennials want a lifestyle closer to Friends and Seinfeld (that is, walkable and urban) than to Tony Soprano (low density and suburban). It’s not that nobody wants Tony Soprano. About 50 percent of Americans actually do want that configuration. But if we’ve built 80 percent of our housing that way, that’s the definition of oversupply. The other 50 percent of Americans want walkable urban arrangements and yet that’s just 20 percent of the housing stock. That’s called pent-up demand. So the market is just responding.” [emphasis mine]
I agree and predict places like Staunton that managed to avoid overbuilding/”modernization” will increasingly be the big winners. For all the economic and environmental considerations Americans simply have to re-think and then re-create our living arrangements.
All the more reason to reconsider older neighborhoods and homes — they were built with human scale considerations. (Walkability and “human scale” fits naturally with both of our interests in the green movement. We are becoming more involved with Staunton Green 2020, the citizen group which is working to make Staunton greener.)
Restoration Update
The city sent us an official notice regarding our stone wall. We have six months to fix it. They understand that our project cannot, and should not, be a quick repair. That kind of quickie work is what’s been so damaging already.
Instead, we’re going to first fix structural issues associated with the 1913 addition to the left of the house (see photo at bottom). If this addition falls on top of our neighbor’s home she’ll have a far greater problem than the condition of the stone wall.
We are awaiting quotes from our contractor and his scheduling availability.
Another big consideration is the foundation under the addition. At the time it was common that posts were only sunk into the ground a few inches (!). Correcting it will be both time consuming and nearly invisible to the casual observer. This is another example of This Will Take Time So Just Calm Down With Respect to Seeing “Progress”!
Meanwhile, I’ve planted a butterfly garden at the cottage (photos when it looks less ghetto) and await announcing our big news.
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katie @ April 8, 2009
What Brian Found Buried in the Backyard
An omen?
He uncovered this on Saturday.
Ah, the lucky horseshoe. It seems appropriate. There are increasingly good things happening…and more to announce soon enough.
Meanwhile… we await our carpenter’s estimate to start on the floors.
katie @ March 30, 2009