Thursday, June 16, 2011

More Farmin'

My flowers are starting to bloom.  Ain't they pretty?





See that brickwork behind it?  I love that bond.  Common, or American, Bond.  A row of headers and five - seven rows of stretchers is the ideal brickwork bond, in my opinion.  It's what attracted me to this house.  That and other things.  For one, it's a post war tract house made in the boom period.  Brick and block construction, plaster walls, oak floors.  Mine is only a 2 bedroom, which is fine for just me.  It sold for $10,000 in 1951, a bit more than 10 times that when I got it, and at the height of the boom, the same model was going for 30 times the original price.  It's still holding at 20 times. 

Because of the construction, when these types of houses catch fire they rarely burn through the roof.  Brick and plaster is a boon.  Another plus is for a little while longer there are still WWII veterans on my street to chat with.  There was a decorated Marine on the corner that passed away before I moved in.  He ended up leading the band for the Washington Redskins as a civilian.  Kinda neat.  Original owner tell stories about how the front yard was sodded, and three rows of the back were sodded.  The rest was dirt back there.  And the surrounding acres started out as cow pasture in the 40's.

The interest in History serves me well with regard to these things.

4 comments:

  1. Very pretty flowers! And you said before it was a wildflower seed mix? All I ever get from those are daisies, while lovely, smell like dirty socks.

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  2. Nice! Looks good and it's obvious you're working hard to keep it up!

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  3. It's WILDFLOWERS, Fo. I picked them for the low maintenance, just like i picked the masonry for the amount of time I have to paint it.

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