That's a nice looking building! Looks upscale.

That's a nice looking building! Looks upscale.

 

I agree nice building.  I love Juliet balcony's on buildings.

I love the balconies on the front too, but our unit is in the back which gives us better views and bay windows.  The common areas are very cool and spotless.  I've read and heard some bad things about the management company, but so far our experience has been great.

Are you on Sutter St? 

yep

This was my building when it was being built in 1967 (the same year I was built!). It's an ugly-ass building. But it's very nice on the inside. Since I live here, I don't have to see the outside very much! This is the view from Clifton Boulevard. I have no idea how those huge 1960s-era cars could fit in our tiny-spaced parking garage....

 

In November 1997, a year after I moved into my condo, a demonstration commuter train went through Lakewood. I snapped this photo of my condo building (the orange-ish brick structure) from the train. I'm working on trying to make the commuter train service permanent (see West Shore Corridor campaign pages at www.allboardohio.org)...

 

The same view from 67 years earlier...

 

One of the reasons why I bought this condo is the views...

 

Looking east towards downtown Cleveland from my condo's balcony on a night with a full moon. I used a time exposure on a windy night, making the clouds seem like they were moving fast...

 

And looking north from our seventh-floor party room (with the indoor pool in the room behind!) toward Lake Erie just beyond the Gold Coast high-rises (15- to 30-story tall buildings)....

This was my building when it was being built in 1967 (the same year I was built!).

KJP you're so funny.  Thats a nice building.

 

Looking at this thread reminds me I need to start my reno.  I've got to update my kitchen, ugh! 

It's not much but it works for me. Plus it looked a lot worse when I first moved in.

I live in a van down by the river.

^^I bet you wear a flag pin on your lapel too.  :-D

I live in a van down by the river.

 

Or in an ice cave with Ray Romano.

^^I bet you wear a flag pin on your lapel too.  :-D

 

So I'm a lil patriotic. What can I say, I love the US and Ohio.

I live in a van down by the river.

 

Or in an ice cave with Ray Romano.

 

WTF?

Look at your avatar, Doris Day.

Doris Day  :laugh:

Look at your avatar, Doris Day.

LMAO!!

 

CWMccann18, that is a cute house.

 

A lot of people have said there homes looked bad when they first moved.  I would love to see before and after pictures of renovations.  I find that stuff fascinating.  topic for a new thread.

This is the before the landscaping stone but after painting the house and porch and cleaning up the trash.

looks like you have a pretty big lot.

looks like you have a pretty big lot.

 

That's what she said.

bump for the newbies

Here's my 1903 dorm and room floorplan.  There's a spire, balconies, and a freaking sundial on the other end of the building.  I overlook a mediocre courtyard, but for a dorm room, it gets the job done.

OMG  4 people to a room? now I know why I worked 2 jobs and took 8 years to get through school

OMG  4 people to a room? now I know why I worked 2 jobs and took 8 years to get through school

 

That's admirable. A lot of students pretty much get a free ride from their parents or get easy loans/financial aid to spend outrageous amounts on sh!t like this where  you're crammed in a room with 3 other people for the "experience". I spent a year in a dorm and it was about 600 a month for a small room shared with 3 other people. Plus a required meal plan that averaged 11 dollars per meal and we always had about 60-80 meals left over on the plan each quarter. They didn't roll over, either.

That's admirable. A lot of students pretty much get a free ride from their parents or get easy loans/financial aid to spend outrageous amounts on sh!t like this where  you're crammed in a room with 3 other people for the "experience". I spent a year in a dorm and it was about 600 a month for a small room shared with 3 other people. Plus a required meal plan that averaged 11 dollars per meal and we always had about 60-80 meals left over on the plan each quarter. They didn't roll over, either.

 

Yeah, that's where they get you, with the meal plans.  If I hadn't spent time in the hospital during the quarter, I'd be left with less than 20 swipes.  Still, if every person is leaving with at least 10 unused swipes, the university is making boat loads of money.  Then I get screwed when it comes to paying tuition.  Yes, thankfully my parents do help, but with my mother out of a well paying job, I don't have as much extra backing.

 

Anyways, I digress.  First, the room is actually quite spacious compared to the other 4-person rooms in the building.  Second, I have come to love my building and neighborhood, even if it is chocked full of college students.  But that's why the #2 bus to Short North or Clintonville is there, to get away from all the craziness that is college.  I've fallen in love with mass transit. 

The photo that I posted previously died when I restructured my site. Here's a redo, with more pics and info.

 

 

 

How it looked when I bought it in 1977:

 

 

 

What looks like my house before additions and alterations appears in an 1880 illustrated aerial view of the city. The abstract shows the lot selling as an individual parcel for the first time in 1858 for $12 and again in 1860 for $200. I speculate that's when the original part may have been built. Construction materials and methods in the oldest part could tie in with that era.

 

I've owned it since 1977 and used it as a rental for ten years until it started to get crappy(er), and then I gutted it, changed the floor plan, replaced all the mechanicals, and made it my residence. Since rehabbing, all that remain of the original are foundation, framing, sheathing, most of the windows and most of the rafters.

My San Francisco hovel

 

not much by Ohio standards, but about 1.5 million by SF standards for a skinny, falling apart buliding on a 25' wide lot.  It is a 104 year old former single family house.  The top flat is being renovated right now, so sounds like WWIII.  Absolutely no insulation, no central heat, no air conditioning, came without refrigerator, stove, etc. But is rent controlled, I have a garage and a tiny back yard, and nice neighbors (well,most of them, anyway). I've lived here nearly 20 years so pay next to nothing.  The blue house next to me is like a museum inside and and a house directly behind me was just built and sold for in excess of $3 million.  Crazy!  Yet we have so many overhead wires you can barely see the sky and absolutely NO cellphone reception....thanks AT&T!

 

OMG  4 people to a room? now I know why I worked 2 jobs and took 8 years to get through school

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

That's admirable. A lot of students pretty much get a free ride from their parents or get easy loans/financial aid to spend outrageous amounts on sh!t like this where  you're crammed in a room with 3 other people for the "experience". I spent a year in a dorm and it was about 600 a month for a small room shared with 3 other people. Plus a required meal plan that averaged 11 dollars per meal and we always had about 60-80 meals left over on the plan each quarter. They didn't roll over, either.

Some of us worked hard in high school and got full scholarships.  I refused to live in a cramped room after leaving home.

 

The photo that I posted previously died when I restructured my site. Here's a redo, with more pics and info.

 

 

 

How it looked when I bought it in 1977:

 

 

 

What looks like my house before additions and alterations appears in an 1880 illustrated aerial view of the city. The abstract shows the lot selling as an individual parcel for the first time in 1858 for $12 and again in 1860 for $200. I speculate that's when the original part may have been built. Construction materials and methods in the oldest part could tie in with that era.

 

I've owned it since 1977 and used it as a rental for ten years until it started to get crappy(er), and then I gutted it, changed the floor plan, replaced all the mechanicals, and made it my residence. Since rehabbing, all that remain of the original are foundation, framing, sheathing, most of the windows and most of the rafters.

 

Nice.  I love the color.

My San Francisco hovel

 

 

Is yours in the middle?

 

 

 

Yes, the yellow place.  I have the bottom flat. 

Eureka Street has an interesting history.  Was the main street in Eureka Valley....a German/Swedish neighborhood until WWII, when it became an Irish neighborhood and quite impoverished.  In the 1970s  Castro street, about 4 blocks away, became the main gay street of this part of SF, and the entire demographic of the neighborhood changed, as the Irish sold their run down homes at inflated prices to the hordes of gay men and lesbians who came into the neighborhood, only to complain bitterly later that they did not get enough money...hindsight....it was a ghetto and then some.  Extremely run down and shabby with lots of cheap renovations, like (shudder) aluminum windows, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, stucco smeared directly over shiplap, etc.  Most of the stores were in a deplorable condition as well. That being said, it was a fairly tight knit community.

My house was a single family home converted in 1955 into a duplex by the current owners, who bought it for under $5,000.  They are currently renovation the top flat, which has been vacant for several blissful years.  It is like WWIII now.  I suppose they will rent it for close to $2800/month. 

Under my place and the blue house is a creek, which is quite noisy during downpours.  Eureka was a creek which flowed to 18th Street, another former creek since channeled, which flowed to Laguna de los Delores, near the present Mission Delores, the oldest part of SF. 

All was part of the former Rancho San Miguel.

Tah dah...enough history for today....now turn to page 161...

Id have to have a talk with the folks who own the blue house.  It's just a little too blue.  lol

Absolutely no insulation, no central heat, no air conditioning, ...

 

I wouldn't think that air conditioning would be a major factor, given San Francisco's mild climate. I can see how heat might be nice to chase away the damp chill in winter, though. I was there twice around Christmas and had awful respiratory problems that went away as soon as I got away from the coast and into cold, dry areas.

 

Some of us worked hard in high school and got full scholarships. I refused to live in a cramped room after leaving home.

 

 

I worked 25-30 hours a week in highschool and I didn't have a maid cleaning up my own messes like some people ;)

I love everyone's place, especially MTS' and SFSpike's.  It beats my room any day, but I work with what I have, which brings me to this.

 

Some of us worked hard in high school and got full scholarships.  I refused to live in a cramped room after leaving home.

 

Yeah, apparently being an A(majority)/B student in the top 7% of the class at a top performing public high school doesn't cut it anymore.  But I guess there was always some room for improvement. :-(  Still, I have been blessed with many wonderful opprotunities and (try to) enjoy them to the fullest.

 

Some of us worked hard in high school and got full scholarships.  I refused to live in a cramped room after leaving home.

 

 

I worked 25-30 hours a week in highschool and I didn't have a maid cleaning up my own messes like some people ;)

 

I had to clean my own room and do house and yard work.  the maid was for my parents, not my brother and I.  Trust, we had plenty of chores and had to earn everything.  My father doesn't believe in giving anything to you "just because" your related to him. Now he has grand children and has softened. 

This is the house I lived in, in P-Ridge when I was a teenager. I loved this house. For being so small, it had a lot of character. I want to buy it back some day.

 

 

When I was younger we lived on the second floor of this building. It had the craziest layout. The rooms basically went in a circle, connected by the bathroom that had 2 doors.

 

I guess I'll update mine...

 

I reside in the oldest dormitory in the State of Ohio: Elliott Hall at Miami University. Originally completed in 1825, it was built with the same footprint (40x100 feet) as Connecticut Hall at Yale.

 

 

Constructed a decade later, the adjacent Stoddard Hall also mimics Yale's Connecticut Hall.

 

The Beta Bell Tower, dedicated in 1939, is about 100 feet from my windows, meaning it a very large part of my life/daily routine...every fifteen minuets at least.

I now live in Circleville, joy of joys!! lol

Brought over from the "Modern Day Craftsmanship" thread:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,18314.0.html

 

Loved this post.  I restored a 100 year old house recently and I can totally relate to this, especially the part about shims, etc.  And now that the major work has been done for a while, I've started cataloging things that I'd like to redo when time allows.

 

What type of house?  pictures?  Renovating a home is a 24/7 full time job

 

I'm not exactly sure what type it is.  I've been told it's an Italianate, but the roof doesn't seem right.  I've also been told that it's a Queen Anne cottage, but it doesn't seem to be ornate enough for that.  Personally, I think it's a mishmash of styles that were popular in the neighborhood between 1880 and 1910.  I'll see if I can dig up some before and after pics today, and post them in the "Where do you live?" thread.  I'd appreciate opinions on exactly "what" it is.

 

Yes, renovating a home is definitely a full time job.  And it never ends.  I love answering people when they ask if I'm done working on the house.  My response invariably is "Trust me, with a house this old, you're never really done".

 

Cool I can't wait to see.  Sounds like an interesting project!

 

I agree.  I painted this morning and I was thinking, why did I buy this place.  swear word, swear word, swear word in Spanish.  lol

 

I don't think I could do another house, a room yes, but I don't think I have the strength or patience.  In the past its been therapeutic, today I felt it was mildly annoying!

 

Okay, MTS.  Here are some pics of my house.  It's a small place (2 bedrooms, 1 bath), but begin enough for my needs. 

 

Things I did/had done: 

 

Rewired the whole house (electric, CAT5, satellite), repaired/replaced plumbing, took down old wallpaper, painted every room, tore out all of the carpet, refinished the floors, reglazed and re-roped every window, added new storm windows and doors, restored all of the hardware on the windows and doors, repaired/redid all of the ceilings on the first floor (they needed it), refinished the woodwork and replaced all of the missing toe strip, added crown molding in the kitchen, painted the cabinets and removed a soffet to reveal a hidden chimney.  There was far, far more, but that's what I can think of at this moment.

 

I live on the edge of what was a very affluent neighborhood around 1900.  My house is one of about 10 on the street that are the same floorplan with slight variation of windows, roofs, etc.  I've been told that these houses were built for some of the higher-end workers of the many factories that once existed just a few blocks away.  I have no idea how much truth there is to that, but the construction of the house itself indicates that the original owner was not probably not rich.  A few of its sibling houses have a stained glass window, but mine does not.  My favorite things about the house are the those that reveal some of the cost cutting choices that were made.  I'll point some of these out later in the post.

 

Here is the house from the front.  That's a little more than half the steps!  This is after repairing the windows, adding storm windows, etc.  I can't figure out what I'm going to do about those awnings.  I like awnings, but not these particular ones.  I basically ran out of gas and decided to put it off for a future project, along with finding a way to remove the stains from the brick beneath the windows.  (suggestions on both fronts appreciated!)  That satellite dish will be going this summer as well.

 

 

Every door had a different color screen door in the same colonial pattern:

 

 

These were quickly replaced with matching, black, heavy aluminum storm doors:

 

 

The rooms of the house aren't huge and I don't have a nice digital camera (I use my cell a lot).  Consequently, it's tough to do the place justice, as I can only get one or two walls in each shot.  So in most of these, I'm just trying to get something interesting in frame.

 

Here's a before shot of the fireplace in my living room. 

 

 

I absolutely love it because it's quirky.  I refer to it as a "Rookwood remnants fireplace", because some of it is Rookwood tile, and some of it is clearly imitation.  I enjoy the middle eastern tile set, which is definitely Rookwood.  A friend of mine has a Rookwood fireplace with the same tile set. 

 

Here's a close up of one of the floor tiles.  The floor tiles have unfortunately long since been scrubbed of their colors, but they're interesting nonetheless:

 

 

And here's my favorite part of the fireplace.  Apparently, the original owner got the tiles cheap somehow, because it isn't a complete set.  While the other 4 tiles have a middle eastern theme with palm trees, camels, and men wearing turbins, the 5th decorative tile comes from a different set.  You can see in this next screenshot that it depicts native americans and a teepee:

 

 

And here is the fireplace again in the finished living room:

 

 

Here's a before picture of the dining room.  No, that's not me.  That's the home inspector.  Most of these were taken as I bought the house.  I didn't think to take true "before" shots, as I hadn't planned on nearly as much rehab work as I ended up doing.

 

 

And here's a finished shot of the dining room, with the wall paper removed and the woodwork restored:

 

 

Here's a shot of the old kitchen (from the dining room):

 

 

And a picture of the refreshed kitchen:

 

 

This picture is of the baseboard in my kitchen pantry.  On the right, you can see that the "baseboard" is clearly a piece of woodwork intended to go around a window or door, as opposed to the piece of actual baseboard shown on the left.  It's positioned on the inside wall of the pantry, so that if you aren't inside of the pantry itself, you'd never see it.  I didn't even notice until I had to paint it 3 months into the project!

 

 

Speaking of woodwork, all of the woodwork on the 1st floor has a decorative cut to it, as is shown in this screenshot in the living room:

 

 

This is as opposed to all of the woodwork on the 2nd floor, which is composed of just flat boards with no decoration at all.  This indicates that the original owner must have paid extra for the more decorative woodwork on the first floor, which is what guests would have primarily seen:

 

 

This is best illustrated by this lone decorative board in the bathroom.  You can see it meets up with a piece at the top that is simply a straight board.  Visible in the background is a window with the same, simple woodwork.  It seems to me that whoever built this house was definitely operating on a budget, evidenced by these slight imperfections (and pine floors instead of real hardwood), which I find charming:

 

 

Here's the bedroom closet as it existed when I walked through the house initially:

 

 

And here it is again after I tore out the sliding door addition and false wall that accompanied it.  Luckily for me, the original woodwork and door were buried under there:

 

 

And a shot from the other side of the room, where we see the new closet that I built to match the original on the right.  Framing it out and simulating the woodwork was done by uncle (who is the best worker I've ever seen), but I had to have the door replicated by a carpenter, so that it would match all of the other doors in the house:

 

 

And perhaps my favorite bit of history is shown in this next shot.  My front door frame needed serious repair.  It had been kicked in many years earlier and had been poorly patched up.  The repair was solid, but it looked terrible.  I always assumed that the house had been broken into at some point in the past.  Anyway, several months after repairing the doorframe, I ran electric to the 2nd floor ceilings for the first time so that I could install fans.  There's no attic, but there is a space above the ceiling, so I stuck a camera up in there and took a picture so that I could see what the space looks like.  What I discovered was that there had been a fairly major (and long forgotten) fire on the 2nd floor, and that the front door had likely been kicked in by the local fire department:

 

 

There are a lot of things I'd still like to do, and I'm quite sure that this place will keep me busy for years to come!

Glad you got rid of that tacky wallpaper! You have a rookwood fireplace? It looks great. Cool house.

Very nice.  Well done.

Thanks guys!  Wasn't that wallpaper the worst?

I know I posted about it before, but I still have nightmares about the reality show "The Mansion".  A group of people had to live and rehab the Schott Mansion on Cleves-Warsaw.  Each of them had to be the crew leader on a different room.

 

The first room done was the bathroom, and the only thing wrong with it was its age.  The entire room was done in Rookwood!  They took a sledge hammer to it!

 

The "Ask The Builder" guy, Carter, said to them afterwards, what a shame, you should have left the bathroom alone!

 

OMG!  You're going to give me a heart attack with stories like that.  I can't believe that no one stopped them!

I know I posted about it before, but I still have nightmares about the reality show "The Mansion". A group of people had to live and rehab the Schott Mansion on Cleves-Warsaw. Each of them had to be the crew leader on a different room.

 

The first room done was the bathroom, and the only thing wrong with it was its age. The entire room was done in Rookwood! They took a sledge hammer to it!

 

The "Ask The Builder" guy, Carter, said to them afterwards, what a shame, you should have left the bathroom alone!

 

 

Holy sh!t. That was probably a $100k bathroom they to a hammer to.

Thanks guys!  Wasn't that wallpaper the worst?

 

I still think the wallpaper in my apartment when I bought it takes the cake.

 

I like your woodwork.  Now I want to know the story behind the chest in the dining room.  That is a beautiful piece!!

 

 

 

Here's my lovely house.  I'm on the third floor.

 

 

 

This is inside my front door:

 

 

I love my bathroom:

 

 

Our living room:

 

Here's my bedroom.  It's small, but really cozy and warm:

 

 

My transit schedules:

 

My kitchen (favorite room in the house):

 

 

The view out my kitchen:

 

The view out my living room:

 

The view out my bedroom:

 

 

 

These two are next door:

 

This one's across the street:

 

 

And that's my hood. 

Nice looking houses.  You can see a lot of good craftsmanship in your crib.

that looks like down the street from me in Fairfield

 

In a nice little rowhouse.  :wink:

Thanks guys!  Wasn't that wallpaper the worst?

 

I still think the wallpaper in my apartment when I bought it takes the cake.

 

I like your woodwork.  Now I want to know the story behind the chest in the dining room.  That is a beautiful piece!!

 

Of course, there has to be a story for a piece like that.  Excellent intuition.  Actually, I inherited it.  I have an "aunt" (my mother's best friend, but she's like a second mother to me) whose sister died 2 years ago.  So it was my aunt's sister's chest.  It was originally her mother-in-law's, and she had inherited it 50 years prior.  She disliked the thing for some reason, and kept it in storage.  My aunt had never even seen it until we were sorting through her sister's possessions, preparing everything for the family to go through.  Anyway, when the blood relatives decided what they each wanted, no one claimed this, so my aunt took it and gave it to me.  I was totally blown away by that, because it is a very interesting and beautiful cabinet.  Thanks for singling it out.  It's by far my favorite piece of furniture in the house.

Since I'm moving one floor down today, I thought it would be good to share some photos of my old apartment in the Emery Center Apartments in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati.