93 conway street, greenfield ma

well well well. a year or so after my last post here and some things have changed. a move to greenfield, a new puppy and quitting my job to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a published author all mean that buying a home is pretty much back burner material for Matt and I right now.

but that don't mean a boy can't dream right? case in point, 93 conway street.

turn of the century elegance.

view from the conway street.

as soon as we moved into our new place on devens street, i noticed this lady at the end of our block. the tall thin banks of windows and blocky, arts and crafts styling had me convinced this house was gorgeous inside. see up there on the left? that looks like a balcony to me. the lines of this house are perfect for me. blocky but romantic. the lot is a great size and the location is decent for this part of greenfield.

 just this week, it went on the market and i knew i had to see it. sadly, i missed this open house this weekend. here's hoping the agents will have another because . . . 

simple stained glass! pretty much my dream windows.

built ins! original fire place!

west facing reading room! i'd probably rework that bench so there's more comfort but i'll take it for now.

the photos on the listing really aren't great. but some selling points beyond what i've shown here are the second set of stairs to the maid's quarters (duh.) and that built in linen closet on the 2nd floor. i really really hope the realtor will have a second open house so i can get in here and live out my 19th century fantasies. the best part? this house is ridiculously priced at $250,000. that's comparable to what my folks paid for the mid-80s colonial revival i grew up in that doesn't have HALF the charm this does. sure the kitchen is dated (but there's a wall oven!). sure there are probably some headaches to owning a stucco home. i don't care. somebody start a kickstarter for me to be able to buy this lady and put her to good use. i solemnly swear to throw a huge halloween party every year as community service if you do.

update and 10 walnut.

2012 has been a great year so far.

just not the year of the house.

at some point mathew and i decided that we weren't going to be able to make it happen this year. thanks in a big way to SR + ML showing us their place and the conversations that came out of that excitement.

 that gem is on the market right now.

 http://www.32parkstreet.com/.

 hard to believe the last post i made here was about them starting the selling process.

so when we decided to not buy a house this year, part of that for me was about not looking for a house. difficult at first but after a couple weeks i wasn't missing it very much. until recently. call it the weather. or the fact that we're about to renew the lease on our apartment. or that two of our best friends have nearly sold their townhouse in brooklyn, so they're in the market and i'm looking at houses they might want. whatever, i've got the fever. and this week it hit me hard. over this little gem.

http://www.fitzgerald-realestate.com/Greenfield/Massachusetts/Homes/Midtown/Agent/Listing_58507763.html

10 walnut street. what a tasty treat you are. even if it broke rule #1 (not in turners falls), greenfield felt like a reasonable compromise for what, from this angle, looks like a pristine folk victorian nestled in the woods.

perfect.

all i want to do is decorate this porch for christmas. and have a giant christmas tree behind those front windows. also, that little table by the front door!

inside, its a bit of a different story. the ceiling almost looks like wood. that trim. the feeling is there for me though. i can imagine a finished product. with me in it. and the work that needs to be done in this room, throughout the whole house, is exactly the kind of home improvement i can handle with matthew. 

 i hate that chair more than i hate this wallpaper.

hutch! i'd want this to be the living room. we'd keep our 1st editions in the cabinet.

.

tiny window at the top of the stairs. 

looks like the floor has already been painted here. which would be nice permission to experiment with painted floors.

2nd porch and that horizontal window is over the kitchen sink. 

sadly, this is the last good angle of the house. there is a trainwreck of a "kid's room" on the second floor. the bathroom is mediocre and doesn't have a window. and the kitchen is pretty much just a long rectangle slapped on the back of the house. but. the work it needed was really all styling and surface. it was a project house within my scope of talents. 

i sent fitzgerald realty an email this morning requesting a showing and got an immediate response. someone made an offer that was sure to be accepted. which is for the best. i'm not sure how we'd have swung it, but for a moment it felt within reach. matthew and i drove by yesterday and the neighborhood is almost perfect. tucked back into the edges of greenfield's nice old home neighborhoods, there she was.

 and across the street was the house from hell. 

a rambling, asbestos sided beast lurking in an overgrown lot the width of three lots on the opposite side of the street, looking like an episode of horders. with a boat in the yard. we spent the rest of the night talking about how to create screening along the road using plantings. i dreamt about painting the living room and all of the fucking trim.

i've got the fever again. 

welcome back.

2012: year of the house (hopefully THIS house)

this brief paragraph is the only whining i'll do about how busy my december has been. i felt great about this blog when i started it in november and then, thanks to the new friends, old friends, lots of cocktails and parties-for-them, and a couple of holidays i dropped the ball. but now its january and time to get back on the horse.

- - -

early in the month, matthew and i had a very interesting offer extended to us. some friends, ML and SR invited us over for long anticipated cocktails (see above, re: procrastination) and to take a look at their house. which they were hoping to sell - quickly. side note: ML is quickly becoming the go to bartender for classy/classic cocktails in turners falls. any excuse to drink with him is one worth taking. but back to the facts . . .

these friends had found a beyond ridiculous-good deal-omg-apartment right on prospect park south in good old brooklyn that they were hoping to buy. and it just happens that SR and i had been originally introduced because they've been thinking about selling this house for a while. and its just my kind of house. bungalow, full of charm, and they've spent the past five + years or so doing the clean up that so many houses in TF need. and what a house! SR has done a great job documenting their time there in her thoroughly readable blog so i'll only include some my personal favorites.

front of house. things that would sell it for me, just from this photo include that incredible tree and the retaining wall (which i probably asked too many questions about but is so sweet). also notice if you can, the driveway to right, which has a strip of grass between the pavement tracks for the wheels of your car.

PORCH! this porch, i mean, it was good enough to be featured on design*sponge. it is more than good enough for me. i can just imagine the solid three seasons matthew and i would spend out here. the photos here don't really do it justice, but the windows are beautiful old beasts that swing out and lock into place. i haven't really been able to shut up about this house and it turns out my mother grew up with a porch just like this. all the more reason for me to love it.


here's a quick shot of SR's excellent use of the #1 trend of 2011: chevron.



a kitchen with space. 'nough said. maybe not. let me count the ways i love the non-existence of travertine, or fake marble, or terra cota, or "tuscan design elements". lordy. for the record, ML and SR added the cut out above the stove and it clearly makes the space feel bigger and brighter. the picture above of the bar and chevron is just on the other side, in the dining room. and from the stove you can see not only into that room but the living room as well - solving the age old problem of entertaining: how to be attentive to your guests without them being underfoot in the kitchen.

and there's a whole 2nd floor i won't even get into. not to mention the detached garage and yard. (really, check out the blog, its worth your time and you'll be completely inspired.)

- - -

so of course we want this house. it may have been the drinks but after we left and came home, we squealed and fantasized for over an hour, talking about what walls to knock down so we could put in a wood stove (seriously the only drawback we could see was that there wasn't a fireplace or wood stove, which we thought would be a deal breaker.) but after some serious discussion, it was clear that matthew and i couldn't marshal our resources to buy this gem on such short notice. ML and SR may have been jumping the gun as well, it seems like there are still some pieces in their lives that need to fall into place before they're truly ready to leave TF. so for now, matthew and i are still looking. and holding up every house we see against this one. and come late spring we'll revisit the idea of spending the rest of our foreseeable lives in a bungalow just below the hill. retaining wall and all.

253 silver street, greenfield ma

if you asked me if i have a dream house, right this minute, 253 silver street would be my answer. this house has been on the market for some time, i'm sure i remember seeing it over the summer of 2010. i think at that point it was priced quite a bit higher and i dismissed it as a dream that could never come true. now, my dream house is apparently under deposit.

i've been thinking about starting this blog for about a week now. i knew that this would be the first house i wrote about because it is such a freaking gem. having driven by the lot obsessively for most this summer, i can say it looks too good to be true. i should take a minute to admit something. i am an internet real estate junkie. i used to do it with apartments when we lived in brooklyn, because the apartment we lived in was such a joke. i'd troll my dream neighborhoods and look at all the great spaces i'd never be able to rent. it helped me refine my tastes and gave me a feeling for pricing and basic real estate terms. i hoped once matthew and i got married, we'd be ready to buy a house. well, we're married and itchin' for a place to put down roots. i know matthew is too. hence, househunting. but until now we haven't been serious enough to actually visit any properties (i worried that going to see a house i loved would make it so much harder, since we weren't ready to buy). our lease ends in just about eight months.

let's buy a house.

sadly, it won't be 253 silver street. i guess this is a lesson in being too cautious, or just bad luck. i've checked the status on like, a weekly basis, for the past couple months. it hits so many sweet spots for me - just a great fantasy. the fact that it is in greenfield, not turners falls (where we're 99% sure we want to live but greenfield has some great options in the old house market, so it's hard to ignore) was a black mark for sure. but tonight i went to cohn & company's website and there it was staring me in the face. under deposit.

253 silver street, greenfield ma


welcome home.

there are a second set of the same three windows, behind the photographer.
and those stairs! check out the full listing for another, even better view.

the porch, which looks fantastic from the outside, seems a little dark. but i had faith.

simple and clean, without the wallpaper of course.

and the perfect backyard.

i liked silver street because for what looks like such a small house from the street, she really packs a punch with her details. the yard it manageable and fantastically landscaped. the grey has the right amount of distinction and modernity to resonate with me, the red door is like the dot on a 'i'. it seals the deal.

i can't really stress how into that living room with the fire place and built-out stairs i am. the kitchen is probably the reason i never took 253 to a serious-enough-to-visit place. it seems like there's a nice amount of flow in the space, but matthew would never go for it. not enough room for big production meals. which i am ever thankful for and appreciative of. so, we'll have a big kitchen. that pantry almost makes you think twice about it though, right?

the bedrooms are probably pretty small. the horizontally paneled room would clearly be an office (most likely, matthew's) and one of the bedroom's would work as a second for myself. i'm a big proponent of not having a palatial master bedroom (i don't love the idea of a sitting area where i sleep), so the size didn't really bother me. the floors look great, all the wood work does really throughout. there seemed to be only a little bit of work taking down wallpaper, but of course, not having looked at the place in person you can never know what secrets are being kept.

i'm glad someone wants 253 silver street. i'm sure their paperwork will go through and they'll live a long happy life with that amazing staircase and the magic outdoor spaces on this corner lot. but maybe it won't and in i can sell matthew on that kitchen after all.