Helllloooooo, is anyone there? 


    It's been an isolating year for many of us, even as we've spent more time with the members of our own households and gotten to know our immediate neighbors better. For our part, we've been making it through relatively well, though our life on the corner has been changed.


    Both parents were able to transition to remote work in March 2020, our 4 year-old came home from preschool, and our 1st grader finished his school year on Zoom. With the kitchen remodel and closet/bathroom conversion finishing up in our home, we were incredibly fortunate to shelter in March and April at our parent's cabin in the woods, a few hours away. At that time, we didn't know how the virus was transmitted or much about any of it, but we knew that trying to get the kids out of the house in an urban environment, with a 4-year old that will lick a light pole, was not going to be safe. The work on our bungalow was close to completion, and there was no way we could work/school from the little home during construction. Those 6-8 weeks spent at the cabin, trying to do our work remotely for the first time and simultaneously adjust with our organizations through the shutdown, all while having the children there full-time, are a distant blur in our memory now...so much has changed. Still, we're grateful to have had that space to feel safe during a scary time, to take the children into the forest and breathe, and to come home to a bungalow that had not one, but TWO bathrooms for our family of four, as well as a nicely functioning kitchen.
  Again, for all of this, we are incredibly grateful. The events of the past year have brought into an intense focus the inequities of our systems and the struggles of those people who often work the hardest. We don't mean to say that we haven't been working hard for the past year. We have been clocking more hours than ever at our jobs and also taking on more with full-time feeding and care of the children, and all the household chores that go along with 4 people being trapped in a bungalow around the clock. Still, we have had opportunities to escape to our parent's cabin for some air, we've had their help with the children almost weekly, and we haven't been required to choose between exposing our family to the risk of Coronavirus or facing the loss of our livelihoods. Also, we've been trapped in a beautiful bungalow in a beautiful neighborhood. So, yes, for our part, we've made it through the first year relatively well. 
     When we came back to Sacramento amidst the new "locked down" environment, we really dove into our research on the neighborhood. After all, there was little else to do. We thought we'd just go methodically down the block and chronicle the early history of each home, then maybe wrap around the corner to the rest of the Bungalow Row Historic District before expanding outward. We had started by unearthing a  good bit of information about the people who lived on our corner, but we wanted to know more about the other people on the block. We wrote a little bit about 2501 Q Street, 2505 Q Street, 2511 Q Street, 2515 Q Street, and 2519 Q Street. Once we got about halfway through the block, we realized two things;

(1) We weren't really going to figure these people and these homes out by just studying our block. We had to expand our perspective.

(2) The whole point of getting into writing about the homes was to document all the cool stuff we're finding. Writing big long blog posts is kind of hard...there must be an easier way to quickly share our cool finds- enter Twitter. Back in social media land, we were quickly tiring of the rhetoric on Facebook and NextDoor. Even though Twitter has plenty of that, we don't have to see it coming from our Uncles and Neighbors, watch family and friends get nasty, or become tempted to get involved in that toxic stew. So, we started tweeting bungalows for fun and as a distraction. You can follow us if you are on the bird site, and get more frequent access to our findings.

  We discovered that with tweets, you can just find an old ad, go have a look at the building, then basically tweet it out with any minimal information you've uncovered. It doesn't HAVE to be some long intricate story...but it can be, with multiple tweets. So, we just started tweeting photos of bungalows, some old ads, and some snippets of history. It was a fun way to share the things we were learning, and our appreciation of the bungalows, on a more frequent basis. Also, the more we learn about the environment around our bungalow row, the easier, and more interesting, our research about the bungalow residents becomes. We recognize our completely amateur status and sometimes feel silly that we're often "uncovering" stuff that others have uncovered and documented before, but it's a new revelation to us, and people didn't have iPhone 11's to take awesome amateur photos before, or Twitter to share them quickly, so we feel like maybe we're doing some good.  ​

We're going to keep tweeting as a way of gathering information into digestible snippets, then we'll see what kinds of stories we can share over here. We're also going to get through the block this year. We've only got 3 more of the North side of Q Street left, so we'll at least get to our corner, hopefully further. ​

   Other than sleuthing out Sacramento's history, we've mostly been keeping busy this past year with work and feeding the children. The new kitchen has gotten a lot of use, as has the 2nd bathroom. We finally "bit the bullet" and had a central Air Conditioning and Heating System installed in June, when we realized that we were going to be sitting around inside our home working all Summer, with no escape to air-conditioned offices or cooled museums during the heat of the day. That turned out to be a really good decision, as we couldn't open the windows to let the whole house fan run at night for most of late Summer and early Fall due to the terrible wildfires. Meanwhile, we were acutely aware that people in our community were sheltered in tents with no hope for a home or a reprieve from the smoke and heat. Anticipating another fire season with the drought that we've been experiencing, and really noticing how serious the housing crisis in California has become, we've also poured a bit of ourselves into our neighborhood issues this past year. We have a renewed commitment to supporting initiatives that house people, and to the goal of ending homelessness on the grid, by the river, everywhere in Sacramento, and in California. We also see that the space in our city is overallocated to cars and under allocated to people, so  we're supporting active and public transportation when we can, including in our practices. We rarely fire up the engine of our own automobile, opting instead to bike, skate, scoot, and walk around town as much as possible. Our world has gotten a lot smaller this year, and you know what? We're kind of OK with that. It's enabled us to really look closely at the things we used to "drive by" every day. We do look forward to "rejoining society" soon, but like many others have expressed, we're sure we'll never want to go back to "the way it was."  
​

    It was overdue, and we really wanted to put some love into the kitchen of our 1908 Craftsman Bungalow in Sacramento, California. When we purchased the home in 2011, the original openings from the kitchen to the hallway, living, and laundry area were all altered, and the built-in buffet features were stripped. The ceiling in the kitchen had been lowered, probably sometime in the 50's if not sooner. The cabinets were likely installed around that time. These cabinets may have worked back in the day, but the drawers didn't open or shut easily, and the cupboards were too short to hold our kitchen basics by the time we lived in the house. Also, there was no good place to put the refrigerator, so we ended up with the fridge placed next to the stove, blocking the chef from all interaction with the outside (living room) world. There was no vent for the stove, though gas was piped to that spot. The original stove would have been near the utility chimney that was covered up in the kitchen wall during a prior owner's remodel. 

The kitchen itself, despite having a lovely set of original windows over the sink, and even more original windows in the laundry area to the rear, was surprisingly dark. The lowered ceilings, enclosed openings, and modern appliances really suffocated the space. Cooking was a lonely task. Our spot for a dining table was a corner of the kitchen, and with a general lack of counter or cabinet space, that was often filled with various foods and sundries, making it an unwelcome resting spot.  To compound that, we had installed IKEA metal shelving on the walls above the dining table, in a desperate attempt to gain more usable storage space. This made everything even more cluttered and closed-in.  It was somewhat functional, but we knew it could be better! We lived in the home for nearly 8 years before we touched the kitchen, other than the splashes of sunny yellow paint that we smoothed over the walls, which we had painstakingly peeled the old wallpaper from before we even moved in. It definitely hurt to see the one thing we had worked so hard on- getting those walls smooth and glossy, completely destroyed when the walls were torn down for the remodel. Still, our new blue pantry and broom storage area is a welcoming sight when we walk in the door, and the kitchen no longer needs the sunny yellow splashes to brighten it up, as we've gotten the actual sun back into the house. ​

  We worked with local architect Matthew Piner of Pinerworks to come up with a plan for our bungalow remodel. We knew of and regarded Matt highly due to his participation in the Preservation Committee and our local Neighborhood Association, so we were thrilled when he agreed to take our project on. We knew we wanted a kitchen remodel, I wanted to see the original windows over the laundry while working in the kitchen, and our family needed a second toilet, at minimum.  We looked at the fantastical possibilities of building into the attic or basement, but none of it really made sense for our little cottage.  The attic was a bit too small and short to build "livable space", and we were not willing to consider raising the house to accomodate a full basement. There are many bungalows in Sacramento that have been lifted and expanded, and I think it's a great way to get more space, update, and restore a home, but we felt strongly that our house was not a candidate for this treatment. Why ruin the perfection of bungalow row and the magic of our low-set cottage by building up and towering over the other bungalows? Why would the historic district even allow this? If we really wanted a lifted bungalow, there are many already existing to choose from in Sacramento. If, in the future, the homes around us are altered and the spell is broken, we will reconsider the "lift and expand" approach, especially since it would enable us to put the house on a new foundation. For now, we went with a plan that changes nothing that is visible from the street, and preserves the magical feeling that made us fall in love with this block, and house. We remained on our original brick foundation, and came up with a more moderate plan to update the old bungalow just enough  to accomodate our  modern family of 4. 
    Our plan turned a bedroom closet into a walk-through bathroom, connecting our laundry area to our main bedroom. Our bedroom has a 9 x 9 sleeping porch attached, which was built/enclosed by Ms. Marcia Mays in about 1916. This room was functioning as the nursery, then the 2 boy's room, and is now an office, but in the plan, it is shown as a closet/dressing room. Technically, since we removed our closet, it IS the closet now, but there's room for a dresser, desk, chair, and some musical instruments, so we are resourceful with the space. Our bedroom is large enough that we are able to fit a King sized bed and a gorgeous period Armoire in it, so we don't really need to use the enclosed sleeping porch as a closet.
      With the removal of an old utility chimney that was behind a wall between the closet/kitchen, we gained enough room for a shower and toilet in our new bathroom. There wasn't quite room for a sink inside the small bathroom, but our new laundry sink is just outside the pocket door, so it works well for us. 
     The plan addressed our kitchen cramped-ness by raising the ceilings, which had been lowered from their original height, and by expanding the openings to the adjacent living room and  laundry room on either side of the kitchen. This allowed us more room for cabinets, pantry space, and counters while also opening up the kitchen space to the natural sunshine and historic windows. 
        When demo began, we discovered that the original openings/doorways from the kitchen to the hall, living, and laundry had all been altered at some point. The original opening to the living room was large, in the center of the wall, and probably had a built-in feature of some sort. This confirmed my belief that the house was originally more open, before the built-ins were ripped out and the doorways covered up, and that our plan would restore that breezy "openness" that is so essential to the California Craftsman Bungalow style. 
            This remodel was a major undertaking, and was the real instigating factor for me to do some research about the neighborhood and home's history. It felt wrong to change it significantly without knowing more about the past. We tried to honor the house's past by re-using materials and using the original design for inspiration.  In the end, we're extremely satisfied with the increased livability of the floor plan, and the modern amenities that have been added, all while preserving the historic charm of our 1908 Crasftman Bungalow.     
​ 

This remodel would not have been possible without these people, who deserve our eternal gratitude.

Mary and Daniel Wilson- Supportive Parents
Matthew Piner, Pinerworks- Architect
Brian Harvey and Jenna Baird, B&B Harvey Construction- Builders

Round 1: Spruce Up
Round 2: Plumbing Problems
Round 3: Porch and Walkway Repair

    Repairing the porch was one of the first major projects that we undertook which felt really good to do. We had some projects that happened in the 8 years of living in the house leading up to the porch restoration, but none of them were quite as satisfying and rewarding as reinvigorating our outdoor living and dining room turned out to be. 

Round 1 of Repairs: 2011 Move-in Spruce Up

    When we moved into our little bungalow in 2011, we were fortunate to have a couple of house savvy friends who helped us peel and scrape the wallpaper & paint the walls. We didn't paint all the rooms, but we peeled the blue and pink 80's looking wallpaper off the kitchen walls, then painted that a glossy yellow. In our bedroom, which had layers upon layers of ancient wallpaper over plaster walls, we chose to prime and paint over it. Our arms and elbows hurt, but it felt pretty good to not have to look at all that wallpaper anymore. We did leave one bedroom papered in pink roses, as a tribute to the former owner, who obviously loved pink, and also because it was in nice condition, and our arms were tired. We hired a contractor who helped us re-floor and rearrange the bathroom.  Another time, I'll see if I can dig up before and after photos of all this, and give some more details.
    We tented for termites upon purchase and the inspector advised us of multiple places where dry rot was present or repairs were needed on the porch. He also poked holes to expose the damage, leaving us with little exploratory holes in all the rotted parts. We proceeded to ignore these much needed repairs for 8 years while we got married, partied, worked, and introduced children to the mix. It's a good thing that our friends helped us with painting and we had the bathroom fixed up before we moved in, because afterwards, we were just too distracted by life to deal with any of it. Our next major project turned out to be the sewer, and not by choice. This (literally) crappy situation forced us to buckle down and give the house some of the much needed maintenance that it needed.
​   ​

Round 2: 2017 Plumbing Problems

We got a deal and weren't outbid on the house because it had some minor* issues. Wallpaper everywhere, the opposite of an updated kitchen, and there was standing water in the bathtub, even during viewing. We thought snaking the line would fix it. We had no idea what we were in for.





​

    There were multiple factors that contributed to our plumbing woes. A series of large and lovely camphor trees surrounding the property, with their  extensive root systems seeking water in the rich wet Sacramento soil below our house, were one factor. A house built before the modern sewer system, with likely copper or clay pipes leading across two neighbors' front yards to feed to the original City sewer line in the alley was another. These were issues that we had some knowledge of. We figured they could be fixed with snaking and root killer.  It turns out that they couldn't. The final factor was unknown to us until we finally forced the issue.

Here's how it happened.

    We moved in and had to have the line snaked quarterly to remove tree roots. We had the plumber on speed dial. We would also pour root poison down the toilet and sewer clean-out, but the system still backed up. It was sort of functional with 2 people, then 2 people and a baby in diapers, but we always had issues when we had guests and more people were using the bathroom. It just seemed to get worse and worse. The guy would come out to snake the line and work on it for a full hour, getting some tree roots out, but always hitting a hard obstacle in the line somewhere before it fed to the City system. We thought it was a big tree root, you know, from all the camphors. Turns out, it wasn't.

   In  2017, 6 years after we'd moved into the house, we decided it was time to have some family over for Christmas Eve. We predicted the plumbing issues would arise, so we resolved to deal with it once and for all. We had a plumber come out in November to snake the line and run a camera, with the idea of getting a quote to finally fix our issue. The camera situation was unsuccessful, with them hitting a hard obstacle, not being able to identify what it was, and advising us to contact the City and find out more about what was going on with the line. We were passed around between entities and temporarily gave up on obtaining a long term solution. We proceeded with the Christmas Eve party and it. was. a. disaster. With 25+ people over, all eating ribs and chinese food, the bathroom backed up almost immediately and we suddenly had NO FUNCTIONING BATHROOM ON CHRISTMAS EVE! There was literally nowhere to go. Our 9-month pregnant cousin and 88 year old grandmother...the children... everyone was completely and utterly bathroom-less on what was supposed to be the most magical evening of the year. As the hostess, I wanted to just crawl in a hole and die. 

    After the Christmas Eve debacle, I was mortified and even more resolved to finally fix this terrible plumbing once and for all. We called out a couple more plumbers, one of whom told us that he had identified where the block was, and that all we needed to do was dig a small hole in our neighbor's front lawn to see what was blocking our line. When we asked, our neighbors were not so enthusiastic about us digging. They filled us in on the plumbing issues that they themselves had experienced. These neighbors moved into their house just about a year after us. Their line had also been going to the alley, through another neighbor's backyard, and they also had a blockage. They ended up rerouting their entire system due to issues with going in the neighbor's backyard. They also put in new water lines, which turned out to be relevant. They advised us to do the same. They did not give us permission to dig a small hole in their front yard so that we could see what was going on with the line.  We were faced with abandoning that line, rerouting and creating a new connection to the City sewer, which was more than we anticipated, but we needed plumbing, so we started to get quotes. As we started this process, a development occurred.

    Of all the entities we called to report the obstruction in our line and try to get resolution, PG&E thought there might be a gas line puncturing our sewer, so they sent a guy out one day and he DUG A GIANT HOLE IN THE NEIGHBOR'S FRONT YARD WITHOUT ASKING ANYONE!  The neighbors were not happy, since this is what they were trying to avoid. The PG&E guy took one look at the issue, saw it wasn't a gas line, called it into the City, and left the giant hole there with some plywood over it. It was a water line. The City had not installed it. The neighbor's plumber had installed it when they updated their sewer and water line. They had installed a water line going right through our sewer line and we had been dealing with a system that backed up due to this for over 6 years. We had no functioning plumbing at this point, with 2 small children at home, we were showering at the gym and using the bathroom at Starbucks. Love Laundry was my second home. 









​

It could obviously have gotten very ugly with our neighbors at this point, but we live next to these people, and it seemed to have been an honest mistake due to old infrastructure that really did need updating, so we bit the bullet and proceeded to reroute our sewer system. Coincidentally (?) the plumbers we were already working with were the ones who punctured our sewer line with the water line install, so they gave us a small discount on the reroute job, the City reduced fees for us, and we got to stay friendly with the neighbors. We got even more friendly with the neighbor on the other side, because she had been dealing with the exact same issue. Our lines were right next to each other and both were punctured by the new water line. She got a discount to reroute hers while everything was dug up and connected to the City, and we both got working plumbing for the first time in years! This was a major lifestyle upgrade. Our line now feeds to the City sewer just outside our house, without going near anyone else's yards or past any extraneous trees. We also had the pipes on the other side of the house lined via trenchless system. This is supposed to keep the darn camphor tree roots out for good.  

While this plumbing sewer nightmare doesn't really have anything to do with the porch, I am prefacing our porch repair success story with this saga, to prove that we went through some real s**t that wasn't really that fun to deal with before we finally got to the good stuff, like the porch, and the kitchen/bathroom addition project that was in our near future. The pipes had to get fixed, which was the beginning in a series of major repairs that we did to the house. The plumbing supports all the pretty things we got to do afterwards.

Round 3: 2018-2019 Porch and Walkway Repairs

  About this time, even one working bathroom was becoming a constraint, as our children began using the bathroom more. Potty training was taking up a large portion of our toilet's usable daily hours. Working plumbing was great, but we wanted more. We wanted 2 bathrooms, and also the kitchen/laundry area needed some attention. We started to talk to local architect Matthew Piner about our options, and as we were refining the plans for the kitchen and bathroom, we realized that we were going to need a builder. Our porch was also rotting off the front of the house by this point, so we knew that this needed to be addressed. We were already thinking about getting started on the porch before we embarked upon the interior remodel, but then something happened that made us want to deal with this porch issue right away.  

It was May of 2018, our 5 year-old son's graduation from preschool, and we were rushing out the door to make the ceremony. I was wearing our nearly 3 year-old in a wearable carrier, dashing out the door with a salad bowl in one hand, and I tripped on THE CRACK. I had a terrible clumsy fall, whereby I managed to save both the salad and the toddler from damage, but somehow destroyed both my ankle and knee. My ankle wasn't right for months. We were late, so I limped over to the ceremony with a bloody knee under my skirt and we took these adorable photos. 

You see, not only was the wood on the porch rotting, the concrete walkway leading up to it had risen over the years, creating a very large crack in the concrete, and a gigantic toe-stubbing concrete lip on the side that had risen. You can see these problems in pretty much any picture of our kids playing in the yard. 

. We decided that repairing the porch was a great way to test out our builder and get things going, even though we weren't quite ready to start the interior. We worked with a team of builders who are immensely skilled. They were enthusiastic to use similar materials to restore our porch to its full beauty, rather than performing a cheap patch job or introducing vinyl to a 110 year old home's exterior. The task at hand was to rebuild the concrete walkway, repair the rotting wood on the porch siding and floorboards, and rebuild the steps, which were askew from the rising concrete, and starting to come apart. 

Here is a series of spooky photos I took of the porch in October 2018, before repair work began. If you look closely, you can see the spots where the old handrail had rotted off, the rotting siding, the holes in the floorboard, and the concrete issues. Also, notice the angle of that last step...kind of odd, but I guess it was made to go along with the tilted concrete. 

When work commenced, the steps were taken apart and we started using the back entrance for all of our coming and going.

The Job- as described in builder's invoice, since I am not great with the technical lingo of carpentry.

Remove all rotting wood from front porch area- stairs, treads, siding, and stringers. Remove cracked and uneven concrete. Replace stair stringers and any necessary support structure.

Framing Wood work -- Vertical grain Doug-fur for the treads, and risers. Cut, sand, prep and seal steps with 2-part epoxy Smith and Co sealer. 13' x 21", top step, 3 steps at 13' x 11" and 3 risers 13' x 6 1/2"

Siding to match existing. 260' of redwood lap siding, mitered corners to match existing. Primer seal on front and back for longevity. Paint to match on front. Redwood heart lumber for cap material, prime both sides cut, sand and fit to match existing. Miniture crown mouldings detail under cap to match existing. 

Concrete Dig, place gravel base, frame forms and prep walking path, side yard path and planter box for concrete.
Concrete truck, concrete pump, concrete finishers. 

Specialty Demo and removed both concrete footing side walls and front landing due to incorrect elevation, cracks and
instability. Will form and pour cement for new support side walls. (In process)

Framing- Will remove and replace support beam at top of stair stringers with 2 2x12' pressure treated boards .

​Landscape Root cutting and shaving to meet Arborist specifications. 

We had a suspicion that the camphor tree roots had affected the concrete walkway and porch's integrity, but we had no idea how large the problem was until the roots were uncovered. These camphor trees have large root systems, and there was one particular root that was jutting under our house, straight through the porch area. Another portion of the root was causing the sidewalk to rise closer to the tree. After consulting with the City's arborist, it was decided that a 9 foot portion of the root would be removed, as it was far enough from the very large tree to allow the tree to recover. The portion that was closer to the tree and causing sidewalk damage would be shaved to flatten the surface. 

After the tree root came out, the new concrete walkway was laid and the porch was rebuilt with lumber from Burnett & Sons,  a Sacramento planing mill & lumber company in business since 1869. 

Once the beautiful wood steps went in, we started to get queasy about painting them. It didn't seem practical to leave the steps natural, with all the use they get, but we compromised with the decision to leave the risers natural. A new hand rail was fabricated and installed by our highly skilled builder.

Overall, the project took about 120 days. In the end, we were more than satisfied with the results. We love our new porch and walkway, and it gets a lot of use. We were 100% ready to proceed with the interior projects, working with the same team of builders.  After seeing how our porch came out, all of our neighbors wanted to hire them as well! 

Back in 2011 my boyfriend* and I bought a house together. I had the credit, he had the down payment- it was a match made in heaven. I've told the story to anyone who knows me a few times already, but in case you don't know me (yet), here goes....the story of how we bought the house. But first, here's a photo of the house from 2011, before it was ours. ​

The curbside appeal is everything with this house. This is important, because it was the curbside appeal that drew us in. We were walking through the neighborhood from our rental flat just 4 blocks away when we spotted the "Open House" sign and decided to take a quick look before heading on to Sacramento's first edition of SactoMoFo. We were just trying to get that pre-kid, pre-vegan food truck grub, but something about this open house made us pause here and let our tummies grumble as we walked through.
    It didn't hurt that it was on the corner of one of the most picturesque blocks in Midtown, lined with green lawns and mature shade trees. The homes are perfectly set back from the street, aligned bungalows, each built with custom Arts & Crafts details by developers Wright & Kimbrough between 1907-1909. Bungalow Row, as it is known here in Sac, is a Historic District designated by the City of Sacramento, and one of the special places where one can experience an in-tact, contiguous groups of homes built in the California Craftsman Bungalow style.

    The homes were built in keeping with the City Beautiful movement that was forwarded here in Sacramento by Wright & Kimbrough, with their development of natural land into neighborhoods filled with modest bungalows,  which then functioned as peaceful, lush, streetcar suburbs for the middle-class. Certainly, the fact that every home on the North side of the block bound by 25th and 26th, along Q Street, is built in the same style, has the same setback allowing for a nice front green space, and has 100+ year old mature trees with giant canopies in front of them, makes this particular corner house have a special "magical" feeling.
    
    It was fortunate for us that we happened to be strolling by on that day of the open house in  2011. After our walk-through, we were entranced by the Q Street Bungalow. We had been casually looking at open houses and had seen a couple of properties that didn't really speak to us, though they had potential (side note: I WISH THAT WE WOULD HAVE BOUGHT EVERY.SINGLE.ONE. It was 2011 after all, and prices were quite depressed after the Subprime Mortgage Crisis had wreaked havoc on the market) Anyway, we rightly were thinking, "wow, now might be the time to buy a house...the prices have really gotten more affordable"  and we were looking for a small home that would allow a couple to live nicely and pay about the same as our rent, but get some skin in the game. When we walked through, there were some obvious issues (Pink tub, pink wallpaper, pink EVERYWHERE...also backed up water standing in the only bath in the only bathroom, foreboding our coming years of mandatory attendance at the plumbing school of hard-knocks) STILL, we could not walk away feeling anything but completely twitterpated with this wreck of an old house, the "magical cottage" with the giant camphor tree canopy. We had been dating** for a few years at this point, and we had been walking this neighborhood together long enough to remember quite clearly a time when we had walked by a house with a "for sale" sign on the same block, saw the price tag, and laughed at how there was no way we could ever afford to live on such a cute little block. Now, the price tag was...almost 50% reduced and suddenly within our budget.
    
    The food truck event was on Saturday, April 30th, 2011. By the time we got there, the lines were comically long, even for a kid-less duo to endure, so we ended up eating elsewhere before looking at another house over by Southside Park that we were already planning to tour. We walked through the other house (again, I totally wish we would have bought this one too) , but our hearts were back at Q Street.  This Southside Park house paled in comparison to the magical bungalow, just as every house that we had seen before did, and we knew Q street was THE ONE. We worked with the agent who was showing the house and put in an offer on Monday, less than 2 days after stumbling into the open house, then bit our fingernails while we waited what seemed like months for the short sale to be approved by the lender.
     It was 2011, so almost everything was a short sale, and at least we weren't kicking anyone out of their home. The previous owner had taken out a reverse mortgage before passing in her old age. People often ask me if she passed in the house. I don't know, but it wouldn't bother me to know that she passed away in the beautiful bungalow that she probably treasured, surrounded by her pink rose wallpaper, pink extension cords and floral pink towels, pink tub, and whatever else made her happy in this life. Either way, it was in some sort of quasi-bank owned limbo when we made the offer, and we waited for awhile to find out, then had to wait a few more months to move in, but WE GOT THE HOUSE.
     We moved into the house in September 2011, were married a year later, and had our first son the next year. A couple years later, baby #2, another boy came along. Now we are a family of 4 living in a 110-year old 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom bungalow with just over 1,000 sf. of livable indoor space. It's been interesting and wonderful. Now that the boys are a bit older (6 and almost 4), we're ready to do all of those "house-projects" that didn't get done while we were busy having babies and getting them to this stage. There's a lot of deferred maintenance, and there's the issue of only having one bathroom for a family of 4. We are hoping to address it all and slowly restore this house, while also updating it a bit for the current century, keeping it true to the Artistic style that it was built in all those years ago. The Arts & Crafts movement was all about rebelling from the machine-made clutter of every day life and surrounding yourself with simple, natural, and soulful beauty. That speaks to so many of us humans, especially in the current era of disposable***, plastic, factory-made everything. I can't wait to share with you all the work that we've done and will do on the house, as well as some of our adventures as a family. Here's what the house looks like now- we've just had the porch restored and couldn't be happier with it, but I'll save the details for another time.  

​* Yes, I bought a home with a man that I wasn't even engaged to. The teller at Wells Fargo who issued our check for closing purposes threw us so much shade for being an unmarried couple, essentially tsking us when she saw the different last names and lecturing us about what we were "getting into" To be fair, this could have ended badly, but for us, it didn't. 
** Shacking Up
*** But not really. See, the bottom of the Mariana Trench.       ​