Laurelhurst Painted Lady

I am finally walking around the neighborhood again and I'm enjoying the chance to see some of the changes folks have made to their houses in the last several years.

In period, Craftsman homes weren't painted like this. As I understand it, painted ladies were a victorian thing, but I do love it when folks pick out the details. If we repaint our house, we will likely go painted lady. This is how this house used to look in 2012 when I was having copper gutter envy.

This is how it looked today.

So pretty.

Prineville Escrow Closed

We drove to Prineville on Monday to sign the papers and get the keys.

The house is pretty small, actually. Only about 1600 square feet. It has two and a half bedrooms (one is really tiny) and two bathrooms.

Entry looking into Living Room

Other side of Living Room. I think this used to be a bedroom but they removed the wall and
merged it into the living room to make it an L-shape.

Confession

Jeff and I are thinking about moving out of Portland. We LOVE our house and we love the neighborhood, but Portland? Not so much. Since moving back to the Portland area in 2010, we have seen our property taxes more than double (partially due to our remodel, but also due to the frequent bond measures that the city relies on so much for funding). There are homeless people camping on our sidewalks and in our parks and increasing reports of violence and crime.

Now, when we are expecting a package delivery, we have to hang out in the living room so we can watch for packages and quickly grab them before the porch thieves. Over the last year or two, I've seen several videos posted to Reddit by folks who have security cameras showing the package crime and from what I can tell it is too petty of a crime for the Portland police to try and respond.

Portland seems to be quite at a loss how to deal with its growth and quickly rising housing costs. They are allowing developers to tear down cute affordable houses, and rebuild with fugly expensive boxes, like this that sold for over $900K.

5934 NE 14th Ave, Portland OR 97211

Some historic neighborhoods, including the Laurelhurst neighborhood, are trying to apply for Historic District designation to protect against the escalating number of demolitions, and from what I can tell, Oregon's response was to introduce HB2007 to protect developer profits by removing the protections provided by these historic neighborhoods. Luckily, they failed, this time, but I don't have a lot of faith that they won't keep trying and eventually succeed.

There are increasing reports of beautiful homes, like this one on NE Thompson, being demolished or being scheduled for demolition. (That sign was a notice "to be demolished" back in March. I'm not sure whether that beautiful house was actually demolished or not. I'm afraid to look.) I simply can't take it anymore. It makes me too sad.

So, when we recently went on a visit to Prineville, Oregon, we looked at houses in a new development. (Prineville is a bit east of Bend, Oregon.) We are definitely considering moving. We could buy a pretty decent house for less than half the cost of a comparable house in Portland and also pay less than half the property taxes. That would help our retirement savings last longer, so it's a pretty compelling argument.

840 NE Steins Pillar Dr, Prineville, OR 97754

More Ida McCain Research

I've been working on more research for Laurelhurst trying to fill in some of the later history. In my search, I am always looking for more details about Ida McCain and her family. For those who have recently joined our blog, Ida McCain is the woman who built our house in 1911.

First off, I am grateful to the Multnomah County library which provides access to the paid NewsBank service for free. Also, another site that rocks is Historic Oregon Newspapers, which includes good quality scans of the papers. So, I was able to successfully search for newspapers in NewsBank, which had fairly low quality scans, and when there was pictures, I could go to the University of Oregon site and look up the date and download the pages.

I'm not going to repeat all my earlier information, but I do want to add more details I found in the last week during my latest bit of delving through old Oregonians. I'm not going to include pictures of the houses as I've already published them in an earlier post.

The Oregonian, 27 May 1909

Ida McCain came here with her family and formed Spencer-McCain in mid-1909. The earliest ad I found was May 27, 1909. They were advertising daily for work and got some.

It looks like they designed a house for E.L. Pope.
“The Oregonian, 22 Aug 1909:
E.L. Pope, an Easterner, who recently bought a five-acre tract overlooking the Willamette River about three and one-half miles this side of Oregon City, is having the Spencer McCain Company prepare plans for a handsome rustic bungalow. The bungalow will be 33x40 feet in dimension, and will contain seven rooms, a reception hall and a sleeping porch. It will be sided with resawed rustic, with buffet and mantle inbuilt in the walls. Furnace heat will be provided. The bungalow will cost about $3500. Mr. Pope intends to move into his new home with his family this Fall.”
     I don't know if they actually built it. I have no record of her working out of Oregon City. I did look up Pope and he ended up being sort of a big deal. He lived in Parkplace and ended up a judge.

The Oregonian, 29 Aug 1909

They did get a building job in Portland. They pulled a permit on the 27th of August: “Talbot Road, near Summit Avenue--R.W. Shepherd; builder Spencer, McCain & Co.; erect two-story frame dwelling; $4500.” This house is located at 2647 SW Talbot Rd (was 761 Talbot Rd).

Misc. Period Pictures

I've been poking through period publications looking for bathrooms. As usual, when I see an interesting picture I will take a screenshot. I'll share them here, in case you guys are interested.

Cheery green house exterior from "The Color Book" c. 1920s

Color Suggestions for House Exteriors from Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Paint Catalog, 1923.

I'll put a break into this post so it won't have to load all the images everytime folks visit the blog.

Aladdin Kit Homes

Today, I had an opportunity to help a neighbor find appropriate color schemes for her English cottage style home, so I found myself poking through old Aladdin catalogs again. I just love to dig through old kit home catalogs. I found a website that allows users to download old Aladdin catalogs here.

As usual, I took screenshots of the ones in color I liked the best and I'm sharing them here. (Because this post is going to have a ton of pictures in it, I'm going to insert a page break so you'll have to load the post if you want to see them all.)

Aladdin Kit Home, "The Cadillac," 1917

Aladdin Kit Home, "The Champion," 1920

Aladdin Kit Home, "The Detroit," 1922 (same coloration as 1919 catalog)

Laurelhurst Research

In the past week or so—when I was procrastinating making runners—I finished up my Laurelhurst data spreadsheet. For most houses, I have the year they were built and who the first owner was. I now have a pretty good idea of when the bulk of the houses were built in Laurelhurst (hint, the 1920s). I also have a fairly good list of the builders of Laurelhurst.

My information is far from perfect because if an individual bought a lot and hired a contractor to build the house, the old permits would be under the owner's name, so I have no idea who the builder was. But, quite often, builders would buy several lots and build spec homes. Also, my list only includes information for houses where the original permit was available; quite a few were missing.

Now that the weather has started to turn toward spring, I've also been able to get outside and take some pictures of houses. Invariably, I am drawn to houses built in the 1910s because they were more often Arts & Crafts style or bungalows, which are obviously my favorite.

Anyway, I have a growing photo album of pretty homes located in Laurelhurst. Is this something you guys are interested in seeing? I can post them occasionally, but I don't want to bore my followers to death . . .

Here are a few to give you an idea.

Ida McCain built this house

Ida McCain built this house

Another house with a Porte Cochere

This house is just begging for a red roof

Not sure what style this is—an Arts & Crafts Four Square?

Okay, that's enough. If you guys want more pictures of houses this year, let me know in comments . . .

Ida McCain

So, besides being sick for the last several days, I've been obsessed with trying to figure out Ida McCain's story. (As a reminder, for those just now dropping by—she was the female architect who designed our home in 1911.) I broke down and re-subscribed to Ancestry.com for six months, primarily because I have so many people from Laurelhurst I want to research. (I'm getting quite the collection of family trees of people who aren't related to me.)

In my research, I discovered through old directories and census records that Ida McCain was the architect of the firm Spencer-McCain, and she was only 25 or so when she was here in Portland.

Arthur, her brother, worked as a meat cutter before arriving in Oregon, and then described himself as a contractor for the 1910 census. Their business partner, Charles Spencer, was a bricklayer and reported contractor on the 1910 census. He was also married to Eda McCain, Ida and Arthur's sister. (Their mother Hannah King was also here with them.)

Besides our house, I've found 10 houses they completed here in Portland (that haven't been torn down). In March 1912, this sentence was published in The Oregonian, ". . . the Spencer-McCain Company will build on seven lots [in Laurelhurst] this summer."

I've identified maybe four of these houses, so there might be three more. Or maybe they just abandoned their plans for seven houses to return to California. Or maybe they didn't plan to build that many homes but said they were because they were trying to create interest; I'm trying to figure it out. So, I am irrationally going through lot-by-lot making an "inventory" of all the houses in Laurelhurst including the builders, when I can find the information at portlandmaps.com. (What an amazing resource we have!) This will also help to match up old photos when they only identify the owner (or builder) name.

Anyway, I can usually get through 100 to 150 a day during my goof off in front of TV time, so at this rate it will take me something like a month or two to make the full list. But, if Spencer-McCain built more houses in Laurelhurst, I am determined to find them. =)

Oh, and since I'm taking over the Laurelhurst newsletter this spring, I should have some good material for history-based articles. At least I hope so.

This is a concept drawing for a house they were planning to build for Hannah King, their mother, in Alameda Park. Though, I think they actually built it (or its twin) in Laurelhurst on Senate Street.

More Early 1900s Bungalow Exteriors

I ran across another supply of color bungalow pictures from the early 1900s. I'm going to backdate this blog post so folks won't see this at the top of their reader. These are mostly for google searches anyway.
I like to do what I can to support accuracy in bungalow exterior remodels.

These houses are from a book titled "Book of Home Building and Decoration," by Henry Collins Brown, published in 1912.

These houses are from a house plan catalog put out by Central Lumber in 1920.

This set of bungalows was published in a book titles "Home of Your Own" put out in 1921 by The Corn Exchange National Bank.

Plus a pretty brick bungalow from "Genuine Economy in Home Building" published in 1913 by Hydraulic-Press Brick Company.

Craftsman Exterior Research

I have found some awesome resources online for researching the exterior appearance of our home and I thought I should share them. Of course, there is Robert Schweitzer's Bungalow Colors: Exteriors, which is a good place to start, but I always want more! And I found it this week.

The Arts & Crafts Society has an absolutely amazing archive of old home kit catalog images online:
Kit Home Information
I have spent hours meandering through all their links.

There is a second amazing resource at the Antique Homes website:
Vintage House Plans
Though, less focused exclusively on Craftsman homes, it also has an extensive collection of old catalog images. I found my so-far favorite color scheme here. (And Fenner was a local-to-us company!)

Fenner Hickory

Finally, I found the mostly complete collection of Aladdin House Kit catalogs at the Clarke Historical Library.
Aladdin Company Annual Sales Catalogs

Sears' website has a select listing of their homes, but it's not complete. But here is the link:
Images of Sears Homes

We Bought a House!

I just got an email from our realtor: "Your purchase of the house is final. Congratulations!" It's a relief to finally have this house-buying experience come to a conclusion. Over the last four years, we looked at countless houses both in California and Oregon. We had nearly a dozen house-hunting weekends/trips with realtors. This house was our sixth written offer.

So, our long California adventure is nearing an end. During the last four years, it has been nice to be near family and get to know our nieces and nephews better. I hope we'll have the resources to come back and visit more often than we did last time we lived up in Oregon.

Finally Have a Deal!

We finally have a deal! The sellers are going to sell us the house for our offered price. They have decided to close on May 18, but I have class on May 18, so I guess we won't be there! Not really sure how that will work. I'm guessing our realtor will have to collect the keys for us and we'll pick them up when we visit later in the month.

So, we now get to embark on our own Craftsman fixer house adventure! Yeah! I hope we like scraping woodwork (or at least don't hate it too much).

Almost Over

We received our bid for foundation and pest repair work on the Multnomah house today. It totaled $13,160; combine that with the roof repair and we're talking close to $15,000. In an earlier addendum, we asked the sellers to reduce the price $15K and they informally came back with $5K. Today, based on the bid, we decided to instead ask for $10K off the price.

We figure we have good grounds, as the quote is from their own realtor's recommendation. We are tired of this house-buying process and it's just not worth digging in our heels and losing this house over a few thousand dollars.

It's up to the sellers now. If they accept, we're supposed to close on May 13. Unfortunately, I didn't have my school schedule with me when we picked the original close date (nor did we really expect to get this far) and we won't be going to Oregon for close. If this deal closes, I don't think we'll be heading up until I'm done with finals on May 26.

Final Extension

Last night we received another extension form from the sellers of Multnomah extending our inspection deadline until Wednesday. Since they granted the extension, on Monday our realtor will be meeting a builder at the property to get a "real" quote for the necessary repairs. Since the builder was suggested by their realtor, our hope is we'll be able to come up with a mutually-agreeable price for this purchase.

So, more than likely, nothing further will happen on this until late-Monday. This is surely the last extension and we should know by Wednesday if we're buying this house.

Another Extension

We have been back and forth with the sellers and it seems somewhat likely this house purchase is going to fall through. Today is the current deadline for Jeff and I to back out without losing our deposit, or to extend the inspection deadline. We're trying to extend the inspection deadline so we have time to adequately respond to their counter we received last night at 8:30PM.

Last week we asked the sellers to reduce the price another $15K. We had a eco-cool builder out there and he gave us a no-doubt high guesstimate of $60K for the needed repairs on the house. He couldn't see what was in the finished areas and so surely allowed for some unseen damage repair. He was also accounting for the fact that we wanted real, structural repairs, not cosmetic touchups.

This week, the sellers had their person out and he said he could make all the requested repairs for $6K! Really??! They can't be serious. Based on the shoddy roof installation, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

So, today we are trying to find another builder satisfactory to all parties who can go out and give a "real" estimate to repair the foundation damage and the pest damage. But if the sellers won't extend the deadline for us to do this, then we'll just sign a document backing out of the purchase tonight.

This is very disappointing for us. We've been seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, but it turns out it was a train (again).

You would think it would be easier to buy a house... I guess my expectations are just too high. Unfortunately, I have an affinity for historic fixers because then I'm not paying for the previous owners remodeling, but then I expect the price to reflect the unimproved condition. We're not finding that to be the case.

Update at 8PM:

The sellers extended this transaction until Wednesday. So, this transaction marches on. Our realtor is going to go out on Monday to meet their realtor's recommended contractor to hopefully get a firm estimate for what the foundation and pest repair would cost. We don't trust the seller's guy.

Still Waiting

We're still waiting to hear from the sellers about whether they'll accept our revised price. If they don't get back to us by tomorrow afternoon we'll have to terminate the transaction or risk losing our $5,000 deposit. Clint, our realtor, has high hopes we'll hear this evening, as he says the sellers met this afternoon. I'll post later tonight if we hear either way.

This week, I've been working on the tough tasks on my list this week; those tasks I've been putting off for too long. I've been collecting estimates to redo the plumbing in this house here in Redwood City. And I've scheduled a bunch of Kaiser appointments. I figure we'd better take advantage of our medical insurance while we still have it. I've also started pricing storage spaces in Oregon. It will be time soon enough to rent one and start shuttling stuff up there. There's just so many things to do before we move.

I did spend a few hours cruising around on the Portland MLS again in anticipation of the sellers rejecting our offer. I used to like cruising around the MLS more than I do now. I'm getting a little tired. And this time I cruised around the Salem MLS as well. There are a few promising prospects down there, but nothing I love. But the house prices are about $100K less, so it might be tempting. (Just for kicks, I also cruised around the MLS in Wisconsin; boy am I jealous of their house prices. There were some pretty nice houses for less than $100K!)

Maybe we'll just rent.... Really not a feature as I'm very sick of moving, but it may work out in the long run, especially if we find jobs in places outside Portland. But finding a rental with no jobs and two pets is gonna be a hassle.

Or maybe we'll just buy a very inexpensive house (less than $200K, which is cheap in Portland) and live in it until we find jobs and then buy another nicer house once we find jobs. Then we can keep the first small house as a rental property. It would be nice to have some passive income that isn't subject to Federal Reserve manipulation.

Update at 11PM:

So, the buyers want to extend our offer to Thursday. In other words, they don't know yet. I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow. I have to talk to Clint about what their extension means for our deposit. I thought we already had until Thursday to figure this out.

Are the Sellers Motivated?

We're about to find out. =)

So, after having our builder and a mason out, we have much more information about what this house needs to be restored. We are torn about what to do about this house. There is the worry that the right thing to do would be to walk away from this money pit, but we've both fallen for the neighborhood. On Sunday we dropped back by the house and visited with the neighbors and they're really nice.The foundation isn't as bad as we feared, according to our builder. We should be able to reinforce the weak area and it should last a while longer. Though, the roof is much worse than we realized. The installation was so shoddy that we're actually going to have to remove it and install a new roof.

Anyway, we're planning to go back to the sellers and ask them to cut the price another $15K. In our estimate (actually our builder's ballpark estimate), it needs about $60K worth of structural work to fix the pest damage, weak foundation wall, crumbling masonry, and replace the roof. We think it only fair they should defray at least a portion of that expense. If they refuse, we'll just have to walk away—again! But we really don't want to.

Home Inspection Done

It took about 4 hours to have the home inspection done today. In addition to the many problems we already knew about, the inspection also found a number of problems we weren't aware of.

The 96-year-old foundation on the house has issues. The inspector showed us an exposed section on the back of the house where he could basically shove his pocket knife into the cement. While there aren't many visible cracks, the concrete is very soft. So, now we're trying to figure out what this means for the future. How soon does this foundation have to be replaced?

The inspector also found some pretty extensive termite and beetle damage. In fact, there is a large beam under the front of the house that is practically hollow. He was almost able to insert his finger into the soft wood. We were also unaware of this damage before this morning.

While we were walking along the side of the house looking at a sagging roof, I tripped over something sticking out of the ground and I fell backwards into the neighbor's fence. It was so rotten that the fence just came down. Unfortunately, I managed to fall on a nail which punctured my hand. Ouch.

On Monday we have two more appointments. It's possible we'll have enough information by then to make an informed decision.