11/08/13 12:30pm

Ethan’s Glen, a Hines townhome development completed in 1978 near the Energy Corridor, clusters its quad pods around the community’s 32 wooded acres off Memorial Dr., just west of Paul Revere Dr. The 288 units feature rough-sawn cedar siding, sloped cedar shingle roofs, and cross-property views from semi-sheltered decks and balconies on 2 levels. One of the updated larger units popped up on the market this week, with a $329,000 asking price.

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11/07/13 4:00pm

A waterfront estate in Coldspring’s Paradise Cove on Lake Livingston pumps up the nostalgia. It’s not just the charming merry-go-round (top), a tilted bit of grandchild bait strategically placed on the grounds. Built in 2007, the sprawling, multi-peaked home mirrors grand-scale cottage escapes of another era. The references play out in the home’s scale and interior sprinklings of somewhere-in-time architectural “finds” from round-the-world. Vintage touches blend in with modern building materials made to look old, such as the exterior’s bricks and replica slate roof  with griffin and copper finials. Meanwhile, the chimney stacks hail from England, the front door from France, and the gazebo from Egypt. How convincing is the assembly? Only the custom newel posts from New England get a close-up in any of the listing photos, which also indicate a penchant for heavy, dark-stained trim, red velvet accents, and claw foot tubs.

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11/06/13 2:30pm

Look familiar? A 1964 Tara Oaks home re-relisted last week after washing its face (top) of its once-touted all-encompassing custom paint motifs (above), which drew a lot of attention after an appearance on Swamplot back in May 2013. In the interim, the tweaked corner-lot property also dropped its asking price to $1.975 million, down from the $2.395 million sought in 2 previous runs on the market between May and October of this year. Last week’s new listing calls attention to the home’s newly neutral color scheme, otherwise known as white. Here’s a waltz past the interior’s Now and Then looks:

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11/04/13 2:30pm

Gray-scale pavers perk up a front patio and walkway off the widened driveway of a renovated 1950 ranch. The north-facing Larchmont property is on a street blocked from nearby Chimney Rock Rd. by the neighborhood’s border fence, though gates do allow pedestrian access; there’s also a sound buffering barrier beyond the homes on the street behind this one, which back up to a stretch of the Southwest Fwy. feeder road.

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11/01/13 11:15am

Fresh interior paint gives a 1930 Riverside Terrace cottage the look of buffed up, unscuffed saddle shoes all tied up and tidy for the first day of school. The up-a-knoll property, located around the corner from Riverside Park, was relisted by 2 days ago after an 18-month hiatus from the market. The initial asking price back in November 2011 was $216,500, but it had dropped to $197,500 by March 2012. The current price tag for the spiffed-up house and its less-polished garage apartment is $207,500.

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10/31/13 2:30pm

It’s in a newish neighborhood of Western-themed street names north of Louetta near SH 249, but a former model home for the Vintage Royale subdivision appears more city mouse than country mouse (one particularly fond of its berry-pistachio-chocolate diet). Built in 2010 and yet-to-be occupied, the tropical punched promo home was listed last week, with an asking price of $269,900.

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10/30/13 1:45pm

Clear Lake is across and up the street from this wedge-lot property in League City’s Glen Cove Park neighborhood off FM 2094 (aka Marina Bay Dr.). Appearing a bit unchanged since Hurricane Ike left its mark in 2008, this 1972 home with small-windowed second floor living was listed “as-is” last week. The market’s rising tide of housing prices seems to have swept through, however, since the asking price is $35,000, up from the $23K paid for it at its previous sale March 2012. Raze or raise and redo? Some of the demo necessary for either option looks to have been started, at least . . .

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