Here we go again! Another mystery home, open for your roundup of the usual and the unusual suspects. Just what neighborhood is this home in?
If you have an idea, please make sure you understand all the rules of the game before you play. Got ’em down? Then take a good long look at all these photos:
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Are you getting a sense of this place? You know that neighborhood, don’t you? Or do you?
That’s it! Your answers belong in the comments section below. The mystery will be revealed this Thursday!
Update: We have a winner!
Photos: HAR
Although the kitchen is straight out of a Texas City house, I’m going to guess Pearland.
I say the Westchase area. I like the use of a projector instead of TV. The white walls make a great screen. I just wished there was some color somewhere else. The lack of color also makes me think this may be a condo unit.
Holy Jay-sus, there is a ton o’ tile in this little dump. Flooded lately and needed to replace the carpet? That doesn’t explain the wood in two smaller bedrooms, though maybe they wanted to soften things up. I’m thinking this south of the Westpark Tollway near Highway 6. You realtor types can fill in the neighborhood name for me while I call a staging company so we can move this property.
Brad, I was thinking of the same area as you, but I had the same dilemma about the neighborhood name. That’s why I threw out Westchase as my guess.
It’s a townhouse off Newcastle just south of 59. Mebbe the wood is in the upstairs part.
I’ve seen that kind of wallpaper and mirror tile in just such a place. I wonder if a flood is the reason for the new-looking tile and fresh drywall everywhere?
kjb, how can a normal person find neighborhood names on a map? I can barely tell Woodland Heights from the Woodlands. OK, maybe that is a stretch, but you know what I mean.
is that a tv or a security camera? geez – this is so fugly!!!! that tile. the laminate wood. ok – its from the 70s I think, early 70s, townhouse probably – maybe a duplex around Sharpstown? that neighborhood just wrote itself on my keyboard – I had no idea Sharpstown was even in my head. Good luck selling it! And I thought interior design was so hot now with HGTV!!!
How generic can one place get? This could be anywhere, any time between 1979 and 2005. Definitely somewhere flood-prone, given all that room-expanding bias tile. And the wood floors in the bedrooms look suspiciously like laminate. Home-Doodle-special builder’s-grade cabinetry, marbuluxe countertops and molding-less nekkid window frames scream 1980’s el cheapo condo, as does the treeless view out the sliding glass patio doors. But where, oh where could this grim pad be? I will defer to fellow Guessing Game contestants to pin the tail on this donkey that could be anywhere in a wide swath from Westpark clockwise to 288.
Brad,
I’m sorry to say that there isn’t really a neighborhood map that I know of. That might be a nice Swamp-wiki project, actually. You just learn the neighborhoods by driving around for several years. Having done that, however, is no guarantee of success in the NGG, as I can attest.
Something about the furniture here seems very strange. It all looks very lowest-common-denominator but fairly new, like someone won a contest for a “house full of furniture.” No decorating to speak of, but still a few personal items in the bathroom and kitchen. I kinda like the kitchen, actually, assuming there’s a refrigerator near the spot from where the photos were taken.
Miz Brooke, did you mean counter-clockwise? That would be south and east toward 288. Clockwise would take you up through Post Oak, Memorial, River Oaks, and Montrose, all which seem a little chi-chi for this generic place.
Wow, there is not an ounce of character in this place. I’m guessing Tanglewilde, or 59/BW8 area.
“Nighthawks Dated”. A West Houston patio home by the same name.
While we all seem to agree that this place is utterly tasteless and dreary, the real question is what kind of realtor would actually publish these godawful photos with the ludricous idea that they actually market this property? A horsewhipping is due for not demanding a bedspread that covers the exposed mattresses or the removal of that Sarah Palinesque caricature over the hearth.
Lets narrow the year this 1 1/2 story patio home was built to 1978-1983. Clerestory type ceiling,
Jenn Air built-in grill, cultured marble vanities
and foil wallpaper are some clues. Built-in wet bars were also popular then. A cheap condo would not have a 36″ gas cooktop nor the sunken tub enclosure with separate shower let alone his and her vanities. This has a few more amenities than a typical tract home–I said a few not a lot.
All tile downstairs and new laminate for the two upper bedrooms. Notice how the boys room and the TV room have the same window and door placement.
Like many of you, who could narrow the area down?
There are probably thousands of these variants all over the metro area but the Dairy Ashford corridor is my guess.
Thank you, marmer. Miz Brooke Smith was spatially challenged last night. Must be sunspots.
It looks like the same era as my ex-parents-in-law’s house in Sagemeadow.
Gotta say, this is 180 degrees from last week’s house in terms of personality.
1974 between Bellaire and Harwin; Wilcrest and Kirkwood.
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I often wonder what photographers are thinking (or not thinking) when they take these pictures. And it can make a huge difference in how you view the property. Compare Ben Hill’s picture of the Katy living room with the original from the guessing game.
I think the beds have been pronounced dead.
Marmer, thanks for the info re: Neighborhood names. Let’s bug Gus into building a wiki-map. :-)
As for this property, many of us think it is in the same general area, but I bet we all agree this is the antithesis of last week’s cool pad.
Lets see, Late 70’s early 80’s General Homes or USHome tract doohicky , with a fresh coat of institutional white paint (you know, to brighten it up) and lots of new cheap tile. This could be anywhere! I am going to go with off Fry Road north of I-10, maybe one of the older neighborhoods on the Cinco Ranch side of I-10 around Kingsland or Highland Knolls, or up to the Bear Creek area. Something about how well maintained the kitchen and bath are tells me Katy because a lot of the other areas that this type of housing was built in during this period have gone down hill and would have been less likely to see this level pride of ownership.
Looks like Mom and the teenagers moved out with all their stuff and left Dad alone in that house with all the fugly furniture that they didn’t want. Perhaps that photograph on the bathroom mirror is the other woman that explains the whole thing.
There are some clues in that poster on the footboard, but I don’t want to look at the pictures any more. It’s depressing. I’ll guess Pasadena.
Divorced man of foreign origin. Cold p-lam where there used to be a curry simmering all day long. Times are tough. Works long hours and has dirty, dirty feet. Times are tough. Gotta sell this place. No time to take the child strangulation risk warnings off the new blinds.
What? isn’t this the Neighbor Guessing Game?
Tell you what – you won’t see ME there either! Reminds me of an apartment in Greenspoint.
I’m guessing Sharpstown/Bellaire.
Jez, the foil 1970’s wallpaper! My guess is Sharpstown area.
Town home on the west side of town. How about Sommerset?
Give it an award for the worst staging ever!
We’ve been tricked into the hinterlands lately. I’ll vote for Atascocita. And the art! Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers…these are real collectors! Is the filth on the bathmat from entering or exiting the shower?
This house definitely needs help…but I really like the tile and wood floors – no carpet for me. I agree – it’s a bachelor pad. I don’t see any woman’s touches anywhere.
Must be the Woodlands.
With all that tile, it’s got to be someplace that floods a lot. Hmm, a place that floods a lot and is dreary, dreary, dreary.
I’m going to say somewhere on the southeast side.
I know it’s “up and coming”, but I’m sure that there are more than a few dreary flooded-and-repaired houses in Glenbrook Valley.
If not there, then somewhere in the stretch of floodplain between League City and La Porte.
See the faucet in the bathroom – that’s got to be from the early 80’s. It looks like there’s a patio outside one of the bedrooms, so I’m thinking a house, not a condo. This house bores me. I’m going to say down I-45 toward Almeda.
Guy works somewhere near the ship channel. So I am thinking Deer Park.
I already threw my choice in, but the funny part of this is that this style of house was built in a boom time for Houston. Subdivisions with this style of house/condo/townhome were aplenty and everywhere.
The layout doesn’t seem that bad and a lot could be done with it! My guess is the cost around $100K. Maybe a little lower.
Gus likes to trick us, like he did with that dump in River Oaks. This could, I suppose, be one of the older condos in Montrose, West U, or the Astrodome area. I’m not convinced that little scrap of yard visible out back means it’s not a townhouse or condo. Having said that, I’m sticking with Newcastle/59. Other random thoughts: that’s not a sunken bath, that’s a booby trap, and why, when they were painting the hell out of everything, didn’t they paint the beat-up bathroom cabinets? Did they run out of white paint?
That’s why I’m throwing out a price too! LOL
I figure if my dart throwing at the map abilities for guessing the neighborhood doesn’t work, at least I might be able to claim coming in close with a price tag….
Oh, and if a single man lives here, why the crib? Maybe it’s a single mom who works in construction and is too busy to decorate. But there is no kid stuff anywhere except the beds.
Hmm – this one is a real snore. Reminds me of the one in Mission Bend but with all the fun stuff like the bridge taken out. Oven/Microwave combo and white Formica looks late 70’s/early 80’s to me, I agree with the others that the tile makes it near water, but the rest is so generic it is hard to figure where it might be. I’ll guess West side south of Buffalo Bayou between Beltway 8 and Highway 6.
I’ll guess Alief. Houston boom time late 1970s. No updates since the neighborhood prices wouldn’t support it. Very likely a patio home.