07/12/12 2:11pm

One of the reasons Brookesmith resident Vicki Scarpato bought the 1890 cottage on Archer St. pictured above last year was because of the 2009 Modern addition at the back: “I love the mix,” she says. Her home is next door to the modern structure architect Jeromy Murphy designed for his family and not far from the Cordell St. shipping-container house — all in a neighborhood that she calls “an interesting mix of beautiful new modern, Victorian cottages in various states of repair, and only a very few instances of three-to-a-lot townhouses.” Here are some pics of the back:

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07/22/11 10:25pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HIDING YOUR SURPLUS SQUARE FOOTAGE “The saddest part of this discussion is that nobody would have known or cared if the Schillers had simply paid $50,000 for a 170-square-foot extension to their home, in the form of a fully furnished guest apartment, and decorated it as a ‘playroom.’ My home is not in River Oaks, nor near it, but one of its spare bedrooms is furnished as a play room. We also have a ‘quarters’ above the garage. I await the vigorous disapprobation of the swamplot crowd, and the river of suggestions that I should convert this playroom and those quarters into homeless shelters. I dare say that a good number of readers of this blog have spare bedrooms and/or quarters in their homes, and these spaces . . . go unused for a large part of the year. God knows, if everyone could just convert all their guest quarters and spare bedrooms into homeless shelters, Mankind would finally transcend into the Superior Beings we all deserve to become. Thank goodness we have the Commenters of Swamplot to Guide us along the Path toward Righteousness!” [J.V., commenting on The Fanciest Playhouse in River Oaks]

03/11/10 10:05am

Must be tough out there for a little old 1940 cottage in a rough-and-tumble teardown town like West University Place. And so we have this elective-surgery survivor, which showed up on the MLS just yesterday. The listing mentions a 2002 Kitchen update, a roof dating from 2007, and new bathrooms in 2009. HCAD lists a renovation in 2001. Would never have guessed you had work done, really! You look fabulous!

Okay, we’ll show you a few pics of the inside. But really, you’ve already seen the best photo.

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10/16/08 6:15pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game 28: Dining Room

We have a winner!

But first, your guesses for this week’s contest: River Oaks and Southampton each attracted 3 of you. There were 2 votes each for Tanglewood, Memorial and the Museum District. The rest: Spring Branch, West University, “along Kirby and west,” near the Ashby Highrise, Southgate, Castle Court, Boulevard Oaks, Montrose “between Richmond and Alabama, maybe between Hazard and Dunlavy,” Garden Oaks, Riverside Terrace, the First Ward, Old Braeswood, Bellaire, Rivercrest, Lynn Park, . . . and Heaven.

John (the first one, not the second) knew what to look for, and nailed it:

The built-in bookcases and day-bed thingy look exactly like those in my Ayrshire ranch house, and since this one fairly old and two stories, I’m going with Old Braeswood.

Congratulations!

A very strong honorable mention goes to movocelot, who figured out the house’s age and came extremely close to deducing the precise geometry of its recent expansion:

This house is old enough & well-situated enough to have been remodeled – seriously – twice. I see various windows, elec outlets and cabinetry.

Guess the newish family room pushed out from the kitchen has the newish master bath on top, for a new ridge at a 90 to the main house. (The original roof has the lavender office under it. Circa 1930.)

(Actually, it’s the Kitchen that has the Master Bath on top of it — saves on plumbing costs!)

Commenter karen, who was already familiar with the house, gets a special mention for trying to stir things up . . . with this wonderfully misleading entry:

Oh, this is totally southhampton! 1940’s construction, and beautifully updated. No professor in southgate could afford to do that. and it can’t be river oaks or old braeswood because the lot’s just not big enough. there are neighbors all but peeking in the windows!

Ready for the real tell-all?

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