A top-heavy brick tower tacked onto the front and Euro touches inside this designer-owned spread morphs a 1968 Lynn Park home into a something less provincial and more Provençal — or so the listing suggests. The slightly asymmetrical corner-lot property is a block east of the railroad tracks and two blocks north of Richmond Ave. at Drexel Dr. It’s a newly re-listed home seeking $899,900 with a new agent and agency, after a summer fling with a price tag $25K higher.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: I’M SMELLING THAT LISTING ALREADY “I love this house . . . and I know exactly how it must smell: a homey mix of old furniture, mothballs, and mildew with a touch of Pine-Sol. I would buy it as is, furnished and everything.” [Miz Brooke Smith, commenting on A Lindale Park Cottage, Much as It Was]
You’ve reason to believe that you will be received with some gentility at this Lindale Park home on Graceland St. just west of Irvington, 7 blocks south of the North Loop. The newly listed triple-peaked brick cottage on a double-wide lot gained central air conditioning in 2005, but otherwise the 1945 home appears to have retained the qualities of an earlier era. Note the glass knobs on the interior doors and the lack of a dishwasher (or disposal or microwave) in the piney-woods-paneled kitchen.
Rehab complete, this cleaned-up 1975 Forest West home is back on the market, a full year after its last sales effort. Two weeks ago, the property re-listed with a new agency at $189,000. A previous listing would have sold for $109,500 in May 2011 but dropped the price to $95,000 before ending its summer run in August.
The Colonial-style entry, a nod to the nation’s Bicentennial run-up, maintains its broken-pediment tailoring. But renovations in the interim changed a bunch of other things: adding granite in the kitchen and bathrooms, swapping out tile and carpet throughout the home, removing wallpaper and painting over paneling, repainting inside and out, and replacing the hot water heater, kitchen cabinets, exterior French doors, and all the sinks, tubs, and toilets.
And, in lieu of furniture, adding a few discreetly placed potted plants for the photo shoot.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SCRAPES OFF A LITTLE EASIER THOUGH “Wallpaper is to houses what tattoos are to people. When you get it, you think that it looks great and cannot wait to show your friends. Twenty to thirty years later, you cannot look at it without going ‘ughhh’ and shuddering to yourself.” [Old School, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Kitchen Sampler]
Pardon us, one at a time, while we slip — slowly — into a slightly higher elevation.
