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Weasel Acres

weasel acres

Here we go. I promised McGoo I’d rustle up a pitcher. This is Weasel Acres, several years back. I don’t think publishing this picture reveals enough information to hunt me down like a dog. Ummm…does it? If I’m wrong, just…please don’t hunt me down like a dog. Kthxbai.

This is a classic Cape Cod house (usually abbreviated to ‘Cape house’ hereabouts). Not a style I grew up with, of course, but one I’ve grown fond of. A Cape house is a cottage, generally a story-and-a-half high, with a steeply pitched front roof, a sloping back roof and a dormer stuck out the back. They’re small — under 2,000 square feet. The gabled windows are a 20th C addition.

Mine was built in the Spring of 1942. How do I know? A surveyor told me what to look for: you lift the porcelain cover on the back of the toilet and fine the date stamped in the tank. They don’t stockpile toilets, so the house will have been built within a couple of months of that date.

It wasn’t my first choice. The house I yearned for was in Pawtucket (where all the horriblest limericks come from); a long, low one-story house with a Dutch roof. It had silly classical columns and swirly stucco walls in the livingroom, and the master bathroom had a basin sink and tiles in vivid porcelain purples and greens. It was the most startling and improbably ugly house I have ever seen. I fell in love with it instantly. Sad to say, my offer was rejected.

That still smarts.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 10, 2008, 9:25 pm

I tried, but I am neither smart nor sober enough to comprehend the difference between a gable and a dormer. Damn you, Google!


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 10, 2008, 9:50 pm

Whoa – thanks, Stoaty! Lots of information.

And – no – I doubt anyone could divine where you live from the photo. besides, soon it’ll be your former residence.

Now I see how the dormer thingy up on the roof works with the interior Lovecraftian angles. I suspected that. In the Midwest & Southwest they tend to build shallower roofs (snow/ice loading is not as severe so shedding is not an issue) so the attics are less roomy and the angles aren’t as interesting.

I’m going to remember that “date the house” trick for older houses.

I like the walls and angles in your li’l studio, and I like the wood floor. I have come to really dislike carpet a bit.

That’s a neat house, Weaz. It looks like a good house.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:02 pm

It is a good house. A wholesome house. After 20 years, I still don’t feel like I’ve done right by it. I felt the same way (I think Uncle B will back me up here) about our house in London.

Good and decent houses, not best served by their tenants.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:22 pm

Well, then – you now have a new (to you) house you two can make into your ideal image. And Badger better be getting ready. Spring is right around the corner.

It’s gonna be a good spring. Elijah told me that, and he was really shit-faced drunk, so its probably accurate.

I am so friggin’ dying to find me a home…


Comment from porknbean
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:26 pm

Very cute house. It reminds me of our first house, a 1940 something bungalo up in MI. It had an upstairs room that ran the length of the house, but no dormers. Back when wood floors were standard. Nowadays you have to sell a kidney to get them put in. Oh, oh, and a laundry chute.

What I wouldn’t give to have me a laundry chute again. Does your house have one weasel?


Comment from porknbean
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:36 pm

I am so friggin’ dying to find me a home…

I would think it has become a buyer’s market these days?
Just think McGoo, an older wood-floored, two to three bedroom bachelor pad with a basement and a laundry chute. One of the rooms can be converted to a library.

My dream was to have a library and I kinda didn’t want to wait until one of the kids moved out – as who knows if they will – so when we moved here, we converted the living room into one.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:46 pm

Oh, its a buyers market. But I’m really being picky ’cause this by-god is my LAST move. I’m going to do this one more time and that’s it. I’ve moved too many times in my life. I’m tired.

Naturally, I want it all. And in the year I’ve been looking – when I wasn’t crippled with hip shit or surgery – I’ve changed priorities several times.

I’m homing in on it though. I have my eye on one now. I think they’re hurting financially and am waiting for a price drop. (Its right at the edge – or just a hair over – what I think I should spend).

And – yeah – I’d like a laundry chute.


Comment from porknbean
Time: January 10, 2008, 11:28 pm

I hope you get what you want soon McGoo. I hate moving too..the older I get, the more shit I throw out.

Have you thought of going in with a low offer.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 10, 2008, 11:41 pm

Thx PnB. I will. Of that I am sure.

I won’t lowball them til they move first. I’d rather they come down on their own. Meanwhile more are coming on the market every day.

I’ll get there – its just that Spring is coming and I’m getting quite restless.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: January 11, 2008, 9:33 am

Beautiful house.

‘Spring is right around the corner.’

Thank god. Can’t wait to get get in the garden.


Comment from Lokki
Time: January 11, 2008, 10:50 am

I’ll light the fire, while you place the flowers
In the vase that you bought today.
Staring at the fire for hours and hours,
While I listen to you play your love songs
All night long for me, only for me.

Chorus: Our house, is a very, very, very fine house.
With two cats in the yard,
Life used to be so hard,
Now everything is easy ’cause of you.*

Come to me now, and rest your head for just five minutes,
Everything is done.
Such a cozy room, the windows are illuminated
By the evening sunshine through them,
Fiery gems for you, only for you.

I’ll light the fire, while you place the flowers
In the vase that you bought today.

* Offer not available in all areas. Does not include snow shoveling, chimney-sweeping or stove-blacking. Certain other restrictions may apply. Cats may not be visible in yard during periods of high snow. Flowers are an extra cost option available through your dealer.


Comment from quark2
Time: January 11, 2008, 3:03 pm

We sold our farm in November, and have it leased
for 6 months while we look for another place. Smaller.
This is a good house too. It’s still under construction.
I want low and rambling with about 10 to 20 acres.
A rock house would be nice.
I will miss the 70 year old daffodils that are planted
out back when we leave.
Goo, speaking of Chili. Here you go. I want to go there too.
http://www.rancheschile.com/


Comment from quark2
Time: January 11, 2008, 3:05 pm

Oh and wease, you should do a black and
white portrait of that nice house you’re leaving
behind. Quite loverly.


Comment from lauraw
Time: January 13, 2008, 6:57 pm

You…like your Cape? We have one and I can’t think of a house plan with a more choppy, silly design.

There’s a good reason so many Capes have been dramatically remodeled inside. A very popular fix is to take down the wall between the front room and that perfectly pointless back room on the first floor (installing a column or a light beam in its place).

Paugh. Give me a big ol’ Ranch any day.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 13, 2008, 7:11 pm

Ewwww…ranch! It’s so…Bonanza! My ‘rents have a big ol’ ranch. Dun diddle-un diddle-iddle-iddle-un it’s tack-Y!


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: January 13, 2008, 7:28 pm

Having lived most of my life in ranches – I’ll take anything but….

My most favoritest house I ever had was a 2400 sq-ft U-shaped house with a pool in the middle of the U. God, I loved that house.

I got screwed a bit on it when I bought it, I had to get tons of things fixed, and I lost money when I sold it, and I hated the DE pool filter system, but I LOVED it nonetheless.


Comment from sippicancottage
Time: January 22, 2008, 12:14 am

Stoaty, we love you at the Cottage and want you to be happy. You will be happy in your cottage. You will be even happier if you call it what it really is: A Colonial Revival.

Of course, they liked “revivaling” capes as much as anything, so if you insist on calling it that, let’s go with “Asymmetrical Colonial Revival Cape Cod House.

A gable is the triangular end of the house defined by the roofline. A dormer sticks out of the roof. Easy.

Here’s an actual cape:
http://sippicancottage.blogspot.com/2007/10/well-youve-all-been-pleasant-i-guess.html

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