It almost feels like Spring again – but I know better. Boston has a way of tricking you with a nasty snow storm in March. Let’s hope this 53 degree day proves Spring is finally here.

Gorgeous Sumner Hill Mansard Victorian

Are you in the dog house? Have you besmirched your good name? I have an opportunity for you to redeem yourselves. At the base of beautiful and historic Sumner Hill, across from the old Congregational Church,  you will find this gorgeous Mansard Victorian. Bring your sweetie and give the Valentine’s Day gift of a lifetime! We’ll be having an open house for neighbors only from 11a-11:30a, and then a public open house from 11:30a-1p.

Unique architecture

A landmark property to anyone who travels the streets of Jamaica Plain – the unique overhang is thought to be an architect’s sneak. There’s about 70SF hanging out over the sidewalk. Don’t quote me on that little historic tidbit – I’m not sure where I heard/read it anymore. I’ve got a request into a local historian to find out what I can on this lovely manse.

Fully one-third of this home resides out of view from the street. There is another unit that is roughly half the size of the upstairs, that opens on three sides the the pretty back yard. It’s really neat to see the massive, rough hewn granite blocks that form the foundation under the sidewalk. You can see it from within the fence at yard level.

This stately home got a serious facelift less than 10 years ago. The entire Mansard “hip” was replaced with architectural shingles, new windows and soffits were added as well as copper gutters and downspouts. Quite a bit of old siding was replaced at this time as well. Generally, the exterior is in perfect condition. The current owners have done a smashing job with the interior as well. Josh & Julie have added their own brand of sophisticated, modern charm. There’s definitely more than a hint of the Orient in the decor – including a very tasteful bamboo wall treatment in the master bedroom.

Giant master suite

There are three bedrooms that are  small, medium and large and have a gentle slope to the wall from the roof line. It adds a lot of charm and character without adversely effecting the layout or space whatsoever.

If you’re used to New England bedroom sizes, you’ll find the master suite to be a pleasant surprise.  It’s spacious and light with views out over the neighbor’s roofs to Green Street and the grand architecture of The Bowditch School. The bedroom opens to the bath by passing through a custom closet outfitted with a very well thought out organizational system. Someone with lots of clothes and an analytical mind clearly designed it. The bathroom is large for a Victorian. I doubt this room always served as a bathroom, but it certainly should have. There’s an old clawfoot tub and some bath fixtures that are reminiscent of the period, but in reality everything is new.

There is another full bath on the second level for the other two bedrooms. All the rooms open off a landing flooded with natural light from a skylight opening above the exposed rafters. Downstairs, the first floor flows just as well. The kitchen, dining and living rooms are large and perfect for entertaining – although, make everyone take off their shoes because the floors are truly luminous and it would be a crime to mar them.

The kitchen isn’t so easy to pin down to a specific style. Although the Bosch stainless steel appliances and white cabinets give it a decidedly modern look, the counters are darkly stained wooden butcher block that have a warmer feel than the typical granite counters that are so common of late.

There is a laundry cabinet that doubles as a pantry adjacent to the kitchen – and an ample deck through sliding glass doors, leads down to a beautifully landscaped yard.

The dining room is probably my favorite room in this house. One wall is covered with books, and the others are practically all windows – looking out over the yard, deck and Green Street. There’s a large closet as well, so if you put the table in the kitchen this could actually be a fourth bedroom or an office – but I think it’s configured best as it is.

The location doesn’t really get any better. When I write that this home is steps from everything – I mean it. Maybe 127 steps to the subway? (Give or take 10.) There are shops, boutiques, restaurants, pubs, etc. just a few blocks away on Centre as well as the Mosaic school across the street in the Congregational Church, and Hollow Reed up on Sumner Hill.  There’s a playground around the corner with water sprinklers in the summer and a great play structure. Further up Lamartine Street there’s a baseball field, basketball courts, the list goes on and on.

Check out our website at www.TheBostonHomeTeam.com for more information on this home and other property in and around Jamaica Plain as well as  the virtual tour at www.84Seaverns.com.

Powder Tower #1, Staré Město, Prague, Czech Republic, 2006

more info: thehallwayjp.com

In my photographs of different cities and countries, I convey a sense of place through architectural and other distinctive regional details – indoors and outdoors. The pictures I make document surfaces long-exposed to time and use, and place importance on ordinary things, usually overlooked or ignored. I search for random events of light and shadow to bring out these details. Many of my photographs transform small fragments of built structures into abstractions, and so they are also formal examinations – of color, texture, light, shadow, shape, and space.

I had to run an errand for my wife Christine today as our first storm of the year wrapped up. One of her clients is an absentee landlord and it was reported that his rental unit had no heat. Nice. Why does it always happen in the middle of a snow storm? Nevermind, I know why…it’s not profound, just a pain in the ass that heating systems always go kaputt at the least convenient time.

It’s like they’re mocking us. “How you like me now?” the client lives in NH so it’s just a favor to go check out the place for him. (That’s just the kind of operation we run here.) Anyway, I enjoyed my walk across town. It was beautiful and people were coming out to walk their dogs and shovel. I reminded everyone I passed that was shoveling to remember to bend their knees. They all seeded truly appreciative. The snow was frenzied and occasionally defied Mother Nature herself to reverse direction and hang out inside my hood.

The walk brought to my mind the longstanding Boston feud. Oh, yes. We have one too. I thought I was leaving all that behind when I left the Ozarks. Nay, Beantown has it’s own version of The Hatfields & The McKoys. Back home it was The Yokums & The Gideons. Who knows why these people were really feuding but the rumor has it it was about land. Specifically a piece of land with a silver mine. I’m not sure it ever produced more than they required for the fillings in their teeth but nonetheless, that’s the story. Oh yes, and how can we forget the Sneetchs or even better, the Zax?

Yes Boston is no exception. Ours is a battle over real estate as well. It has divided friends, neighbors, even lovers. I’m curious what you think? If you shovel out after a snow storm – do you have right to the spot indefinitely? Do you prefer everyone respects the public way? Here’s a couple of differing points of view. Leave yours in the comments…

“The King of parking space savers”

Elvis space saver

By Globe Staff

Elvis Presley may be gone, but a bust of the King lives on — as a parking space saver.

Reader Jon Titone took this photo on P Street in South Boston, in response to a recent Globe story about the proliferation of space savers that violate the city’s 48-hour rule.

Without adequate enforcement, the space savers remain. That means law-abiding drivers must find another place to park or move the savers — which are often much less creative than Elvis — and live with the fear that their car could be keyed or their tires slashed.

According to the City of Boston’s website, space savers are only allowed after the declaration of a snow emergency, which hasn’t occurred since Dec. 18. Most drivers, however, use space savers after digging out from any plowable snow.

The enforcement of the 48-hour rule resides with city sanitation workers on regular rounds. Trash pickup occurs once a week, which means that at best space savers will be tossed once every seven days. Garbage pickup in some neighborhoods, however, occurs prior to 9 a.m., with sanitation trucks making the rounds well before drivers have left their parking spots.

That means some step stools and buckets can remain virtually undisturbed, saving a parking space from now until Opening Day on April 6.

Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said earlier this week that any parking space savers that remain on the street should have been removed long ago. The city, however, has not received enough complaints about space savers from a specific neighborhood to necessitate the dispatch of a special public works crew to collect the cones, chairs, and shovel-and-box combos, Joyce said.

The mayor’s office urged people to report illicit place savers by calling the 24-hour constituent services hot line at 617-635-4500.

Have an stubborn space saver on your block? E-mail a picture here with a precise description of the location.

After Wednesday’s snowstorm, the 48-hour rule was reset. By Friday or Saturday, the Globe will be looking for additional illicit parking space savers.

***

Then check out this great thread on the Yelp forum. Very entertaining stuff. The “no spot saving” crowd is definitely outspoken here.

Saving parking spots in Southie is wrong.

Another fun article is on Universal Hub called:

To protect my parking spot, I use:

Whatever you believe is the best plan of action is your business. All I have to say is that on my street there’s no space saving. We all dig out immediately and deal with the cards we’re dealt just like every other day. Sometimes we help shovel each other out and have a few laughs while we’re doing it. If you put out a lawn chair on my street – it’s toast. Bring it on.

My daughter Vitoria is very excited about the new playground structures that are going in around Jamaica Plain. This one is in the section adjacent to New Minton. These blue things make me curious…what are they? From whence have they cometh? Are they edible?

I look forward to your comments.

I came home from work to find a new crosswalk being painted across Amory Street from the Southwest Corridor across the street. I’ve been fighting for this for the better part of two years and now thanks to the exceptional work of Officer Mike Santry at E13 and Michael Halle from the traffic and parking meetings, we have succeeded in securing a safer place to cross.

Since the Brewery ramped up operations the pedestrian traffic here has been growing exponentially. This is a good thing, but getting across the street here in the past has been a little like playing Frogger.

As I said, I believe the crosswalk is only temporary until a more permanent traffic and parking solution is created. I am very pleased that the city was able to see that a temporary solution was better than no solution. Big round of applause for Mike Halle, Mike Santry and everyone who made this happen.

I’ve been working on my garden now for about 5 years. When I bought my house it was basically a crack house. I actually never really saw the 1st floor before I put in an offer – and I certainly never did a home inspection.  I remember when I first moved in and I spent hours just walking around it looking at the design (or lack of it), and waffling between being elated that I was finally a homeowner, and utterly depressed at what a shitbox I had purchased.

The entire yard from edge to edge was paved with thick, stinky asphalt. Not a blade of grass was visible. As I have tendency to do everything 110%, I began renovating the inside of the dwelling as well as recycling ALL of the asphalt and sifting the top twelve inches of soil on the entire property.

We are basically right on top of the culvert that contains the Stony Brook, and although we’ve never had any significant water in our basement, I wanted to take steps to keep it the foundation as dry as possible. I dug a big ditch under the patio to the right and hooked it around in an “L” shape all the way to where the driveway meets the sidewalk. There I dug a 9′x4′x3′ ditch and dropped into it.

I lined the bottom of the ditch with gravel and then a layer of landscaping cloth and then laid the drainage tub (oddly named “drain tile”) inside, poured gravel on top and wrapped up a big drainage burrito. This was a really inexpensive way to deliver the access water away from my foundation quickly.

Around this time we had traveled to San Diego’s Balboa Park and a couple other places that had Japanese Gardens including Portland and Seattle. I fell in love. I was also studying Japanese construction techniques and the space saving, ingenious ideas that they often employ.

My daughter Vitoria in a beautiful stand of Black Bamboo

My favorite is drawers in each stair step of a staircase. How cool is that? Anyway, I was determined to have a Japanese garden right here in JP. I met with a landscape architect who talked things through with me. Basically, some of the criteria and parameters I had to work around didn’t combine well with the style. For instance I think Boston is a zone 6 (garden speak for the climate we have here) and the hard winters are rough on bamboo and many of the plants native to Japan. Over time, I’ve learned that by combining more hearty Japanese species in the design with some very basic ground covers – I could fake it. In addition, we wanted a garden that would absorb a great deal of water, never need to be cut or need very much attention. It has taken a lot of trial and error, as well as the very skilled advice, tutelage, and hard work by my friend Rich Gargiulo at Treeworks (617-983-0813) but we now have a passable Japanese garden. I am very proud of my hard work – which is rewarded every time someone walks by and compliments us. Now if I could just keep people from letting their dogs pee pn my bushes I’d have it made!

Japanese styled gardens in front of my home.

I’d love if some of our readers could offer up any anecdotal information about their gardens, resources they might find helpful in the area, etc. I’d love to hear any tips and advice you have for surviving the winter, etc. Also, in the near future – I will have too much ground cover, and I’d be willing to trade plugs of creeper for other small plants that might fit in to my scheme. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to come by and see my tiny garden!

I promised a follow-up on my neighbor’s roofing job so here it is. In my last post I used the analogy of a box of Cracker Jacks (referring to the surprises) and this job has been nothing but a surprise. We left off last with Josh, Bill & Ted frantically tarping the roof in a downpour with upside down smiles. We pick up today with a new surprise.

Exposing the Mansard hip

The fellas decided to start work on the hip, fascia and soffit of the roof apparently to avoid some of the exposure to the rain, but maybe also because they needed to deal with the area where the hip meets the top part of the roof. The knuckleheads who had put on the last roof had wrapped the top edge right over the hip. No trim board – nothing. Anyway, as the guys peeled away the old fascia, they saw a lot of rot. Most of the boards that hold the gently curving boards that create the Mansard contour were either totally or in part rotted. These will all need new boards “sistered” to them so the new fascia boards will stay in place.

Peeling off the Mansard hip shingles and sheeting

On this morning (I should have kept an exact timeline because the weather forced a lot of stops and starts – but I’m not that organized) Bill & Ted found that the sheating, although quite rotten, was no rose garden. Trying to pull off 135 year old wood while standing on a 12 inch platform is not fun. No real weight can be put on the board their feet are on as it is just nailed into old rotten wood.

Plaster and lath

The backside of the plaster and lath wall can be seen here nicely. They could have easily kicked right through to the rental unit if they had wanted. It’s really interesting to see how simple a house really is. We take them for granted when we’re inside and dry, but there’s very little real estate between us and a good bit of weather.

Josh's foot goes through the sheeting.

Josh’s foot passed through the sheeting somewhere near the chimney and it is decided that it needs to be completely replaced. The job is now 3-4 times bigger than it started. Hmmm, those clouds are looking dark aren’t they???

These poor guys got held up by rain and lots of set backs. In order to close up the gaping hole in the roof they had to work well after dusk by work light in order to get all the new sheeting on. The cold beer must’ve tasted pretty good that night.

The 1st row of felt paper goes on.

I think it’s actually starting to rain here – but the guys aren’t phased at this point. They’re rolling out the 1st line of felt paper. The outermost edge is a weather guard that is more durable than the subsequent rows. Mainly this protects the edge as it gets the most wear and the most weather.

Almost done with the felt paper.

Josh lays down on the job for a while as he tacks the felt paper up. You can see the sheen on the wood from the rain. It’s pretty slippery up there. Almost ready for the shingles – another day…

The first side gets shingles!

Josh’s crew nears the home stretch (for the top of the roof anyway) as they come around the second side with the shingles. Once the entire roof is covered they will still need to come back and do ridge vents. Next is the flashing on the chimney.

Josh flashes around the chimney.

An 8 inch or so piece of aluminum wraps around the chimney and then a row of shingles gets tacked snugly around it to keep the water out. Before he is done, Josh will have to use some heavy duty caulk and seal the top edge under the rubber flaps shown.

The Mansard hip gets insulation.

I almost forgot this picture. The hip is now totally exposed and this has given the guys the opportunity to insulate. This has all been a lot of work for them, but what a payoff the new roof and insulation will be. More to come…

Today I had the privilege of having a birds-eye-view of my neighbor (I’ll refer to him as Josh to protect his anonymity) roofing his own house. Josh purchased his home a couple years ago in less than perfect condition and has gone on to prove that this can often be a great way to enter an otherwise expensive market. Obviously one must be armed with a first hand knowledge of carpentry and home improvement or enough money to pay someone else – which as many of us know can sometimes end up worse than if we had just done it ourselves.

Josh perches precariously on a ladder

Josh has been slowly turning an ugly duckling into a bonafide gem. His latest effort is ambitious – a new roof. Keep in mind that our homes (they were probably built by the same builder and are certainly the same vintage) are roughly 135 years old. Pretty much every job is like a box of Cracker Jacks. There’s a surprise in there somewhere… and this project was no exception. I was able to stick my head out my kitchen window and monitor progress which I’m sure Josh appreciated immensely. I tried to lighten the dreariness of the day the best way I knew how – by being a Wisenheimer. At first I thought Josh was telling me I was “#1″ but quickly realized he was destined for victory [over the roof].

Josh & George install scaffolding

Josh was being helped today by his friends Bill & Ted. (Their names have also been changed to protect their anonymity.) Here they are installing scaffolding so they don’t fall off the roof as they remove the old shingles. I’m only mildly scared of heights, but this was making me quite nervous. Actually, I’m not nearly as scared of heights as I am of falling to my death – so it’s really all about security for me. Clearly Josh, Bill & Ted do not share this fear.

Josh harnesses to the chimney

There was some level of safety exercised however. Josh lashed the fellas to the 135 year old chimney with climbing gear. I thought this was a great idea and it made me feel much better until I remembered the old Warner Bros cartoons where Wiley Coyote would similarly lash himself to a tree or a rock outcropping only to fall to the canyon floor followed by the large, heavy object to make two successive poofs of dust, one for Wiley and the other, slightly larger poof for the very heavy object that usually pushed him 10 ft or so into the Earth’s crust. Seriously though, who doesn’t get an audible chuckle from the image of Wiley Coyote walking away, disgruntled, with his mid-section bobbing like an accordion? Anyway, Ted is beginning the process of prying off the old shingles and removing the nails. This is a filthy, hard job and it makes a BIG mess.

Josh, Bill & Ted start making progress as the rain starts

The guys really got down to business peeling off the shingles. This is when Josh found the surprise in the Cracker Jacks. Much of the roof sheating and fascia was practically dust on the top side. He had previously checked the condition from the attic and it looked great – but the top side wouldn’t likely hold nails any longer. He’s also planning on rebuilding a lot of the Mansard hip (the steeply sloped sides). As you can see, Josh’s job just got a lot bigger, and a lot more expensive. His house is getting an entirely new roof.

Josh inspects his 135 year old roof sheating

Josh is inspecting his antique roof sheating. Look closely at the veins in his forehead as he comes to terms with the fact that he is now going to have to hoist large sheets of plywood up onto his roof. Don’t forget he has to pry all this old wood off first which will leave the inside of his house open to the elements until he can seal it back up. Thankfully, his tenant lives on the second floor.

Josh & Bill brave the Tempest

Suddenly, without warning (except for the weather report) the rain really started coming down. Who would have thought – two surprises in one box of Cracker Jacks! Luckily I had a huge tarp to add to Josh’s collection and the guys frantically started to cover up the house. This was no easy job. Check out the driving rain and the look of grit determination on Bill’s face. They got it covered up in short time and now it looks like some of the houses from back home in the Ozark Mountains.

A hairnet for the house

The only problem with the tarps is that they are like big sails up there on the roof. They all have to be tacked down with furring strips. The surface was then so slippery that they had to tack in strips of wood like a ladder to climb up and down. It’s like a big residential rubber.

Bill & Ted clean up the mess

This kind of job makes a nasty mess. The little grit from the old shingles gets everywhere and the material is heavy and cumbersome. It would be interesting if someone could come up with use for all the old shingles in the world.

More on this adventure as it unfolds.