Small Town Charms

One of the things I like best about Arvada is that, if I’m there at the right time, I can hear a church bell ringing. I used to love listening to the church bells in North Denver, but many years ago, after too many complaints from residents that the bells were disruptive, they stopped ringing.

I like that the old school house is now an Italian restaurant. I like that most of the shops and restaurants are one of a kind and reflect the personalities and eccentricities of the owners. I like that La Dolce Vita coffee house is a little shabby and features artwork of local artists. I like that it has a bead shop and a knitting shop and a bookstore. I like that it has an Army Navy surplus store. (That’s much cooler than Old Navy.)

It doesn’t have everything. It needs a grocery store and a deli and maybe an art supply store. But, as I mentioned in a previous post, the light rail station will bring more development.

Meanwhile, it has my favorite condo. It isn’t what I thought I wanted when I started looking last spring. For example, it’s a large building with 70 units on three floors and the entrance is off a long hallway. Instead of an individual garage, there’s parking and storage units under the building. Maybe worst of all is that it has carpeting instead of hardwood floors.

The floor plan, on the other hand, is very logical. The small kitchen, laundry and bathroom are grouped at the front of the unit, with the bedroom and living room beyond. The kitchen is open to the living room and a small patio also opens off the living room. Six-foot tall windows line the north wall.

A 24-hour exercise room, pool, and patio are just outside. Exit to the rear and you’re on a wide promenade that leads past the restored water tower right into Olde Town. With any luck, I’ll be able to hear those church bells from my new home.

New Town versus Olde Town

Belmar

Last week, I had occasion to visit Belmar, the “new downtown” of suburban Lakewood. It’s about the same distance (5 miles) from my current inner city neighborhood as Olde Town Arvada. At first glance, I was impressed. The streets were filled with clean, modern shops, including Chico’s, Coldwater Creek, Lane Bryant, The Gap, Bath and Body Works, Banana Republic. Many big box stores are also there: Target, Best Buy, Hobby Lobby, Nordstrom Rack, Dick’s Sporting Goods. The restaurants featured many familiar names: P F Chang’s, Elephant Bar, Ted’s Montana Grill, and smaller venues that were new to me. And it has a Whole Foods grocery store, an amenity that Olde Town Arvada is sorely lacking.

Built in 2004, Belmar is an example of New Urbanism , which “promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities . . . . These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other.” Sounds good, and Belmar has been touted as one of the stars of new urbanism, notably in Ellen Dunham-Jones’ TED talk on “retrofitting suburbia.”

When I got home, I decided to check the internet for affordable condos in Belmar. And I found one I liked, an 80s era two-bedroom condo 4-5 blocks from the shopping district and facing a narrow wilderness area with horses. The condo has a fireplace, but no garage. Its biggest selling feature is the den with a cathedral ceiling and huge windows on two sides. It opens to the living room and kitchen with double French doors.  This would be a perfect studio.

At $103,000, the price is $12,000 less than the one at Water Tower Village, but it needs updating, especially new appliances, new cupboards (or new paint for them) and possibly countertops and floor, which would make the price equal to the one in Arvada. The complex doesn’t have an exercise room, but a nice city recreation center is only four blocks away. The library, a place I visit several times a week, is also in walking distance, but would require me to cross Wadsworth, a wide, busy street—not ideal.

I started to imagine myself living there. While Arvada and Belmar have many similar amenities, I quickly realized that Belmar is not for me. The stores and restaurants are more upscale and not the sort of places I frequent. And they’re almost all chains, not individual, quirky places that reflect the owner’s personality.

Belmar could be anywhere. It feels more like an open air mall than a town. Arvada has a sense of place, something Belmar will probably develop as it grows and changes over the years. In ten years, it could be a place I’d like to live, but by then I expect to be a long-time fixture in Olde Town Arvada.

We start meeting with the Landmark Commission

Quick update: I own a 120-year-old house in the Potter Highlands national historic district near downtown Denver. The structure has deteriorated and my brother (B) and sister-in-law (SL) and I have devised a plan to live together (sort of) in our later years. We want to tear down this house and build another one for them on this lot with a granny flat/in-law unit (officially called an accessory dwelling unit or ADU) for me over the garage. B is an architect who is designing both houses. How cool is that?
This may sound pretty straightforward, but when you live in a national historic district, nothing is simple.
B has been meeting with a city architect who seems to think the project is doable, but we will have to convince the landmark commission. The commission’s staff advised us that the first step would be to request that the commission declare the house to be “non-contributing” to the historic district. Since the staff recommended that our request be denied, I didn’t (and still don’t) understand why we couldn’t just proceed to step 2, which is the demolition request.
But, whatever.
On Tuesday, B and I attended a commission meeting. We were #5 on the list of hearings with no real idea when our time would come, so we had to sit through two hours of hearings before our petition came up. While B found it interesting, I mostly found it infuriating and a colossal waste of time on a day I didn’t have any to waste.
Our time finally came and they denied our request, as expected. Geez.
The next step is a public hearing on the demolition request. I’ll have one of those zoning request signs posted in my yard so everyone in the neighborhood will know my business. My friend Maralyn asked me who on earth would protest it. Ha! Spoken like someone who doesn’t live in a historic district. Some of these people, like the commission itself, will fight tooth and nail to save every old structure in the city, regardless of condition or cost. Sometimes it seems that they value buildings over people.
The really frustrating part is that we expect the commision to deny this request also. The final step will be convincing them that it would cost more to repair the structure than it is worth, which is where we hope/expect to finally win. I don’t really understand why we have to go through the steps sequentially instead of just doing it all at once, but city agencies have their procedures and we are but pawns in their game.

This could drag out for months, but a year from now, I hope to be in my new Auntie Flat (I’m nobody’s granny) with all this behind me.

Modular, sustainable, nontoxic. What’s not to like?

Let me just admit upfront that I don’t know why it’s called the i-house. No clue what the i stands for: innovative? individual? intelligent? They all work. This is a prefabricated, modular house that can be configured any number of ways and can grow and change to fit your changing lifestyle. The one I pictured is the small, one-bedroom (723 square feet) style.

Built by Clayton Homes, each unit features Energy Star appliances, bamboo floors, water-saving fixtures, a rainwater catchment system, solar panels, and all sustainable, nontoxic materials.

I’d like to believe that this is the direction American homes are headed.

Where I find a purple fridge

“Of course I thought of you!” read the note. It was attached to an article from a decorating magazine on the growing influence of purple in the home furnishings world and came from my friend, Rebecca, a Massachusetts-based interior designer. As Rebecca knows, my passion for purple is not a recent, trendy choice.

One of my earliest purple purchases was a hard plastic mixing bowl almost 40 years ago. I still have it and have been adding to my collection ever since. The kitchen has been the hardest room to furnish in my favorite color, but now, even that may be changing.

Over the years, I’ve contented myself with the occasional purple dishtowel, potholder, napkins and placemats,  and managed to find dishes with purple flowers on them. I graduated to Fiestaware when they came out with plum, a deep, rich eggplant color. About the same time, I found a set of purple pots and pans and a tiny purple toaster-oven. I bought a purple tray, collander, and aluminum popcorn bowl. Gradually, my kitchen took on the tint of aristocracy. I thought that was probably as far as it would go.

Earlier this year, I started seeing purple knives (not just the handles, but the blades, too, were purple) on Amazon, and I added several of those to my kitchen tools.

Then last week, I ran across the information that the Color Marketing Group has predicted purple as the latest “hot” color, from dresses to refrigerators. Refrigerators? That caught my attention. could I really buy a purple refrigerator? Turns out, I could. This one may be a beautiful violet, but it also sells for almost $2000, so I may have to be satisfied with a mini fridge. I could even get a Brita water filter pitcher in my favorite color.

Maybe the ultimate answer, though, would be to forego the purple appliances and go for a whole purple kitchen. This one appeared on a real estate site and every realtor who commented said s/he would advise the client to repaint in a more neutral hue because this one was too “specific.” Of course, I love it. I’m sure Rebecca knows that.

Sisters on the Fly

I love cowgirls and little trailers, so I could hardly avoid this book, even though I’m not interested in fly fishing. The book chronicles the adventures of more than 1300 women who restore tiny (100-150 square feet) vintage trailers and meet around the country to camp, fish, swap tales, and admire one another’s trailers.
They are “nurses, bookkeepers, kindergarten teachers, bakers, petsitters, artists, school bus drivers, small business owners, housewives, and mothers” and they don’t all fish. My favorite chapters were on restoring and decorating vintage trailers, and the photos were great. Other stories include What to Take Along, Cowgirl Crafts, Stories and Songs.
I’m hoping for a 2011 Sisters on the Fly calendar.

A Sweet Little Dream Cottage

This beautiful little cottage is made from cob, a mixture of earth, straw, and water. They come in all sizes (see photos at I Love Cob! ) but I’m always partial to the tiny houses.