Our home is saved!
At the library board meeting on 29 Feb, the decision was made to select the Wells Fargo site on the next block for the new library, not the site we live on. This means that our home and the four others on the block are safe! Thanks to everyone who e-mailed, called, faxed, and spoke on our behalf in the last few months. We are very grateful.

A mention in Metafilter, 29 Feb 2000.

American Bungalow Magazine for more about houses like ours

Jason and I bought our first (and hopefully last) house in June, 1996. It's an Arts & Crafts-style bungalow (built in 1911) on Beacon Hill, in Seattle. We love living here, and we even got married right here in this house.

Here are some pictures.

This is a photo of the house from 1934. The original photo was black and white, so this has been colorized. We don't know what color the house really was then, but it looks like it was a dark color. The chimney is shorter now than it was then, and so are the chimneys of the houses around us. Our theory is that the 1949 earthquake probably shortened a lot of chimneys around here. The one on our house had a noticeable lean, anyway. :)

Incidentally, the two houses also seen in this image look almost exactly the same today as they did in 1934.

Here's a view from the dining room into the living room. The leaves on the chandelier were left there by the previous owners. The interesting part here is the colonnade (the columns on the left and right) and the box beams on the ceiling.

The light fixture in the dining room is quite gorgeous. It appears to not be original to the house, and probably dates to the 1930s -- but it's really nice and goes just fine with its Craftsman surroundings.

Here is some of the beautiful woodwork and the built-in cabinet in the dining room. That shiny finish is original. It is hard to see the details, but the back of the built-in sideboard is mirrored, and the upper cabinet doors are leaded glass. Note also the plate rail that goes all the way around the room.

Here is the fireplace, and to the right (right above Jason's back) is a built-in bookshelf with leaded glass doors, and the colonnade seen above. Since these photos were taken, we've replaced the light fixtures (cheap Colonial knockoffs) with some more historically-accurate lighting from Rejuvenation Lamp and Fixture in Portland:

This is an example of the fixtures we bought -- the Deschutes fixture. We love them! We got ours in an Antique Bronze finish, a little darker than the one in this picture. (By the way, Rejuvenation's store is wonderful. I always stop there when I visit Portland.)

These are the tall built-in cupboards in the kitchen. The cupboards are original to the house, but the doors were "modernized" sometime in the 30s or 40s. Restoring the doors to their original state is part of our restoration plan.

Here's a view of the living room looking toward the entryway. Note that there are more colonnades in this doorway, too, and the wood rail around the foyer. It's hard to see here, but the living room has box beams on the ceiling. We are tearing out the carpet and restoring the hardwood floor.

We use our plate rail for paintings, not plates. Here's a great view of that light fixture in the dining room, too.

Here's the house as it looks at the turn of the 21st Century on a fine autumn day. There is still much restoration left to do, but it looks lovely!

This page last edited: Fri, 18 Feb 2000. © 1998-2000 by Wendi Dunlap-Simpson.