The House Across the Street

This is the second smallest house in the neighborhood.  Directly across the street from me, this house is 975 square feet.  The owners are friends of mine, who moved to Illinois in June when he switched from the youth pastor position at one of the local churches to a head pastor position.  I spent a lot of time this summer working on the landscape, cleaning out trees that had grown up in the shrubs, adding a few more shrubs, trimming back the shrubs that were overgrown, and keeping the lawn mowed.  It was a great summer project since I had a couple of months off.

So, as I said this house is 975 square feet, which is a grand total of 15 square feet larger than the shack.  The drawback, in my opinion, is that the house is a 3 bedroom house.  This leads to tiny spaces.  The shack has two bedrooms, and all of the rooms in the house are actually quite spacious.  This house was actually on the market when I bought the shack three years ago.  I preferred the shack because of the larger rooms, the larger lot, and the larger garage (the fact that the shack was more attractively priced didn't hurt anything either!). 

This house, in my opinion, would look really great painted in a red color, almost barn red I'm thinking.  I think that the red would really pop with the yellow brick and the brown roof and garage door.  Inside, it has hardwood floors, a minuscule kitchen with original cabinets and white boomerang counter tops, both of which need to be replaced with something fitting for the time period.  I am always a supporter of saving the original pieces, but the kitchen has been tinkered with many times and it is beyond being brought back to original.  It originally had sliding doors on the cabinets made out of painted pegboard, which actually looked really neat.  The whole house has vaulted ceilings, and the bathroom has original pink toilet, tub and tile.  The original sink has been replaced with a 1970's style white vanity and marbled one piece sink/counter top combination.

There are three of these houses lined up next to each other across the street from me.  The other two have been added on to to make them larger.  This is the only one that is still original and untouched.

I heard a rumor at one time after I moved into the shack that these three houses across the street were actually mid-century modular houses.  I am unsure if this is true, but looking at the foundation on the side, it seems that the house could have been moved there from another location.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with manufactured housing, here is a quick run-down.  A mobile home is considered a single-wide or a double-wide, sometimes even triple-wide.  These houses are built on metal frames and do not need to be placed on a foundation, although a foundation may be built around them.  A modular home is a regular house, built in sections in a factory, and moved to a permanent foundation.  These houses are built to adhere to local building codes and are not designed to be moved, just as you would expect from a normal stick-built house.  They are very well built, and should not be considered a "double-wide."  Not that I have any problem with mobile homes, I lived in one for four years before purchasing the shack.  In fact, my investment in that mobile home made the down payment on the shack.  Much cheaper than living in the dorms or renting a house or apartment when I was in college.

My parents installed a modular home in the mid 1980s.  It was built as well as or better than local stick built houses with 2x6 exterior walls.  It is your typical long ranch house.

Anyway, now that I have educated you on the difference between a mobile home and a modular, you may view the Realtor listing for this property here.