Archive for the 'Hartford' Category
210 Terry Road, Hartford’s West End
This grand Colonial in Hartford’s West End has great spaces and amazing potential. The home offers 6 bedrooms and 3.5 baths over 3,812 sqft.
The gracious foyer welcomes you with its ornate turned staircase, arched doorway and shiny hardwood floors. Adjacent to the foyer, the formal living room offers plenty of space for entertaining and features a wood burning fireplace, access to the screened-in 3-season porch and beautiful original moldings. A cozy sitting room with built-in glass door cabinets leads you back to the foyer. The dining room will easily accommodate your social gatherings and provides plenty of built-in storage. Off the dining room, the kitchen has generous cabinet and counter space, an eat-in area, access to a deck and a laundry room.
Upstairs you’ll find a wonderful retreat in the master bedroom suite which has a sitting room, dressing room and full bath. Two additional large bedrooms and a full bath complete the second floor.
The third floor has three additional bedrooms, a full bath and three generously sized storage rooms.
Mechanically, a new, high efficiency gas furnace was just installed to keep you comfortable throughout the colder months. The home also features 200amp electrical service.
In the private backyard there is a 2-car garage and mature perennials, shrubs and trees for those that enjoy gardening. Or, if you prefer, just sit back, relax and get some fresh air on the rear deck or screened-in porch.
210 Terry Road is offered at $425,000. If you’d like to see this home, please have your agent set up a showing, or call me at 860-655-2125 to schedule a visit. Both floor plan and photos are available.
The Great Air Conditioning Debate
This summer has been hotter than normal for CT. On average, in the Hartford area, there are 18 days a year that are 90 degrees or more. So far this year we’ve had 26 days of 90 degree or warmer weather. And we’re not even half way through August yet. Sheesh.
When buyers are looking for homes, particularly during the warmer months, they often focus on central air. The house they buy should have it. In reality, there are many homes in our area that do not have central air. A quick look at the CT MLS tells us that there are currently 3,885 single family homes for sale in Hartford County. Of those, 1,823 have a central air system. So 47% of the current inventory available has central air. If you look at the breakdown based on construction year, 63% of the homes with central air conditioning were built in 1980 or later. Not really surprising. And not great for people that tend to gravitate towards older homes. They’ll most likely have to do without central air. Or suck it up and put it in themselves.
And this is what brings us to the Great Air Conditioning Debate, which was recently underway at the Bergquist residence (and I’m sure a bunch of other homes in the Hartford area). We live in a big, old house that does not have central air conditioning. Usually we are able to manage the heat with a series of open windows/run window fans/close windows/close curtains procedures that we’ve trialed and errored over the years. But for some reason this year our systems aren’t working that great and the entire house has just been really steamy. Our home office is located on the third floor, the hottest part of the house. After about 11:00am we have to abandon it and move our laptops down to the first floor. Sleeping has also been restless.
In early July we called “Uncle” and brought out the 2 window units that were sitting in the basement. Last year we didn’t even need them. They’re now installed in our bedroom and the home office. The rest of the house remains gross.
All of this discomfort has caused Kyle and I to start discussing the thought of putting in central air. It would be great to have cooler, less humid air. It would contribute to our resale value somewhere down the line. Window units are a hassle and don’t really fit well into our oversized windows. Also, it would be nearly impossible to effectively cool our house with window units.
The main detractors for us seem to be the overall installation cost and the somewhat wasteful nature of the system. Old houses are more expensive to retrofit to central air. It would cost us somewhere between $20,000-$25,000 to put central air into our house. That’s a good piece of change. Additionally, I can’t really wrap my head around the idea of paying that much for something that’s only used about 30 days a year. We’re actually big fans of fresh air, so if temperatures weren’t approaching the 90s, we would prefer to just have our windows open.
Neither of us had central air growing up and we’ve made it this long without it. Do we really need it that much? We’ve decided no. We’ll keep running our systems and that will be good enough. Even if I am a little bit whinier on the hot days. And the overarching reason why we won’t get central air? The curmudgeonly native Vermonter in both of us won’t allow it. Who can’t deal with a little heat? 
If you’re going through this, or went through this at some point, feel free to share the outcome. Until then, stay cool! Whatever your strategy…
Forbes: Hartford a Top City for Working Mothers
ForbesWoman recently released a study identifying the “Best Cities for Working Mothers” in 2010. Hartford finished 7th out of the top 50 metropolitan regions in the country.
The magazine ranked each city based on six factors: Women’s Income, Living Cost, Pediatricians, Unemployment, Violent Crimes, and Spending per Pupil. Their idea was to try to capture a variety of issues that all play into mysterious phrases like “quality of life” and “work-life balance.” Some may debate the specific factors selected, as many comments on the article’s page do, but from our point of view this is an opportunity to celebrate Greater Hartford as a nice to place to live regardless of whether the criteria are exactly right.
In the final shakeout, Hartford scored very well with the 3rd highest income, 3rd highest spending per pupil, and 4th lowest violent crime rate. Holding us back were our high cost of living (40th lowest in their terms) and low number of pediatricians (42nd lowest). Our unemployment rate was ranked right in the middle at 24th lowest. The final rankings come from weighting the different categories. This year Forbes placed a greater emphasis on strong salaries and low crime, both of which are strengths of Hartford.
Congratulations to the towns, businesses, and citizens that make up Greater Hartford!