Archive for the 'Hartford' Category
Interesting Interior Architectural Features
Checking out the inside of many different houses is a great perk of being a real estate agent. I’m not at all curious about the homeowners’ stuff, or how they live, rather I love to look at the design and architecture of different homes. Looking at the outside is nice, but the interiors can be even more interesting.
I see a lot of structures from the 1890s through the present day. The housing stock in Greater Hartford has been gradually built up through the years, with different towns and neighborhoods developed in different eras. Each period has design characteristics that reflect the priorities of the times. My favorite era was around the turn of the century when single family homes had evolved into basically their modern form, yet still had a lot of interesting, and custom, features.
At the top of my list of favorite interior architectural details are transom windows, which are windows over doors. Some still even work, with the mechanisms in place that can open and close the windows. They are not all that common, but I sometimes see them in homes built around 1900 – generally in properties in the West End of Hartford. The brief Wikipedia page for transom windows notes that they were “a common feature in office buildings and apartments before air conditioning became common.” The idea being that it’s a good way to encourage air circulation in a building while maintaining a certain amount of privacy.
Another favorite are pocket doors, which slide into the walls when they’re not in use. The fact that they’re hidden is part of their charm – it’s a nice surprise when they get pulled out. And when they are closed, pocket doors are usually in great shape, since homeowners rarely use them. More often than not they match the style and finish of the normal sized doors in the home.
Finally, I really like built-in cabinetry. Most of the time it takes the form of shelving in the living room, china cabinets in the dining room, and the butler’s pantry. Built-ins are usually more practical than dazzling, but I appreciate how the architects and builders made an effort to thoughtfully utilize all the space in a home. They’re functional, and they help define how the different spaces might be used.
Transom windows, pocket doors, and built-in cabinetry are just a few of the interior architectural elements available in Greater Hartford. They happen to be some of my favorites, but not the only things about a home that make it shine.
What interior architectural features do you look for in a home?
A Biking Real Estate Agent
About a month ago I wrote a story about wanting to use my bicycle more for real estate. We have many regular readers who are bike enthusiasts, who were all very supportive of my effort … thank you for that.
I’m happy to report that I’ve made good progress on my goal. Most importantly, I’ve eliminated some of the physical and mental barriers that I felt were keeping me from truly embracing the bike. The most important turned out to be finding a more convenient place to store my ride so that it’s easy to just get started. A close second was figuring out a way to secure my pant legs so that they would be less likely to get greasy. Beyond that, most of my concerns were mental issues.
Since the initial post I’ve ridden many places, and to different types of appointments. Most have been short jaunts where biking is just as fast as driving, but there have been a few longer ones too. I still believe biking is better for trips that don’t involve client interaction, but I’m beginning to come around on that front too. Especially since, as a couple commenters pointed out, biking gets easier as you get in better shape.
I’m hoping to keep riding as long as possible this season because it is a nice way to travel. I’ve been impressed that distances seem shorter on the bike than they do in the car sometimes – perhaps I’m enjoying the trip more? And when my destination does not have easy parking in front, riding is really nice because I can usually lock up outside the front door and save a meaningful amount of parking and walking time.
Thanks again for the encouragement, and enjoy the mild weather!
Burgers Around Hartford
The Hartford area has become a hot spot for hamburger restaurants. We’ve always had the fast food places, like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and the like, but over the past two years there has be an explosion of more upscale places featuring the burger.
We like burgers, and have tried many of the options (though not all … yet). Each offers something a little different, and has their own strengths and weaknesses. In alphabetical order:
- The Burger Joint: West Hartford Center
- The Counter Burger: West Hartford Center
- Five Guys Burgers & Fries: Avon, Farmington, Enfield
- Goldburgers: Newington
- Jake’s Wayback Burgers: Rocky Hill, East Windsor, West Hartford*
- Max Burger: West Hartford Center
- Mooyah Burger: Downtown Hartford, West Hartford*
- Plan B Burger Bar: West Hartford, Glastonbury, Simsbury
- Red Robin Gourmet Burgers: West Hartford, Manchester, Enfield
* Announced, but not open, as of 11/10/2011
Another Note: This is not the complete list of places to get yummy hamburgers, just a list of restaurants with a strong burger theme. And it’s not even complete in this subset. At the time of the writing, a place called Burger Baby was announced for Downtown Hartford (hopefully the website will be up by the time you read this)
For me (Kyle), there is no one place that has the best of everything. If it were possible to mix and match a meal, I would get my burger at Five Guys, onion rings at Counter Burger, and a shake from The Burger Joint. The Five Guys fries are also top notch, and the price is at the lower end (since it’s more like fast food than fine dining), so I tend to gravitate there even though milkshakes are not available.
Amy agrees that there is no one restaurant that hits the magical burger-fries/rings-shake trifecta. She is partial to the Plan B burger, the Five Guys fries, and the Counter Burger shake. She also noted that she felt like she needed to do more research into the matter since we haven’t thoroughly vetted all the options. Mmmm, sounds like delicious work…
So readers, what do you see as the best-of-the-best out there?
Surviving the October Storm
First, we hope you are all safe and warm. The last few days have been not fun for the majority of people in the Greater Hartford region and the un-fun will likely continue for a while longer.
We live in the West End of Hartford and somehow have power. Many of our neighbors do not, as a lot of the legacy trees in our neighborhood took a beating and brought the power lines down with them when large branches fell. We lost a large branch from one of our trees, which barely missed our house, a large weeping cherry tree and several smaller tree limbs from another large tree in our yard. We were lucky that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged.
Many of the streets around us are not passable because of downed trees and live power wires. We’ve gone on several walks around the neighborhood and are, well, I guess the best words would be horrified and saddened at the amount of tree damage that’s occurred. Here are some pictures from neighboring streets taken on Sunday October 30, 2011…
While our dog seems to be happy with the storm and the new amount of chewing material it’s provided her, we can’t say the same for people. Neighbors are helping each other out where they can. We’ll most likely have some friends come stay with us tonight and for the next few days as they will not have power for several more days.
Many of our homeowner clients are dealing with tree cleanup and no power. Showings have really slowed down and we’ve had some closings delayed. We think that the storm is going to really slow the market down for November and we’ll enter the slower winter selling season a little bit earlier this year. When Irene came through a few months ago it had a similar effect.
Biking to Work
It would be great to be able to bike to work. Amy almost had to do it on marathon day because of road closures, but we found an open route from our house to the office so it was unnecessary. That’s the most recent time it’s come up, but by no means the only time. We know lots of people in the area who use their bikes for transportation, so this isn’t breaking new ground or doing something dramatic and radical.
Basically, it comes down to the old Nike tagline – “Just Do It.” Making excuses is easy, here’s a sample. I don’t want to get all sweaty since I’m meeting clients. My bike’s chain is exposed and tends to get grease on me and my clothes. My showings are in distant towns, or there are long distances between homes. I don’t have a good way to carry my stuff. My house doesn’t have a garage, so I have to haul my bike out of the basement each time I ride. I could go on all day.
Rather than focusing on why I can’t ride a bike to sell real estate, I’m going to start focusing on opportunities when it is possible. And it’s not always going to be possible. I’m not going to ride in bad weather. I’m not going to ride long distances. I’m probably not going to be riding on weekend days in the spring when we’re busiest.
I’m going to start small, and I’m going to start today. I’m writing this on a Tuesday in October. It’s a relatively slow day, so I’m going to go on broker’s tour on my bike. There are only a few houses I need to see, and they’re all in Hartford and West Hartford, so it’s manageable. Moderate distance, no time constraints, no client interaction. Just do it.
We’ll see how it goes…