Isn't it fun to watch houses being built or repaired? Watching our neighbors mess with their homes is highly entertaining. If you're lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that's in development, you don't even need a TV. Just go nose around in your neighbors' building sites.
Here's a house near us that's getting a redo:
An amazing house -- just on the other side of the big bridge. It sits right on the river, which might sound nice, but around here we all know what that means: it gets smashed by every hurricane that comes along.
Hurricane Irene did a doozy on this poor home. I love the red roof and shutters. It's a fabulous location on the water, with lots of space. A showcase house, you might say. A house everyone notices, and wonders, "Ooooo! Who lives there?"
Well, nobody was living there because the pitiful place was decimated by Irene. A massive dumpster had taken up residence in the yard for months. Then a few weeks ago, I noticed that they were removing the roof. "How sad," I thought. "They're finally giving up and dismantling it altogether." But then I noticed some studs, and some plywood, and a wall went up, and then more walls. What you see now is TWO ADDITIONAL FLOORS being added to the main structure of the house.
What in the world? (Don't you
love figuring out what craziness your neighbors' are up to, with their houses?)
Are they adding bedrooms? Turning it into a B&B? Setting up an observatory? If this house previously had a big "HIT ME" sign on it during hurricane season, two more floors up there will
only make it worse.
I can't wait to see what develops. Even Town Dock, our local nosy online reporter, hasn't muttered a whisper about the house. I'll let you know when I find out!
2 comments:
Goodness. Doesn't it look like an aspiring lighthouse? Will their insurer cover it?
Boy, that is a good question, Mags! It's been 17 months since Irene, so the owners have had plenty of time to consider what they need/want to do with the property. This has to be an expensive redo, so they must have considered well whether it would survive another storm. Perhaps they are reinforcing it somehow to withstand storms, to satisfy the insurance company? I can't wait to see what develops there. I'm just wondering why it's so TALL? Usually low slung homes, with low-pitched roofs, raised slightly off the ground, and constructed with cement block, are best right on the water. This end of the Pamlico Sound really gets smacked repeatedly with hurricanes -- the slow-moving ones tend to dump lots of water here, so we don't get wind damage, so much as flooding.
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