House Hunting Story

Some of you may already know this story, but I thought I'd fill everyone in. Tim and I made the difficult decision about coming back to Denver. We loved San Francisco, but really missed the more casual Colorado lifestyle. So, we initially targeted "traditional" Denver neighborhoods that had mostly turn of the century homes. They are lovely and have the added benefit of being close to downtown. But, after looking at many of these lovely homes, they didn't seem like a fit for us.

So, I googled...and googled...and googled. We thought about building a new modern home, a la Dwell, but that's pretty pricey and it could take years to find an empty lot. Most new developer modern housing is multi-unit...this means I would share walls with other people. There is no way in hell I will ever do that again!

And then I tripped on a cool local blog - www.denmod.com - It's actually a blog by a mortgage broker who includes blog posts about modern homes and building in Denver. I think he just has the blog as a marketing tool for his brokerage, but he had links to fun stuff. It turns out that Denver has a few neighborhoods of mid-century modern homes...homes built in the 1950's to mid 1960's and they are very cool...a little bit like the Eichler communities in California and 1950's neighborhoods in Palm Springs. After we got a taste of this, we (especially Tim) couldn't go back.

We found an agent who specializes in mid-century modern homes (aka mid-mods) in Denver ...we have had great fun looking at great homes. Most mid mods are on the small side. Houses were built much more modestly in the 1950's...the concepts of walk-in closets and McMansions didn't exist. But, the houses typically have great light and expansive feeling.

So, we put an offer on a very small house in the subdivision of Arapahoe Acres. Arapahoe Acres is one of the few federally designated historical neighborhoods from the 1950's. Here is a link to the history. If you'd like to take a virtual tour of the neighborhood, someone has taken pics and published most of the houses on Flickr at this link.

Here is an old picture of the house we are buying. It is called the Pounds House for the original owners. These are not the current colors, but it's close.


We are under contract, but still have to go through inspections, surveys, blah, blah, blah. Because it is such a tiny house, we are planning to do an addition. We won't change any of the front of the house and are trying to restore the home to most of its original finishes, like natural wood finishes, unfinished concrete block and all natural materials. The last owners did some unfortunate "updating" that we'll be ripping out soon.

I'll be setting up a sister blog to document the "fun" of our remodeling project. So, stay tuned!