We take frequent walks around our neighborhood and you can see some class division even within the neighborhood itself. I would say our house is in the
middleclass area. The farther north you go, the more expensive the houses and properties look. The farther south you go, the more run-down and smaller the
houses are.
One street has a block that looks really "ghetto" (and that's where the rundown trailer park is), but then the next block looks okay. Then the farther down you go, the houses start flipflopping between looking neglected and looking allright.
Our house is nice, but it does need some cosmetics and eventually I want to get that done because I don't want to feel like the "trashy" house on the block. It's mostly the front porch banisters that need to be repainted (and their basewood needs to be redone) and I'd probably want to remove the awnings someday because I think they're rather gaudy-looking and some of them have rust damage.
Someone told us that these types of awnings date back to the '50's and were really expensive when they were first put up. But he seemed to agree that they weren't necessary and could be removed. There's an identical house to ours about a block down the street and it doesn't have any awnings.
One thing that helps, though, is that the two trees in front of our house block it somewhat from view, so the house's flaws aren't immediately noticeable. There are a couple of houses on the street that are in noticeably worse condition, too, so it's not like were the lowest on the totem pole there anyway.
One street has a block that looks really "ghetto" (and that's where the rundown trailer park is), but then the next block looks okay. Then the farther down you go, the houses start flipflopping between looking neglected and looking allright.
Our house is nice, but it does need some cosmetics and eventually I want to get that done because I don't want to feel like the "trashy" house on the block. It's mostly the front porch banisters that need to be repainted (and their basewood needs to be redone) and I'd probably want to remove the awnings someday because I think they're rather gaudy-looking and some of them have rust damage.
Someone told us that these types of awnings date back to the '50's and were really expensive when they were first put up. But he seemed to agree that they weren't necessary and could be removed. There's an identical house to ours about a block down the street and it doesn't have any awnings.
One thing that helps, though, is that the two trees in front of our house block it somewhat from view, so the house's flaws aren't immediately noticeable. There are a couple of houses on the street that are in noticeably worse condition, too, so it's not like were the lowest on the totem pole there anyway.
