Is This Wellington?

No, this is not Wellington, but it sure looks familiar. It's sort of a similar color, has the urban sidewalk, elevated landing, front porch, upstairs window. But if you know Wellington like I do, you can see a lot of differences.

I'm always looking for similar bungalow plans, and today one of my favorite blogs features bungalow plans from this site.

Of course I'll never find Wellington's exact plan online, since he was designed by his own architect just for us. (Not really for us, but he may as well have been.) And besides, I have his plans in my possession. But that doesn't stop me from looking for similar bungalows all over "The Web". It's one of my favorite ways to waste time.

Thanks Hooked on Houses and The Plan Collection. That was fun.

Happy Birthday USA!

It was recently the 4th of July here in Benicia. In the true Small Town spirit, Benicia really celebrated! We had a good old fashioned parade on July 3rd, complete with the Armed Forces and the Firefighters. Unfortunately the police were only working, they weren't represented in the parade. I wonder why. Police get a bum rap. They always get the worst facilities and the least praise. Our police department is actually housed in a pretty cool historic building. It's the old Benicia High School, right up the street (pics to follow in a different post), but it's an old building that also houses other city services. As we've seen before, the fire fighters have a new, gorgeous facility built in the Arts and Crafts style. AND they're represented in the parade. :( Poor police. Anyway, here are some of our armed forces.

And a pirate ship (it's only pretend), courtesy of Pizza Pirate. I didn't win the free pizza.

There were lots of classic cars, like the truck above, and these Mustangs.

Last night there were fireworks down at the pier. They shoot them off over the water. We usually walk downtown. Well, we've lived here one year, through two Independence Days and have walked downtown both times. I keep thinking I'll try to see if I can spot the fireworks from my bedroom balcony, but I don't want to miss anything, so I usually (two out of two) go with the fam to the end of 2nd Street and view the fireworks from there. Here are two completely inadequate photos, but they're all I have.

It was better in person. I just love this little old town.

Historic Benicia: Frisbie-Walsh House - Marker 18

Right up the street from Wellington is the house with perhaps the most historic significance of any house in Benicia - known as the Frisbie-Walsh house. John Frisbie was General Vallejo's son-in-law. He had this house built in Benicia in the 1850s. It was a "pre-fab." The timber was cut and numbered, then shipped to Benicia. Captain Walsh actually lived in this house until 1880.The two photos above were courtesy of the MLS. This house sold two years ago. It was starting to get a reno when we moved into Wellington, but things seemed to be on hold until just a few months ago, when renovation began in earnest.

I first talked about the Frisbie-Walsh house on January 12th in this post.


The pic below was taken on June 12th, right after they finished replacing some siding that had visible dry rot.The three photos below were taken today. The chimneys were repaired a couple of months ago, then the new roof went on - just like the old one. Now they've finished the siding, primed everything and painted the house a bright yellow - probably the original color. They've also done a great reno job on the detached garage. You can see it from the alley. The Benicia Historic Society has a lot to say about renovations of historic homes, and I'm sure they wanted this one to be as true to the original as possible.The black and whites below are old photos taken from the Library of Congress. You can see that the neighboring properties were not built at the time these photos were taken. Other than that, not much has changed with this house. I got the photos here , the Library of Congress (dot) Gov site. This is the entry on the Frisbie-Walsh house in particular.

Bungalow For Sale - Long Beach

I needed me a bungalow fix, and I got a good one. This absolutely fabulous bungalow is currently for sale in Long Beach for a mere $875,000. It was built in 1913.

Here is the sketch. Is it the cutest thing? And the kitchen has a Buck's Stove.

It has four bedrooms and two and a half baths in 2507 square feet.

There is also a full basement, but they didn't include a picture of it on their site. It's my new favorite!

Wellington, The Penguin

Wellington is not the only Wellington in the world. There's a much older Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand has been in the news a lot lately because this chubby emperor penguin recently turned up on the beach there. No on is sure how he got so off course, but they've decided to leave him alone and hope he finds his way home. Biologists are afraid if they scoop him up and bring him back to Antarctica he might introduce diseases to his friends and family. Besides, he's been busily munching on sand which doesn't agree with his delicate digestive system. Poor little guy.

This is a cool old picture of Cuba Street in Wellington in 1883. Mary Taylor, a friend of Charlotte Bronte owned a general store on Cuba Street in the 1800s.

Below is a pic of Cuba Street today. It's a pedestrian area. I kind of like it better in the 1800s, except for the mud.Alas, my quest for Wellington-type architecture (bungalows) in New Zealand proved fruitless. But I did run across this evocative pic of three modern apartments on top of a 1908 warehouse in Wellington. Courtesy of Dwell. Couldn't be less like Wellington, but we don't mind. We like it anyway.

Garden Update 3 - Nasturtiums Galore

It's true, this is not a nasturtium. But isn't it gorgeous? It looks like a great big blackberry. You know what it is? It's a pincushion flower! Otherwise known as scabiosa which is a very ugly name. It's almost as bad as glechoma, which I also have in the garden and love. I've had the standard lilac-shade scabiosa in my gardens for years, ever since I saw it growing in Half Moon Bay and snagged a flower that had gone to seed. It's very easy to grow. Like dandelion, but better! This one is off a plant I noticed in the alley last year. It's in the garden of this really awful black house. I'm not kidding the house is painted black. But I use the word "painted" liberally because it's not only black, but it's pealing. The word "garden" can't really be used to describe the mass of overgrown bamboo and nasty bits of plants going to seed. I postively rescued this little seed from that awful place. Their poor little fig tree can't even grow a fig! Mine is swarming with figs (not ripe yet).

Anyway, I snagged this one little seed clump last year, and now I have this lovely blackberry pincushion. It's even gorgeouser in person.

Now to the nasturtiums. 70. That's how many I had growing in my garden at last count. I bought a bag of seeds from Home Depot in the early spring and scattered them absolutely everwhere. I have 40 plants in the front and 30 in the back. They're almost all orange, but some are yellowy and others are more reddish. I just love them.I just finished a lovely morning of gardening. I mostly pulled out the overgrown coreopsis which has gotten so stuck up you can't even SEE the other plants! A couple weeks ago I pulled two out on one side, today I pulled to out on the other side. They started life as a $3 six pack last year. And ended life in my green waste bin this year. Poor things. I still have two though. And I didn't take a picture of that area because right now it looks kind of sad. The other plants were so overwhelmed, they're currently gasping for air and need a few days to perk their little heads up, then I'll snap a pic.

Alright, just a little glimpse. Here:

This is our new door mat we got for $6. There's one on the back porch too. I love it, but Hugo isn't so sure about that bird. Everytime she comes in the house she steps very gingerly, as far away from that bird as she can get. Don't judge her. She's old.

I Forgot to Revel in Spring

The new West Elm catalog just arrived. The catalog includes a section highlighting their fall line. Fall! Fall? It isn't even SUMMER yet. But it is. Just today. It started at 10:16 when I wasn't looking. I forgot to revel in spring. I was too busy wishing the rain would stop. The weather would warm up. I could get up in the morning and come downstairs without putting on a sweatshirt. And now it's hot, it's summer and spring's gone.

That just goes to show you. You always want what you can't have. But in my defense, we didn't have much of a spring this year. Very recently it was stormy and cold, and today it was close to 100 degrees. Come to think of it, we didn't have much of an autumn either. I remember wishing for winter because my Halloween pumpkin was baking on my front porch. What is up with the seasons?

Enough lamenting. Look at the pics I took today while on my special quest (details to follow in the Turtle Blog). They go very nicely with the previous post published just today! If you missed it, be sure to click the "Older Post" tab below, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

But for now I'm going to go outside and revel in summer.