House Tours and National Preservation Month

The current issue of Old House Journal has a nice article, "10 Lessons You'll Learn on a House Tour."

-- #1: You'll find out as much about your own taste as you will about your neighbors'. (While I missed last weekend's Capitol Hill tour because of house guests, I definitely thought this on the previous weekend's tour of houses in Takoma Park--many I did not like what they did to the interiors.)

-- #2: You'll discover great ideas you never considered. (Speaking of Takoma Park, it was putting built in bookshelves in attic knee walls.)


-- #3: You'll be saved from misguided ideas.

-- #4: You'll unearth unexpected decorative resources.

-- #5: You gain insight into the mechanics of older structures. (Thw writeup for this tip has an excellent idea about blown-in insulation.)

-- #6: You learn how to strike the right balance between historical versus contemporary.

-- #7: You'll uncover local history. (Speaking of Takoma Park, I never knew about the incursions by Montgomery College into the abutting neighborhood of large mostly Victorian houses. Alas, the College demolished some in favor of ugly ass buildings.)


-- #8: You'll start your own resource network.

-- #9: You'll get landscaping ideas.

-- #10: You'll renew your love of old homes. (One of the houses on the Takoma tour was a huge bungalow. It was nicely done. Alas, they didn't have the second floor open to the tour.)

-------------
This coming weekend there are tours in Hyattsville (buy a ticket at Franklin's Restaurant, it's on Sunday in the afternoon) and Mount Vernon Triangle (I suggested this kind of tour of downtown housing in 2004, to the then director of DC's "Long term revitalization") of lofts and condos--they aren't likely to be historic, but if you're into modernism, maybe this is of interest.