Pittsburgh "remuddling"... (Philadelphia, California: rentals, loft, new house)

[eschaton]

Although I've talked about it for several years, I've only recently discovered the term remuddling - for attempted remodels to make a home more contemporary which actually result in the house being worth less money.

Common Pittsburgh examples I see are.

Gratuitous aluminum awnings on everything.

In some ways this is innocuous, as although they are ugly as sin, you can take them down, although the adhesive can in some cases never be fully removed.

Patching in windows of odd sizes.

This is by far the most heartbreaking, because it's ruined the front of essentially half of what would otherwise be historic homes in my own neighborhood. I've heard different hypotheses for this, including laziness (at one point it was difficult for contractors to get windows of the size of standard Pittsburgh houses) and cost savings (people trying to cut their heating bills by shrinking their windows.

It seems style had something to do with it, however, as my one neighbor two houses down told be he "just hated those old-timey windows" and thus ruined his house (its been a slumlord rental since he moved out, while the rest of our area is gentrifying). I still have a hard time understanding this though. Even if you thought those ugly horizontal sliders looked good on a mid-century modern, as soon as you saw it go onto one of your neighbor's places, and realized the brick would never match and the house would forever look like a turd, it's hard to see how other people would go forward. It's especially a head-scratcher because there is no way this could have been cheaper than just getting new windows put in (or, barring that, shrinking the window height but otherwise leaving the window opening unchanged.

Complete replacement of facade material.

I'm not talking just about the virtual elimination of wood in favor of aluminum siding (something common, here, but understandable). I'm talking about the incredibly common coverage of perfectly good brick with siding, that crappy fake stone tile, or even worse, a split between both on each floor. Sometimes you see variants of this, like the fake blond brick tile (generally better than the fake stone), and the complete refacing of a house with new brick. The last one at least means the off-size windows don't look as odd, but still usually results in having a featureless brick front to your house (e.g., all features are eliminated). In all cases, I have to assume new pointing would have been cheaper.

Another, less common example, is turning a front porch into a home addition, which never matches the house. This is more common when residential houses are turned into storefronts however. It's most of the Murray Avenue strip in Squirrel Hill below Hobart, for example, but it's just hidden well there because the houses are mostly up slope and not easily seen from the street.

Anyway, I digress, as I have two questions.

1. Do you think that this sort of activity is more common in Pittsburgh than elsewhere? Although I was in a different place mentally when I was more a roaming sort, I don't remember seeing as many ruined (as opposed to blighted) houses in any other city I've been. As an example, my grandmother grew up in Port Richmond in Philadelphia, a neighborhood with a similar background to Lawrenceville (white, working-class, rowhouse, mainly homeowner-occupied), yet when I look around on Google Maps, probably 75% of the houses are essentially intact.

2. Where would you say this is most predominant in Pittsburgh? While Lawrenceville seems to be up there, I'd say Bloomfield is actually even worse - it's just since the houses are siding, the poor choices are hidden more. It doesn't seem to have been an issue as much with the neighborhoods which became slums early on however, as the slumlords seem to neglect the houses and let them eventually fall apart still architecturally intact. I still do see a somewhat large amount of this in older neighborhoods which are wealthy like Shadyside however - presumably mostly now student rentals.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Anyway, I digress, as I have two questions.

1. Do you think that this sort of activity is more common in Pittsburgh than elsewhere? Although I was in a different place mentally when I was more a roaming sort, I don't remember seeing as many ruined (as opposed to blighted) houses in any other city I've been. As an example, my grandmother grew up in Port Richmond in Philadelphia, a neighborhood with a similar background to Lawrenceville (white, working-class, rowhouse, mainly homeowner-occupied), yet when I look around on Google Maps, probably 75% of the houses are essentially intact.

2. Where would you say this is most predominant in Pittsburgh? While Lawrenceville seems to be up there, I'd say Bloomfield is actually even worse - it's just since the houses are siding, the poor choices are hidden more. It doesn't seem to have been an issue as much with the neighborhoods which became slums early on however, as the slumlords seem to neglect the houses and let them eventually fall apart still architecturally intact. I still do see a somewhat large amount of this in older neighborhoods which are wealthy like Shadyside however - presumably mostly now student rentals.

Oh, hell no -- haven't you watched HGTV? We all are supposed to have granite and stainless, ceramic tile in neutral colors and neutral walls and masses of pillows on the beds..... I used to call this the Mallization of America, where everything is supposed to be the same like on Camazotz. (yes -- I just made a "A Wrinkle in Time" reference.)

It's everywhere. I walked into a house out here, where we have charming small Craftsmans and some idiotic moron took out all the 3 inch picture molding and 6 inch baseboards out, and covered the beautiful original solid oak with that engineered Brazilian Cherry crap and RUINED his house. He overheard me talk trash about it and got a little defensive.

He basically took everything out and made it look like a new house. A person that wants a new house wants a new house. A person that wants an old house, wants an old house..... and a person that isn't decided will look at both. But he essentially screwed himself royally.

And he ended up dropping his price 50K before the bank took it back.

So no -- it's not just Pittsburgh, it's everywhere and since I don't live there anymore (But go back for family often) I can't tell you where it's worst.

[stburr91]

I can't answer your questions, but I can say that I've spent the last four months undoing the "improvements" that were made over the years to a rowhouse I just bought.

[LIRefugee]

It is definitely not just Pittsburgh, you can find things like that just about everywhere with older housing or other building stock, especially if it is being used for renting. I have definitely seen a high number of examples in Pittsburgh, and I like to photograph them when I see them, but the worst single example I have ever seen was in Boston.

Here's one bit of Penn Ave in Garfield, definitely not the worst I have seen in Pittsburgh:


And here's my favorite example in Boston:


It's also not restricted to today's day and age. Some beautiful late 19th or early 20th century buildings were redone in the modernist style in the late 40s and early 50s, removing just about every piece of ornamentation possible. I passed by one just today downtown, though I didn't not where exactly.

[BrianTH]

I'd have to be convinced there really was less of this in similar working-class neighborhoods in places like Boston, Philly, NYC, and Baltimore, or for that matter SF. A lot of it may have been undone by this point, but back in the early 1990s when I was seeing those Northeast Coast cities on a regular basis I feel like it was pretty darn common.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I'd have to be convinced there really was less of this in similar working-class neighborhoods in places like Boston, Philly, NYC, and Baltimore, or for that matter SF. A lot of it may have been undone by this point, but back in the early 1990s when I was seeing those Northeast Coast cities on a regular basis I feel like it was pretty darn common.

It's not an uncommon thing out here to spend millions on a sweet Victorian, gutting it to the studs inside, and spending another 1.25 million making it look like a modern loft style home, all the while making sure the outside is a pristine Victorian...

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2....html#comments

[Goodjules]

I live in SF and everything Tallysmom says is spot on. Although it was worse in the 60s when I was growing up. In those days very few people appreciated older homes. At least now there are many of us who appreciate and respect the character of the era the home was built.

I work for a remodeling company and we just completed a teardown of an Eichler (mid-century homes built in Northern California) in San Mateo. Had the house been in Palo Alto, it would have been protected because they've created a historic district that only allows accurate restoration. Part of me bristles at these kind of restrictions, but as a lover of architecture and historic homes. I see the need.

[PreservationPioneer]

Here is one of my favorite examples of "remuddling" in Pittsburgh. This monument to bad taste is in Shadyside. The twin on the right is probably what it originally looked like, more or less.

[kettlepot]

In my own neighborhood the owners of a classic Streamline Moderne house - it had it all - Speedlines grooved into the stucco of the walls, speedlines in the eave coverings, a portal window, original windows, a semicircle front door covering, rounded block glass on not one, but TWO corners!

They tore the house down to the framing. They are going to add a big addition out back, which is fine and could have been accommodated by leaving the front of the house intact. But the whole thing will no doubt end up looking like a California Contemporary house from the suburbs.

The Idiots! The complete and utter idiots. RANT OVER

Oh, and Tallysmom, the other HGTV thing you forgot to mention is that 'EVERYONE' wants an open floor plan house. Hence the need to gut all the interior walls, moldings, paneling, and finishes from a classic early 20th century house and turn it into another piece of common place modern suburban architecture.

[groar]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

Oh, and Tallysmom, the other HGTV thing you forgot to mention is that 'EVERYONE' wants an open floor plan house. Hence the need to gut all the interior walls, moldings, paneling, and finishes from a classic early 20th century house and turn it into another piece of common place modern suburban architecture.

ha, yes, total pet peeve. i don't know if i find that kind of remodel, even when it looks nice in isolation, any less offensive than some of the weird things people do to houses in the name of economy. that place in san francisco tallysmom posted looks nice on the outside, nice on the inside, but why did they have to ruin a classic home to do that? if you want some minimalist open floor plan ultra-modern interior, put it in a house it fits. i guess if the inside was totally gutted to begin with i could see doing something like that (although it wouldn't be my preference) but taking out original details for it is a crime.