Written by Macklin Reid, Press Staff Monday, 18 June 2012 05:23

Run-down abandoned-looking houses engulfed by untended landscaping unmowed knee-high lawns, shrubs that seem to consume porches are again on the Board of Selectmens long-range agenda.

This time, the selectmen dont seem eager to wade into the philosophically muddy waters of using legal penalties to force residents to maintain their homes to standards set by the neighborhood or community.

The law town officials are now contemplating would apply only to properties that no one is living in houses that were foreclosed on, or abandoned by their owners for some reason. They might be in the hands of a mortgage company, or bank.

Im not talking where were going into inhabited homes and forcing people, First Selectman Rudy Marconi told a recent selectmens meeting. This is just vacated homes.

To emphasize the distinction, Mr. Marconi has offered property maintenance law as a replacement for the description blight ordinance that was commonly used when the idea was discussed inconclusively a year ago.

The problem of unmaintained properties, Mr. Marconi suggested, is not simply a matter of aesthetics. A study done at Pace University found that an abandoned-looking property could substantially reduce the value of neighboring properties within sight of it.

For every house that has a view of the vacated house, its approximately $7,500, Mr. Marconi said of the average loss in property value found in the study.

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Run-down houses again eyed by officials

Ray Bradbury: The outpouring of tributes to the great speculative-fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who died June 5, included one with an architectural bent. Steve Rose writes in his weekly architectural column in the Guardian about Bradbury as an architectural "imagineer" who took a keen interest in urban design, and a key influence -- "for better or worse" -- on theme parks and urban malls. He quotes Bradbury on the latter:

"Malls are substitute cities, substitutes for the possible imagination of mayors, city councilmen and other people who don't know what a city is while living right in the centre of one. So it is up to corporations, creative corporations, to recreate the city."

Rose concludes: "The only architecture that would really have satisfied him, one suspects, is a permanent moon base, from which to launch manned expeditions to Mars."

"No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong KIND of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches."

-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 Home, sweet cubicle: For many of us, a cubicle is our home away from home, which makes this roundup of funky office cubicles just home-related enough to include here. There's a pop-up cardboard office -- think of a giant pop-up card -- and the Kruikantoor portable office by Tim Vinke, which looks a lot like a recycling bin. Gotta love the way the chairs fit into it. There's an office in a box by Toshihiko Suzuki for Kenchikukagu. A puffy one that inflates. A solar-powered outdoor workspace. The uber-cool Hus 1 garden office by Torsten Ottesj. And possibly my favorite, the iTrunk Pocket Office by Pinel & Pinel, which is pink and has a cabinet front that looks like an iPod.

Bathroom amenity: An extra-long bathroom in a Vancouver, B.C., home presented a challenge with its dimensions: 16 feet long and 9 feet wide. Interior designer Kelly Deck writes: "Done poorly, (the room) was almost certain to feel like a bowling alley."

The solution was to bookend the bathroom with two millwork towers: one opposite the toilet for storage; and the other, across from the steam shower, offering a place to sit, hooks for hanging robes, open shelves for fresh towels, and two drawers for more storage.

The tower with seating bench is brilliant, and looks inviting in the photo. Every bathroom that's large enough should have one. As for the steam shower, that's probably grand, too.

-- Pat Jeffries

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From the home front: Ray Bradbury and architecture; office cubicles; bedroom and bath design

Where have all the porches gone?

What happened to sprinklers being used as a way to cool off during a summer heat wave? To playing outside all day and not returning until the sun began to set?

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Life without porches

Look out, you food-hoarding, gun-loving, camouflage-wearing conspiracy theorists: the government really is on your front porch.

Literally. A few days ago, the Durham City Council approved an ordinance striking down a Southern tradition. It banned indoor, upholstered furniture from front porches.

You read right: you can no longer indulge in one of the great Southern comforts known to mankind - coming home after a hard days work and plopping down with a cold one and chatting with your neighbor on that genuine imitation Naugahyde couch you dragged onto the porch because its too tattered for the front room but not raggedy enough for the trash heap. And if your neighbor is a pretty little thing who Sweet Thang doesnt like, you may find yourself sleeping on it that night.

Not only is the banning of sofas from the front porch an assault on a cherished Southern practice, its also an assault on poor people. Do you have any rich relatives whore going to hold onto a red pleather Barcalounger whose guts are held in place with silver duct tape?

You can sympathize with city officials even if you, like me, view keeping a battered easy chair on the front porch a constitutional right. Ric Hester of Durhams Neighborhood Improvement Services told me sofas and such sprouting on porches and in yards has become almost an epidemic in parts of Northeast Durham. On some streets, he said, it seems like every other house is guilty.

Thats too much even for me, a dude who not only appreciates tackiness but who worships at its altar. Still, at a time when your garbage man will chastise you for putting a plastic milk jug in the trash can instead of in the recycling bin - oh, so Im the only one? - it seems incongruous of the city to hassle people who are really buying into the recycling movement. It ought to give them blue ribbons.

A warning from Wilson

I warned you about this 14 years ago when a group of busybodies called the Wilson Appearance Committee persuaded that city to ban indoor furniture from front porches. That it has come to such a pass in Durham is our fault. We shouldve protested instead of passively accepting it when our Wilson brethren and sisteren were being assaulted by the good-taste police. Who knows how effective a massive protest - a front-porch sit-out? - would have been in halting the spread of such a law?

Just as when Sherman passed through here on his gloriously destructive march to the sea, another cherished Southern tradition is falling to another Northern movement. I figured nobody born down here is going to object to a couch on the porch, unless theyve been colleged Up North, but Hester said his department receives three to five complaints a week from people who cant abide their neighbors louche and waterlogged faux-leather front porch loveseat.

Whither Rockingham?

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Saunders: Banning sofas on the porch? That’s just tacky

7:56 AM

By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- Andrea Jellison and her husband drove into their driveway early Tuesday afternoon with the backseat of the car full of a month's worth of groceries.

click image to enlarge

UNSAFE CONDITIONS: Augusta code enforcement officer Rob Overton tapes a notice on the deck at 11 State Street that wooden stairs and deck entrance to three apartments in the building is unsafe. Tenants in the units were ordered to relocate.

Staff photo by Andy Molloy

click image to enlarge

UNSAFE CONDITIONS: Andrea Jellison reacts to being told that her apartment at 11 State Street in Augusta had been condemned as unsafe. Jellison, her husband and child were told by city officials that the wooden stairs and deck entrance to the building is unsafe and were ordered to relocate.

Staff photo by Andy Molloy

Augusta police and a city code enforcement officer met the couple and told them that their apartment and two others in the four-story building at 11 State St. had been deemed unfit to live in, so they could not stay there.

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Augusta family find themselves suddenly homeless

Rocking chairs add an old-fashioned feel to the residential porches along Officers Circle.

Ray Boren

FORT DOUGLAS Shaded on a summer's day by leafy trees and embracing spacious green parade grounds and a traditional bandstand, the white-trimmed sandstone dwellings and brick buildings along, and near, Fort Douglas' Officers Circle seem a model of all-American peace and order.

As a result, it is sometimes difficult to remember that today's serene enclave high on Salt Lake City's east bench was established exactly 150 years ago in 1862 amid the strife of the Civil War. Early on, the fort was itself a crux of what historian Brigham D. Madsen called a "cold war" and a key engine of the region's economy.

This was back when the Mormon settlers of Utah Territory, which only a year earlier stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the high Sierra Nevada range, were seeking to become citizens of what they hoped would become the State of Deseret. Brigham Young, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was their prophet and their political leader.

Col. Patrick Edward Connor, the founder of Camp Douglas soon to be Fort Douglas, named for the recent presidential candidate and late senator from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas was the new representative of President Abraham Lincoln's U.S. government and military.

"Both individuals could be quite provocative, in words they used and in their actions," says Ephraim Dickson, curator of the Fort Douglas Military Museum.

That Utah cold war, "almost went to a 'hot war' in 1863 and 1864," Dickson says.

Perhaps oddly, President Young and Col. Connor conspicuously avoided one another. "They were the two most influential and politically powerful people in Utah though in real life they never met," Dickson says.

Dickson and Bob Voyles, the museum's director, are both deep into preparations for the post's upcoming, family-oriented Fort Douglas Day, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 16, and the annual Civil War Ball on the preceding evening, Friday, June 15, from 7 to 9:30 p.m.

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Fort Douglas celebrates sesquicentennial with a Civil War Ball, family day

By Kathy Van Mullekom Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)

When the tomatoes are finally planted and the beds are weeded and mulched, it's time to add the final touch of perfection - tropicals that give your porches and patios a little island mystique.

And, since tropicals typically come in basic plastic pots that can be slipped into boldly colored ceramic pots, they can instantly turn any outdoor space into a party place. String a few lights, light some tiki torches and your decor needs nothing but Jimmy Buffet music and some good eats.

When you remove a tropical from its plastic pot and plant it in a decorative container, make sure the pot has ample drainage holes. Use only good potting soil, not garden soil, which is too heavy. Fill the new pot with one-third potting soil. Remove the tropical from its container and tease or loosen any matted, circling roots. Place it in the new pot and fill in with more potting soil. Water thoroughly. If the potting soil settles, add more soil and water again.

Tropicals are heavy feeders, so regular fertilization with a water-soluble food meant for flowering plants, or a time-released granule mixed into the potting soil keeps the plants blooming. Some potting soils have fertilizer already mixed into them, but they are often only good for a few weeks.

During hot summer days, potted plants need daily, sometimes twice daily, watering because the soil heats up and dries out quickly.

Here's a glimpse at some of the new sun-loving tropicals you'll find from companies such as Monrovia (monrovia.com) and Hines (hineshort.com). Monrovia is found at independent garden centers; Hines is available at garden centers and stores such as Lowe's, Home Depot and Walmart.

Mandevilla Bride's Cascade. These summer-long flowering vines come in all colors, including a new white one called Bride's Cascade. The vigorous plant, which grows 15 feet long, needs a strong support system, including a fence, trellis or arbor.

Adenium Kissable Pink, aka desert rose. This carefree plant flowers all summer. Its bonsai-like appearance features twisted stems, oval-shaped leaves and large, bright flowers. When dry and dormant, the plant tolerates temperatures into the mid 40s; it can be brought indoors, kept dry and moved outdoors in spring.

Bougainvillea Bambino. These bougainvilleas reach 4-5 feet tall, and include Lauren with variegated foliage that contrasts nicely with large clusters of flowers spring-fall. Use them in containers and as hedges for real drama.

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Grow: Try tropicals in your home garden

08-06-2012 06:43 Archadeck of Fort Wayne builds porches of all shapes and sizes. Screened porches, covered porches, front porches and detached porches. Each built with the Archadeck difference that means quality you can see and feel. From expert designs to attention to ev

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Archadeck of Fort Wayne custom screened porch builder - Video

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Assistant City Solicitor John Flor looks for evidence to link the excess garbage with a particular property on a sweep of New Bedford rental properties.Natalie Sherman

By NATALIE SHERMAN

June 09, 2012 12:00 AM

NEW BEDFORD The crew of camera-wielding city officials that swept through the South End Friday in search of miscreant property owners snapped pictures of rotten food, ripped furniture, burned-out porches and abandoned properties and received kudos from residents even their targets.

Just last month, the city slapped a $50 fine on Richard and Toby Demello of Scott Street because the people living in the family's second property including their son didn't place their trash inside barrels on trash day.

"I paid it. I got no problem with that. I think they're going a good job," Richard Demello, 74, said.

Friday's survey was the Task Force's third since its launch in April. Previous mayors have also organized task forces to try to clean up the city's neighborhoods.

"The over-arching goal is to have more orderly, more vibrant, more livable neighborhoods," Mayor Jon Mitchell said. "Houses with numerous code violations obviously detract from the neighborhood's quality of life."

In the previous two sweeps, the city identified 200 code violations involving serious structural problems or safety hazards and issued orders for correction on 79 properties, according to information provided by Assistant City Solicitor John Flor, who heads the Task Force.

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Task Force conducts third neighborhood sweep

Make your homes stand out from existing stock by offering buyers one of these small-yet-deluxe plans. An outdoor fireplace? Check. Two levels of porches? Ditto. A kitchen with two islands? Sold.

Two levels of porches, clean lines, and modern amenitieslike the snack bar that seats fourmake this small home a contemporary classic. Best of all, at just 25 feet wide, itll fit a very narrow lot. The kitchen, dining nook, and entertainment room create a hub for family living, with more living and dining space in front and three bedrooms upstairs, all of which happens in just 1,586 square feet. See more images, information, and the floor plan.

When it comes down to it, floor plans are all about the kitchen and great room. This 2,138-square-foot plan delivers a spacious cooking space with two islands and a snack bar serving the great room. Just outside, an outdoor fireplace warms the covered patio. The first-floor master suite features a foyer to maintain visual privacy. A study sits on this level. Upstairs, two bedrooms can use the future rec room. See more images, information, and the floor plan.

With alluring detail and a striking Spanish tile roof, this 1,826-square-foot home has great street presence. Enter under a portico to find the great room, bathed in natural light. To the right, a sunny dining area flows into the angled serving-bar kitchen for ultimate convenience. The first-floor master suite includes a box-bay sitting area and a splendid bath with a spa tub. Upstairs, two bedrooms share a full bath. Bonus space above the garage can be used as a study, game room, home gymwhatever your buyer desires. See more images, information, and the floor plan.

Stone accents and decorative shutters put a rustic spin on this traditional home. A covered porch offers dual benches that are particularly handy for removing muddy boots. The entry leads to the two-story great room, lit by windows topped by transoms and warmed by a two-way fireplace. The kitchen and keeping room benefit from the other side of the hearth. On the far right, the master suite shines with a 10-foot ceiling and plush bath. Two additional bedrooms are upstairs and share a full bath with private sinks. See more images, information, and the floor plan.

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Luxury in Less Than 2,200 Square Feet