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As a Cambridge real estate agent, the city squares of Cambridge, Somerville and Medford and the town centers of Arlington, Watertown and Belmont, Massachusetts are my home turf. And as a lifelong New Englander who’s lived within twenty miles of Boston most of my life, I can introduce you to other nearby towns as we search for your new home. If you’re planning to sell your home in Cambridge, MA or nearby you’ll find plenty of info about the home selling process here too. Questions? Send me an email or call me at 617-504-1737.

Home Remuddling

I’m a big fan of Old House Journal magazine.  I think I have every issue ever published – I’ve been buying the magazine for years and completed my set with ebay purchases.

No matter how much I try to resist I can’t help but turn to the last page of the magazine first.  It’s OHJ’s “remuddling” feature.  Each month they pair a photo of a house, unfortunately renovated into a shadow of its former self, with a photo of  another house that looks like the sad sack house would’ve looked before remuddling.

The feature is a guilty pleasure – sure to draw gasps when you see the wrong headed choices that the house’s owners made.  Good intentions gone bad – home-renovation style.

Half Remuddled House

Half Remuddled House

This is a photo of a remuddling job and an untouched original all in one.  One owner of this house – actually two attached single family homes – remodeled his half-house some decades ago, stripping away all the original ornamentation and covering the house with aluminum siding.  The other half-house retains its original trim.

It’s rare that you get to see the before and after impact of siding on a vintage house so clearly.  The city would look very different – and much better – if generations of siding salesmen hadn’t made their way through the neighborhoods.

For once, Old House Journal‘s remuddling spread this month shows a change for the better – picturing a stripped, siding clad house and its new incarnation with siding removed and trim restored.  Happily, houses can be brought back.  And the dedicated homeowner’s restoration is a gift to us all.

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  1. pete

    Vinyl and aluminum siding are terrible and should be illegal!

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