It's Garden Tour - and Lilacs - Season

The lilacs in my yard have been out for over a week.  Like most everything else, they’re early this year with this topsy-turvy up-is-down weather we’ve been experiencing.

I know they’re early because Lilac Sunday is held every year at the Arnold Arboretum on Mothers Day.  And Mum doesn’t get her day for two more weeks.

It seems that gardeners won’t have to worry that things haven’t bloomed by the time this year’s garden tours roll around.  I finally had a moment to update the garden tours page here so you can check out the upcoming Massachusetts garden tours in 2012.  The list seems a bit shorter – putting together house or garden tours is a huge undertaking for the groups that put them on.  Some have discontinued their tours, others have opted for an every other year schedule.

A garden tour is an opportunity to get new ideas for your yard and garden, to see private outside spaces that you otherwise wouldn’t, or just a great way to enjoy a spring or summer day.  Not to mention – your ticket purchase benefits local libraries, historical societies, museums, etc.

1-3 Rockingham Place Cambridge MA

It’s tour day! Happily it looks like a great day weather-wise for our tour.  Our tours this time of year are a bit of a marathon and this weather suits me much better than the 80+ degrees that the runners faced on Monday.

I’m most excited today to introduce 1-3 Rockingham Place to my coworkers.  My colleague, Allan Rikhi, and I have listed this big two-family house in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.  It’s a beauty and bound to be popular. 

1-3 Rockingham Place has a five-room apartment on the first floor.  Upstairs is huge with nine rooms, including three bedrooms. two studies and a spacious family room.  The house is filled with light and the upstairs decks have amazing views. Outside there are two separate patio areas, garden beds, fruit trees, mature shrubs, and parking. It’s truly an urban oasis. 

This is the neighborhood where my father grew up – in fact the house our family owned for eighty years abuts the yard at 1-3 Rockingham Place. It’s a great place to live in a neighborhood filled with Victorian houses. The Charles River is around the corner, Magazine Beach is nearby, there’s a playground and ball field down the block, you can walk over the bridge to BU as my Dad did, and nowadays Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, etc. are close by.

Yesterday when I stopped by Rockingham Place I daydreamed about how the neighborhood used to be in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  Growing up, my dad played baseball with the Rockingham Sox.  Billy Harris, who used to live in 1-3 Rockingham Place was on the team.  My aunt Irene who grew up around the corner on Granite Street remembers visiting the Harris’s house at Christmas time every year for a party. 

It’s time for new memories to be made at 1-3 Rockingham Place.  Call me if you’d like more information or would like to schedule a time to see this lovely home.

Raised Garden Beds in a Community Garden in Cambridge

Raised garden beds are popular with backyard farmers and gardeners in Somerville and Cambridge.  In a talk at the Somerville Garden Club on Wednesday evening, Jesse Banhazl will talk about raised garden beds as well as other options for growing produce in limited space – on roofs, on porches, or in small urban backyards.

Jesse Banhazl is owner and co-founder of Green City Growers, a Somerville-based business that helps to bring organic produce gardens to homes, schools and businesses.

The Somerville Garden club meeting and lecture is free and open to the public.  There is parking available or you can take the T to Davis Square and walk up Holland Street.

What: Raised Garden Beds Talk at the Somerville Garden Club meeting

When: Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Where: Tufts Administration Bldg., 167 Holland St, Somerville MA

Updating Classic America - Home Renovation Books from The Taunton Press

Home Renovation Books   Growing up, my family’s first house was a classic Cape reproduction built in the early 1960s.  These postwar houses – the ranches, split-levels and particularly the Capes built in new subdivisions in towns close to Cambridge – have fairly predictable floor plans.  Often these floor plans don’t jibe with today’s real estate buyers’ expectations.

That’s one of the reasons I love seeing these now 50+ years old houses.  Some have changed little and I can walk in and know just what room to expect at every turn.  Others have been transformed by new owners and it’s always fun to see how home renovation projects have updated these mid-century houses.

Are you hoping to buy a single family? Or perhaps you’ve lived in one for some time and are dreaming of renovating.  If you’re looking for ideas and inspiration four home renovation books from The Taunton Press in their Updating Classic America series are worth picking up:

Capes: Design Ideas for Renovating, Remodeling and Building New by Jane Gitlin

Colonials: Design Ideas for Renovating, Remodeling and Building New by Matthew Schoenherr

Ranches: Design Ideas for Renovating, Remodeling and Building New by Louis Wasserman and M. Caren Connolly

Bungalows: Design Ideas for Renovating, Remodeling and Building New by Louis Wasserman and M. Caren Connolly

I guess you’re on your own when it comes to tweaking a split-level! Each book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and filled with stories about houses that have been thoughtfully updated and reworked. While there are plenty of postwar houses (except of course in the bungalow book) in these pages, earlier houses are included as well. Home owners and home buyers will find loads of ideas in these beautiful books.

Bradford Pears Line Boston Ave in Medford

A Boston Globe article on March 27th quoted scientists’ remarks about the early plants and blossoms we’re seeing this spring after the winter that wasn’t.  They expressed concern about the plants blooming far earlier than ever before – and called “this year’s blossoming one of the earliest in 140 years of recordkeeping.”

I decided to check on the dates of some of my spring photos and posts.  Sure enough, my daffodil photos from years past are dated April 20th and yet our garden is full of them now. The photo above shows the trees that line some of Medford’s streets each spring. Boston Ave. in spring is a corridor of white blossoms.

My post about the trees on Boston Ave a couple of years ago came out on April 10th.  This year, the trees -they’re Bradford pears - have already been in full bloom for at least a week or more.

You really have to wonder what’s going to happen long term to our New England plants and trees.  In the short term we better keep our fingers crossed that we don’t get any snow this spring.  The devastation caused by the last snowstorm when leaves were on the trees is sadly all too evident any time you drive on local highways and see the broken trees that still line the road.

Tercentenary Sign Tells the Story of Gerry's Landing

On our tour of new Somerville and Cambridge real estate listings this week we saw a number of very nice townhouses new to the market with Coldwell Banker agents.  We get our exercise on Wednesdays – sometimes every condo is on the top floor – this week it seemed we were up and down 3 or 4 floors at every stop.

Some of what we saw included:

• A Bell & Fandetti townhouse at 7 Dana Place listed for $849,000.  This was the nicest Bell Fandetti townhouses I’ve seen – some smart modifications and the decor and colors played off the original features beautifully.
• A Mid-Cambridge townhouse at 324 Harvard Street had 1700 s.f. and garage parking and was priced at $820,000
• A 1980s two-bedroom townhouse with parking at 11 Bolton Street in Somerville near Inman Square was listed for $349,000. 
• A townhouse at 33 Weston Ave in Teele Square, Somerville had gorgeous views across the school field behind the complex and was listed for $719,000.

The photo above is from last week’s tour.  I always wanted to know the story behind Gerry’s Landing and here it is on one of Cambridge’s tercentenary signs.  We passed the sign on our way to tour a very charming house at 8 Gerry’s Landing in Cambridge’s Coolidge Hill neighborhood that came on the market for $935,000.

You can search for Cambridge and Somerville townhouses for sale or click on a photo below for additional photos and more information about the townhouses we saw on tour this week.

I’ve had an account at Cambridge Savings Bank for years but I’ll deposit my winnings into my favorite credit union – Industrial Credit Union in Boston. 

I *love* my credit union. It has one branch in the Financial District.  A real person answers the phone when you call, solves your problem, and, if need be, hand addresses an envelope to you and pops it in the mail.  ICU has low, low fees and no-fee accounts – and good interest.  In fact, I get great interest on my no-fee checking account and their online banking is super.

Cambridge Savings Bank – not so much.  I got aggravated by the fees and more fees they started charging over the years and then really aggravated when they dropped out of the SUM program. The SUM program is a cooperative effort among smaller banks.  You aren’t charged a fee if you use an ATM at a bank that belongs to the program.

But the last straw is the sign at right.  CSB closed the ATM across from my office.  Aaagh!! Battling the parking lot at the Porter Square shopping center is not an acceptable alternative to popping into the ATM before grabbing lunch at Sarah’s or Armando’s.

So when I get that really big check I’ll head on into Boston to stash my millions in Industrial Credit Union.

Homeowners roll out the welcome mat at open houses

Open House Etiquette   Tis the season for open houses with the Cambridge real estate market already in full swing.

When you’re at an open house you’re essentially a guest of the home owner.  Here are some things to keep in mind:

Leave the coffee outside  I’m not sure what’s happened to make everyone walk around holding a cup. I’m as big a coffee addict as the next person (ok – bigger) but it wouldn’t occur to me to bring my drink with me when I go into a store or an open house. It’s even more mystifying given the proliferation of cup holders in cars nowadays. Long and short – leave your drinks outside when you visit an open house.

Hold onto the kids  If children are accompanying you to open houses you’ll want to keep a tight rein on them.  Many houses and condos that you’ll visit won’t be child-proofed.  There’s often expensive art and breakable objects at very turn - disasters waiting to happen. If your kids haven’t been taught to look-but-not-touch then you’ll really want to hold on to them tightly.

If you can’t say something nice … then don’t say anything at all.  It’s simply bad form to dis the house or condo that you’re visiting – at least within earshot of other visitors. I know sometimes it’s tempting to make a negative remark as a strategy when you like a place – how better to dissuade your competition?  More often than not, though, it’s just some negative nellies who loudly discuss what they perceive to be shortcomings.  Best to save your critique for long after you leave. 

Wear your good socks  While I typically encourage homeowners to allow visitors to wear shoes there’s a good chance, particularly if the weather is bad, that you’ll be asked to remove your shoes.  Good socks and easily removed shoes will make the process slightly less onerous.  It’s a lesson real estate agents learn early in their careers – the socks with holes have to be weeded from the sock drawer.

Don’t be shy about signing in   It’s some sort of reflex that many of us have (I admit it – I was prone to it too when I went to open houses as a hobby many years ago)  – we don’t want to sign in on the guest register.  But be brave.  It’s a simple request and given that you’re a guest in someone’s home – an unknown guest at that – it’s only fair to the homeowner.  If you’re working with an agent sign in with his or her name or add it to the sheet. That way if there’s info to be shared, offers coming in or whathaveyou, we can call your agent. 

That’s it – my advice from the real estate trenches.  See you out there on Sunday!