My Neighborhood

I love my neighborhood. If you read my Halloween Decorating post a couple of days ago, you saw some of the best of the best from my neighborhood and the adjacent neighborhood.

But I love my neighborhood most because it's such a mix. The streets all loosely radiate out from a small retail area that includes a dry cleaner, vintage clothing store, two restaurants, hair stylist and a design firm.It's also like a town center: we just held the Fall Festival there.

At one time this retail area included ice cream and groceries, but as with many things, the big chains closed many of the little guys. We have a strip center at one edge of the neighborhood that includes restaurants, groceries, hardware, cleaners, framers, clothing, gifts, and a spa. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with this neighborhood. Once home for the week, I could walk to anything I needed.

It most closely feels like my small hometown, despite being smack in the center of a major metropolitan area. And if I had to live in a big metropolitan area for my career, it was important to have my residence somewhere I felt at home.

Flashback: about 3 months after coming to work in Atlanta, friends brought me to a neighborhood restaurant with cozy chintz covered over stuffed chairs and banquettes. Driving to the restaurant I was late because I took some side streets to see the neighborhood. This, I said to myself, is where I'd like to live someday. It feels like home. Small cottages, large two stories, small lots, deep lots, lots with grade changes, renovations...definitely no cookie cutters. The neighborhood was created at the end of a bus or train line to Dobbins AFB, where Lockheed employees were building planes for WWII.

Fast forward 9 years: A realtor took me out for my first and last day of home shopping. After several other intown neighborhoods, we finally got to my dream neighborhood. And as we drove to another house on this street, mfC spotted it: "there's a house back here for sale that wasn't on the list. I'll go look for you".

And that was it. The little white cottage on the pie shaped lot is my home.

And I love it. Alright, I do dream of a laundry room upstairs. And perhaps a second bathroom. You see, my house hasn't been renovated or added onto. It's a 1937 original. More or less. Which is an interesting story. Does anyone know how to date a house? Go to the bathroom and pull off the lid to the tank and look inside. It'll have the date manufactured, and that's usually 6 months give or take from when it was installed due to inventory and so on. That's when the home inspector's words became "blah, blah, blah, yep, 1937".

I heard from someone last week that my neighborhood is considered shabby chic. And I understand why. But rather than explain it, I'll let these photos do the talking.

On a beautiful street with a Peachtree Creek running behind it:

And immediately on the corner across from the little pink house with the shabby roof:

I love my neighborhood.