Is this a special lily?

Are these lilies special? They certainly are beautiful. These lilies also came from the lily fields now plowed under with the retirement of the couple who ran the lily operation. If you'd like to know more here is a link to an earlier post: A colourful, beautiful memory.

Parking where the lawn once was

 Many urban critics love to point out how the car has shaped and modified the suburban home. Home after home has yielded half or more of the front lawn to the car. A paved driveway replaces grass for a big chunk of many a suburban front yard. And then there are the garages. Many of these jut out a metre or more in front of each home on the suburban street. There is even a name for this style of home building: the garage forward look.

What these critics ignore is that the car has also reshaped our older, heritage neighbourhoods. And just like in the suburbs, a paved spot for the family car or cars claims a big part of the front yard. In fact, the narrow lots in older neighbourhoods demands that occasionally the entire front yard must be given over to the car.

July Theme Day: Tools

Many have called the telephone an indispensable tool. But telephones today come in many guises and the two we use in our home are both slowly losing the telephone popularity contest to more modern designs.

 

This GE-made landline telephone has been constantly in use in our home for decades. The only problem encountered is with the coiled cord attaching the telephone to its receiver. The cord eventually gets tangled and fails

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As of a few days ago, we are down to one telephone. The cord on one telephone has failed. Worse, we are finding replacing the coiled cord today is quite difficult. With fewer and fewer people using landlines, the demand for replacement coiled cords is drying up.

 

The telephone as a tool is needed more today than ever. But the original landline models may almost disappear at some point in the near future. Telephone technology has moved on and the telephone tool of yesterday may be the door stop of tomorrow.

Twins are not new

One often reads criticisms of the homes in new developments. A big one is that homes can look alike. So? I can point to quite a number of neighbourhoods through out London where sometimes six or more homes have been built all the same: cookie cutter homes.

Yesterday I featured two homes that were quite similar. Today I am posting two twin homes in the same neighbourhood. There are lots of things to criticize when it comes to new homes, and I have to admit that in recent years popping up similar homes side by side and row after row takes the building of similar homes to an arguably ridiculous extreme, but the idea of building identical twin homes is not new. And sometimes, as in the past, it worked.

A century-plus-ten home in North London

These two homes sit side by side in North London. They look quite similar at first glance. It makes one wonder if the homes shared the same builder. The home on the left is a heritage home with plaque beside the front door. It declares that the home dates from 1911 and that its first owner was Alfred Ironside who farmed some acreage outside London and then moved into the city to work as a cattle dealer.

The Home Alone style home in London

There is a fabulous, architecturally designed neighbourhood in Detroit known as the Historic Boston-Edison Neighbourhood. This handsome home in North London has always reminded me of some of the homes found in that iconic Detroit development. It also brings to mind the Chicago home in Home Alone but on a slightly less grand scale. Do you agree?

More yellow brick homes in London than elsewhere in Ontario

This clay brick home in North London features the area's much loved yellow brick which was made from the rich, limestone-saturated but iron-deficient clay found throughout Perth and Middlesex Counties. It was manufactured locally and used in most building construction in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Reportedly, London has the highest concentration of yellow brick homes of any place in the province.

Note the interesting pattern in the brick below the eavestrough. And notice all the upgrades that this home has enjoyed over the years. Lighting, shutters, front door, stone porch and steps plus a carefully done rear addition. The homes in North London are aging very gracefully.