Monday, April 27, 2015

Art Deco Home

I saw an art deco Sunset style house last weekend (built 1940, 44 Nahua Avenue, Outer Mission), which is a bit of a rarity in San Francisco. If you look, they are definitely around, but of the Sunset style homes on the market, I would definitely say that those built in the style would be less than 10%, possibly 5%. Here's the listing:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/44-Nahua-Ave-94112/home/1123714

The exterior has got the nice but simple rounded corners and speed lines, which you might consider less Art Deco and more Moderne:


The living room is unique. It's got the traditional corner Spanish style fireplace that many San Francisco Sunset style houses from the 1930's have, but has a beautiful Art Deco tiered ceiling:



The movie The Shining features a ballroom with just such a ceiling, but more elaborate (of course, it was a 1970s movie set, but meant to evoke Art Deco):


It's got a nice and big center patio in good condition:


The kitchen has been re-done recently, looks tasteful:


The dining room has nice subtle molding:


Original tiled bathroom:


View from one of the two bedrooms out back:

Cute but small backyard:

Finally, Nahua Avenue is steep and is right next to the freeway, but has nice curb appeal:

Monday, April 6, 2015

1930s House with Lots of Original Details

I saw an open house last weekend on Tingley St in Mission Terrace in San Francisco. The house looks like it is in terrible shape but tons of intact old details, probably whoever owned this house chose to update or maintain very little. Whoever buys this house can choose to restore the old details, or gut the interior. Sadly, the more common choice for a house in this shape is to gut the interior.

https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/139-Tingley-St-94112/home/811997

The exterior of the house looks not well maintained:


Typical mid 1930's San Francisco fireplace; diamond patterning in the wood floor, needs re-finishing. Literally diamond in the rough! There's a stained glass window which is more inusual for a house of that era. There are also these little cute art deco lights.


Dining room has nice moldings, old chandelier, and again, beautiful flooring that just needs to be refinished:


Cute little breakfast room that leads into the side patio (again, not great condition, throughout the house):


Beautiful original 1935 kitchen with original cabinets, diamond pattern tiling, window facing the side patio, old coke bottle opener.


Bathroom also looks to have retained the old tiling:


Interesting old telephone niche with place for phone book:


Last photo shows a neat laundry chute right in the floor of the closet of one of the rooms: