The New Hood

I've managed to take one carload of belongings down to the new apartment each day this week since I signed the lease on Tuesday.  I find it takes about three trips using the handy grocery carts kept on site to unload the car.  Then I shower, maybe do an errand or two in Boulder, drive back to the cabin, take a pain pill and fall into bed.  These injuries, especially the chipped shoulder bone, have really taken the starch out of me, but I'm making real progress. 

Today I'm unloading this steamer trunk...

...so when my neighbors get ready to take it and a few other large items down to the apartment for me in their pickup truck they won't have to worry about anything being inside.

I just found out day before yesterday that there is another cabin owner here in Eldora who has a practically new full-sized mattress and box springs they want to replace with a queen and it's mine free if I want it.  I've been assured by my neighbors I don't have to worry about its cleanliness, so, after determining yesterday that the bedroom is 9 feet wide, I have decided to take it.  I now have a bed and have also agreed to take a computer stand as well as a chest of drawers.  These odds and sods may not be what I'd pick if I had a choice, but you can't beat the price and I know I can make them work.


I thought I'd post a few photos of the exterior of the apartment building I'm moving into and the surrounding neighborhood...how all-American does Walnut and 7th sound?  Love the deciduous trees which I've not had in my environment since leaving Chicago for Phoenix in 1993!

...my balcony is the nice empty one.  I hope I don't get mine junked up over time...

The day I looked at my apartment there was all of this very loud construction going on in this lot directly to the west of the apartment building...

 ...I thought someone was constructing a house or office building and figured I would have construction noise for months.  The good news...

...a new park!

I think when the leaves drop off the trees in the fall, I'll be able to see this wonderful house from my living room...

...the bright sunshine was not only obliterating my view in the viewfinder, but I was having trouble raising my right arm.  I love this roof on the cupola...mansard?  Here's what Wikipedia says about mansard roofs...

Early use

The style was popularized in France by architect François Mansart (1598–1666). Although he was not the inventor of the style, his extensive and prominent use of it in his designs gave rise to the term "mansard roof", an adulteration of his name.^[11] The design tradition was continued by numerous architects, including Jules Hardouin-Mansart, (1675–1683), his great nephew, who is responsible for Château de Dampierre in Dampierre-en-Yvelines.

Second Empire

The mansard roof became popular once again during Haussmann's renovation of Paris beginning in the 1850s, in an architectural movement known as "Second Empire style".
Second Empire influence spread throughout the world, frequently adopted for large civic structures such as government administration buildings and city halls, as well as hotels and train stations. In the United States and Canada, and especially in New England, the Second Empire influence spread to family residences and mansions, often corrupted with Italianate and Gothic Revival elements. A mansard-topped tower became a popular element incorporated into many designs.^[19][20][21]

There are numerous similar buildings in this neighborhood, what appears to be referred to as the West End (of Pearl Street).  I wonder what they dozed to construct the apartment building?  I don't even want to think about it.

I wonder if the owners of this wonderful house would let me stay in their gatehouse?...

...even without gingerbread trim it's as cute as a button.  They also have a lovely English-style garden of which, again, I took poor photos because of my arm.  Is that a peach tree?...

I took these after unloading the car and I am so exhausted and in such pain afterward that I feel a little as if I had the flu, so I'll try to take more and better photos of some of the wonderful houses in the area the next time I make a trip down and do it before I unload.

In the meantime, I'm deliberately missing the half-off Saturday at all Colorado Goodwill stores.  There's nothing like packing, to  make you question your "junqueing" habit.  More later, Teddee