Life in Barton's district: I repainted my house, therefore I must be a MEXICAN!!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

I took this out of my original thread about the horror of living in Barton's district where it's all right wing, all Jeebus all the time conformity. I thought this was worth starting a new thread over, as it shows the paucity of thought and the fear of being DIFFERENT.

Get this: I repainted my house in different colors, therefore I must be a MEXICAN!

Seriously. I am not kidding.

It had white siding and red brick wainscoting. Ugly aluminum awnings put on in the 50s. An old Gothic Bungalow. Circa 1882.

I got it repainted with baby blue on the siding and dark blue on the brick. And egg and dart crown molding in dark blue with touches of gold, light purple, dark purple, and bright green. I think it's beautiful.

Well, the folks in east Tex-Ass have NO imagination. Somebody asked my carpenter when he was at church Sunday in some other little shithole town if "a bunch of Mexicans bought that house". It's been in my family for three generations.

That's the same carpenter that told me I was not going to heaven if I worshiped Buddha and meditate. I corrected him on that misconception that I worshipped Buddha. Buddha was NOT a god, so he doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's a real idiot control freak and scared to death of facts and knowledge. He can't stop his wife and kids from learning. We're sneaking them books. Seriously. I had to buy the 12 year old a DICTIONARY. He did not have a dictionary.


Time to put that taco stand and flea market on the south lot. :rofl: :rofl:

These people are so scared of anything different, it's not even funny. Guess they can accept Mexicans moving in before they can accept them damn commies and libruls.

:wtf:

[Kievan Rus]

1. Yup. They truly do hate anything not like them

Probably explains why a lot of them are anti-Obama and into the birther stuff...they're bothered by a fact that a black man in President.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. worse, the educated scare the shit out of them, so

they are transformed into something to hate and mistrust.
Education is our friend (us liberals and a few mexicans like Kievan), ergo, education "are" evil.

One question, Kievan, have you been asked for your papers?

[AspenRose]

2. Having been raised in San Antonio

I can tell you it wasn't that you painted your house, but what colors you painted your house.

Sandra Cisneros got into all sorts of trouble with the historical King William District folks when she painted her house purple. She fought it and won. By her own admission it was a tribute to her Mexican heritage that she chose those colors.


It sounds pretty BTW :-)

[WolverineDG]

18. It also helped that there was documentation that the color she chose

was used in King William back in the day. :) I was living in SA at the time that ruckus broke out. I can understand why the Hysterical Historical Association wants to keep certain building trends out of King William, but getting bent out of shape over the color of paint was a bit much.

dg

[Manifestor_of_Light]

38. I went to college in San Antonio.

Graduated from Trinity in'79, King William area was just starting to get expensive.

Also, I read about 25 years ago that some girls on Milford Street in West University Place in Houston (The university in question being Rice University), very old, rich neighborhood, painted their front door purple and the whole neighborhood had apoplexy and couldn't do anything about it.

[Warpy]

3. I live in an area with a lot of Mexican immigrants

and they do have a rather odd color sense, although not as odd as the French Canadians back in Boston.

One house is pale turquoise with purple trim, another is hot pink with dark blue trim, and my favorite is canary yellow with electric blue trim.

I get a kick out of these places, they liven the area of boring adobe browns up considerably. They make me smile.

I think your painted lady of a house would make me smile, too.

If you didn't know already, it's not you. It's them.

[Posteritatis]

10. I see a similar sort of thing in coastal North Atlantic towns

Once you get somewhat rural in Nova Scotia, or just about anywhere in Newfoundland or parts of the Canadian arctic, houses (and barns, and boats, and probably some of the larger pets) start getting pretty colorful. Usually relatively muted colors - a 'typical' red or green or blue or purple rather than anything with "hot" or "electric" in the name, though there's exceptions - but quite a lot of them and a big departure from the standard house colors you'll see in most places.

The odd thing is the same color scheme, construction style, etc will show up in parts of, say, Iceland, or the Scandanavian countries, or parts of the Siberian coastline. I've always wondered why that was.

[Warpy]

24. I think poor folks just love color

If you go to any wealthy area in this town (or back in Boston), the houses are mostly brown, tan and beige. If you go inside, you'll see more brown, tan and beige. There might be a splash of color in art on the wall or in a vase of flowers, but that's it. It's brown on brown, the neutrals of wealth.

My house is brown on brown, but the inside is decorated by the hippie ethic: if you can't eat it or wear it, stick it on the wall and call it art. It's, um, colorful.

[pipi_k]

26. I don't know if I would be classified as rich or poor, but...

my house is a medium gray vinyl siding with white trim.

On the inside it's....well...when people visit for the first time, they've said things like, "Oh, this is cute!" or, "Wow...how...unique!"


Not so much for the colors, but for the decor.


Definitely not "Home and Garden" by any means.... :7

[midnight armadillo]

48. not my house!

Our interior colors here in MA are...let's see... pinkish taupe, light yellow, purple, gray-blue, slightly grayish green, bright blue, white bathrooms (suffered from color choosing fatigue), and the exterior is green. The exterior will someday become yellow with trim that's not white or off-white but something awesome we haven't figured out yet. And someday we'll try our hand at faux finishes and other neat paint effects.

Beige is fucking BORING. And in winter you need some color.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

53. Maybe it's to counteract the bleakness of the weather?

[gateley]

4. I meant to respond to you but got waylaid -- I was seriously going

:wow:

I suggest a pinata in the front yard for a festive touch. :7

I heard (maybe you did, too) that during the break Barton was called into Boehner's office and told 'apologize or you're off the committee'. He WAS much more subdued when he returned. What a dick.

Move to Seattle, we have some GREAT reps (McDermott, Inslee). :hi: :hug:

[patrice]

5. Cupcake landers got the law to come stop my contractor from painting my house

a Ralph Lauren dark green, with hunter brown shutters, and pale green sofitt and window trim. Not the regulation beige and EVERYTHING and I DO mean e - v - e - r - y - t - h - i - n - g outlined in white.

I won and everyone tells me how great it looks; several others in the neighborhood have used colors since.

[NBachers]

7. "Sombrero Tacos- Home of the Guadalupe Guacamole"

The Ralph Lauren green, with hunter brown shutters and pale green soffit and window trim, sounds absolutely exquisite.

I live in the Mission District in San Francisco. Between the Gypsy Caravan paint schemes in my neighborhood and some of the colorful Asian palettes in the other end of town, it's a veritable festival of colors.

It makes me wonder- who could paint something so extreme that they'd actually get a ticket?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

28. San Francisco is ALL about the color!

That is one thing I cherish about our city -- people are free to paint their homes whatever colors they please -- none of this repressive HOA crap. You can have a turquoise house next to a hot pink house next to a yellow & black house next to a beige house -- the more color the merrier, I say.

I am looking at paiting my house this summer -- my palette is going to be pistachio, mandarin orange, lime, with a bit of turquoise -- very fresh, citrus colors. I want to be that house that really stands out on the block. :D

[NBachers]

31. Sounds pretty Bahamian to me- we don't have enough Caribbean influence here

Good on you for doing your part

[Hell Hath No Fury]

33. Yup --

And I am doing a tropical planting in my yards -- birds of paradise, cannas, crotons, bromeliads, and such. I think it will make the neighborhood a more happy place. :hi:

[Ignis]

32. It's been great to see some recent house painting in the Haight...

...as a counterpoint to those awful, neutral-colored, gentrified boxes they're throwing up in the Mission.

:puke:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. Don't get me started on the gentrified beige boxes --

:puke:

I hate gentrification AND dull colors -- just a lethal combo. Am seeing more of that in the neighborhood I have worked in for 16 years -- "Dogpatch" had been invaded by the yuppie hoards -- loads of lofts/condos, hipster cafes, and (!!!) a wine bar.

The Haight housing used to be incredibly colorful during the 60s -- those old Painted Ladies were REALLY tarted up back then! :D Too bad they got too dull -- nice to hear color is making a comeback.

[Ignis]

47. I visited a friend who lived in the Mission recently...

(And I mean "in the Mission" as in skipping distance to the 16th Street Station--not freakin' Noe Valley. :eyes: ;))

...And I was amazed to find that his little dead-end alley--in which my friend rented an artist's-budget, ground-floor flat with only two windows--had been afflicted with two more Garage-Entry-Only Yuppiequariums since I last visited him...only six months ago!

I thought it was just a Willie Brown thing, but the City seems to love Her some gentrification on Gavin's watch, too!

:thumbsdown:

[NBachers]

59. Well, yeah, but there've been a few Mission projects I'd tip my hat to

One is at Mission and 29th Street- it went up a few years ago, but it looks like it's been there forever. I heard the developer had gone bankrupt; I don't know if that's true or not. But I give them credit for putting up something with architectural credibility that actually fits in, instead of the standard weak references to faux "bay windows" and diluted phony "period trim effects" that end up the architectural equivalent of pasturized process cheese food product.

Another's right where Valencia angles into Mission. There used to be a Taco Bell there; the existing building as made worthy attempts at fitting in and reproducing the local Victorian buildings. Not real colorful, but the structure gets points from me.

I can even give my approval to that Victorian / box hybrid on Valencia at 26th Street. Someone took an old run-down Victrorian two-story cottage and incorporated it into a three-story condo-box on the lot. Points for rehabbing and including the old house, along with increasing the local housing stock without destroying the old building. Purists probably think it's an abomination, but sometimes you've gotta be a realist.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. Sounds nice. Cupcake landers?

Do you mean by that the neighborhood nazis that enforce the HOA rules?

In Houston I lived in a hood that was too old to have a compulsory HOA, built in the 1950s, ranch style houses now being torn down for yuppie castles, but the Uber-Muff next door constantly harassed me by calling the city out about various "violations" she reported. They wished they had a compulsory HOA, but they didn't.

One: I had "sticks in my yard". I also had a bunch of very old and tall oak trees.

Two: I had "poison ivy on my back fence", although neither the City Inspector or I knew what poison ivy looked like.

This went on and on. The guy must have come out on five or six complaints. I guess we were not white enough for them.

After I moved, I rented it out to a Pakistani family who lived there for a year. The father was a computer science professor at Texas Southern University, the local black state university.

:evilgrin: :rofl:

[patrice]

16. HOAs can actually be quite powerful. They can put a lein on your mortgage.

"Cupcake Land" from Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas.

[Cleita]

6. If you have some artists in the family, do a fresco type painting

along the walls like the ancient Greeks and Romans used to do. That will really freak them out.

:rofl:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. Great idea.

I was an art major but didn't get a degree in it == should have gotten a BFA in painting, for all the economic good those "hard" degrees did me(zip, zilch, nada, niente).

Mom majored in fashion design and costume illustration at Texas Woman's University in Denton - back in the dark ages before they had synthetics. Only synthetic they had then was rayon. She was also good at hand modeling in clay, which is quite difficult, and painting in underglaze. My grown daughter is a pretty good artist. I have a B&W painting she did of the angel in an overcoat on top of a building from "Wings of Desire" which she did in high school.

Dad was in Italy defending us from Mussolini in the Army Air Corps (Later the Air Force). He said, "Those Italians can't stand a blank wall".

I am thinking about putting up Chinese words, English phrases, or some sort of lucky or philosophical symbols around the front door. Not sure what to put up. Am busy thinking.

:rofl: Sounds great to me!!!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. kick for t he insomniacs.

[hobbit709]

12. In 1990 when Donna bought the house

It was painted OD Green. I told Donna that I wore that color for 3½ years and there was no way in hell was I going to live in it. I wanted to paint it purple but she wouldn't let me, so we settled on a bright turquoise.
Now the shed in back is purple-boy howdy is it purple.

[rucky]

15. We made it on the front page of the paper when we painted our shop...

From all the complaints...

http://lh4.ggpht.com/T6gahsyqGXVYZ33-bM7UTXl-Bgs3ZQPpIhI5TiUGsevAALL4H_a7IRBo_KBmgm4N0vx75vN0eLiSKzl7ckhfiFBnd42iAz_LfkJl3Qo

[Catshrink]

21. That's cool.

It looks lively and like someplace I'd like to shop! It has personality - not like a cookie cutter chain store.

[NBachers]

30. YEAH! AND TONE DOWN THAT SIGN, TOO!

[amandabeech]

63. Love it. Love it. Love it.

It's just adorable!

I'd say that it is funky, but in a tasteful way.

The complainers must have had no imagination and no sense of style.

[Laughing Mirror]

13. You mean, something like this?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

29. Wow!

I love that! :loveya:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

40. That is just AWESOME!!!!

[WolverineDG]

17. Really piss 'em off & paint your door purple

:evilgrin:

I happen to like the different colors on all the houses where I live....orange, lime green, yellow, blue....wouldn't want to live in the lime green colored house, but I do like the color it give the neighborhood. Much nicer feeling than the beige colored monstrosities they're building on the north side of town, where every house not only looks alike, but is butt-ugly to boot.

dg

[Vinca]

19. You ought to mess with their heads and paint some of those

"Day of the Dead" symbols on the front door.

[Odin2005]

20. Wow, that's some major stupid, there!

:banghead:

[tammywammy]

22. I live in Barton's district

Also in a very mixed white/hispanic neighborhood. There are some interesting colored houses around. I dunno, I think it's just character. My neighbors know I lean left, I put out yard signs. :)

[Mojeoux]

52. Good for you!

I live in liberal land. I would hope that I would be as brave as you.

[MineralMan]

23. In a city near where I used to live, there were a bunch

of Queen Anne-style houses. For years, most were painted some solid color, but then a revival started to make them a little more authentic for the period. Naturally, some stuffy area homeowners started to worry what might happen to their neighborhood, what with all those houses that weren't painted in all subdued colors. So, they started an "Architectural Review Board," and got the City Council to agree to let them control that large neighborhood.

Pretty soon, they issued a document that defined what colors were acceptable and what colors were verboten. A new person moved into the area, bought a house there and, apparently didn't know about the color nazis. This new homeowner set about painting her tidy Queen Anne in colors that would make it the Painted Lady that it once was. She even peeled off multiple layers of old paint to discover what colors the house used orginally, and painted her home with those colors, restoring its original look.

Here came the Color Nazis. The woman got a big fine from the city for violating the color restrictions. Of course, they didn't ding her until the work was finished.

Finally, she said "Fine!" She got the approved color chart from the ARB, and painted her house with the approved colors. All of them. Every definable area of the house was painted in a different color from the chart. The door was one color. The door frame was another. The trim on each window got its own color, and every section of siding, from the bottom level to the third floor peak was painted a different, bland, approved color. She used every color in the chart.

Outrage was palpable. The ARB tried again to get her fined, so she took it to court. Well, as it turned out, the ARB had specified the colors but nothing in the rules specified HOW they were to be used. The woman also presented photographic evidence of her exploration into the original colors of the home and photos of the home as she had painted it the first time. She won. She also got a permanent restraining order against the ARB. The judge said something about "freedom of expression," or some such arcane principle.

This was in the late 1960s. The homeowner repainted her Harlequin house with the original colors. Within a decade, other homeowners also investigated the original colors of their historic old homes and restored them to their somewhat gaudy beauty. Pretty soon, the neighborhood became beautiful in its colorful splendor, and tourists drove by to enjoy the homes.

I suppose the old members of the ARB sold their homes in disgust, leaving them to be repainted by the new owners.

[Posteritatis]

35. Ha! I love things like that. (nt)

[BuddhaGirl]

36. GREAT story!!

:thumbsup:

[NuttyFluffers]

54. :teary eyed: i love happy endings...

:evilgrin:

[asdjrocky]

25. Put the Peoples History in his childrens hands.

That will drive him nuts.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

41. I already have a copy of it, and am waiting to give it to the kid.

Believe me, it's on the stack. I've already given the kid Cosmos and The Demon Haunted World and a Pocket Oxford Dictionary/Thesaurus.
Others: Lies My Teacher Told Me(2nd ed. revised), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

[pipi_k]

27. Actually, the colors make it sound sort of Moroccan...

a style which I love, BTW...


I'd like to have a totally Moroccan room in my house, but...well...Mr Pip is a bit of a stick in the mud as far as that goes.

He would rather have Man Cave decor.

Which isn't really that much of a problem, as far as I'm concerned, except for the stupid lampshades with moose on them. For real. We have two of them in the living room.


PS...not to mention the lamp made from a parking meter, which thankfully got put away in a box when we decided to sell the house and had to de-clutter...

[kentauros]

44. Do the bedroom Moroccan-style

or maybe the entry/living/den room :)

http://www.moroccan-furniture-decor.com
http://www.justmorocco.com
http://www.articlesbase.com/interior-design-articles/moroccan-furniture-3-ways-to-bring-life-into-your-home-decor-557118.html

:D

[EFerrari]

37. They'd just buy the tacos and criticize you over dinner.

lol

[Manifestor_of_Light]

42. I don't go to church or football games, either.

Therefore I am an outcast. You can guess what color my friends are. They all voted for Obama.

I sent an email to one of my Hispanic friends with pics of the colors, and she said, "You guys are so cool!".

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

43. It sounds beautiful. Reminds me of the design for the rehabbed Victorians

in the Haight. :yourock:

[kentauros]

46. It is beautiful :)

I saw it a few weeks ago on Memorial Day, and I think they did a fine job of the colors.

I really don't understand the problem with color. I would think people would want that lively energy of having a house that stands out and says "I Am Me!" But I guess safety in conformity is easier to live with for some.

Y'all should go buy a bunch of Day of the Dead decorations next, or at least get some Tiki Lights to string up :D

[Manifestor_of_Light]

51. Thanks, Ken!

The color scheme was totally my idea.

We have a few tiki torches.

We have to finish the fencing on the south side. Marble foo dogs maybe? Ray wants to put red LED lights in their eyes that would react when people drive by -- that would really freak 'em out -- I can just see the demons from the top of the Empire State Building in Ghostbusters!

:rofl: :rofl:

I took a picture of a pretentious brick/wrought iron fence/gate combo in Nichols Hills (the River Oaks of Oklahoma City) that I liked, except I don't need the standing lions on the gate like they have at Buckingham Palace.

Sure doesn't take much to freak out the natives. I'm descended from the natives (sort of) on my mom's side - she grew up in Centerville, and Grandma was always worried about what people would think. Dad managed to shoot that down quite well. He would always say, "Most people are so self centered that they worry about what you think of THEM, not what they think of YOU".

That would have Mom and Grandma with their mouths hanging open like a fish. :rofl:

I think Dad was right. He was a real guru and I miss him terribly. Next month he'll be gone ten years.

[kentauros]

55. Okay, either a pair of demon-dogs

or a pair of really big Tesla coils for full freak-out factor! :evilgrin:




Did you look at the windharp links I posted somewhere around here? I don't know if you've ever heard one, but it's a pretty cool sound and they make impressive sculptural pieces :) They can also be small enough to fit in a window or doorway.




http://nfo.edu/family/harp/harp.htm


Sorry about missing your dad :hug:
I haven't gone through any of that (yet)...
My father turns 80 in August, so I'll likely go visit them then for my Summer trip :)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

57. Yeah those look like fun!

Ray said that in high school he got a high voltage neon sign transformer and made a Jacob's ladder -- those fork like things that have a current running up them in a Frankenstein lab that go ffffttt.

He said winding a Tesla coil is quite tedious.

Dad was born in 1911 and got to almost a month shy of 89 years old, so he had a good run. After all he'd seen, he said, "I don't believe it, but I guess it's all true". Like the Great Depression, fighting as a union organizer before they had labor laws, Prohibition, fighting in The Big One, etc. I thought he was positively ancient since he was about 45 when I was born. But he was always cool. I brought home an Art Tatum record once and he knew who Art Tatum was! And took us to see Ella Fitzgerald before she retired, so we could see a living legend! He was listening to real jazz when most white people would have listened to the sanitized version for Southern White Virgins promoted by Paul Whiteman (the crap my mom listened to in college).

Mom lasted two more years, until Oct of 2002, and then I was thinking, "OMG! Now I'm the older generation! Agggh!".

Still haven't gotten the big honking ornate porch lights yet. I'm thinking they might need some gold leaf on them, the ones I picked out that are in Houston.

[madmom]

39. My house made a splash when we changed it from white to

gray with Ralph Lauren-long john red trim. Every house in the neighborhood was white trimmed with black, ugggggly. Now there are a few others with color, but very subtle color.

[KonaKane]

45. If we make our homes colorful, the terrorists win.

Bleh.

[11 Bravo]

49. Tomorrow greet him with, "Salam alaikum, my brother".

That oughta do it.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

50. Just updated my blog, dear fans!!!! PICTURES!!

Old color scheme -- boring 1950s:
http://lavidacountry.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/what-kind-of-house-is-this-gothic-reviva/


New blue coolness: http://lavidacountry.wordpress.com

[Born_A_Truman]

56. I love colors! I had my place done a few years ago ...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

58. Nice! Love the turquoise railings!!!

:yourock:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

60. I looked up "Cupcake Land"

Where everything is the same bland suburbia.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. kick for sunday

[RainDog]

62. omg

I couldn't stand to live with people like that. honestly. I would have to move for my own health. I don't live in the most liberal part of the country, beyond my city, but I cannot imagine having a neighbor that fucking stupid where I live.