Click on the small images below to see a larger version.
View down the driveway from across the street. The corner of the house
closest to you is the Southwest corner; from morning to evening the
Sun travels down the driveway from the back of the house towards the
front. The garage you can see at the end of the driveway is part of
the property.
You can't tell from the photo, but that's a common driveway between this house and the one next door. In terms of space there's plenty of room, if I needed to line four cars up in the driveway on my side I don't think it would prevent the neighbors from using their half at all. But there are several deep cracks in the surface of the driveway, and I'm not sure how the expense of repaving the driveway would be handled...
In this photo you're looking at the Northwest corner of the house, and
down along the North side. This is the side of the house along which
the living and dining rooms run on the first floor. You can see the
yard is fenced with an apparently sturdy cyclone fence. While it isn't
particularly pretty, it doesn't cost anything to leave it there, so I
imagine that's what I'll do. I don't have plans to get a dog, but I
suppose it would be handy if I ever did. I imagine I will want to
paint it at some point though, if only to protect it from rusting.
I don't know if you can tell or not, but the vinyl siding that's installed on the house is a light creamy yellow color. This is not my first choice in colors by any means - I never would have picked such a color myself. But the fact of the matter is, the siding is in pretty good shape and seems reasonably well done. So with no excuse to do anything drastic, it seems I'm stuck with a yellow house. Sigh.
Here you can see the back of the house from the Southeast, with a good
view of the back porch and the addition off the back of the dining
room. You can also see that whoever did the siding got a little too
thorough, they should not have sealed up the space under the back
porch. For one thing the lack of airflow isn't good for the wood; for
another I haven't found any access to the crawlspace under the
addition yet, and I'm hoping it's under the porch.
The final outside shot I have at the moment is really a picture of the
garage, but it gives you an idea of where things are located relative
to one another in the back of the lot. The garage itself needs some
attention, as leaves and branches have been allowed to pile up next to
the walls for years, leading to rot in the sills and lower
clapboards. At some point next year I hope to have the whole structure
jacked up, the bottom cut off, and a cinderblock or concrete
foundation put in. And to make things simple, the bottom panels of the
garage door are rotting as well.
