Craftsman-style house in Birmingham for $169,000

From New York Times:

“WHAT: A three-bedroom, one-bath Craftsman-style house on just under two acres

HOW MUCH: $169,000

SIZE: About 1,300 square feet

PER SQUARE FOOT: $130

SETTING: The house is in a neighborhood called Roebuck Springs, which is about 10 minutes northeast of downtown Birmingham. A planned suburb developed in the early 1900s, the neighborhood has curved roads that, for the most part, do not have sidewalks. Grocery stores and other shops are nearby, and bars and restaurants can be found in the southern section of downtown Birmingham, in the area known as Southside.

INSIDE: The house was built in 1929 and renovated over the past 10 years. The interior woodwork — including floors and molding — is original and has been refinished. The living room has a fireplace, built-in bookcases and picture molding. Its French doors lead to the dining room, which has another fireplace, and sconces and a chandelier purchased at an architectural salvage shop. A wall in the kitchen was removed to incorporate what was once a back porch. There is a built-in hutch, and the red marble countertops were recycled from a nearby high school. One of the three bedrooms has a window seat and a fireplace; another is used as an office.

OUTDOOR SPACE: The house is set on almost two acres, about one-third yard and the rest wooded.

TAXES: $587.31 annually”

Photo by Meg McKinney

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

3 Responses to Craftsman-style house in Birmingham for $169,000

  1. I do like some of the details in photo: from the architraves around the door & window, the ceiling fan that seems to have an art deco type feel through to the unusual combination of stack and stretcher bond brickwork on the fire place. Somehow I doubt the mile stretch of condos in a later post will have anything like these careful little elements as a standard by the builder.

  2. Hello. As owner of the home I can assure you the fireplaces are not prefabricated, unless that was something done back in the 1920's.

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