who can explain this?

attached mini-mansards with different front elevations (did I use the word right? I mean the front walls are set at differing points back from the sidewalk.)

Merry Christmas

This is the best I can come up with for a festive Christmas bad mansard. I guess the solid block of green trim makes it Christmas-y. In a Twelve Days of Christmas theme, here are its gifts.

1. bad Home Depot door
2. the door seems to be floating, suggesting maybe it was built up to fit the smaller specs of said Home Depot door rather than a larger city-style door
3. missing window panel on second floor covered by plywood
4. lacking porch
5. wrapped in siding
6. did I mention it was TAN siding
7. windows not historically appropriate
8. brackets and cornice painted one uniform shade of green
9. shutters also not original to a house of this era
10. looks like basement windows buried under yard
11. the green shutter on the top is falling off
12. the mailbox?

Merry Christmas!

That joke isn't funny any more

This sad, sad little thang is at Pennsylvania and Chippewa. Despite the freezing temps, I pulled over and took a picture. And this unhappy, depressing Smiths song went through my head.

A song about parking on the side of the road and laughing at people (well, their houses). A bad mansard CLOSE TO HOME (this house is a few miles from my own; I think this was in Marine Villa).

I don't think Morrissey was thinking about bad mansards when he and Johnny Marr wrote That Joke, but I still felt slightly ashamed taking this picture because this little guy is in such bad shape.

park the car at the side of the road

you should know, time's tide will smother you
and I will too
when you laugh about people who feel so very lonely
their only desire is to die
well, I'm afraid it doesn't make me smile
I wish I could laugh

but that joke isn't funny anymore
it's too close to home
and it's too near the bone
it's too close to home
and it's too near the bone

So there you have it. A mansard that tore at my heart and made me feel shameful. A house that is so very Smiths-y. South City St. Louis is quite far away from Morrissey's hometown of Manchester, England, but somehow I can imagine him and this house understanding each other.

an aside: I did see a solo Morrissey perform at the Orpheum in 1998 (guessing on date). He was pissed at the venue and even madder when all people wanted to hear was Smiths songs. He performed for 40 minutes, told the audience St. Louis sucked and stormed off the stage. And folks thought it was still awesome. After we left, my husband got drunk sick in the St. Charles alley at 11st Street. As he puked, he reminisced about how much the Smiths had meant to him as a younger man.

Please don't do this

Marine Villa, I think. I'm running out of mansard pictures and found this in iphoto.

Could have been a peach of a place but it's been ruined by Permastone and bad replacement vinyl windows on top. At least, I think that's Permastone. I'm going to feel really bad if that's not Permastone and instead an 19th century attempt at a Richardsonian 2nd Empire Mansard.

J'ai regret

So sorry I've been lazy at keeping up bad mansard. February is Mardi Gras month and we host a party for about 150 the Friday before Ash Wednesday. About 2 weeks of setting up and another week of putting the house back together. The party went well as far as I remember, but I lost track about 2 hours into the party when I declared, "F. it, it's my party, and I'm gonna keep drinking..." Here's a picture of me when I've been overserved. I'm doing the Der Komissar dance in my kitchen.

I present a baby mansard row of houses to ponder. Two replicas, one original, and one bitching yellow camero. Thanks to a reader (Matt?) for sending me the Google streetview picture of the mal ensemble. Appropriately, the bitching camero was also on Google streetview.

Tip: if you're going to build a new 2nd Empire next to an old 2nd Empire, please get the ceiling heights and scale correct. The replica dwellings look like section 8 dwarf housing.