Vert

Benton Park mini green giant.  I found the photo of this gem buried in my iphoto.  I think I was saving it for Christmas and forgot about it.

Sorry I've been a little slow to post lately.  If you're a fan and want to know what's been going on in my life, check out my 63104mom tumblr.  The link is to the right.  I try to update it every day with pics, quotes and opinion.

Finally, could someone please tell me how to re-size the header picture?  I know it's too large but I can't figure out how to downsize it.  If you're saying to yourself, "isn't badmansard's husband an award winning designer?  Couldn't he do it?" the answer would be I haven't asked him.  Every time he sits down at by macbook he loses his mind. "Why haven't you updated your operating system?  How come there are 102 items on your desktop ?  It's a mess.  You're keyboard is filthy.  What's with the bad typeface on badmasansard?  The kerning is terrible!  Oh my god. Do you know what color correction is?  What, did you take this picture with one of the kids' cameras?  It lacks depth."  And his number one complaint, "You cannot leave this many applications open."  So I guess I'm too scared to ask him =)

Hot mansard

It's hot here in St. Louis.  94 degree high today.  It was sunny with a nice breeze and seemingly low humidity.  All makes for a great Memorial Day weekend.  Perfect for hitting the pool.  

I hope this Benton Park mini-mansard has a better way of staying cool than the screens and teeny-tiny box fan.  All-brick houses in this heat are like pizza ovens and give off heat even after it cools down.  To test the effect, try walking by the brick wall on Broadway near the Anheuser Busch brewery.  It jumps about 10 degrees near the brick wall on a cool night.  

The Italians yet again

This little butterface is for sale. Here's the listing: link. It's a cute place but for its top facade. I like the floor plan and the details inside. Rip the siding off the mansard, paint the kitchen a nice avocado green and it's a nice place for under $90,000.

Thanks to my friend Patsy for sending me the picture. Patsy was the first mommy friend I made. It was March 2001 and I was eating brunch with my newborn and husband at the now defunct market/coffee shop Marche (on Park in Lafayette Square where the Chocolate Bar is now located).

Patsy walked up to me and said, "hey, a few of us in the neighborhood just had babies and we get together for playdates and the like." And so it was. A Lafayette Square playgroup.

Now Patsy is the co-leader of the Brownie troop. She nor I live in Lafayette Square anymore. She lives in the neighborhood where my kids go to school and I live in the neighborhood where her kids go to school. I need to go get a drink with Patsy at the Chocolate Bar- where it all started.

I dunno

Driving down Lynch Street in Benton Park, this mansard jumped out at me. As I slowed my 2005 minivan (it may be dorky and dirty, but paid off), the kids screamed in unison, "MMMMOMMMMMM! NOOOOOO! You're embarrassing us. do NOT take a picture."

But I did. And here it is. This place bothers me. I think it's the brick color and siding. The mansard is nice as is the 2nd floor window. I like the paint colors. The windows are smaller than they should be, but interesting. No vestibule so that's weird. It shouldn't bother me but it does.

Please comment.

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!

What is "sud""

I live in Soulard. I always thought I was on the south side. I was all like, "I am south- sy-eed!" and throw a 63104 gang sign. Just kidding. As it would turn out, Soulard is the near south side. These mansards are tres more sud-side than any neighborhood with which I am familiar.

Top mansard is on Bates near Grand. It's part of a charming-but-awkward- mini-mansard-row of houses.

The second mansard is about the 6000+ block of S. Broadway. Someone correct me: is this the Carondelet Patch neighborhood? I saw it on my way to the Skatium for a Girl Scout rollerskating event. What you can barely see is the dudes chilling by the back door. I need to get back to this stretch of Broadway with a real camera to get a picture of the cute mansard and this awesome laundromat with orange machines (j'adore orange!).

Gris? What do you think of the gray paint?

Not bad, but I know some of you brick purists will hate the paint.

dans l'ombre de la brasserie

In the shadow of the Anheuser-Busch brewery is a permastoned, purple-doored, satellite-dished nast-tard.

This place is wedged between the brewery and St. Agatha church. St. Agatha was an old German parish, then it was Latin Mass and now it's the temporary Polish parish. Took the kids to the Polish fish fry- good fish, strong beer.

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.

Is it already Février?

Here's an un-hot permastone mess somewhere off of Cherokee.

Sorry for the boring post. February is all about Mardi Gras and Girl Scout cookies. My two troops sold almost 3000 cookies!

Buon Natale!

Shaw Avenue on the Hill. For those not from St. Louis, the Hill is St. Louis' Italian neighborhood known for its strong sense of community, Zoysia sod, great food and cute shot-gun houses. This one? The mansard isn't so cute, nor is the satellite dish. I do always appreciate Christmas spirit with the reindeers, lights, etc.

Etat Street butterface

This is near Wyoming Street- Ohio? Iowa? I swore I'd remember its state intersection but I don't. Cute little house- nice color (even though many of you detest painted brick), architectural detail, window brackets, etc. But like the girl at the bar with a nice figure but an ugly face, this place is a butterface (buttermansard). I think the problem is that the cornice/bracket between the mansard and the facade is missing, making the transition between roof and wall very awkward.

Mon coeur est triste

My heart is sad. So much is wrong here- roofing material, windows, meter by the door, paneling, Home Depot door, etc.

2511 Salena in Benton Park must be part of another property because the address does not show up in the Assessor's data base.

Looks like copper around the top. At least it hasn't been stolen.

Kewt!

I have a mild obsession with the mini-mansard. This is a two story on 13th Street in Soulard. There are two different types of 2-story Second Empires.

Houses like le mansard enfant were designed to only be two stories, thus the fancy details on the second floor roof, windows,etc.

Others are two stories only because their third stories were destroyed, likely by the tornado of 1896. Homeowners just roofed over the 3rd story flooring material and that was it. My first house in Lafayette Square had a lost 3rd story. Because the mansard is missing, the only Second Empire details remaining are the brackets and dentil work. I've said it before, but I hate the paint color the new owners picked. YUCK!

Mansard enfant de Soulard

A cute little baby mansard in Soulard on 12th between Gravois and Allen. I've never been too crazy about purple trim, but I'll still classify this mansard as good. School starts on the 24th and then I'll get back to bad mansards.

I've had some great reader submissions and I'm going to feature two new categories: Mansard help! (mansards that need rehab) and Unusual Mansard Uses.

petit. GRAND!

Little and big 2nd Empire neighbors in Benton Park.