Thursday, April 3, 2008

Interesting Homes in La Crosse

I love architecture, and in fact, if I ever went back to school again (nope, no plans to do that!) it would be to become an architect. Ever since 7th and 8th grade Industrial Arts class in school where I surprisingly excelled at drafting, or jumping ahead to the summer I lived with Wally and Candis and spent hours pouring over Wally's house-plan books, or the many house plans I drew up in college when I didn't want to pay attention to the lectures (shhh.... don't tell anyone I did that!), or the countless times I almost get whiplash turning my head quickly while in a car to catch another glimpse of great architecture I just spotted, I really love looking at buildings and the lines that come together to make up their structure.

Well, as some of you may remember, when I first got to La Crosse, I didn't have the best first impression. The town seemed very industrial and all the buildings I found lacked any sort of character. It turns out that I live in north La Crosse, and there really isn't much character around this part of town. Luckily, I found out that other parts of La Crosse are different...

During the second week I was here in LaCrosse, I left work one morning and drove by a home that made me do a double-take (no whiplash, but...) I realized that there might actually be some character in some of the homes, and it motivated me to do a little more exploring around my new town. I found some really interesting homes on Cass, Main, and State Streets. I kept thinking that it would be fun to go back and take pictures sometime, but that I should do it early some morning when I get off work, so there was less of a chance that a homeowner would look out their window and find some random stranger taking pictures of their house! Well, sub-zero January and February turned into busy March, and here we are at my last week in La Crosse. With only two more mornings left in La Crosse, I decided that yesterday was the day for my photography hunt.

You'll see pictures of all sorts of interesting houses I found as I drove around. I love looking at homes. I sometimes look around at random real estate sites, even for parts of the county I have no intention to ever live in! I love looking at all different styles of homes, and appreciate little things about each of the different styles. I especially love the Craftsman style of home, but even as I type that I think "well, there are lots of other styles I really enjoy as well". I'm saying all this as a disclaimer so you'll know that the pictures I took aren't necessarily because I would want to specifically live in that home, they're just pictures of interesting homes and architecture I found. I think there are entire neighborhoods in La Crosse that would have completely different homes to look at, but unfortunately, my time here is up... I wish I would've looked for neighborhoods where every house looked like it was built in the 1930's and 1940's! I guess that will have to wait until I come back to visit sometime!

4 comments:

Leingang Family said...

What spectacular homes! I love driving through neighborhoods of old houses and dreaming of living in them.

Jim and Marilyn said...

Wow! Lots of similarities to FF, huh? beautiful pics! Maybe you should consider a second career with BHG...

Anonymous said...

Happened upon your blog and was shocked! I'm a "Kari, RN" too and my Dad was born in LaCrosse. My grandmother's house was just of Losey near the base of Granddad Bluff. Thanks for the good memories!

Kari, RN said...

Anonymous,

I don't know if you'll stumble across this again, but thanks for commenting. It's amazing what a small world we live in sometimes! I'm glad I could remind you of good times in La Crosse!