urbnlivn, a seattle condo blog

The Seattle Times has a rather humorous article on a window covering battle in Queen Anne, Women block windows to keep peering neighbors out:

They waged a fierce battle involving spotlights, construction paper and crude signs, but in the end roommates Sophie Parker and Karen Linebarger bowed to the realities of city living and tinted their windows, lengthened their blinds and stopped strolling around their apartment in underclothes.

Picture of the battle:

I had a similar revelation one day. For the longest time I didn’t have window coverings for my place and would walk around not really worrying about people seeing in because I didn’t really think anyone was or would. That is until one day I realized that just because I couldn’t see into the neighboring building didn’t mean they couldn’t see into mine. My realization was that they had tinted their windows while my windows were not tinted; they could see me but I couldn’t see them.

That and the onset of summer put my window covering search in high gear.

My first consideration was solar shades from The Shade Store. This is where I bought the blackout shades for my bedroom.

After having lunch with Rob Sinclair of HTI I then became enamored with automated window coverings that raised and lowered with the sun’s position in the sky but ruled those out after I got a ~$10,000 quote which is pretty pricey considering manual solar shades would run $800 to $1500 depending on the vendor. Also with automated shades instead of having one in each of my 8 windows, they’d install 3 large window coverings spanning windows .

At about the same time my friend Rob pointed out that JC Penny’s was having a father day’s sale where solar shades were $30/window, much cheaper than $10,000 and cheaper than the solar shades I found online that were in the $80-$150/window range. So I ordered them but they turned out to be too good to be true. They were indeed cheap looking but also lacked a pull cord mechanism to raise and lower them. With 70″ high windows I needed a cord. Fortunately I was able to return them which is not true of all solar shades.

I then ordered samples from JustBlinds, SelectBlinds and Smith and Noble.

I liked the patterns from JustBlinds the best, they turned out to be a little more expensive than SelectBlinds who had a big sale at the time, but were still much cheaper at $90/window that the Shade Store. I’m sure some of you would hesitate about buying window coverings online but I found many of the shops had both satisfaction and quality guarantees and were featured on numerous home improvement shows. This and the ability to get samples ahead of time gave me the confidence that I’d like the finish product and if I didn’t I’d have some sort of recourse. Of course they don’t have a guarantee against you messing up the measuring so I must have measured each window 10 times to ensure I got it right.

Once they arrived a week after ordering I found them relatively easy to install after I gave up on trying to level them relative to anything (turns out that in an eighty year old building nothing is level.) My only compliant is that the pull cord is plastic and not metal but I’m sure with a little of effort I could replace them with new cords.

What I like best about the solar shades is that they block the sun but still allow me to enjoy my view when they are down. However, my south west corner place still cooks up to around 85′ on hot days.

In the end it also looks like the Queen Anne girls also settled on solar shades:

Update: Here’s some pictures of my window coverings.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Banner Buiding

#403/404 at the Banner Building at 80 Vine St hit the MLS today. At 3 beds, 2.75 baths, 3,362 square feet the place is huge.

Even though the listing agent stands to gross $73,500 there are sadly no pictures yet except this exterior shot:

19th Ave Lofts

If you can’t afford $2.45 mil but still want something lofty like, #304 at 19th Ave Lofts just came on the market. At list this listing has photos but is missing the square footage. Guess they don’t want us to see how over priced it might be? Or maybe they don’t want it to show up in people’s online searches.

Looks like you might want to replace the kitchen cabinets.

Popularity: 21% [?]

I think it’s a little odd to see a fully furnished million dollar place be FSBO’d on Zillow but to each their own in this crazy market. But what caught my eye was all the stainless and concrete at 415 W Mercer #901 a 2,113 square foot place listed at $1,150,000:

See more at Live Like Its Yours. (Looks like this was a fully furnished rental.)

The marketing description also has some interesting tidbits:

All household items negotiable - Photography, 42″ HDTV, glasses/plates, etc. , everything! Blender, Kitchen Aid Mixer, pots/pans, wine - shot - champagne glasses. Everything you need to entertain up to 20. [cut] Beyond the value of the unit, the association owns a multi million dollar parking lot across the street.

Notice, Ikea mirror in the bathroom :).

Popularity: 21% [?]

The Equinox newsletter today points us to their new virtual tour.

They actually have three. The first (labeled “Virtual Tour” is very lame. They took some photos, panned and zoomed the photos and added music. The second and third (”Home Tour” and “Amenities”) were okay.

What do you think? Good spend of their marketing dollars or not?

Popularity: 16% [?]

I usually leave the number crunching posts to other blogs but I did want to point out a new feature on Redfin; neighborhood pages. Now you can see MLS and county data powered charts showing condo list and sale prices for $/square foot over time.

Capitol Hill:

$/Sq. Ft.

Inventory

Queen Anne

$/Sq. Ft.

Inventory

Downtown

$/Sq. Ft.

Inventory

Now we can compare and contrast inventory and pricing trends at a local level instead of city level.

Disclaimer: I’m the lead product manager at Redfin responsible for search.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Seattle PI reports Project’s developers make switch from condos to rental apartments.

How does Moda go from 15% of units falling through to so many falling through that they need to go rental? Was the building way more investors than actual home buyers? Or was it mainly first time home buyers who were putting 0% down?

Are there any readers who purchased there? What’s the inside scoop?

Alright, who’s going apartments next?

Popularity: 19% [?]

Remember Queen Anne High School? They’re still around with 19 units on the MLS.

Today they chopped some prices.

#267 went down in price $74,000 to $509,950.

#171 went down in price $25,050 to $299,950.

And unlike Trio these aren’t “pump and dumps” where they start with a high price only to dramatically drop the price three days later as if we aren’t looking at websites that display the days on market.

Popularity: 18% [?]

The Seattle PI reports today on Intracorp putting up their 2nd and Steward (aka 1915 2nd Ave) project for sale, Belltown high-rise project put up for sale:

“The opportunity is to acquire a fully entitled downtown development site with some of the most sought after unobstructed views in Seattle,” the listing for the 12,950-square-foot property says.

This is their third bust after first Expo 62 and then Domaine making the Parc their only Seattle “success”.

If you wish to purchase this unfinished project, check out the listing.

Popularity: 15% [?]

On Friday after work I swung by the Bo Concept store that just opened at Western and Marion and took some photos.

Lots of nice furniture, rugs, etc.

And I really like their media furniture!

Too bad I they didn’t up earlier because I’m now fully furnished.

In other store opening news, Apartment Therapy blogged the opening of the Henry Built flagship. And if you want a condo already with Henrybuilt already installed check out #430 at the Klee:

Or 2364 Fairview Ave E, Unit 1:

Popularity: 17% [?]

Ming had us over for dinner tonight (it’s my birthday today) and he had a copy of Loft Life Magazine. Turns out it’s a new magazine all about lofts (in Atlanta?)

Once I got home I subscribed but thumbing through Ming’s copy a few things caught my eye.

• An ad for The Modern Fan company. Madison Lofts should have called these folks.
• Rejuvenated airplane trolleys. Wow cool!
  

• Ikea Helmer drawer unit. Cheap.

Popularity: 14% [?]