Around the Hood

Weather has been gorgeous, I couldn't resist taking Desmond out for a stroll and meet up with Desmond senior for a late lunch. It's a huge plus to have Justin's work so close to home. It's a leisure 30 minute walk to his work through some descent neighborhood streets in Emeryville. Unlike its' next door neighbor Oakland, Emeryville is clean and tidy with mostly condominiums instead of single family homes. The streets here are smoothly paved and warehouses are in use and well taken care of. Our neighborhood shares the Emeryville postal code and our house is three blocks away from the border, but we still have a long way to go with neighborhood appeal.

We missed an important neighborhood/district town hall with Oakland Mayor Quan last week but we learned one of the items on the agenda was creating a sidewalk on Lowell street and tree planting on the sidewalk. I hope we get a sidewalk one of these days, I know it's a low priority issue for the city of Oakland, I will keep my fingers crossed.

Here are some of the stuff I was on the way to meet Desmond senior for lunch. A house in Emeryville on Fremont street sitting on wood blocks. I wonder if it's actually getting moved to a different location or just getting raised to add head room for the lower level. The house itself is in pretty bad shape. 

A closer look. 

There are many reasons why one would want to use plastic flowers in their gardens instead of the real thing. For example, easy maintenance and allergy free...

The color on this house was retina burning in bright day light. Sometimes I wonder if the homeowners are color blind or was there a free give away? 

I came upon this really cool looking victorian with tons of amazing details. It's vacant and sits on a corner lot. I did noticed the roof in the back is damaged. How I wish I could take a look inside this house. 

This cute house has wisteria growing on its' facade. How pretty!

This is a house on our street, couple of blocks over that has had the scaffolding set up like that since we purchased our house over a year ago. From what I can tell, no work has been done for as long as I've seen it there.

Our neighbor from couple of doors down planted couple of trees on the sidewalk in front of their house. 

This is a Photinia fraseri. 

This is the other tree they planted. I don't know what it is exactly, but judging by the color of the leaves and flowers, I am guessing some kind of plum tree? I think it's so pretty, the branches and flowers are very delicate looking.