15 Sandy Lane remodelled

Things have clearly changed at 15 Sandy Lane and not necessarily for the better. The house is a bigger, e.g. the garage has been included in to the main house, but it is also much blander, e.g. the terracotta tiles in the bay between the two windows have been removed.

There are a few little details there, e.g. in the small panes at the top of the windows, but these are lost in the uniformity of the painted front. I expect the porch to be painted too, it needs to be.

Unusual porch

Ham has several large areas of similar looking brick houses built for social housing and over the years quite a few of these have added porches and most of these have followed the style of the having a brick construction and a sloping roof with terracotta tiles. This one in Lammas Road has taken a very different approach and looks horribly out of keeping as a result.

Grey twins

These semis in Dysart Avenue are being updated together which makes sense for things like the shared roof and also gives a welcome conformity of style with the same rendering, unlike before.

While these houses are clearly twin-like there are differences, e.g. the one on the left has a side extension and the one on the right has windows in the roof. The windows are also different though maybe just close enough in style for it not to matter.

Stepped ridge

I have recorded the way that the common stye of roofs on the houses on Petersham Road opposite Richmond Golf Club has been slowly eroding, with the worst case being the grey roof next to this one. An effort has been made here to get it right with a stepped edge on the ridge tiles but their colour does not match the rest of the roof.

The main roof is the same as the porch, it was just easier to take a close-up of the lower roof.

Substantial porch

This new porch in Dysart Avenue is substantial in size and in materials used, it may even be more solid that the house it is attached to as well as being wider that the extension.

There is some work to do to integrate the new build with the brick and pebbledash of the old and I will be interested to see what they do.

It looks as though the semi-detached neighbour is having the same porch built at the same time (matching porches will be good) but they had a car plarked in front of it so no photo this time.

Dysart construction

Any construction project locally interests me, even one as small as this one in Dysart Avenue.

Different porches

The house on the left ruined the character of this section of Woodville Road so it is hard to criticise the mismatched porch being added next door, especially as elsewhere along the road a number of new porches have been added and they are all quite different.

This one also has the advantage of appropriately coloured tiles.

Another new porch

There seems to have been a flurry of new porches in the Buckingham Road area.

I am something of a fan of the simple original porches but I can see why they are being replaced (they offer very little protection from the weather) and I like that there is a consistency, in this area at least, in what they are being replaced with. The design is simple and is spot-on, brick built with a pitched roof.

Pretty porch

"History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes", as someone unknown once said, and this is the case here. In 2017 I said that the remodelled former Ham Institute was bland and then it was rescued with the addition of a porch. A porch also helped another bland house in Cedar Height in 2020. The latest house-saving porch is in Ham Farm Road.

The porch is somewhat hidden by thick vegatation, which is something of a shame as it is the most (only?!) interesting feature of the house.

New porch in Mead Road

Clearly the original porches in places like Mead Road, as seen on the house on the left, provide (very) limited shelter from the elements so it is understandable when they get converted to enclised porches, as so many have across Ham.

However, I think it is a shame when each property does its own thing, rather then working with its neighbours to make the same changes at the some time, as that breaks the continuity of the road.

Single porch

The few houses on Meadlands Drive between Clifford Road and Sandpits Lane have seen much work done to them in the last couple of years and that work is continuing. When these houses were done at the same time, in 2019, they were not given porches, unlike their two neighbours. Now one of the houses has broken ranks and is having a porch added.

It looks as though the other house is being prepared for a porch too and I hope it is otherwise they will look a very odd pair.

Second porch

Last month I speculated that these two houses on Meadlands Drive were being redeveloped together but at that time only one of them had a porch. Now that the second identical porch has been installed I think the speculation is over.

Porch added

The entrance to the remodelled former vicarage in Church Road used to lack impact until the arrival of this porch and now everything looks good. The porch may have been a late decision as it was added after all the other work had completed.

The bad news is that the high wall and solid gates obscure the view so this is another place that I will have to keep walking past hoping to find a gate open one day. 

New porch and windows

This house in Buckingham Road seems, from the front at least, to be improving nicely. The lost extension looks neat, the new windows are right and the porch in appropriate.

New porch in Maguire Drive

This house has featured here before, and not that long ago. Then it was for the new fence and now it is for the new porch.

I like to capture projects like this while they are in progress because then you can see details of the construction and materials used. I shall go back later to see how the finished article looks.

New porch in Dukes Avenue

When work started on this porch in Dukes Avenue a couple of months ago I had some concerns and I am pleased to see that things worked out better than I feared, though it is not without issues.

While the new bricks are clearly redder than the originals they do merge together reasonably well. Similarly the problem of the original window on the right of the bay has been addressed by leaving it in place and extending the front of the bay straight across with identical windows.

I think they have done all they could with the extension but the end result does not look quite right. Perhaps it will grow on me as I get used to it.

Metal porch

This porch on Petersham Road is not typical of the area but it is close enough to not stand out in a bad way and it is pretty enough to stand out in a good way.

New porch

These houses on Dukes Avenue were built with small semi-circular overhangs above the front doors (the house above still has its in place) and while they are attractive they provide little in the way of protection from the weather so it is no surprise that several of the houses have replaced them with something more substantial. Normally this is just a larger overhang with a pillar to support it but this house is going further and seems to be building a fully enclosed porch.

I suspect that other houses have not done this because the porch would impose on part of the bay window so I will be interested to see how this one turns out. I will also be interested to see how the new bricks blend in with the old ones, which is not looking great so far.

Not the ugliest anymore

Two years ago I called this house in Cedar Heights "the ugliest in the area", and I was right. But, credit where credit is due, the new (first) owners have transformed its appearance with extensive planting, a porch and a new front door.

It is still not very pretty but it is much better than it was and I doubt that it is the ugliest in the area anymore. I will have to go and look for some new contenders.

New porch

The last time I visited this pair of refurbished semis in Maguire Drive I made disparaging comments about the doorway on the house on the right and now I can see that I was being presumptuous as the work was incomplete and the ugliness of the doorway was just the prelude for a porch.