why I love my new neighborhood

The neighborhood that we lived in out in Iowa was functional.  Most importantly, it was clean and safe so it was a good place to live.  We liked the area because we weren't right next to the university but were only about a 15 minute drive from downtown Iowa City.  However, the neighborhood was very boring.  All of the houses and condos were built within the last 10 years and most have no character whatsoever.  We were lucky to live in a brick building with the view of a pond.  That's about as exciting as it gets.  The other things that drove me nuts were that 1) the garages could face the street so you constantly looked at rows of garage doors and 2) there are whole stretches of the same type of building (i.e. 10 townhouses in a row).

Our new neighborhood is also clean and safe.  It's much more urban so we can't take the long, winding, quiet walks like we did in Iowa, but we can take city walks instead.  And the neighborhood has so much more character.  With that being said, I thought it would be fun to take pictures during one of my walks and create an inspirational walk post.  Any of you who craft know that inspiration can come from a wide variety of places.  Architecture and nature are definitely included.  Enjoy!

There are lots of houses with bay windows.

There are also lots of houses with rounded doors.  How cute is that?  I don't think I'd ever seen this before.  And there are tons of them.  There are at least 7 within 4 blocks of our house that I didn't photograph.

There's a lot of awesome stone work as well.  Bricks are great but the stone work is even cooler.

Some houses have both bay windows and round doors.

great corner lots

There are a few random houses that I love for no particular reason.

 How adorable is this?

 I love these little windows.

This house looks a lot like ours.  I hope that they have the awesome layout inside that we do.

EtsyBloggers, does anyone remember the fence posts?  Most fences in the neighborhood are chain links or plain woods, but this was different.

We live pretty near a big city park.  I know that this still looks very urban (and it is), but it's nice to have that little touch of nature nearby.

lawnmower patterns on the grass

 I also took a couple funny pictures.  Green Bay fans, we hope?

This house belongs in Iowa City!