Marianne’s Old House

 

8/30/25 Mt. Baker neighborhood

When I was driving to the USk outing in Leschi last Saturday, an idea popped into my head: A lifelong friend grew up in a house in the Mt. Baker neighborhood not too far from Leschi. Since I was in the area, I drove over after the outing to sketch the house as a gift.

Although the house was now painted dark green, I couldn’t quite remember what color it had been when Marianne lived there . . . maybe white? I decided not to color it according to the current green, since I wanted the sketch to evoke the house of her past. And despite the many, many times I had visited as a child, it’s funny that I had never noticed those eyelid windows until I stood across the street to sketch them. I’m pretty sure the trellis hadn’t been there, but I didn’t want to take too many liberties. (We can’t go back again, even in sketches.) It was a relief, though, that like my own childhood home, Marianne’s old house hadn’t changed much (or hadn’t been torn down as so many have in both neighborhoods).