And to everyone else, I agree – these places do seem to improve the mood of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. For kids especially…

“About 48,000 houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915 (with the change from Victorian to Edwardian occurring on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901), and many were painted in bright colors. As one newspaper critic noted in 1885, “…red, yellow, chocolate, orange, everything that is loud is in fashion…if the upper stories are not of red or blue… they are painted up into uncouth panels of yellow and brown…”[5] During World War I and World War II, many of these houses were battleship gray with war-surplus Navy paint. Another sixteen thousand were demolished, and many others had the Victorian decor stripped off or covered with tarpaper, brick, stucco, or aluminum siding.”

each of these houses makes me smile! breaks you out of the day to day reality, and makes you realize how important art is to a community.