Here we go ~ round 5 of Alphabe- Thursday hosted by Jenny Matlock. If you have a moment please visit her website and check out her ‘terrific tangents’.
This week’s letter is ‘O‘
~ Oakridge, NJ ~
At first I thought it was hard to find something ‘O’- related to take you on a journey with me. Yet, it was so easy. ‘O’ for Oakridge NJ, which is the name of the townhouse community that we live in. If you are curious how we ended up here, you can find out a little about that here or also here. I have got no idea why it is named Oakridge @ Hanover, but that’s the way it is. And since it is a very pretty community I thought I would share a few photos of it with you.
The reason why we did not buy a single family home is that we wanted more time to live our leisure time away from the house i.e. windsurfing. With a ‘real’ house having a big garden and all we would have had way less time to do that. Therefore we started looking at townhouses instead. But most townhouses only have one car garages and despite the fact that one year later we still only have one car, we wanted a two car garage, if at all possible. Oakridge NJ has those. We also like to have a nice fire in winter – our house has a wood burning fireplace. Some units have theirs converted to gas.
The one thing you either like or totally dis-like is the modern layout. There are very few straight walls in the house. I mean, they are straight, however there are a lot (!) of angles and cut outs etc. These are a pain if you need to measure the house, but who needs to do that?! We love the layout. We love everything about it. It makes it very interesting to look at from an architecture point of view. And I do love architecture, too. To give you a better idea, I am posting two of the photos we took before we moved into the house. And, for the record, neither the curtains, nor that chandelier or the golden hallway lights are still there – just not our style! When you look at google maps, you will see that the whole townhouse complex is grouped in half-round shapes, in contrast to the usual row – very nice. It also gives us a lot of privacy on our balcony, because we don’t hear or see any neighbors except for the ones in the opposite house.
Oh, and that is another plus here, there is so much green, a lot of trees and bushes, great landscaping. In summer I can hardly see the neighbors from our deck and when I look out the window I see green. Without actually having to do any gardening. But speaking of gardening, we do have a little front yard, which, of course, is taken care of by the HOA. However, over the one year that we have been here, we figured that as long as it looks neat, we can plant what we want. So, what did we do? We made a small raised bed with stones, filled it with dirt and planted 1) a blueberry bush 2) a tomato plant 3) red basil 4) rosemary and 5) oregano – I love to cook with fresh herbs! The blueberries were yummy, too, and the tomatoes are still growing and starting to blush.
So, while Oakridge NJ surely is not a travel destination, sorry more of those – I hope – next Thursday again, it is a lovely place to live. Did I mention that 1) it is very close to major highways in every direction, so that, without traffic, I can be in New York City within 30 minutes and 2) Morristown as a small town is only 10 minutes away and 3) the neighborhoods of Whippany, Hanover, East Hanover, Morris Plains are very green with lots of parks, one of my favorites The Arboretum Frelinghuysen.
Oakridge NJ is a pretty cool place to live. Speaking of ‘cool’ – I forgot to mention that we also have an Oakridge community pool, should the New Jersey shore be too far away. I hope you did not mind me sharing this personal view of our community with you.
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