38 Washington Avenue, Vanier, Ottawa

 This very small house caught my eye as I was poking around in Street View — the capture dates from July 2019. I can find no information about the building apart from what the aerial photos reveal. It seems not to have been built as of 1928, but it does appear in 1958. The peculiar sloped rear extension appeared some time between 1965 and 1991. The original brick chimney disappeared some time between 2015 and 2019 (hence the break in the siding), along with a luxuriant cover of Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata (Siebold & Zucc.) Planch.) — which despite its name is native to Eastern Asia. Old bits of vine still cling to the wall.

"Autumn Ivy" — Ogata Kenzan

The lot measures 48' by 95'. Before the rear addition was built, the house had a square footprint (apart from the projecting front foyer)— you can imagine how small it was!  The 1958 photo shows a backyard shed, making me wonder whether there was ever a basement.

My guess would be that this was built shortly after WWII, part of the home-building frenzy for veterans returning to a nation-wide housing shortage. It's worth remembering how post-war homebuilding impacted Ottawa's landscape. Consider this topo map from 1940, at the start of the War.

The green area shows the (now)-Vanier-South/Overbrook area as bounded by (N) McArthur Ave, (E) St. Laurent Blvd, (S) Tremblay Rd and (W) River Rd. Red arrows point to Washington Avenue in the NW corner, in the old Cummings Bridge sector. Partway down we see the original three "Royal" roads of the "OverBrook Annex," King George, Queen Mary and Prince Albert. Queen Mary is the one in the middle, devolving into a dirt road as she runs east towards a meeting with Cyrville Road.

Everything else was farmland or waste ground (small woodlots, marshy bits), not developed until the late '40s, the '50s and the '60s.