Without disagreeing with the opinions expressed here, I’d say that it certainly makes sense for the owner. The house and rooms are probably very small because of the alley angle, so they squared off the rooms. The city should have made them use brick for what I assume is a privilege.

Looks ridiculous but likely makes the rooms more usable by removing the angles.

I think this was done quite a while ago. I live not too far from this and drive up this street frequently since I bought my house over 10 years ago and I am pretty sure this has been like this since I moved in. They might have redone the siding however.

The good thing is that you can’t see it when looking at the house dead-on. It would be much improved by painting it all one, uniform color that matched the front (although, that “baby-boy-blue” is rather unatractive). I think I would remove the siding and do a smooth stucco coat; the siding is a little too discordant.

And no, this is not original to the house.

I wonder if this was even permitted. We’ve certainly seen equally large jobs pulled off without DC gov’t oversight.

If it was, then like Anonymous, I wonder what variances were obtained. Those bumpouts were built on public property.