Design snapshot: Painted floor patina

paintedfloorpatina.jpgThese wide, antique floor boards reveal a vibrant layered color palette, worn down over time to wonderful effect. The resulting surface of rich yellow and red ochres amidst cerulean blue, all with a luster finish, would delight on an abstract canvas. It’s is even more sublime under foot. A simple Shaker rocker and matte black, slate hearth provide quiet counterpoints to the animated painted hues. This kind of floor treatment works well with spare wall finishes, furniture, and furnishings -- as the Shakers well knew and the Modernists would likely agree.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Stair with flair

dssboxstair.jpgResidential architects generally love stairs. They invite us to sculpt. Stairs provide scale since step dimensions directly relate to the human body. They offer vertical relief from the otherwise horizontal realm of our day-to-day experience. Mostly they provide an opportunity, in a single architectural feature, to distill an overall design concept. Their form, craftsmanship, materiality, and finish can speak volumes.

This staircase does. It's representative of many finely wrought antique staircases in Salem, Massachusetts. The boxed raised-paneled risers are especially noteworthy. Look closely at the balusters too. There are three per tread -- each a different turned shape above the knuckle. The starting newel is a marvel; the corkscrew shape seems to foretell the winding path of the stair climber. The wall panels below the staircase and the wainscot that travels up alongside it elegantly accommodate the staircases’s dynamic geometry. This staircase is the accent feature in a Georgian home in which carefully proportioned wood details differentiate walls and space throughout. It is uniquely of its time and context.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Ask Katie: Thoughts on interior trim

Q: I would like to upgrade the builders’ grade trim package in our center hall colonial home. Faced with all the different molding choices at the lumber yard, it is very difficult to make a selection on the size and scale. Our home has 8-foot ceilings and I would like to add a crown, chair rail, new base, and window and door casings. How large can these moldings be before they start to look out of scale with the 8-foot ceiling?

Dave from Wheaton, IL

A: The way you’ve phrased your question suggests that you’re already on the right track. Selecting trim that is aesthetically appropriate to your space, while in proportion to it, is the key to a successful upgrade.

Since your home is a “center hall colonial” you may be looking for more traditional trim options. These are typically comprised of multiple components for each location and are generally larger than more contemporary alternatives. Since I suspect that yours is a newer “colonial”, not an antique, you needn’t slavishly reproduce period details. I recommend keeping it simple and elegant.

Consider a two-part base that consists of 1x6 flat stock plus a molded cap or

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Winter 2007 holiday house tours

Recommended upcoming New England tours

Nantucket Christmas Stroll Annual Holiday House Tour (Nantucket, MA) Friday, November 30, 2007 4:00-7:00 pm (Call for ticket info 508.228.7285 ext. 1168); Architectural Walking Tour, Saturday, December 1, 2007 9:30-11:00 am and 1:00-2:00 pm (Call for reservations 508.228.1387)

21st Annual Friends of Nashua Symphony Holiday House Tour (Nashua, NH) Saturday and Sunday, December 1 and 2, 2007 12:00 pm-4:00pm

Plymouth Holiday House Tour (Plymouth, MA) Saturday and Sunday, December 1 and 2, 2007 11:00 am-4:30 pm

Christmas in Salem (Salem, MA) Saturday, December 1, 2007 10:00 am-4:00 pm and Sunday, December 2, 2007 11:30 am-4:30 pm

Stockbridge Holiday House Tour (Stockbridge, MA) Saturday, December 1, 2007 11:00 am-4:00 pm

Newburyport Holiday House Tour (Newburyport, MA) Saturday, December 8, 2007 10:00 am

Essex Holiday House Tour (Essex, CT) Saturday, December 8, 2007 10:00 am-4:00 pm

Bristol Home for the Holiday house tour (Bristol, RI) Saturday and Sunday, December 8 and 9, 2007 12:00 pm-5:00 pm

Woodstock Holiday House Tour (Woodstock, VT) Saturday, December 8, 2007 10:00 am-4:00pm

Stratford Historic Holiday House Tour and Boutique (Stratford, CT) Sunday, December 9, 2007 12:00 pm

Design snapshot: Roof riddle

dssrake.jpgMuch of architecture’s artistry comes down to how intersecting elements are handled. The meeting of the roof eave and the roof rake is one of many intersections that good design should take into account.

The roof eave, as you likely know, is the horizontal edge of the roof. The roof rake is the sloped edge that travels up a gable, shed, or gambrel end-wall. This photo depicts an extended, closed eave with a level soffit that transitions at the end-wall into an extended, closed rake that follows the roof slope. Did you get that? Basically, a level, boxed-in eave overhang intersects a sloped, boxed-in rake overhang.

The resolution of this intersection is far more elegant than if the level eave soffit had continued past the gable end-wall to the face of the overhanging rake board. That would have resulted in a chunky triangular box, almost ear-like on the gable elevation. This solution is less successful, though, where the gutter meets the crown trim on the rake. Maybe the gutter return should have continued a little farther, so that the crown trim on the rake would have run into and ended at the top of the gutter-line instead.

Why am I telling and showing you this? Because the resolution of this type of detail matters. Attention to such nuance is the crux of comprehensive, thoughtful design.

For more information on designing roof rakes, in particular, check out the December 2007/January 2008 issue of Fine Homebuilding that includes a “Drawing Board” column that I wrote and illustrated on the topic, or click here to see a PDF version of it. Visit the Journal of Light Construction website to see a design column that I wrote and illustrated for them about eaves and rakes in general.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast