Design snapshot: Award-winning window garden

Last year, I stumbled upon stunning window boxes in Salem, Mass. which I touted here. The other day, I found some to rival last year’s discovery.  These won first place from the City of Salem and Salem Garden Club this year. Now that I know there’s an official award to be won, my competitive drive is sparked. So, next year look for my entry. This is the same kind of motivation that got Pearl Fryer, topiary-artist-extraordinaire, started. Dream big.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Green garage

Yes, this is a different take on “green.” The garage’s dense, vine-covered wall forms one playful side of a courtyard driveway, bound on two other sides by an eave-height hedge. Since it can be a maintenance headache, I wouldn’t recommend growing vines like this against your home, but it’s hard to resist on an outbuilding. Even harder when teamed with window boxes and plump, cantaloupe- and watermelon-shaped boxwoods.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Square in a curve

Click on this photo to see it in the KHS photo note cards/prints gallery.This old, square, casement window, tucked into a curved wall, has much to recommend it. The 16-lite window configuration reinforces its squareness amidst the curve. While the eave trim and shingle cladding follow the curve, the square window finds a comfortable angle within the curve. The simple batten shutters stand straight, but humor the curve with a tubby whale cut-out. The soft geometry of the wall and the rigorous right angles of the window make for a happy pairing of contrasts, each accentuating the other. Whatever floats your boat – or old-time weathervane.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Web tour: Zippy The Pinhead discovers quoins

When I was describing the location of my house to a friend, she said, “Oh, the one with the fake quoins?” Though, I did get her drift, I felt a correction was in order. “No, the one with the real quoins,” I responded.

Quoins are the large, alternating blocks that climb and wrap the corners of many antique buildings. On my c. 1768 Georgian home, they are wooden (not “fake”) and take their inspiration from the sizable, masonry blocks often set to form the corners of classical, stone or brick buildings. They lend the buildings they adorn a certain heft, an appearance of elegant authority. Many folks are quite taken with them. Earlier this week even Zippy The Pinhead fell under their spell.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast