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The Old Sculpin gallery opposite the Chappy Ferry in Edgartown. You can't miss it.
If you're thinking of traveling to the Vineyard this weekend, I hope you'll stop by the opening reception for my featured-artist exhibit at the Old Sculpin gallery in Edgartown. Here's a link to the event with all of the details.
Happy summer!
Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
Most of the finishes and even some furnishings are in place at the Wenham ranch-house renovation/addition, so I thought I'd share the latest peek at the living area with you. You may recall an earlier "Before and After" shot that I posted of this view. Now, the space is actually occupiable. (Here, too, is a earlier "Before and After" shot -- from the KHS Facebook page -- of the exterior from the back of the house.)
The homeowners went with a lighter, fresher palette than before. Those are pickled red-oak floors, a raw steel surround at the fireplace, and "Cucumber" (from C2 Paint) accents in the back of the bookshelves and on the wooden knobs that we re-purposed from the original 60's ranch-house cabinetry. The furnishings in this shot are primarily from Room & Board, and the window seat cushion and pillows in the background are by Oliveira Textiles of Bristol, RI.
Detail shot (courtesy of the homeowner) of a Spiral Tide cushion and pillow by Oliveira Textiles. Note the "Cucumber" accent on the knob, too.
Stay tuned for more progress shots as the Wenham ranch-house renovation/addition nears completion. There are some interesting finishes and furnishings still yet to come. Such fun.
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
a garden on the tour in Newport last summer
It doesn't look like WBUR's The ARTery has published a guide to this season's garden tours, but I found a listing at Yankee magazine that you might want to reference. I'll be headed back to The Newport Secret Garden Tour again, running June 17-19 this spring. I'd like to think, in these many years sampling self-guided tours like the one in Newport, that I would be advancing from my idjit gardener status. Possibly, but perhaps there's a bit of the idjit gardener in even the most experienced gardener, who is open to how the garden might surprise, delight, and inform them. Happy touring.
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
Design savvy at Blithewold.
As frequent readers of House Enthusiast know, I define 10 small-house design strategies in my book The New Small House. But, as this photo taken at Blithewold Mansion in Bristol, RI will attest, there's no rule against applying many of the same strategies to smaller moments in larger houses.
This generous window seat off the landing in the grand front stair of this c. 1907 estate, designed in the English Country Manor style, is a great example of creating multipurpose spaces. Here, the landing is more than a place to catch your breath before continuing further up or down the stairs; it's also a destination, thanks to the window seat.
It's a place to curl up with a book or to have a word or two with a companion before heading down to enjoy tea, or up to the more private spaces. It's a pocket for privacy amidst an otherwise larger and more public setting.
It takes advantage of the volume and height a stair can provide, by providing a perch from which to both overlook the activity of the living space below and the scene outside as folks arrive or depart. It takes advantage of the third dimension.
It also borrows daylight and view from windows that would otherwise be dedicated to the stair, and shares that daylight and view with the floor below and the hall above.
Because the painted, raised paneling that lines the wall of the stair seamlessly sides the back of the window seat and then continues further up the stairs, the window seat is very much part of the overall succinct palette of the stair hall. The line between stair and window seat, blurs so that each benefits from the other and is in a way enlarged by the other.
My one wish is that the window seat cushion and pillows were not red/burgundy, and that the coordinating rug wasn't red/burgundy and navy blue. I would prefer colors drawn more from the vase to the left in the photo, or the vase on the window sill further down the stair. Something with more of a mid-green or mid-blue color story would be my choice. But I suppose the cushion, pillows, and rug are the colors they are for historic reasons. Can't help but want to update it some and give it a fresh look.
To see more of Blithewold as well as their impressive gardens, check out their calendar of events. I took the photo above when I was there for one of their afternoon teas. Just delightful.
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
This is one of my favorite stages of a project, when a design originally conceived and expressed via drawings starts to become visible in reality. The "Before" photo on the bottom was taken at roughly the same angle as the "After" photo above it. That's the same fireplace to the far right in the "Before" photo as the fireplace in the "After" photo, though we've added another gas fireplace behind the original wood-burning fireplace in the "After" photo.
The footprint of this space hasn't changed, but we've removed the low, flat ceiling, replacing it instead with rod ties in a cathedral ceiling, which adds volume and a sense of spaciousness. In my book The New Small House, I call this design strategy: Pay attention to the third dimension.
By removing the full-height partitions between the former dining, living, and kitchen spaces, the renovated space serves multiple purposes comfortably under the taller cathedral ceiling. The location of the now free-standing fireplace provides some separation between the primary living space, captured in this photo, and the smaller sitting and dining space on the other side of the fireplaces. The low wall guard rail around the basement stair also differentiates without dividing. In the book I call this strategy: Create multipurpose spaces.
Less obvious in this "After" photo, is that opening up the space to the new reconfigured windows will allow the relocated kitchen, which is where I was standing when I took the "After" shot, to borrow view and daylight from the living space.
Since this is still a work-in-progress, it's too soon to write about finishes, but suffice it to say that we're going with a quieter, soothing, fresh palette. No yellow. Built-ins, cabinetry, and finishes will be introduced in coming weeks. The homeowners have also substantially edited their belongings, opting for new, more contemporary furnishings to complement their '50's ranch instead of the older furnishings that populate the "Before" photo. Stay tuned.
by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast
