Design snapshot: Winning-egg color palette

When my friend Stephen saw these prize-winning eggs at the Truro Ag Fair, he remarked that they could inspire a beautiful paint palette. Of course, he’s not the first to have found inspiration in Araucanas eggs. Martha Stewart had her Picnic Boat hull painted to match one such egg.

I know this because once when my husband, a boating enthusiast, was stretching out for a run in front of the living room T.V., he stumbled upon a show about the making of a Hinckley Picnic Boat in which the experts explained the process. I overheard the show from the kitchen and recognized a familiar voice. I paused and listened longer to be sure, and then entered the living room.

“Are you watching Martha Stewart?” I asked, very amused. (He’s not a Martha enthusiast.)

“Oh, I wondered what was going on when they started talking about the color matching some egg,” he said. The boat builders sounded about as dumbfounded by the color selection as my husband was. None-the-less, it was a dreamy color -- just beautiful with the boat’s dash of brightwork.

Finding color inspiration in nature is only, well, natural. Take a look around your local farmers’ market for inspiration. A friend found an exquisite, red-tinted-blue, spicy pepper which she matched on her kitchen cabinets. Another colleague found a deep purple-black eggplant worth emulating for an exterior house color. What will you find?

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Romantic cottage & garden

This cottage architecture, complete with cottage garden, speaks to me every time I pass it. In the ten + years I’ve been admiring it, the house has changed color, and the garden has evolved, but my affinity for it has never wavered. This romance is founded on curves.

The curved-top casements and trim, just kissing the eave fascia, and the decorative shared pilasters between them suggest a cheerful, well-crafted, and sunny space within. The gate with its varied height pickets picks up on the curve theme and, when slightly ajar, allows passersby to peek into a whimsical garden. The robin’s-egg blue house-color accentuates the bright palette of the flowers, which border the serpentine, stepping-stone path, and lends it a storybook look.

It’s a romantic ensemble for which I’ll never tire.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: A building with a smile

Anthropomorphizing our environment is simply second nature. We can’t help but search for faces around us, on people and objects. It’s part of what our brains do to make sense of the world. It’s a tendency surely familiar to the designer of this antique stair-enclosure. The cheerful countenance of the small building appendage brings a touch of whimsy to what would otherwise be a utilitarian basement access.  

The curved, door-head trim establishes a forehead of sorts beneath the hat of the gable. Laughing, crescent-shaped eyes carved into the vertical door boards complement the centered latch nose, while the upper strap hinges suggest eyebrows and the lower ones imply corners of a smile. The white-on-white palette of materials saves it from being too heavy handed.

It’s only human to delight in human expression (of all sorts).

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Enclosed Porch porchiness

Prompted by a recent online consulting client (yes, I now provide online design consultations; more on that later), I’ve been snapping new photos of enclosed porches. 

This one has what I’ve come to call “porchiness”, by which I mean, it still evokes its former life as an open porch.  A number of factors contribute to its porchiness. 

For one, the original porch posts and brackets are intact and stand "proud" of the porch windows and walls, as does the original balustrade.  For another, it retains the original lattice treatment below the porch floor level.

Perhaps most critical to its porchiness are expansive windows which neatly infill between the porch pilasters, roof headers and balustrade.  The lite proportions of the porch windows complement those of the double-hung windows on the main house, while accommodating larger areas of glass.  For ventilation, operable casements, with two active leafs apiece, are located in the center of the bays (except the last bay which allows for entry from the end). 

As an aside, grouping windows into threes often nicely divides bays, creating a more animated rhythm than static divisions into multiples of two.
 
The combination of ample daylight and access to refreshing breezes give this space the greatest porchiness of all. 

For more about enclosed porches, check out another design snapshot on the subject.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Bustins Island Beaut

Waumbek, a cottage on Bustins Island, Maine, is one of roughly 100, mostly antique, small dwellings that ring the three-quarter-mile length of this summer community.

The deep porch, wrapping around the narrow, one and one-half story gable-end shades over-sized windows from harsh afternoon sun, while low window sills welcome softer daylight. Such generous windows can help a small space feel larger. I’ve written about the appealing pattern of “small house, big windows” in a previous design snapshot. The windows' black sashes add crisp borders, like eye-liner around twinkling eyes.

Waumbek is practically a porch with a house, rather than the other way round. The sizable porch adds invaluable outdoor-living space, furthering Waumbek’s surprising sense of spaciousness, considering its size.

Wide, cross-braced guard rails pick up on the broad strokes of the windows and ample porch, suggesting a more generous space than a busy, smaller-scale, baluster design would. Angled brackets on the porch posts quietly echo the cross rails and frame a more personable space between bays.

No surprise, I favor the gable-end treatment of green, accent shingles defining the tippy top, while a white, trim board, in-line with the second floor window-head trim, transitions to the yellow clapboards of the upper-middle section, above the lower porch roof.

To me, Waumbek is an ideal cottage, one to inspire future designs.

For additional reading about Bustins Island and its history, consider The Story of Bustins, a Maine Summer Island.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast