Foodie Friday

traditional staircase design by minneapolis general contractor Erotas Building Corporation

Welcome to Foodie Friday.

No food from me this week. Family illness has pretty much taken up my thoughts.

But I stopped by Rattlebridge to check out the progress. We'd planned to update the staircase (see above photo from Houzz--the square post caught my eye).

But first, let's look at the new porch. The pea gravel was removed, and a herringbone

base was installed. This idea came from Susan at  Between Naps on the Porch.

The transformation is amazing.
Before:

During:

As you can see, the door still has two colors. 

I like how the red (Between Naps on the Porch's color--BM's Heritage Red, I think) works with the brick porch. But I love the black (SW Tricorn Black), too.
Then again, our roof sustained hail damage, so we will be getting new shingles. Now is the time to do something radical, maybe dark brown shingles. Would love shaker shingles, but I don't know if they'd be hard to maintain. My main concern with a roof is durability. No leaks. Note to self: check out Consumer Reports.

What do you think about the color? Red, black, stained, or brown?

The bricks on the back of the house have been painted. We went with Sherwin Williams's Tennessee Limestone.

I usually have paint woes, and I'd fully expected that I'd have to tinker with this color. But we love it.

Remodeling calls for a special kind of patience. The path twists and turns like a narrow alley in Marrakech. Back to the newell post. I'd meant for the curved end of the banister to be chopped off and replaced with a column (like the first picture in the blog post). Something was lost in translation, however.

The result was so unusual, I took a picture of it. :-)

Two weeks later, we have an updated post. Or as my husband calls it: The Post That Ate New Jersey.True, I'd given an inspiration pics (see above), but I hadn't included specs. I wouldn't know how to design a post that would fit the scale of the room. But that's where trouble begins. The scale of the newell post should fit the staircase, not the room. This foyer is small. I'm going to ignore its smallness.

If the post fits the staircase, it will fit the room.

It's a pretty post, to be sure, just a tad too big. :-)

And too square.

Notice the details on the newell in the first photo. They give the illusion that the post is narrow at the top. The trim makes the eye "stick."

We also had a bit of a problem with the trim over the library door (see below). It was very asymmetrical. In small spaces, asymmetry will leap out in a photograph. Since this is a traditional space (not contemporary, where asymmetry might be intentional), it demands the precision of the Egyptians.

Here's the opening before--it was a bit asymmetrical.

(Actually, I didn't notice it--my husband did.)

Back to the staircase.

We don't want to change the spindles, and they look

small here. Also, the curves don't work with the post's straight lines. Eek. This is another problem in remodeling. One thing can lead to another.

But I am determined to keep these spindles.

I run into this kind of problem when I'm writing or revising a book. Something will be too big, maybe a subplot or a backstory, and it threatens to overshadow the rest of the project. All I can see is the big-ness of a character's history. So I take a sharp knife and chisel and chisel. I step back. Still too big? Chisel a bit more.

Here at Rattlebridge, the problem is scale. If you look at the Houzz photos (above and below), the square newell posts look fine with traditional spindles.

As my mother always says, "What man breaks, man can fix."

Nothing broken here. But it's an excellent lesson in proportion.

traditional staircase design by other metros general contractor Markay Johnson Construction

We knocked down the wall between the foyer and the dining room.
Before:

During:

Trim:

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