Last October and November, I wrote about the large addition I’d designed to a small Craftsman cottage, and my disappointment with the changes that the builders made during construction. A year later, the remodel is almost complete. The construction has taken so long in part because the two men who bought and were remodeling the house had a falling out at the end of last year, and the one who was a contractor walked away from the project. As it turns out, he was the one who made many of the decisions about which I was so unhappy.
I went to see the house recently, for the first time since last November. While the owner has made some design decisions that I wouldn’t have made, none of them bother me as much as the decisions that had been made the last time I was there. Some of those, such as an odd little gable roof stuck onto a wall, still make me cringe. (It’s that tiny bit of roof sticking out from the wall on the left side in the photo above.) I stand by what I wrote about it last year:
There is no reason for this bit of roof to be here. It is an example of the worst sort of thoughtless “detailing” found on many a suburban McMansion, whose designer claims that it is a certain style of architecture solely on the basis of random bits of poorly copied trim stuck onto an otherwise generic box of a house.
*Sigh* I wish I’d had more control of this project during construction; I would have kept the house more faithful to its Craftsman roots. However, I’m sure that some family will come along and see in this mostly new house just what they want to call home. And that certainly couldn’t be said of the house that it was a couple of years ago.
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8 responses so far ↓
What a difficult job you have-it must be agonies to labor over a project, and have it just right, all the details working, only to watch things be altered, for no good aesthetic or functional reason, at someone else’s whim, or from careless disregard.
On the other hand, I don’t think there’s much that’s more interesting than domestic architecture..everything about how we live and the kinds of choices we have, and don’t have. Did you intend to be an architect from early on?
Kimberly,
I fully understand your agony, but you should feel good about the integrity of the rest of the house. Sure, you see the front entrance variations from your design, but most people will not. It’s a bit like the three different bay sizes on the front porch of your own home that the builder didn’t care about back in 1907. I see it, and you do. You could write a note to the owner of the house suggesting that they plant a rapidly growing tree in front of the offending appendage, or that they attach a trellis with climbing roses to hide it. I’m glad you are so sensitive about design..a true architect.
I like what you accomplished. I also feel for you on the bad things done by the builders. I’m no expert, but the little I know suggests that the most criminal thing they did (beyond that brain-dead gable) is the wrong-period windows.
I went through the discussion with my wife about divided windows (on a non-craftsman CA tract home) versus unmullioned windows. I caved to the concept of marital harmony and I don’t mind my plain windows at all. However not long after I lost those arguments I read that a person’s “eye” is actually more comfortable looking out a divided-pane window than a picture window. The brain re-assembles the image and life is good. (Please excuse the lay language and explanation.)
However, even dumb, ‘whipped me knows that on a Craftsman, mullions are mandatory. Non-negotiable. No way, no how. Marital harmony, cost and stupid ideas aside. MANDATORY. Can we sneak in some night and replace the windows?
(On a related matter, did you see the article in the glossy mag, back page in the insert in the Sunday Seattle times about a year ago that showed a similar-ish remodel and highlighted the original “weird” windows in the second-story where some were 3-pane and some 2-pane?)
There is a home near here that looks as if it has had “additions” many times over. I have a hard time finding the front door. There are two wings, one with two stories and the other single. There is no architectural style at all that I can tell. I hope it is more functional on the inside.
Other then not being true to the craftsman style the fenestration is totally out of balance. And I’m a Libra and I know balance. Who was the architect, George Castanza?
It must be very frustrating to have a builder modify ones work for the worst.
I have been corrected, the architect was not George, George was actually the builder.
As an architectural radical, I have hesitated to comment.
However- if there is something you think you are good at in architecture, start doing it yourself. Clients are poison.
Write a book, do an exhibition of drawings, build models, whatever. I can guarantee you that twenty years down the road this will be your accomplishment, and if you’re good at it, maybe even a livelihood.
Personally, I stopped even drawing the home I’m building. If I was going to draw buildings, there are other buildings I would draw. Seattle is full of those buildings.
Anyway, don’t sweat the little stuff. Twenty years from now somebody is going to have to fix a window on that house, and maybe it will be a little easier if the windows aren’t 120 years old. The frame of the house is probably good for about 200 years, so some of the other stuff is going to change.
They should have put the little roof to the right of the stair-door stuff. It is kind of funny.
And, please don’t tell me that the stair-door stuff is the front door….