A French Eclectic

Several years ago, we were hired to design and remodel a 1940s clapboard, New England style house.  The house sits on the corner of a street in Fort Worth that has many period revival homes that face the oldest country club in town.  The front of the house faced the other street.  My original design was to basically keep the style, but completely gut, remodel and do a small addition.  But I knew that our client loved French styled houses.  In the middle of the night one night before we began work, I came up with the idea to forget the original design, face the front of the house on the more prominent street and build a large new addition that would become the formal part of the house and entry.  Unfortunately I don't have any before pictures.  But this is what the new house looks like.

All of the new addition is brick and we left some of the original redwood siding in the back.  The portico is salvaged from an estate in River Oaks in Houston.  The iron gates, iron front door and lanterns are antiques as well.  The limestone balustrade and columns are new but we ordered very early in the project and left them in the dirt, sprayed buttermilk on them and threw dirt on them on a weekly basis to give it an automatic aged look to match the antique portico.  The roof is also a reclaimed clay tile that is a mixture of Ludowici and Mineral Wells.

The above pictures are from DHome magazine when they did their cover story on the house.  The dining room is spectacular with bordeaux pattern parquet floors, a antique limestone french mantel, Gracie handpainted wallpaper and beautiful crystal sconces and chandelier.

This is the formal living room that faces the front yard.  I apologize for the quality of the picture (I took it with my IPhone).   I wish I had more images to share with you.  Our clients have sold the house so I am sure it doesn't look anything like it did with their beautiful furnishings.

However, the design of the house is perfect for it's location and setting.  Most people today think that the house is one of the street's original period revival houses from the 1920s.

The Interior of the Southern Accents Showhouse -- Part II

Before taking you upstairs, it's hard to not show you the stair hall.  Just off the entry and before the library, the stairhall is probably my favorite room in the house.  I never thought a stairhall could be a favorite room but it is mine.  Maybe it has to do with all the time and money we spent creating it, but it's one more element of the house that makes it a true Cotswold style house.  The paneling, tudor style baluster and hand painted burlap wall covering (from Rusty Arena) are beautiful and very fitting for the house.  The oak trusses in the ceiling complete the room.  Our carpenters did all of this work on site and in place including the hand turned finials on the newel posts.

At the top of the stairs you come to the first bedroom, the boy's room.  Joe designed this room, well, for a boy.  With all fabric walls and ceiling, this room is probably the quietest in the house.

Outside the boy's room and before the playroom is the children's library because every child needs their own library.

Just past the children's library is the playroom.  Designed to be large enough for television seating and a pool table, Joe had a different idea for the showhouse.

On the other side of the playroom is the girl's room.  Feminine is the best way to describe this room.  Needless to say, this was the favorite of every girl that toured the house.

The girl's bathroom completes the girl's retreat.  With all white Ann Sacks tile surrounding the tub and a unique limestone floor (also from Ann Sacks) this bathroom is perfect for a little (or any age for that matter) girl.  The photograph next to the vanity is my little girl when she was 5 years old.

On the complete other side of the house is the guest suite.  Above the garage and laundry room and with it's own staircase, the guest room is the most unique room in the house.  Joe selected Porthault linens for the bedding and they were the inspiration for the entire room.  With zebra stripe walls (all handpainted by Shaun Christopher) this room was the favorite of a lot of visitors.

The guest bath continues the same zebra stripe and has all Ann Sacks marble.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the upstairs.  After I did my previous post on the downstairs, I realized I did not include pictures of the kitchen and morning room.  The cabinetry is all Wood Mode, the countertops are honed black granite and the backsplash is Ann Sacks Gothic tile (handmade in Maine).

Modern Twist on Classical Designs -- Part II

Okay, I've been flooded with emails about my post yesterday.  I guess I've struck a chord that makes me realize I'm not the only one that loves modern adaptations of classical and period revival homes.  The work that some talented architects are doing simply amazes me with their incredible eye for detail, scale and proportions.  Their imagination and ability to take what they see in their head and put it on paper sometimes astounds me.  As I wrote yesterday, there are many failures in trying to do this.  However, another architect (who trained under Bobby McAlpine) is doing it very, very well.  I recently came across his work and have already become a huge fan.  His name is Ruard Veltman and his staff of Ruard Veltman Architecture in Charlotte, North Carolina.  They describe their company as "an atelier residential firm, fluent in a range of historical styles without being bound by tradition."  The designers render their drawings by hand which I love.  While I am not an architect, I do design many of the homes we build.  I have been a student of architecture for many years, drawing floor plans and rearranging furniture since I was 11 years old and I find it impossible for someone to truly put their creative imagination for a design into a computer without drawing or sketching it out first.

Here are some pictures of Ruard Veltman Architecture's work.  The first home is what he calls Jacobean Tudor:

Look at this wine storage.  Incredible.

Here is Ruard's take on a Mediterranean style:

I believe the above picture is a basement level wine room.  The below pictures are of his take on an English Cottage:

Ruard is a very talented architect and I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work.  If you know of any architects doing similar work, please forward their information to me.