They say diamonds are a girl's best friend, but this girl much prefers crossbuck doors. This spring my husband and I took on the task of sprucing up our garage, and although it's not my domain at all, I begged for new crossbuck doors.
The crossbuck design features diagonal braces running in...
As a design enthusiast, I love details that are heavy on form and function. The triangular knee brace perfectly embodies both. A knee brace (also referred to as a gable or eave bracket) is a diagonal support placed between two right-angle planes to strengthen their connection. You'll often find knee...
Cerused oak is staging a comeback, and I couldn't be more excited. Dating way back to the 1500s, ceruse (white lead) was originally used in cosmetics, until furniture makers discovered that it worked beautifully as an overlay on porous woods. When applied to a wood such as oak, the white pigment fills...
My single-gable roofline is crying for the addition of a shed dormer or two. Like all dormers, the shed creates usable space in the roof of a home by adding headroom, windows and architectural interest. The shed in particular features a single-planed roof with an eave line that is parallel to the eave...
This spring season we're lucky to see that flowers are not only blooming outdoors, but cropping up everywhere. Colorful poppy patterns are sweeping the fashion and home decor scenes. Take this opportunity to incorporate May's flowers into your home all year long. So when the hot summer sun is baking...
My kitchen is crying for built-in breakfast-nook seating. As much as I love our bump-out nook, I can't help but curse our freestanding dining table and benches. The area is capable of providing us with so much storage, but without the form and function of built-in seating, we are wasting space.
A...
We've started purchasing the materials for our home office renovation, which means that it's go time. And by go time, I mean the stage of our renovation in which I ask my carpenter husband to create the customizations from my mile-long wish list. At the top: the built-in corkboard.
I'm a saver:...
Nothing gussies up a doorway in quite the same fashion as a transom window. The transom window is attached to the horizontal crossbeam over a door, better known as the transom beam. Originally designed with hinges, the window acted as an elementary form of air conditioning, allowing for a wicked cross-ventilation....
In my quest to replace the iron railings on our front porch, I discovered the Chippendale balustrade and fell in love. Affectionately inspired by the work of Thomas Chippendale, an 18th-century English furniture maker, the fretwork is also influenced by Asian designs trends.
The geometric pattern...
Of all the finishings my husband and I plan to install in our house, ceiling coverings will add the most impact. A tongue and groove ceiling's rich texture and striped pattern dramtically change the feeling of a room, especially in comparison to the blank canvas of drywall.
We're especially...
