Les, where would you put the fan/pediment?

In terms of trim, the windows are set very deeply into the brick and there decorative brickwork around the arched top of the window. Any wood trim around it would not seat firmly on the side of the house because of that.

To give you an idea of the perspective, those arched windows are 9 ft tall. Kas, your half-round idea is good; I tried and failed to make something using the half round...paintbrush is a pretty primitive program.

I'm not quite understanding the ironwork, either. I think I'd maybe continue with what you have, building out the moulding along there to be more substantial for a more finished look.

With the iron, the eye shoots up there and just kind of stays -- wondering what it is.

Totally charming home! You've done a great job -- and w/o the $50K entrance. ???

Curious, how do you like the gravel drive? How's the upkeep and maintenance with tree debris and such? Winters?

The iron railings are a common feature of brick homes in our area of Georgia.

Squirrel, our gravel drive is almost a half mile long. We live on 12 acres and the drive goes by a meadow, through dense trees, and over a bridge that spans a creek. We looked into having it asphalted, but I wasn't wild about the look and country homes around here are often on gravel drives. Our handyman keeps it clear of debris and sticks and so on, and pulls it (drags a leveler behind the tractor) several times a year. We have to buy a load of gravel every year to fill in the low spots. It is definitely more maintenance than a paved drive would be, but ...

Before I read any replies I decided the ironwork looked rather out of place. Reminded me of a teeny balcony. My eye went right to it so others would too and you really want people to take in the whole house and not one item. I'd prefer to see a small peak in the white like your other peaks or just leave it empty. It's a beautiful house. Just lovely.

Beautiful house! If you're going to go with ironwork, I'd say #1 as well. Or #3. To me, they are the most simple of the ironwork.

I like #4. Lovely home! :)

My opinion is no ironwork. Your eye is just drawn to that and not the beautiful house.

I really like the iron work. It's a nice, subtle addition. I love those wonderful brackets framing the door too. Very charming.

#4 is best, to my eye. The design has a little less movement than the others, and reminds me of the Chinese Chippendale fretwork found on some colonial homes & furniture.

awm03, your comment made me think about a wood railing... how does thia one look?

If anything, kswl's white wood railing is the ticket.

I think your home DOES has exterior style - it's charming! I agree with the others who said no metal, it really doesn't need it, but *if * you decide on anything, I like kswl's white rail the best.

I think it would look good if you added railing on top of the brick walls as well as over the entrance.

I love the white wood trim. It goes perfectly with the house. Great idea Kswl.

I think the ironwork doesn't look right. Have you considered a copper gutter for that area? Copper looks wonderful with brick. You only need a small section, so it won't be outrageously expensive.

Do you really think having the water just pour from both holes will work? What is below there? Is there stone? You will get a lot of erosion otherwise.

The white looks really nice, definitely my choice if you are going to go with soemthing. Pretty house!

Sue, we did consider copper gutter, but the largest size it comes in is 6 inch. We have two valleys spilling out down over the front and 6 inch isn't enough to handle a real downpour. The reason for all this was to fet rid of the downspout at the entrance. With copper we would have had to use two downspouts, one on each end returning back to the house.... then the entrance would again be "welcome to our gutters!" There was no way we could do one of those catchbasin-looking collectors and then a downspout. And all the rest of our guttering is painted aluminum, another reason not to put one small piece of copper up there.

The large front gutter extends slightly beyond the brick porch and if it looks like we'll have erosion problems we will put in a french drain where the water hits the ground.

I am thinking that I also like the white railing, but have no idea how to secure it up there. the iron rail was going to be bolted to the fascia board on the inside of the gutter. Hmmmmm...

The white is better than the iron...personally I would leave it without anything.

camminnc, I just tried adding railing to the brick walls... that is a lot of railing, about 80 feet (40 on both sides) and it looks really forbidding... kind of like a graveyard in Savannah. I'm not sure that's the look I am going for, lol!

When I look at the unadorned house, my eye picks up the slope of the roof and continues on the plane -- and I don't "see" the front door. The trim helps me to focus on the entry and not the roof. Obviously others disagree but that is how my brain is wired.

I liked ironwork #1 or #4 but really love the white. It is such a classic and really helps me "see" the entry.

I prefer nothing but if you need something I really like the wood railing or if not #4. Or you could always paint the iron white.

mlraff, good idea! My brain is just not working these days. Over the past month I have redone a bathroom, put up three window treatments, rebuilt one deck, restained three others, painted all the trim on the house, finished a wine cellar, put in a new garage door opener, taken down three huge trees, sprayed roundup on about four acres of spring weeds, added onto our master closet cabinetry, and we still have to redo that ceiling, finish the kitchen remodel, and have a nervous breakdown. Alll while driving a child to school in a town an our away, there and back, 200 miles a day. I'm just so tired of making decisions!

And we very sadly had to fire an interior painter (nightmare situation) when we realized he had Alzheimer's...

I think the house is cute, but really like the heaviness of number 2...but I tend to go for heavy, dark and dramatic! I like how the elliptical shapes tie in with the semi-circular windows.

I also agree with adding some of the railing to the brick wall. Only a few feet on each side, that will slope down will add a lot of drama and accentuate the entry. It will also add a ton of character, but that's just me!

I am going to be the voice of dissent here-- I think I know the look you are going for with the iron, because most of the houses in my area of Georgia have that iron work around the front door. My house originally had it, but we found it in the backyard after we moved in.

My question is that usually the iron work would go up and down both sides. Have you thought about that? I wish I had pictures to post. I grabbed a few of iron work designs I've taken pictures of, but they aren't the specific frontdoor ironwork you are talking about.

I like the idea of doing what is vernacular to your area. Your home is lovely and in staying true to the architecture of your home, the overall design will be cohesive and tell a story.

Can you look into Savannah homes with that railing and try photoshopping it on? I'll do some searching as well.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Here is a link that might be useful: savannah buildings

What a beautiful home you have! I think that #4, painted white, would be the perfect solution. I like the iron addition idea, but I love kswl's design best of all. It looks perfect for your pretty home.
Lynn

I like the white one much better, but I think part of the problem in my eye, black or white, is that the detail is all above the line of the roof. What about duplicating, perhaps a bit narrower, the same iron or painted wood to fall below the gutter line, perhaps tapering down to the side corbels?

Les, exactly-- that is what the iron railings do on the front doors here, if you can see from the pictures I posted (not easy). the link has tons of pictures of homes here, though.

It looks more like a widow's walk when it's just above the porch, so if you add the railing details on the sides, it will look more like a framing detail as is intended.

What if you add a matching iron gate to the front entrance?

Okay, I see what you are talking about. Actually, there are no sides. I will try to take a photo from the side to show you, but the projection is very, very small. What i am doing is trying to create the look of a projection without actually having one... there are no sides for the railing to make a return.

I much prefer the white wood railing. To me, the black iron looks like too much of an afterthought.

Lovely home -love the roof lines -I think the railings look like a failed attempt of creating a Widow's Walk. I also think you may be creating a potential maintenance nightmare of trapping leaves & sticks and debris. Sorry -
Look into rainchains for the end of your gutters. You really have a very nice home as is.

Hmnnn...maybe it is truly a regional difference, and Midwesterner's just can't comment!!!

I also like the white better than the black..

I love gables, and if you scroll through the pictures of the ironwork (posted above), the homes do not seem to have gables.. there were a ton of pictures so I didn't make it through them all... but the ones with the ironwork were shaped very differently than your gabled home.

(Gosh, I wish we could edit our posts here!) I wanted to add that I think the white railing really gives your house a cottagey air. I see quite a few cottages in my neighborhood of older homes that have a similar feature.

You have a beautiful home!! I like the white as well--it lightens the entry a lot, especially since yours is nicely shaded.

In our area, people put those iron railings at the apex of their roof.

kswl, I think the white design looks great!!

I see what you mean about the lack of projection. The decorative ironwork is very southern; But it's certainly not the only thing that will work on your home! The white rail looks good, too. I have seen those on some of the Georgians around here, which have Cross Gable roofs.

mlraff's suggestion of adding an iron gate between your brick posts was a great one, either way!

The pictures linked were all very historic Southern homes, built round the same time. Wish I had some current ones to post.

Back for a second look. Yep, still like the white railing best. The scale is good, the design is classic (Georgian sort of), and it makes more sense of the corbels -- they look like they're supporting something now & the whole look is more put together. The rail also nicely bridges the gables.

I also like the idea of a decorative iron gate between the two brick columns. The door to the gate could have an arch design to coincide with the arches above the windows. Some black iron window boxes might also be nice.

I would keep with what you started over the door and develop it further, building out a beautiful wooden header, in keeping with the traditional style of your home (ie, not add something entirely different with the iron or fretwork.) The piece over the door is more like a balconette, but without the balcony or window.

Here's an example, and a photo of one with more decorative dentil mouldings and layers.

You can bring in the iron work in other ways. Maybe something along the brick, a gate, some black iron urns, address plate, that sort of thing.

Gorgeous gravel drive. (I'd suggested it to someone here and they felt the material was a bad choice for driveways due to debris, snow, etc.)

Squirrel, that's exactly the sort of wood balconettes they have here. I couldn't remember the word for them, but they are above the front door and usually there is a window or set of french doors that open to it, but there isn't enough room for a person to really stand out there. The dentil moulding is often used here as well and would be very nice with her house, esp as it repeats the quoin pattern in the brick flanking the entrance.

Love the idea of the iron urns out front. Great call!

My goodness, you are very handy with photoshop, squirrel! I can see lots of great ideas for future projects. I mentioned the gate idea to the contractor, who loved it but said since we have three steps immediately down from the brick wall that we shouldn't do it for safety reasons. This is very helpful in trying to figure out just what vernacular "cues" we want to stress so that the house will at least SEEM to recall a period or style.

The fence out at the road complicates things a bit more, as it is a brown farm fence. We are thinking about adding brick pillars at the gate posts, and are having to put stone in and around the culvert where the soil is eroding.

I am wary of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...I am leaning towards the white railing, I think!

Around here they're called "Juliet balconies," btw

I don't know why you think you've got a sow's ear, but here's some dentil moulding : ) Very fitting, I think (although maybe should be a tad smaller looking at a distant shot). I would call this a header (not a balconette).

I like that! But how in the world are we going to mount that on top of a gutter? Any ideas?

Squirrel, that's perfect:-) Dentil is the deal.

I vote for the last squirrel mock up!

Ah ha!! Gotcha : )

Here it is a bit smaller, and then a distant shot of the first, larger one. Now I'm thinking the larger one is fine and has more presence and definition. Maybe in between? I tried some of those curved iron accents I've seen at ending positions or posts (but can't remember the details, so it just shows the general look.) And, ya know, a piece of gray flagstone on top of those columns and even across the wall looks great and ties nicely with the roof and drive.

I would think you could fit the moulding piece around the gutter area, hiding it. As a front cap sort of thing. It's a design problem to work out : ) Have to figure any water issues in.

Do you have a closeup or drawing of the area, how the pieces and planes are currently fitting together?

Should pull a distant shot of the larger size in also.

squirel's is my favorite by far. I would also remove those two large overgrown gumdrop shrubs on either side of the porch that kind of mess with the flow.

Very pretty house.

I will try to get out Sunday and take a few pictures or make a drawing. Thanks for all of yours', and everyone's, help. Here is a photo of the house before we bought it---narrow, plastic shutters and that hideous gutter and downspout hidden by the tree in this photo...oddly enough the house is fabulous inside, with 12" crown moldings in every room. They forgot the outside trim!

Betty, those shrubs are about to go; I am thinking of replacing them with something tall and slim.

I like Squirrel's mock up - the right elegance to your entrance. I also suggest using Azek or another brand of exterior product for that area that will not rot or be subject to insect damage.

I still like the wrought iron or the wood railing better. The dentil molding is lost amidst the mass of the roof, and isn't really too much different from what's there now. And if wrought iron (or the railing) is common in the area, then adding some would be a nice grace note.