The Way to Understand a Land Survey

The Way to Understand a Land Survey

Land-survey maps could be confusing, but they are essential for determining property topography and official real estate dividing lines. In accordance with Land Surveyor LLC, every land-surveying job is handled differently, which makes it difficult to comprehend the subtle difference among land-survey results. But should you follow the ideal steps, you can take the mystery from a land-survey report. With just a little prior knowledge, even a novice map reader can comprehend a land-survey map within only a couple of minutes.

Open the whole property survey on a flat surface that is large. It can be tricky to read and comprehend the survey results correctly if you’re not able to view the whole survey as one cohesive document.

Scan the file to get an official state or county seal. If there’s absolutely no seal or logo on the survey, then it is only a preliminary, unofficial mapping of your property. Although this survey might be useful for understanding the property’s basic attributes and estimated bounds, the land lines have never been verified by the county recorder. As a result, the information on the map is still considered tentative and doesn’t establish real property lines or possession.

Locate rsquo & the map;s directional index. It’s very important to orient the map so that north is pointing up. Even in the event that you must turn your head on the side to see slanted or misoriented text, then a typical map will be read with north facing up.

Locate the map key, which is generally located in one of the map’s corners. Each land-surveying company will use slightly different symbols to signify crucial survey items. But, despite distinct labeling, virtually every survey will include symbols for regular items, such as water, altitude, land boundaries, streets, structures and a distance scale.

Use a ruler to correctly comprehend the space scale. This is particularly important considering that lots of survey maps do not have a grid. A ruler can help you accurately measure the space between land boundaries.

Identify important landmarks on the map. It can be tricky to ascertain your premises ’s physical boundaries if you do not use landmarks as reference points. If the survey was created recently, little bets or orange flags could still mark the property’s edge, which makes land lines easier to determine. But for an older survey, the landmarks are always crucial for a complete understanding of the border.

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What Are the Pros & Cons of Taking a Mortgage?

What Are the Pros & Cons of Taking a Mortgage?

From the 1970s and 1980s, numerous mortgages were assumable, or able to be assumed or taken on by the person purchasing the property. Throughout that time, interest rates swelled and banks realized they were losing out on profit because borrowers were supposing their mortgages with low rates instead of getting fresh mortgages at elevated rates. Since the late 1980s, many loans have been composed with due-on-sale clauses: complete repayment of this loan is due when the building is sold. Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration loans are assumable so long as the borrower qualifies. Sometimes privately financed loans and mortgages on commercial properties are also assumable.

Terms Might Be Favorable

The obvious benefit of an assumable loan is the fact that it might be at a lower interest rate than a mortgage that you could obtain today. If that is true, an assumable mortgage has been an advantage to both buyer and seller. In case the difference in interest rate is considerable, the seller might even be able to increase the asking price on his house to reflect the economies that go with the loan.

No or Low Loan Prices

Another benefit of an assumable mortgage is that the loan origination fee will be reduced or absent entirely. The bigger the loan, the more advantageous the assumption becomes because the loan origination fee generally reflects the amount of the loan. If the mortgage interest rate and loan origination costs are lower compared to that which could be located on the available, an assumable loan can't be beat.

Conditions Could Be Bad

In times of low interest rates, an assumable fixed rate loan offers only downsides. If the loan has a prepayment penalty associated with it, then the seller may require the purchaser to spend the loan or pay the prepayment penalty as a condition of sale. This can be disadvantageous to the seller, that will most likely have to decrease the purchase price of the construction to reflect the penalty. The purchaser may also be at a disadvantage if he nonetheless buys the construction with the assumable loan then has to market before the penalty period has elapsed.

No Qualification Requirements

Though both FHA and VA assumable loans need that the purchaser to qualify for the loan so as to assume it, occasionally private creditors compose assumable loans without that requirement. If a purchaser has poor credit or is otherwise not able to be eligible for a loan, the assumable mortgage might be the only way he could get his foot in the door.

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Design Workshop: Thinking Differently About Doors

Design Workshop: Thinking Differently About Doors

The huge doors of the excellent cathedrals in Europe were deliberately made as humbling structures. That is because door size and therapy in design are strategies to shift scale with very little effort. By contrast, residential building has historically employed essentially one size door: 3 ft wide and 7 feet tall, drawn in the rough proportions of its own inhabitants.

With average ceiling peaks in the 8 to 9-foot selection, these doors behave as apertures in wall airplanes — framed openings, touching neither the ceiling or adjoining walls. Although this size of door functions nicely, enabling us to bring in our groceries, keep cool and warm atmosphere inside or out, and have both openness and privacy — doorways could be so much more.

Dick Clark + Associates

Subtly shifting our thinking about doorways as just apertures or openings to thinking about them as wall elements that pivot or slide can create myriad layout possibilities. These possibilities can transform the proportions of spaces and much more seamlessly integrate the humble door into the design of a room.

Onyx fills a thick steel frame that spans the whole entryway here, challenging the notion of what a door could be. Pivoting hardware sets the door in the floor and ceiling, which suggests passing through a secret wall. An individual can imagine that when closed, the door acts as an elegant, luminous art item.

Andrew Snow Photography

The door here reaches touch the ceiling. It’s clearly bigger than it must be functionally, and thus is playing with a different set of principles.

Notice it matches exactly the ratio of the glazed opening. I particularly like the strong mass of the island contrasts the glazed opening, while the open walkway contributes to the solid door. These reversals and contrasts are complex and engaging experiences enhanced by the fearless door choice.

Andrew Snow Photography

Large sliding doors span floor to ceiling and move entirely clear of the opening to make a smooth connection between indoors and out. The color and frame size of the doors fit the window system above. It’s difficult to differentiate what’s wall, what’s door and what’s window, as each is treated as part of a compositional whole.

By raising the height of the door to match the ceiling height, the architect has hidden the sliding an eye on the door elegantly within the ground thickness above, effectively trapping the boundary between inside and out. Many types of spaces can benefit from thinking about the elements of buildings as part of a bigger system. Doors specifically tailored to room measurements are strong statements of intent in layout.

John Lum Architecture, Inc.. AIA

By contrasting the frame of the door with the entrance hall it presides over, the architect has represented this as a significant threshold linking inside and out. The scale denotes “front entrance” and, even more important, sets up the experience of the space beyond. (The job is suitably called Sunset Overlook.)

The entrance door becomes a frame for those perspectives that unfold upon entrance. In a house full of layered axial perspectives and transitions, front door sets the stage with this particular adventure.

Andrew Snow Photography

Relatable size and substance tie these elements together. The designer has handled this passage door similar to the cabinetry as a fine furniture piece. Whether open or closed, this door feels like part of the overall composition of the shelving unit.

Integrating passage doors into walls of cabinetry establishes a frequent terminology between elements. This can be an advantage in areas where lots of disparate elements are tightly positioned.

Moroso Construction

This door becomes a different planar component in the room’s makeup. Notice how everything in this space supports this remedy: The cabinetry crosses wall, floating above the ground; the mirror fills the alcove; the plane of the floor is a contrasting material. Each component is treated as a plane which extends into an adjacent plane. These gestures, while easy, all work to fortify one another.

The floor-to-ceiling pocket doors effortlessly alter the essence of a room. When they’re open, space and light flow freely between chambers. When they’re closed, the large pane of etched glass offers privacy when staying luminous.

AT6 Architecture : Design Build

Straightforward cabinet doors conceal clutter and storage. However, because they’ve been extended from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and have no trim, they shape clean planes that fit together with the aesthetic of the room. When closed the doors turned into a warm, wood accent wall. Small spaces, where each surface carries more weight, can benefit enormously from this therapy.

Michael Abraham Architecture

Here’s another example of a sliding door working as a wall. The architect created a conscious decision to hide the sliding path in the ceiling to permit the proportions of the room and the adjoining stone wall to dictate the panel size, rather than the opening its meant to hide.

So the wall panel has come to be another tonal component in the architectural substance palette, together with the wood floor and stone wall. It’s left here in wood, but a sliding door like this could be almost any substance — cast glass, perforated metal, etched stone — and be either a sliding art item and a door.

Architecture Workshop PC

A transformer loft illustrates the degree to which a space could be manipulated and altered by the use of doorways as sliding walls which separate room. The door trail, hardly visible in the ceiling, enables this large room-dividing door to make a personal sleeping area inside the larger living quantity.

Architecture Workshop PC

The living room side of the same panel is painted to match the adjoining white walls, whereas the bedroom side receives the warmer wood tone to match the bed alcove.

Charlie Barnett Associates

The arrangement here ordered the scale of the pivoting door. A door sized to the ratio of a individual would’ve meant more branches in the wall and also much more separation between inside and out in this layout, which is based rather on breaking down those barriers. Care has been taken to match the size of the stone threshold into the size and reach of the pivoting door, giving the open board a natural stage of repose.

Glen Irani Architects

The sliding entry door panel here matches the ratio of the outside wall openings, reinforcing the translucent, light-filled toilet. When closed it finishes an all-glass wall which divides the bath in the room, while windows separate it from the outside.

Robert Nebolon Architects

Commercial and industrial door systems are great devices for altering perception of scale. Inside this shower wall, small mullion divisions stack to make this space seem taller than it is. Bringing an exterior door and window system inside has produced an interesting people counterpoint to a very personal space. The door this is one part in a bigger ordering system, and also the system itself brings a refined industrial flair into the space.

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Community Building Just About Anyone Can Do

Community Building Just About Anyone Can Do

Whether you live in a diverse metropolitan area or a calm, tree-lined suburb, connecting with your neighbors to construct a feeling of community can be difficult. It’s easy to blame the men and women who live around you — or even yourself but the reason is often bigger than that. At times it’s the area itself and its absence of public space that prevent you and others from connecting.

Here we’ll explain to you how to modify your area to create a feeling of community.

Ben Herzog

The value of Public Spaces

Public areas allow neighbors to socialize and connect, whether they are playing with their dogs at a shore, watching children’s football games at a field or playing chess at tables at the park. “You discuss your streets, your parks, your sidewalks with your neighbors,” states Brendan Crain, communications director at Project for Public Spaces. “You are bumping up against one another and interacting. That builds community.”

A scarcity of usable public space limits opportunities to meet other people locally. But if that is true in your area, the good thing is that there is a very simple solution: defining or building public spaces based on your area’s needs.

Union Studio, Architecture & Community Design

Placemaking

The more valuable, important public spaces that exist, the more likely it is that people will use them together. That contributes to shared minutes and relationships.

Urban planners often refer to the process as placemaking. It’s based on locating and creating a neighborhood’s collective vision for a public space. Placemaking reexamines everyday spaces — streets, sidewalks, and empty parking lots — through the eyes of the men and women using them every single day. But does it work?

cityrepair.org

Many businesses across the United States have brought the concept of placemaking to areas. In Portland, Oregon, City Repair gathers groups of residents to construct decorate or around dilapidated intersections. Occasionally they paint the road, turn an empty lot into a garden or establish a free library. The colorfully painted intersection here in Portland’s St. Johns area, has beautified the road and encourages motorists to slow down.

Before Photo

Matthew Mazzotta

Without a public gathering space, the citizens of York, Alabama, felt disconnected from one another. Artist Matthew Mazzotta worked with the town to turn a dilapidated old house to a brand new unfolding outdoor theater where the entire community can congregate.

See more about this job

Schwartz and Architecture

Temporary Placemaking

naturally, there is a difference between seeing the demand for a public space and having the ability to make it. Raising money and going through local government stations can appear intimidating, so many residents implement temporary placemaking ideas.

parkingday.org

Park(ing) Day is 1 example. It started in San Francisco but has spread to cities across the nation. Every year on September 19, people around the U.S. place quarters in local parking yards, reserving spaces all day and creating little parks for people to enjoy. The concept shows what can be accomplished with existing road spaces and other ways people can use them.

In San Francisco the program has resulted in the development of parklets Throughout the city throughout the Pavement to Parks program.

See more parklets in our Design Lover’s guide to San Francisco

betterblock.org

The Better Block, based in Texas, reinvents public streets into an occasion or gathering space for one weekend, highlighting its potential for residents and local lawmakers. Here an empty stretch of road in Wichita, Kansas, turned into a contemporary parklet using a bike path.

Calling attention to a public space reveals the need to improve it. This doesn’t need to involve a lot of work, possibly: Placemaking can mean things such as having a knitting club meet in an amazing park, throwing a concert at the road or hosting a small craft fair at a quiet street. “This is particularly helpful in areas that are underutilized,” states Brendan Crain of Project for Public Spaces. “Even if it’s an awkward match, you are calling the community’s attention to it.”

betterblock.org

What You Can Do

Take some ownership of your own neighborhood. Placemaking helps residents understand they have the ability to produce and shape the place where they live. “There’s something powerful about caring for the public realm,” states Maria Rosario-Jackson, an expert in urban planning and a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. “There’s the duty of caring for something larger than yourself.”
Start small. Maybe your dream of a brand new park is not possible yet, but you can assist your neighbors see how great it would be by hosting a neighborhood children’ play in your front yard. Do something temporary. Experiment before making any permanent changes. You do not have to bring out the bulldozers just yet — determine if your concept captures on first. Mow that meadow and host a couple of impromptu football matches, put a couple of Ping-Pong tables in an alley or establish a few food tables near that particular street. If it works, you will have a motivated group of people to help to make your dream a permanent reality. Bring out your life to the streets. Placemaking doesn’t need to involve anything out of this box. Just bring one of your daily passions or habits out. This could be something such as cooking, playing games, playing music (quietly) or perhaps working on a Wi-Fi hotspot. Find a leader. “An significant part creating a community is leadership,” states Rosario-Jackson. “Find a community leader to help create a culture of participation.” Communicate. Don’t let connections or motivation fade. Share ideas and keep in contact using a Google Group or your neighborhood-based social network Nextdoor.Learn more about placemaking at the Project for Public Spaces

Inform us : Can you see a way it to make your area a stronger community?

More: Novel It: Bring a Mini Library For Your Front Yard

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Roots of Style: The Indelible Charm of American Tudors

Roots of Style: The Indelible Charm of American Tudors

They may be found across the country. You might have seen them in older neighborhoods close to the city centre, or you might have seen them in semirural areas on large plots of land. They maintain a distinct identity. You may be fortunate enough to have grown up in a single or own one now.

These will be the Tudors. Not the popular television show set in the 16th century, but those wonderful American houses inspired by late-medieval English architecture that exude as much personality and produce an unforgettable feeling.

These American antiques of the first Tudor homes started appearing in the U.S. from the late 1880s and peaked in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Many have been lovingly cared for or revived, and also the detail contained in them may be marvelously implemented. Key features include steep gable roofs, tall and narrow casement or double-hung multipane windows, leaded or stained glass, fictitious thatched roofs, parapet gables, notable brick chimneys and elaborately patterned brick veneer. The design faithfully reproduces, and even tracts occasionally mimic it.

Steven Corley Randel, Architect

Though the style attracts less focus now, its freely formed masses and mixtures of materials enchant; American Tudor homes are warm, inviting and charming. Infinite versions of those forms and materials allow an unusually intricate mixture of components under a single fashion umbrella, as you’ll see in this particular tour of examples from across the U.S.

Los Angeles. This superbly scaled and comfy Los Angeles area house exhibits several key attributes common to American Tudors. The redbrick lower flooring combines with a visually milder second level half coated in fictitious timber; stucco fills the voids.

Notice that the complexity of the roofline. Steep gables unite in varying eave heights with a shed roof shape within the centered entrance. A shed roof dormer contrasts using the lower-level window set on the left. More attention occurs in the small overhang above the entry and also the use of herringbone brickwork across the two stained glass windows.

Peabody Architects

Washington, D.C. Several distinctive Tudor characteristics combine in this new D.C.-area home. Though it’s branded English cabin, the impressive stone and brick chimney illustrates a touch of several ancient grand Tudor examples.

Notice the way the stucco can help to highlight the richness and complexity of the chimney and beautiful slate roof. A curved gable extending to make an entry porch and a notable forward-facing gable that is a story and a half indicate that the recognizable Tudor form.

REFINED LLC

Minneapolis. This handsome Minneapolis house feels balanced and snug on its narrow lot. False half timber wraps the house, while the stone-detailed entry provides an intimate welcome. Notice the small overhang of the second floor and the oriel window to the right. These well-executed details validate its style. A hip roof, another variation on the theme, covers the primary body of the house.

CARNEMARK design + build

Washington, D.C. Variations of Tudor details differentiate this comfy D.C.-area example. Lacking the typical forward-facing gable, the stylish roof helps to highlight the splendid brick patterns put in half timber on the primary second-level elevation.

Notice also that it slightly overhangs the lower level, detailed with wood mounts. A neutral paint color and grey slate roof unify the variants in window shapes and dimensions and dormer configurations.

Cramer Kreski Designs

Omaha, Nebraska. The low-descending gable roof shape on this Omaha residence is another uncommon and one of a kind feature of the design. This play in roofline conveys familiarity in an otherwise overwhelming and tall form. Many Tudors were created like this, with a second level tucked beneath the primary side.

Steven Corley Randel, Architect

Los Angeles. This Los Angeles area house has a faux thatch roof variation; it’s found in just a couple of American Tudor examples. Appearing complicated, the shingles are just rolled around to the fascia boards in the eaves, leading to a softened profile.

This exquisitely detailed house includes many of the previously mentioned characteristics, and is distinguished further by aluminum finish details in the chimney and bay window. These kinds of houses are sometimes referred to as storybook, for their resemblance to examples found in early-20th-century kids’s books. Notice that the clipped gable at the highest ridge ends.

JB Architecture Group, Inc..

Chicago. With a different thatched roof interpretation, this Chicago house rambles and is layered upon itself in an asymmetrical and whimsical fashion. Charming characteristics combine to present a intricate elevation in a mixture of half timber, stucco, brick and stone. The gable and hip roof kinds are accented with curved and shed dormers, and smaller retractable entry roofs.

Steven Corley Randel, Architect

Long Beach, California. Notice the absence of half timber details. Elegant layering of stone, brick, stucco and clapboard siding specify specific portions of the facade. Even the brick of the chimney contrasts with the brick of this lower degree. Substantial and significant cases of the late 1800s were often masonry structures. Advances in building techniques allowed the building of brick veneer over a wood frame that is so typical of several 20th-century houses.

Fusch Architects, Inc..

Dallas. This significant late-20th-century Dallas example alludes more specifically into the English Elizabethan and Jacobean periods that established English Tudor architecture. Several notable forward-facing parapet gables (the roof finish abuts the higher-reaching gable wall) extend out of the bigger side gable sort of the house. Renaissance-inspired details accentuate the doors and windows across the entire front elevation. Stone veneer covers the walls from base to peak, contrasting with comprehensive redbrick chimneys. Also observe the oriel window above the entry and the division of windows by the cast stone, which are characteristics of higher-style examples past and present.

Dennis Mayer – Photographer

San Francisco Bay Area. Dominant half timbering defines this Northern California house. The nearly symmetrical front is odd, although closer inspection reveals that the symmetry lies in the middle section. Inset gable dormers align with lower doors and windows and supply personality. Notice the overhanging second levels, which provide cover to your bay windows on the 2 sides. Leaded glass details provide even more personality.

Rice Residential Design

Houston. This newer Texas house clearly draws inspiration from first American Tudor style. A mixture of stone, brick and brick designs exuberantly adorns the front of this house. Notice the absence of half timber or other wooden details, which generally lighten the general appearance.

Tudor remains an indelible American design, although its current popularity primarily resides with people wishing to restore early cases, or people with the capacity to custom build within an high-style fashion. Its appeal lies in the flexibility innate to the design and the romantic scale it accomplishes. Whether or not a modest cabin or a billionaire’s mansion, the distinguished American Tudor makes a strong impression.

More photos: Browse more photos of Tudor-style homes

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Kitchen of the Week: Modern Summer Camp Style at Maine

Kitchen of the Week: Modern Summer Camp Style at Maine

Despite their love of fresh and modern design, this East Coast family of five understood that style was not quite right for their lakefront holiday home. Aiming for a more relaxed style, they hired designer Kristina Crestin to present their home a summer-camp feel that would not conflict with their architectural instincts. “It was a total material palette conundrum,” Crestin says.

She embraced the idea of a modern summer camp with a fresh color palette and rustic barn wood accents. Sturdy concrete countertops, plenty of storage and extra-wide walkways make it comfy and enjoyable to cook and entertain.

Kitchen at a Glance
Who resides: This kitchen is in a holiday home for a family of 5.
Location: On a lake in Maine
Size: 260 square feet

The family wanted a kitchen that could do the job for only them or 20 friends without having to change something. Crestin designed it with huge paths so people may work at the countertop, lean against the cabinetry, chat and bite all at one time. The broad space created a significant work triangle, but the different zones prevent people from running into one another.

Range, hood: Viking, Mint Julep; interior millwork: Dunn Builders; cabinetry: Dunn Builders, Dagtone Woodworks

The kitchen opens to the living room, perfect for a holiday home. The window seat at the end is just 20 feet from the waterline. Thanks to both window walls, the area gets a very clear view of the sunrise and sunset on the lake.

Reclaimed stuff, such as locally salvaged barn boards onto the ceiling, help create a camp texture.

Window light: Boston Functional Library wall lighting, Visual Comfort; bar stools: Crate & Barrel; faucet: Rohl

The window partitions eliminated the prospect of upper cabinetry, however, the large footprint allowed for plenty of storage, such as 36-inch-deep drawers in all the cabinets. A pantry behind the stove area holds large pots, serving meals and smallish appliances not used every day.

Counters: concrete, Stonecraft; paint: La Fonda Olive, Valspar

Pine wood grain is visible through the whitewashed walls. The white helps balance out the rustic barn plank accents. “You can’t have everything,” says Crestin. “I enjoy for a single material to function as sparkly thing in a room.”

Kristina Crestin Design

Despite the large island, the center of the kitchen felt empty, so Crestin encouraged the consumer to decide on a large, architectural lighting fixture. These huge bronze fittings were motivated by the customer’s love of the kitchen fittings in the Nancy Meyers movie It is Complicated.

Island light: Goodman pendants, Visual Comfort

Architect: Art Dioli, Olson Lewis
Contractor: Ron Dunn, Dunn Builders
Photographer: Jamie Salomon

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What House Cases Help You Feel Like a Kid Again?

What House Cases Help You Feel Like a Kid Again?

About once a year, I just take down a tattered cardboard box in the top shelf in my closet and sift through my little collection of comic books and baseball cards. Ironically, the first thing I do is check online to see if any of those items have exponentially appreciated in value. They never have. If I sold everything today, I’ve somewhere in the ballpark of $13.

This disappointment is always fleeting. When the fiscal consciousness falls off, I am left with the genuine value of Wolverine #4 and Barry Bonds (back when he was skinny). All these small mementos take me back to blissful moments when I was a kid, when life was simple and all that mattered was baseball and comics.

Many homeowners feel exactly the exact same way. A collection may not be superheroes and retired sports stars, but maybe it’s a complete pair of Ty Beanie Babies, which my spouse proudly owns, or a stunning variety of Matchbox cars. Whatever the items, their meaning and worth are priceless.

We’d love to see what makes you feel like a kid again. Listed below are a couple of special collections. Please show us in the Comments, and we’ll follow up with an ideabook showcasing your screen.

Sarah Greenman

Terry Minshull served together with the Paso Robles fire department in 1962 to 2005, starting at age 21 as a volunteer, then finishing his career as the town’s fire marshal. His vast collection of classic fire trucks, gear and firefighting gear fills his and his spouse’s den.

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Sarah Greenman

Benedict August

This homeowner proudly displays an astonishing G. I. Joe set in his man cave.

Lindsay von Hagel

Brian Gibb and Misty Keasler exhibit their set of limited-edition designer toys in a kitchen wall.

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Flea Market Sunday

Dan Benedict shows his train set in his office.

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Susan Jay Design

Not going to lie. I love Pez and have always been fascinated by the dispensers. This homeowner’s set that spans numerous shelves near the ceiling is additional, er, sweet.

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Your turn: Show us your collection!

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7 Ways to Insert Mediterranean Elegance to Your Property

7 Ways to Insert Mediterranean Elegance to Your Property

The romantic feel of Mediterranean style evokes images of seaside dwellings, sparkling turquoise waters, sun-drenched times and vibrant sunsets. The area’s simple elegance is reflected through its stunning houses. This style is based upon casual, rustic textures and finishes in classic European lines and forms to reflect the local landscape. Low-maintenance substances, earthy but bold colours, wrought iron beams and plenty of natural lighting emphasize the low-key luxe that the Mediterranean is known for.

Craving exactly the exact same classic and casual style? Add Mediterranean elegance to your home by focusing on these seven key elements.

1. Color. The colours of Mediterranean design can be both vibrant and earthy. Bold jewel tones, like aubergine, emerald green, lapis blue and sunflower yellow, are set against earth-toned backdrops to reflect the area’s natural hues.

Get this appearance: If you’re a little hesitant to pay your walls in extreme color, concentrate on beams. Classic Mediterranean houses have light, earthy walls with art, textiles and substances in vivid colours. Paint a canvas in a bold color or frame outside your favorite textiles for touches of jewel-toned brilliance.

2. Wall texture. Textured, plastered walls are somewhat commonplace in traditional Mediterranean houses. Finishes can vary from smooth and refined (like Venetian plaster) to highly textured and rough.

Get this appearance: Raised textures can be a challenging to achieve on your own, and may need an experienced hands. However, if you’re open to a little trial and error, you can mimic the appearance of raised texture with the addition of sand or coffee grounds to paint for finished walls.

JAUREGUI Architecture Interiors Construction

3. Flooring. Tiled floors dominated the classic Mediterranean home, appreciated for their low maintenance, durability and cool temperatures. Terra cotta was most commonly used, though limestone and marble were used occasionally in more high-end houses. Hand-painted tiles additional color as border or field tiles in these classic interiors.

Make this appearance: Try adding some hand-painted or terra cotta border tiles round the area’s perimeter up a flight of stairs or framed on a wall. On a budget? A couple of tiles in an entryway or in a outside path may make a sudden impact for little cost.

4. Furnishings. The furnishings for this particular layout style were often large, sturdy, rustic and hand-carved. Upholstered pieces frequently had leather or tapestry alongside the exposed and wood-carved components.

Get this appearance: Search for bits that have an aged or rustic quality at a classic European form. When larger furniture pieces are outside of your budget, then try a few small accent pieces — such as an entrance table or side seat. Rustic wood mirrors, carved boxes or small stools can help attain the appearance, too.

Tommy Chambers Interiors, Inc..

5. Fabrics. Cotton, silk and wool textiles adorned every area of a Mediterranean home. Elegant drapes, rugs and cushions were sometimes made with thicker wovens to mimic the expression of tapestry.

Make this appearance: Purchase a few yards of a heavy, printed tapestry-inspired fabric to hang on your wall. This very simple project just takes a sewn pocket hem on the top side of the fabric to suspend it from a wrought iron curtain pole.

Cornerstone Architects

6. Iron. Wrought iron may be used as a simple accessory like on a lamp base, candelabra or chandelier, or in larger architectural components. Elaborate scrollwork was frequently used, but more contemporary interpretations may add a room and character.

Get this appearance: Iron hardware is a far cheaper way to integrate this material in your home. Look for iron doorknobs, cabinet hinges and pulls in classic Mediterranean designs. If your budget is super tight, you may try picking up spray paint at a wrought iron finish to spray your existing pieces.

Mykonos Panormos Villas

7. Light and bright. Mediterranean houses always adopt the region’s plentiful, natural lighting. These houses wouldn’t be complete without plenty of large windows, breezy window treatments and a continuous sea breeze.

Make this appearance: Utilize lighter paint hues, glossy finishes and mirrors to reflect the lighting you’ve got in your home. Switch drapes that are heavy out with sheers or take out farther and higher up your draperies on either side of your window. This permits the maximum amount of light to permeate your home while camouflaging the small size of a window.

More: Length of Style: Most Cultures Make Their Marks on Mediterranean Design

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Roots of Design: The Birth of Modern Architecture

Roots of Design: The Birth of Modern Architecture

How did modernism find its way to residential buildings? Consider the meaning of “modern” within the context of the growth of a fashion. “Modern” in this sense is the inception of a brand new aesthetic without building upon or interpreting previous fashions.

Two phases of modern residential design happened in the early 20th century. The first phase comprised Prairie and Craftsman styles, which came to a halt because of World War I, and a second phase comprised art moderne, art deco and International style. This second phase, occurring throughout the 1930s, was brief and not nearly as successful as the first, because of World War II.

About 1900 Frank Lloyd Wright and a few other Midwestern architects that were a part of what is known as the Prairie School created a new vocabulary of style. Their buildings weren’t trimmed or decorated in any previous ornamental style but were distinctively detailed with easier materials confidently overlaid on solid and downhill highlighting forms.

Creative Architects

Prairie

Frank Lloyd Wright deserves significant credit for contributing to the creation of 20th-century residential architectural style. His 1893 Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois, called many trends in the upcoming century. The design highlighted horizontal elements, unlike Victorian topics of the moment, and a simpler and unified aesthetic, which felt grounded and related more organically to the landscape. His other thoughts, for example Broadacre City, preceded and tasked with the influence of the automobile.

This home could be familiar to many Americans, for this particular style stretches from coast to coast and survives in many types. A generous front porch is covered by a hip roof, in which a hipped dormer lets light to the loft area. The continuous eave line confidently encircles the construction and maintains its low profile.

Ron Brenner Architects

This home resembles the previous in form, and its next degree, which became more common, also highlights horizontal elements and has generous eaves standard of this design. Some houses of this sort are called foursquares, but the massing and simplified elevations mimic the aesthetic generated by the Prairie School.

Chrysalis: Home Studio

This brand new home adheres to Prairie details faithfully, yet its overall impression is characteristic of thousands and thousands of similarly shaped houses across North America. Low-pitched, hipped roofs with wide eaves and a long, low elevation incorporate the garage to its layout, a trait significant to later-20th-century dwellings. The Prairie period was comparatively brief, occurring in 1900 to 1920, but its influence translated into the ranch fashion, which started in the 1930s and persisted for the majority of the century.

Kenorah Design + Build Ltd..

Craftsman

This fashion started in California around 1903 and became among the most popular of the 20th century in the U.S.. The Greene brothers, architects in Pasadena, developed a bungalow-type architecture rich with timber detail influenced partially by the English Arts and Crafts movement and partially by Asian wooden structures. The intimate scale and warm details can be interpreted into small and modest homes or expressed more elaborately in bigger examples.

Because of the popularity of this design, there are many variations on the subject, but they are usually detailed with some kind of generous front porch. Columns can be straight and set beneath tapered brick pedestals, as in this example, but this detail varies widely.

Cosmetic mounts visually support the rake (the upwardly sloping eave of this gable end) in many forms, and a flared lintel detail above each window trim bit is not uncommon.

Notice the railing on this porch; variations often make a particular home unique. They can have shingle siding, but clapboard and stucco also happen. Brick is normally used for porch pedestals and chimneys, as is the case for this home.

Moore Architects, PC

This remodeled and remodeled home has tapered wood columns set on stucco pedestals. Compared to the previous home, the roof formation is a side gable, rather than front facing. A shed dormer penetrates the principal roof form. This is a common Craftsman characteristic. Also observe the mixture of stucco and shingle siding.

WW Builders Design/Build Associates

This new home has been designed with Craftsman details inclined to be found on originals, but it also has a few attributes that define it as a neo-Craftsman. The arched lintel involving the porch poles and also the French doors leading onto a deck wrapped with the primary roof and parapet railing are distinct contemporary adaptations.

Jones Clayton Construction

Art Deco

The word “modern” in the context of architecture commonly brings to mind white stucco, glass walls and flat roofs. These are the features of three important fashions which developed between World War I and World War II. Art deco, art moderne and International styles sprouted from the age of this machine. Developed countries around the world had all firmly entered industrialization, and structure represented the happening using a brand new aesthetic.

The International design developed in Europe throughout the architecture of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, among others. The Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen is credited with deco’s having won second place in an important competition in 1922 in Chicago.

This brand new art deco–inspired residence illustrates vertical emphasis characteristic of this design. Many originals of this day were far more detailed, with decorations of chevron patterns together with reeding and fluting in window and door surrounds. More commonly found in commercial or apartment buildings of the 1930s, this design was highly elastic.

Peterssen/Keller Architecture

Art Moderne

More prevalent in residences than in commercial buildings, the artwork moderne design played on the subject of compact machines. Cars, ships, toasters and a number of other items became places for expression of their aesthetic. Note the curved glass block wall in this example. Even though there are few houses today which may be categorized as being this fashion, glass block has become a favorite material for translucent walls and windows in many American houses.

Norris Architecture

International

European architects of the 1920s and 1930s adopted a doctrine of no ornamentation, and all elements served only functional purposes. The attractiveness of a building was to be achieved by the exactness of machine-finished structural and materials transparency. For the very first time, exterior walls weren’t structural and were tagged curtain walls. The construction (usually steel) occurred on the inside of the building, also supports were placed to allow as much freedom as possible for inside configuration.

Found in this home is a harshly executed arrangement of elements. The chimney is a floating cylinder, the walls above the windows appear to float, and also the forms appear to enclose indoor in addition to outdoor spaces. Windows are grouped or stretched in long rows, and razor-thin supports define separation.

Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects

Notice how the architects have given the impression of a floating roof in this Los Angeles home. The windows are either large, focusing on a certain level of interest, or organized in ribbons and mitered at the corners. The walls of the home appear solid and massive, like large cubes. The details are flush and smooth.

Birdseye Design

Within this wonderful Vermont home, the cantilever of a second level serves as security to an entrance. The materials are detailed to feel sharp and precise. The windows and doors align and are flush with the ceiling and the ground. Notice the way the terrace extends across the incline of this landscape, but is not too high off the floor, as a railing would spoil the plot.

Particularly affected by the German Bauhaus school, the International design set into motion an architectural discipline that is, to this day, essential and formative to the profession.

Historically, the trajectory is intriguing. The design became popular in Europe prior to World War II but lost favor following the war; it subsequently recovered popularity later in the century. In America, despite art deco and art moderne, residential style of the 1920s and 1930s was ruled by revivals and eclecticism.

It wasn’t till after World War II did this design fold into an American mainstream vernacular, as we will see in a future ideabook.

Next: Midcentury Styles Respond to Modern Life

Where Did Your House Get Its Appearance? | Le Corbusier: Pioneer of Modern Architecture

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Kitchen of the Week: Going Elegant and Bright in a 1900s House

Kitchen of the Week: Going Elegant and Bright in a 1900s House

This modern Atlanta kitchen was not working very well with the rest of the historic residence. It had been renovated by previous owners, and few of their home’s 1900s features stayed in this part of the house. “The addition just felt very unfamiliar to the property’s history,” says designer Ili Nilsson.

Nilsson worked closely with the customers to design a brand new kitchen and attached lounge that better match the house and their own lives. Raising the dropped ceiling, putting in new windows and working with a tasteful white palette created the timeless appearance and practical function the family desired.

Kitchen in a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their two grown children
Location: Ansley Park neighborhood of Atlanta
Size: 750 square feet, such as the attached lounge

Terracotta Design Build

A cedar-wrapped beam visually divides the kitchen in the attached bar and lounge area. The kitchen didn’t need the beams for support; highlight and they function to define the region.

Structurally, the floor-level changes could not be corrected, but Nilsson redesigned the current measures to take up minimal floor area.

Pendants: South of Market

Before Photo

Terracotta Design Build

Renovated by previous owners, the darkened space felt restricted because of its awkward cabinetry design and unnecessary corner cupboard. A single window and a dropped ceiling (shifted from 10 ft to 71/2 feet throughout that renovation) had made the space feel even more dim and enclosed.

Terracotta Design Build

Terracotta Design Build

Nilsson raised the ceiling with a few feet (she could not lift it to the original 10-foot elevation because of new plumbing), took out the corner cupboard and added two new windows to get an open area. Replacing the darkened built-ins with all-white cabinetry made the room feel more spacious.

Two new full-height windows on either side of the stove add more mild. The black window frames break up the white area and blend in with the darkened La Cornue stove.

In place of this corner pantry, Nilsson placed specialized pantry closets in quadrants around the fridge.

Cabinetry: Karl Alspach Construction; hardware: Restoration Hardware; fridge: Sub-Zero; microwave: Samsung

Terracotta Design Build

The customers bought the stunning La Cornue stove before the remodel, but despite the French measurements, it was easy to design into the brand new kitchen.

Hood: Vent-A-Hood; cooker: CornuFĂ© 110, La Cornue

Terracotta Design Build

Ash paneling on the island adds a warm element to the white and black palette. The customers have two older children, and all of them love to have friends over, so Nilsson designed the spacious island with plenty of counter and chairs area.

Bar stools: Bungalow Classic; countertops, backsplash: Calacatta gold marble

Terracotta Design Build

Two built-in dishwashers, extra storage, and recycling and trash receptacles in the island create postparty cleanup easy.

Dishwasher: KitchenAid; faucet, sink: Kohler

Before Photo

Terracotta Design Build

The prior kitchen’s measures had dropped to a closed-off bar area, specifying the two spaces using a change in elevation and floor finish.

Terracotta Design Build

The two rooms are merged with wide-plank oak flooring and subtly split with the cedar beam and measures. The bar and adjoining seating area confront the kitchen, making for easy conversation between the two spaces.

Before Photo

Terracotta Design Build

A single, tiny window and lots of black cabinetry had made the prior kitchen feel a lot smaller.

Terracotta Design Build

Nilsson desired to maximize light and height, so she extended the cabinets to the ceiling. The best cabinets store little-used items; this classic ladder lets the family access what they want.

Your turn: Tell us about your own kitchen remodel!

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