A few front doors in Atlanta

Hooked on Houses is hosting her "Hooked on Fridays" blog party; I hope y'all will click here and have look. This week I'm hooked on Atlanta's front doors.

They aren't all as much fun as LottaFrutta's strawberry door on Auburn Avenue...


...but you can bet that architect and designer do their best at the door. You don't need mansions to find good ones. Architecture Tourists take a little extra time to check out the entrances that most of us will never be invited to enter. Here is one by Neel Reid in Druid Hills. It's a total package that just delights me every time.


This one is just down the street. It's fancy, detailed but a little colder?


While we're looking at columns (I know Things That Inspire doesn't like them quite as much as I do) I love this fancy but human scaled entrance for a Virginia Highland apartment. The whole little building is really "put together." I do love it.


This is Winonna Park Elementary School in Decatur. It's a little school in a setting and neighborhood that inspires nostalgia; it's just perfect. The entrance with columns in antis is quite noble. Note the transom panels over standard issue glass doors.


This little house in East Atlanta has a fancy garden door. I'm curious every time I drive by. (For your AT's, this in on Glenwood just east of Glenwood Park)


This is one of many little Grant Park houses that is justly proud of itself


This one is a rare type for Druid Hills with a Garden Growing Wild.


This one in Piedmont Heights is so cute that I forgot I was talking about front doors. I'll bet that most Atlantans didn't know there is such a place as Piedmont Heights. Well, there is. This house looks good enough to eat.


This old apartment proudly looks it's age. I've always loved the door surround. It's chunky scroll buttresses are quite shapely.


Scroll Butresses are everywhere if you look. The entrance to the 1915 Phelan Apartments on Peachtree in Midtown is loaded with fruity goodness. Neel Reid did this one too.


We started with LottsFruitta's strawberry door so let's get back to color with this one on Ponce de Leon. It's not quite my style but...


Of course front doors look their very best with freinds and family


Thanks and Happy Independance day, July 4, 2009.
Terry

P.S. I'm not worthy: but I won a prize at: Cote de Texas Second Anniversary Winners! Thanks so much. I'm going to try hard to be worthy.

Three More Mid-Century Modern Days (and nights)

Part of the clan went to the beach again. I've blogged about the house before. It's worth a repeat from October 09.

But first: This is how we like to do it, how the architecture tourist beach bunny marine command gets the job done at Ormond by the Sea. The pelicans perform a fly-by.



Last weekend we visited Debbie and Dave in their mid-century modern home 1300 feet from the beach. We'd been several times before but this time we played Architecture Tourists.

I confess that I'm tired of the words "mid-century modern." The pictures in magazines and on the web are all about the extreme show houses of the time. And the furniture, well, you know what I mean.

But there are a ton of ordinary, good-living modern houses and we had 3 nights to enjoy one of them. And enjoy it we did. It's a remarkably pleasant house.

Here she is, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, single garage (with workshop and laundry), huge screened lanai and screened pool, about 1300 square feet. It sits on a street with similar ranchers, some with 2 car garages and 3 bedrooms. Built in 1964, perhaps from a pattern book.



Here is the entrance. Notice the overhangs and big windows. Does anyone know what to call those concrete trellis things on either side of the doors? (The perforated concrete wall is called a brise soleil, French for sun breaker - thanks to Spencer Howard) The street has a great variety of those things. Whatever they are called, there are 17 feet of floor to ceiling windows behind them opening to the big room. The back side of the big room also has 17 feet of floor to ceiling windows that can open completely to the lanai. And that is a nice room.



Deb and Dave replaced the solid front doors with these all glass doors. Obviously it was designed to have glass doors.

Can imagine this view with solid doors? It wasn't nearly as good. My eye avoided looking over there. Now, the trellis thingys frame the view through the doors. It's a Zen view (134. ZEN VIEW). Even at night with outdoor lights this view works to extend the big room. Tara would be proud of the vanishing threshold and that's not the only one in the house.



Here is my hand drawn floor plan. Note the floor to ceiling windows. Each is a vanishing threshold. They make the house feel huge. It's like the huge lanai is part of the master, the big room, and the kitchen.



For you Pattern Language Fans: 159. LIGHT ON TWO SIDES OF EVERY ROOM. Enough said except: Notice the bath between the bedrooms? It has just one window over the toilet. Yet, it is a most pleasant space. Following the pattern, it works because it is a wide window, with a deep reveal in a very shallow room. Nice, nice, nice.

Before I quit two words:

Terrazzo Floors. I think the entire house has Terrazzo floors now done in wood. But the terrazzo is still there in the bathrooms. Until this house, I didn't realize that I love Terrazzo floors. Nice, nice, nice.

Wait, there is a puzzle: My house has more and bigger windows but Deb & Dave's is brighter inside. How come? Well, Atlanta has big, tall trees. At our place they smother the house in the summertime. On Deb and Dave's barrier island there aren't any tall trees, at all. It makes a big difference. When the leaves are gone and the sun is lower, our house brightens right up.

Thanks,
Terry

I'm re-doing the front door. What would you do?

I've sanded it, now we have 'patina' "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."**


Our front door faces southwest and takes a beating from the sun. It takes a kicking too (19 years of kids at home). It takes a slamming too. I'm quite rude to door-to-door solicitors who aren't neighbors or girl scouts.

I've forgotten why but the door started off stained cherry. Kind of reddish, kind of dark. This picture shows it a bit past it's peak. Hey, we just live here; the house is rarely in showroom condition.


You may know that 2 world famous Atlanta bloggers (Holly and Claire) have visited here and seen our place in as-is condition.

If Holly or Claire, have read this far, they are certainly wondering about the trick photography. Where did all the green come from? We actually did have a green yard until the Big Dig.


In the Kearns' Big Dig we fixed our sewer line, did some water proofing, broke the gas line twice, re-directed the down spouts, tore off the end of our porch, and added enough drainage to divert the Colorado River.

Dear Holly and Claire,
We haven't yet re-landscaped the front. Instead we've concentrated on high-weed, high bare spot, high pine needle, high shade minimalism. I call it "Terry Turf" after Tara Dillard's "Tara Turf."

Anyway, what about the door?

Before sanding		After sanding

When we re-roof, we'll repaint and reconsider everything. But for now our designer, Gordon, has made the decision. I need to get started before the pollen sets in.

Any suggestions? Can you guess what we decided to do? There is still time to change our minds.


Thanks so much.
Terry

**Carl Spackler

P.S. Decorum prevents revealing the full story of the Big Dig in this blog. But if you must, there is a slide show at my Reeder Redo blog.