CH: Day 151
Before. Lots-o-crap sitting about.
GADZOOKS! I’m now 100% crap free! I’m crapless! Eric and I spent 3 hours cleaning everything up. We started by reorganizing the garage. Boy, what A difference that made! And, suddenly, outside crap became inside treasures!
I moved three lengths of porch railing into the Carriage House living room, with the idea that I will do something with them, and then install them on the new front porch. Yep, that is the idea.
The carriage house, around 2002, shortly after Bob Rodak purchased it. The house looks grim, grim, grim. The over-powering circa-1921 front porch is obvious. The railings along the front are the ones now in the living room. Do they date from 1894? Or are they from the 1921 conversion?
Just for fun comparison. As noted previously, the new porch will have a roof over. The dormer in the middle will be removed, and the turret door shingled over.
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Crapulous at being crap-less! Looks grand–you’re entitled to be giddy!
Nice progress!
Perhaps you’ve covered it previously, but do you plan to install a window in the turret in the location of the doomed door? A window matching the others would provide great symmetry.
Hi, Seth! The turret is now asymmetrical. There are three windows facing west, and then the north door. Shingling over the door will create symmetry. This will be even more obvious inside the turret where the triple windows read as a bay. Having a fourth window will make the room feel lopsided.
I wonder, perhaps, if exclusively the railing with the spheres in the middle is vintage 1894. There seems to be some railing with and some without. In your 2002 picture, you can see the railing along the side doesn’t have the spheres- and stylistically seems to read more with the railing along the roof. Not sure though! That’s my two cents on the matter. Either way, I’m sure the carriage house will look delightful with the railing back in place.
With the oversized top and bottom rails the 3 railings appear to be original to something. Wether that is 1894 or 1921 is difficult to say. Where would they have been used in the original carriage house? Perhaps architectural salvage from another building or original to 1921 conversion. Whatever, they are not that attractive. More like quirky. They might even be architectural crap. Overall, what an improvement for the carriage house but I’m feeling sad for the Cross House. TTFN
Now you have your own architectural salvage place to shop in right in your own garage.
I like the rails with the balls in the middle. They look more original whether they are or not. You probably have plenty for the front porch if you’ve got all three lengths. Looks like the new porch might only need one and a half lengths. Would the rest be enough for the kitchen deck? If not, could they be dismantled and reworked to be stair railings for the front steps?
Hello, Ross.
FYI, be sure to check the local code for the height of outdoor railings on porches. In St. Joe, I wasn’t going to install railings on my porch as the height requirements now, would have been too high and would have looked odd for my 1900-era four-square house.
You’re lucky you have the choice.
Here they are required, although I’m not sure you would be required to add them to a historic home that didn’t have them. Not sure of the “grandfathering in” laws in that regard. Mine are probably too low on my small front porch but they date to 1949 and I don’t have to replace them. The house is from 1933 and they could have been original but not sure what was done in the 1949 remodel. If I removed them I would need to meet current code. Handrails for steps are required no matter what but not sure how many steps there have to be to require them.
Blair! A solution I’ve used in the past is to install railings at the historic height, and then install a steel cable at the new code height with a turnbuckle to assure tension. The cable visually vanishes.
That is brilliant.
True!
I remember the front porch on the house when we moved to Emporia in 1974. It looked MUCH better when it was painted, and more like it belonged on the house. It wasn’t until you removed it that I realized the “house next door” was originally part of the Cross House property and matched it. It’s astounding what a difference removing it makes — the turret really stands out now.
The square-ish railings look like the ones on my parents’ home on West Street in Emporia, which was built in 1915. So maybe they are from the 1920 conversion. We both my parents’ home could be a Squires design.
I don’t know how it looks on the inside, but the turret looks like it needs a window on the outside, instead of the door. The dormer to be removed, has a window that visually appears to fit right in where the turret door was created. Just thinking out loud.
I’m excited about removing the turret door. I realize the odd arrangement of dormers happened to create more head room upstairs, but sheesh! It just doesn’t seem completely thought through.
Hi, Kim! Inside the turret the room doesn’t appear as an octagon. It reads as a rectangle with a 3-window bay on the west side. Adding a window to the north will throw that off balance, IMO.
I always forget how close the Cross and Carriage houses are! The last photo is a great reminder.
Katie, I purchased the Carriage House because it was so close to the big house. It seemed a prudent move.
Those ornamental railings have to be from 1894. They are the same design (though, granted, different proportions) as the main house front porch. Both ends of the spindles are profiled the same, balls in the middle, all capped with the formed handrail. If they were “new” in 1921, why didn’t they do all of the carriage house railings the same? The square post railings are much more in line with the era of the conversion of the carriage house front porch. At the same time, it seems odd to have porch railings on the building when it was actually a carriage house, but maybe. I know you don’t have First Floor blueprints of the main house, but have you found any evidence of a back porch that could have been railed?
David! In 1894, there was a porch in the NW corner of the Carriage House, where the new deck now is. Did the 1894 porch have railings? And are the extant railings THOSE railings? I don’t know.
The ’02 carriage house photo always reminds me of a college boy/frat house I used to drive by in a town near me. The magic you have performed on it is really incredible, Ross!