Centers And Squares
Window Boxes Decorated For Winter
Wondering what to do with your window boxes now that winter’s on its way? Here are some of my favorites spotted while we were on the Marblehead house tour this afternoon.
Window Box with Pineapple and Greens
Pair of Marblehead Windowboxes
Marblehead Window Box with Deer
I’ve yet to put window boxes on my old house but when I do I’ll remember these when winter comes.
It was a beautiful day for a house tour. The sky was clear and blue and most of last night’s snow had melted from the ground. Marblehead has an astonishing collection of restored pre-1800 houses. What a treat!
Next weekend is the last of the holiday house tours for 2009. Make your plans now!
Glassed In Vestibules – House Parts We Love
Glassed-In Entry on a Cambridge House
The magic of house parts we love is that they can make us fall in love with a house. Glassed-in vestibules do it for me – I bought my house in large part because of the charming glassed-in entry out front.
On my house the glassed-in entry replaced the two original porches on the front, similar to the porches on the other houses on the street. Now the glass paned entry with a round top gives the house a special charm. My theory is that the original owners of my house admired the rounded top entry on the house around the corner and made the change to their house.
My house’s vestibule is in the slide show below. It’s not the best picture of the entry – you can’t see the curved top – but it’s a great picture of my parents standing out in front of the house.
These glassed in vestibules provide shelter from the elements and add a great deal of charm to the facade. Here are a few of my favorites:
Ribbon Driveways – Old Fashioned and Green
It's a ribbon driveway!
I’ve always loved this driveway style but never knew it had a name – it’s a ribbon driveway and it’s today’s installment in the House Parts We Love series.
Popular in the 1920s to 1940s this is the obvious evolutionary first step in driveway paving – before driveways were paved you’d have packed down ruts in the dirt. Ribbon driveways paved those ruts with concrete, leaving the grass in the center.
You don’t see many of these old fashioned driveways around the city. But I’m always happy when I come across one. This one is in North Cambridge near Davis Square. I always called these grass strip driveways. Sometimes you’ll find them paved with cobblestones rather than cement.
The city tends to have way too much pavement so a ribbon driveway with its minimal paved footprint makes a lot of sense. I hate to see the runoff in the rain when all the asphalt means the water ends up in the sewer system. “Green driveways” with a plastic grid underlayment are the newest thing but the good old grass strip version works for me.
One municipality in California, Fullerton, even recommends the installation of historically appropriate ribbon driveways in their remarkably thorough preservation guidelines for a bungalow neighborhood. How cool is that?
More House Parts We Love:
Porch Railings with Curved Spindles
Entry Brackets – House Parts We Love
Entry brackets are one of my very favorite Victorian house parts and Cambridge is a hotbed of them. There is a remarkable variety in styles and designs of cornice brackets. Many homeowners have accentuated the details with paint. The slide show below has some of my favorites that I’ve spotted around town.
Here are some other House Parts We Love:
Porch Railings with Curved Spindles
Fences – More House Parts We Love
Diamond Patterned Fence Near Harvard Square in Cambridge
I think of fences as house parts since it’s the whole package we fall in love with when a house catches our eye. And a fence is often the first thing someone sees when they walk up to your house.
If you’re trying to decide on a style, Cambridge is great for getting ideas – you’ll find all styles of handsome or charming fences here – from the modest to the elaborate or fanciful. Most are made of wood – believe me you won’t be seeing any plastic on these pages – from picket fences to grander versions, some vintage cast iron can be found as well as ones that use granite for posts or bases.
There are a couple of popular companies in our area if you’re thinking of adding a border at the street or want to enclose your yard:
Walpole Woodworkers‘ exquisite work can be spotted along Brattle Street and elsewhere in Cambridge.
W.J. McDonough Fence has done a couple of fences for me and does very nice work
Here’s a gallery of local fences and walls:
Porch Railings with Curved Spindles
The Turret – House Parts We Love
Victorian House with a Turret in Arlington Center
A turret, or a tower as it’s also called, is an enormously appealing house part. There’s something romantic about a tower and the rooms inside it. The pull is strong enough that some people search for a house with a turret to call home – and around Cambridge they just may find one.
Turrets or towers were features in houses in several architectural styles including the Second Empire, Shingle Style, Romanesque Revival, and Gothic Revival. It is the Queen Anne style however that is most commonly identified with the turret. Many of these turreted Queen Anne Victorians can be found around Cambridge, Arlington and Somerville.
Turrets were typically topped with conical roofs, often covered in slate. Multi-sided turrets were capped with multi-sided roofs. The roof on a Second Empire Mansard tower often mimics the mansard roof of the main portion of the house.
Here are some other house parts we love:
Here are some pictures of houses with turrets.
House Parts We Love – Granite Steps, Granite Posts and More
The latest installment of House Parts We Love is all about granite – and I’m not talking about shiny granite counters – which I know many people, but not me, love. No, I’m talking about old granite – granite steps, granite hitching posts, granite foundations, even granite houses and buildings.
Vintage granite steps in Cambridge
In the 1800s granite was quarried in many New England towns. In Massachusetts, Rockport, Braintree, Quincy, Chelmsford, Tyngsborough, and Westford were among the towns with granite quarries.
I wish I could remember the Massachusetts town I visited several years ago while showing real estate that had a wealth of granite house parts. There was an inordinate amount of granite steps, walls, foundations, posts, curbs – everywhere I looked I saw granite. It turned out that the town had a quarry many years ago and I think some of what I was seeing were houses and yards that had been embellished by quarry workers.
Many public or commercial buildings in Boston were built of granite including the Custom House, buildings at the Charlestown Navy Yard, and parts of Mass General Hospital. For years, several granite houses along the main street in Marlborough, New Hampshire have been among my favorites.
Around Cambridge, Arlington and Somerville you can often spot old granite. Older buildings, usually from the early 1800s, may have granite foundations. In mid-Cambridge many of the houses have very beautiful granite steps like those pictured above. The slide show below includes an old granite post I spotted in Cambridgeport, and a wonderful granite and iron fence in Arlington Center.
There’s something very appealing about old, weather worn granite. Nowadays it’s possible to purchase reclaimed old granite to use for fence posts or entry steps or what have you.
Here are photographs of my granite favorites from Cambridge and Arlington. Click on the triangle to view the photos:
Porch Railings With Curved Balusters – House Parts We Love
Arlington Multi-Family House with Curved Porch Balusters
Some people look at the whole – others are taken in by the parts. With houses there are all sorts of unique, charming or unusual details that attract me. Don’t ask me why but I really love curved porch balusters. I don’t see them all that often but for some reason there are a number of houses with curved balusters lining the porches in Arlington near the Capitol Theatre on Mass Avenue and the nearby side streets.
The Arlington houses are two-families built, I would guess, around 1910 or so. Often there are front porches on the first and second level. The curved balusters lines the porches on both floors. I just love the look and have coveted those multi-families for years. The Capitol is a super movie theater and the surrounding neighborhood with its leafy streets lined with handsome houses is a very popular location for Arlington real estate buyers.
I don’t know anything about the history of these houses – perhaps one builder – who really liked porch railings with curved balusters too – built all of them. If I find out more info I’ll add it here or if by chance you know something about these houses please let me know.
SEARCH FOR ARLINGTON REAL ESTATE
More House Parts We Love:
House Numbers Don’t Have to be Boring
Cutout Shutters Add Instant Charm
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Porch railings with curved balusters are just one of the many features to love about houses in our area. As a real estate agent I’m always on the lookout – with camera in hand – for the special parts of houses that catch the eye and make you say – that’s the one! That’s my house!
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