Today, Todd and Michael came over to attach the small eyebrow over the front door. This has been planned for a while but the final design and construction took a back seat to those items required to move in. My original design was much more elaborate but as the house was built, complexity seemed wrong - distracting from the simple lines elsewhere.
The eyebrow is there for several reasons. Compositionally, it helps draw attention to the entrance by wrapping a horizontal line around the corner column. It also takes a small amount of summer sun off of the glass and brings down the scale from the cantilevered roofline above.
What was built is a light cedar frame that cantilevers 18" over the front door. One small rod is attached to the house at the corner to help hold up that corner. The rest of the eyebrow canilevers off of bolted connections into the trim. Weighing only 30 pounds, it couldn't be more simple to build and hang. The really great thing about it is that it was made from the small stack of leftover cedar siding and trim. 
Our house is starting to get a workout. This past weekend, Carrie and I hosted 10 scouts from Scotland. The whole group stayed at our house for two nights after the Jamboree. Matresses covered most of the downstairs bedroom floors, but everyone seemed content with the accommodations; we gave them full run of the house. After having spent 12 days in the summer heat, I think they were glad to be anywhere it was cool.
On Friday, I borrowed the church van and shuttled these visitors around the city for a while. The first stop was a hike to the rocks and rapids of Belle Isle in downtown. With our recent rainfall, the water was moving pretty well; and they were able to see a group of kayakers test and play with the rapids for a while. They also did some rock-hopping before heading to Bottom's Up Pizza.
On Wednesday, we'll have another large group of people tour our house. This will be the August stop for Modern Richmond Tour. Fortunately, we already had some items planned this week that will help finish the house and make the tour more complete. Our long-awaited dining room table came today and fits well in the space. Window blinds will be installed and the windows will be cleaned on Monday. We both wanted to do some cleaning and prep today but we lost power for the fourth time in 36 hours. Dominion is working on the lines around us and must be having some issues. Each time this happens, you can hear the hum of generators all around us. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get some of the more important things done.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have a quick question about your blog, do you think you could e-mail me?
Brian