Matching Door Lintels

Craftsman homes always have a handful of special details that make them stand out. On our house, each door, window and porch is decorated with a custom lintel. We like to refer to them as the door/window eyebrows. We've added a couple different sets of custom doors, and we have a lot more custom work to do. It's important to us to preserve the original details of the house, and to do so, we first had to find matching trim stock. After paging through catalogs of trim stock at McClendons, we identified identical trim. That's good news, because if we didn't find it, we were going to have to custom build it ourselves, or have someone else match it and cut it for us.

The top lintel looks like this:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

Pictured on the right is an example of the original. The is made up of three pieces: the flat stock, the trim, and the top cap that is beveled to shed water away from the house. The one of the left is the replica built to surround the french doors we added in the kitchen earlier this year.

The finished product after installation:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

It makes such a huge difference having these details carried on throughout the house. Eventually, we'll be adding these details to the workshop windows and the other set of french doors we installed off the library. Now that this proof on concept is complete, we're confident we can build these and make them match the house exactly!

One gate down

Completed the new garden gate to compliment the section of fence I finished a couple of weeks ago. Went with the same vertical slat style as the rest of our fence, but with a little embellishment on the top to help distinguish between what is fence and what is a gate.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

Overall, a very simple design. I used a frame and panel design using lap joints to hold the frame together. I cheated on the skinny short slats that appear to protrude through the cross member :-) In fact, they do not. I considered cutting mortises, but then decided I'd like to get the project done in a day. Who will know besides for me and all the readers of this blog? Next step is to find attractive hinges and to mount. I've been looking at the extensive hinge selection at Van Dykes.

Happy to have this gate done. I have about 5 more to build in total, and I'm not sure when I'll get them all done. The design of this one was quite simple, so at least I'll know how to do it when the time comes.

Front Fence

Sometime during the month of October we mostly finished the craftsman style fence along the front of our property. This fence has been in the plans for awhile, and we actually nailed the panels together for the project last winter. Since then, the panels had been sitting in the wood shop taking up valuable space so we decided it was time to put it all together.

The fence is complimentary to the fence we built last year that runs alongside our property line. We decided to go with a vertical panel arranged in a wide-skinny-skinny fashion to compliment the siding on our house. We went with a shorter four feet front fence since we wanted it to add structural value, but not be overbearing. In other words, we're trying to avoid the compound effect.

So why the fence? In our area, it is normal to let your dogs run wild. Most of the dogs end up in our yard (since we don't have a large dog to chase them off) and leave behind not-so-nice prizes. So, we decided to build a privacy fence to keep out the dogs, and to add some architectural appeal to the front of our property. As you can see from the pictures, the front of our property is lined with two grand evergreen trees which hide the house and it's detail from the street. The fence adds some needed architectural detail, and exudes our craftsman home theme.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

The fence features an opening for a walk through gate, and a gate across the driveway. I have yet to build them, but hopefully I'll have time to get to that project this winter. Eventually, the plan is to build a brick sidewalk that runs across the front yard and connects the front door with the walk-through gate. Will be a nice addition when it's all done.

We left the posts tall, and are trying to determine if we want to add a horizontal trellis across the front, or other structural details. I have all winter to stare out the window and contemplate the direction to take this project.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

What Santa Craigslist is bringing me for Xmas...

Nothing says craftsman like a settle. Since we purchased our craftsman home in 2007, I've dreamt of owning one of these beauties. Their simple lines and structure are complimentary to craftsman principles. I'm sure you can understand my excitement when I discovered one of these on Craigslist.

Thankfully, Santa was nice enough to secure the purchase of this item for me (he has yet to deliver it down the chimney). What makes this settle special is that it comes with a story. This particular settle has been in the same family for three generations. That's a bit of history that you don't always get when you purchase something at auction or at an antique store. Originally, this settle had a leather bottom cushion and pillows. Unfortunately, the brutal Tacoma weather has not allowed us to retrieve the it yet, but I'm happy knowing that it'll be mine soon! In time, I'll refinish the bottom cushion, and have back pillows made. I'm leaning towards leather upholstery just as it would have had originally (see photo below).

In Picasa, I keep a photo album containing pictures of furniture and design elements I like, so that I can refer to them at a later date. I like to think of it as the Sears catalog picture clipping of the future. I recommend doing this, because as you visit sites and look at books you'll gather a lot of ideas. This particular photo is of a settle I fell in love with. I present this to give you an idea of what the cushions will once again look like when complete.