12: Front Steps Handrails

During the design process, I was always thinking about ways to give the house a sense of history—even if it was only fabricated. I didn't want all of the details in the design to be too uniform. Older houses usually have a layered look—you can often see how things were done to the house over time. In my study of old houses in the area, I realized that one those details is frequently the handrail on the front steps of houses. I noticed that they were often made of a different material than the porch railing of the house. So, I asked Oak Tree Homes to explore a metal option for the front step handrails. I shared some of my scouting shots of examples I had seen, and they first talked with their metal guy about fabricating something for me. This proved to be too expensive, but Eric at Oak Tree found a great alternative for a metal hand rail system sold through the Internet. We weren't able to get some of the details that I really wanted, like the balls in the scouting shot below, but the price for the new system fit my budget. It ended up being a really simple detail and we painted the steel (not aluminum, which would have felt too light) black. The rail is mounted into the slate tread and the columns of the porch. I wanted it to be delicate but strong enough to handle children swinging from the rail. Note: when using a new product to replicate the look of something older—like the rail in this case—pay particular attention to details, like the diameter for the railing here. Something too chunky, or on the other hand too small, would have ruined the effect.

Winter Reverie

I returned from the Christmas holidays to a new house, but I couldn't let this season go by without at least a little holiday cheer. So, for New Year's Eve I strung Christmas tree lights along the front porch. I'm sitting inside on a rattan sofa that I bought in barn sale in the Hamptons and eating at a folding card table, but my string of Christmas lights make it feel as if I've been here for much longer. Tip: I knew I was going to want something like this for holiday decorations and for a string of Chinese paper lanterns on warm summer nights. So, I had the electrician install an electric outlet in the ceiling at the end of the porch...and better yet...connect it to a switch inside the front door. BTW, that's a gorgeous full moon rising over the ridge behind the house.

Tearsheets

Yesterday I mentioned tearsheets, which are worth more discussion. Over the years, I've been tearing out pages of magazines with pictures of things that I like—houses, rooms, decorating details, architectural details, gardens, resources, you name it. If I liked it, I tore out the picture and tossed it in a box or one of several files I started.

Before I started the design process with Mark and Eric, I gathered the files and box to sort through what I had collected, and it was fascinating. It immediately became clear that there are certain things that I like. I found ideas and designs repeating. I've always thought that my tastes are wide ranging, but the tearsheets revealed that my tastes are very consistent.

I can't emphasis how important it is to collect tearsheets to help define and refine your design ideas. Pictures also make the design process with your architect, interior designer or builder 100% clear. Words can have many meanings and interpretations, but an image is what it is. With pictures there's very little room for variations and misunderstandings.

Farmhouses clearly hold a lot of appeal for me. I had pictures of them in ever form and fashion.

Follies

Tumbleweed Houses are pretty affordable, but their dimensions and amenities are pretty much like those of a trailer camper. Not what I want to be living in 10, much less 20, years from now.

My meetings with architects weren't a total waste of time, because the conversations did help me see more clearly and become more confident about what I wanted to build. And, I'll admit that I did pick up an idea or two that I'm incorporating into the design. I also stumbled across a book by A. J. Downing, an early American tastemaker. In the mid-1850's he published a book called, The Architecture of Country Houses. It's still available in paperback, and many of his ideas for how Americans should build country houses are still surprisingly relevant today.

One architect did have a glimpse of what I want to do. He's a classicist, and toward the end of our meeting he commented, "basically you want to build a folly." Ding! Ding! And his advice? "Make sure that the design of the house allows light to flood in from all four sides. You'll have the feeling of a wonderful pavilion in the field."

He nailed it on the head. I've always fantasized about garden follies. In my magazine tear sheets, I even have an example of an onion-domed folly in a field. I think it was something I had torn from The World of Interiors. When he made that comment, it suddenly became clear. I wanted to build an American farmhouse folly. A small house inspired by the rural, agrarian landscape. Small but big enough to call home.

My Tumbleweed Houses plans for a simple, small house evolved as I worked with Mark and Eric Misner, his architectural draftsman. Oak Tree Homes offers a design service. With my simple plans (and I mean simple) I needed something with more details specs for a builder to even start estimating costs. I paid an initial design fee, which would cover the costs of Eric developing new plans for a house. With the fee paid, I could have taken the plans and gone to another builder, but I chose to stay with Oak Tree. The design fee will be reimbursed when we sign a contract to build.

I started meeting with Mark and Eric back in January. It was quite a heady experience. Week after week, we'd meet late on Friday afternoons. As I explained, Eric started with the cross gable concept, and Mark walked me through lists of design features, building materials and utilities. I felt like a kid at Christmas. I want. I want. I want. And, a new house started taking shape on paper.

That was until bids started coming in and the estimate started escalating. I use the word escalating, because at one point a couple of months ago the costs for building the house were growing by $100,000 every week. When we pasted the half a million mark, I came to my senses and told Mark I didn't think I could build the house. In fact, I felt confident that I had to stop. To put this into some perspective, in the beginning I thought I was going to build a Tumbleweed House for about $80,000. Ha....

Fortunately, I was in good hands. Mark explained that there were aspects of the costs that we could revisit. So, we started looking at alternatives, and here we are today. The house plans are looking beautiful, and the price is coming down, and we're getting closer to a figure that I can manage to afford.

Little Houses

A couple of years ago, I ran across the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company on the Internet. Jay Shafer is a young architect who is designing small (tiny) houses that are completely charming. A lot of their appeal comes from the proportions of his designs, which I think he nails. The houses caught my attention because they're like little follies. They also reminiscent of cottages on old Methodist summer campgrounds in the early 20th Century—little mini-me's of farmhouses and cottages.

At that point, a few years ago, I had just purchased my property in the Catskills and had become fascinated with the idea of a little house that wouldn't cost a lot to build. So, I purchased one of his plans for the largest house he had designed at the time—a 16'x16' cross gable design.

Jay has gotten a lot of attention since I first read about him. Last year I caught an episode of CBS Sunday Morning which had a segment on his ideas for living in small houses. His work has also gotten much more interesting and diverse. I think he's still living in his gypsy wagon-size house, but he's offering more variety and sizes in the architectural portfolios that he sells. Definitely worth checking out.

Renting a house in the Catskills for the past year, I've looked (and asked) around for builder recommendations. At a friend's dinner party last summer, I met a couple who had just built a house nearby. While it wasn't the same style of house I intend to build, I'd never heard anyone speak so highly of their builder. They put me in touch with Mark Barstow of Oak Tree Homes, and I couldn't be happier with how things are going. Granted, I had dreamed that I'd be building by now...but the inevitable wait (and planning time) over this past winter has been invaluable. I'm so ready to get this project going!

The Backstory

Twilight Journal is a record of my experiences in building a house—for now it's actually a second home. I've called New York City home for almost as long as I lived in Mississippi, where I was born. I love New York, but after years of living in the city, I started to realize that I needed a alternative to the fast pace of my weekdays and an escape where I could refuel in a lifestyle that was more connected to the land and the seasons.

It was the now ominous summer of 2001 when I first started "getting away" for the weekend. Little did I know then how much more important a place outside of the city would come to mean to me. I had found a little farmhouse in Columbia County that I rented that summer. It was big on charm but short on amenities. The kitchen was a little room with a refrigerator, a range and an old-fashioned metal hutch. The bathroom was even more basic: toilet, sink (no mirror) and a tub that I couldn't imagine sitting in. So, I rigged a shower with a hula hoop, wire, shower curtain and a garden hose that I managed to connect to the tub's faucet. The few visitors I had that summer were fascinated by my ingenuity and the variety of showering experiences you could have with a hose and spray nozzle attachment. Even in that little house, or maybe because of it, life felt so real.

Despite the things the little house lacked, that summer was one of the most relaxed, enjoyable summers I can remember. Friends and I spent a lot of time hanging in a trio of hammocks behind the house, and I started thinking about how to make the experience a permanent part of my life.