Click on this photo to see it in the KHS photo note cards/prints gallery.I keep coming back to that ochre color. Here it’s a backdrop for three, white-trimmed, arched-top windows amidst a dynamic tableau. This partial elevation of an historic building (c. 1874) captures a similarly appealing play of color, shape, texture, shadow and rhythm as the board-and-batten gable-end design snapshot I posted last week.

The porch eave trim picks up on the arch motif and punctuates it with playful circles à la doughnuts. The horizontal weft of the clapboards is echoed in the strong horizontals of the porch's decorative eave line, in the bold, white, upper band course, and in the bracketed, overhanging eave. The rhythm of the three windows is balanced by the rhythm of the paired, delicate brackets, marching between window beats. A sliver of the burnt-red metal roof at the top of the image suggests how the standing seams set the stage for a vertical emphasis on the roof.

Interestingly, both this design snapshot and last week’s feature train stations. Happily, a house can be informed by a variety of sources. Consider influences beyond dwellings.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast