Click on this photo to see it in the note cards/prints gallery.Everyone knows the American dream of homeownership is incomplete without a white picket fence. Or is it? What about a blue-green picket fence? Where does it fit in? Something as simple as an unconventional color can happily turn expectation on its head, and allow us to see an element anew.

This simple, weather-worn picket fence is less about an archetype and more about practicality with a twist. It does its job handily, demarcating a boundary using tried and true materials and methods. The pickets are just wide enough to create some privacy and the spacing between is just large enough to convey a hint of transparency. It’s a little taller than some fences which suggests that it’s more business than show. The angled picket tops shed water away from the end grain and discourage folks from setting objects atop the fence or, worse, seating themselves atop the fence. It’s a working fence rather than a storybook fence. Yet it’s painted an unusual color, one that’s pleasingly compatible with the summer landscape. So, maybe it’s not all business after all. It’s a balance of handsome utility.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Recommended upcoming New England happenings

RISD alumni + student art sale (Benefit Street between Waterman and Hopkins Street in Providence, RI) Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007 10:00 a.m.-4p.m. Free and open to the public.

Martha’s Vineyard Annual Harvest, a celebration of sea, farm, and vine (Edgartown, MA) Oct. 12-14, 2007. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is the primary charitable affiliation of this nonprofit event from the Edgartown Board of Trade.

Samuel McIntire, Carving an American Style exhibiting work of the Master Craftsman and Architect (1757-1811) at the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA) Oct. 13, 2007–Feb. 24, 2008. Free walking tour of the McIntire Historic District, featuring houses from the Federal era (Salem, MA) Saturday, Oct. 13 11:00 a.m. and Sunday Oct. 14 1:00 p.m. with advance reservations by Oct. 11, 2007

Q: I am currently looking for an older, one and one-half story home in the Pittsburgh area. Unlike New England, many have first stories that are mostly brick - yellow brick, red brick, brown brick - you name it. Often they have, at some point in the past, sided the dormer of the house with some sort of inexpensive (and ugly) siding, like aluminum. Sometimes they do this in a contrasting color (white dormer siding with a red brick first story) and sometimes they try to match the siding to the brick, colorwise. Is it better to blend the siding and the brick color or pick a contrasting color? Is it possible to clean or re-paint aluminum siding? Are there other, and better, options for siding? What about changing the brick color/finish?

Karen from Pittsburgh, PA

A: I’m a purist, so to my mind the aluminum siding on the dormer has got to go. Don’t even think about painting it; that defeats the point of the product. As long as it’s aluminum, it’s going to be aesthetically impaired, no matter how you try to conceal it.

I’d consider replacing it with cedar shingles, cedar clapboards, or another type of cedar siding, like shiplap novelty siding. I wouldn’t recommend

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Click on this photo to see it in the note cards/prints gallery.This antique exterior celebrates the hand that made it and tempts the hand of the viewer. The satin, silver monochrome of the paint and ironware reveals every delectable irregularity, calling attention to texture, depth, and profile. Much like a black and white photo, the minimal palette reduces elements to their essence. Without fanfare, we readily understand the basics of ‘door’, ‘wall’, and ‘window’ from how the materials are shaped and arranged.

The reflective finish celebrates the swirl and linear striations of the wood grain. Round nail-heads subtly punctuate the surface of the imperfect clapboards and moldings that they secure. Deep shadows emphasize the edge of overlapping or intersecting elements of varying thickness, dramatizing the graphic composition. A dark crevice in a split clapboard interrupts the rhythm of repeated boards and animates the tableau. The iron latch set beckons you to fit your fingers around the grooved handle, press your thumb to the latch-release, and feel the weight of the door.

The patina of age and wear suggests that many before us have laid eyes and hands on this scene, grasped this latch, and tended to this building’s up-keep. It has the look and feel of one that has been loved. It’s someone’s treasure.

by Katie Hutchison for the House Enthusiast

Rationalizing the intuitive

“Art for Our Sake” in last Sunday’s Boston Globe touches on one of my favorite subjects. Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland make the case for art education. The authors are researchers at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and they’re college educators elsewhere in Boston. They conducted a year-long study of five visual-arts classes taught at two schools in the Boston area: one public and one private. Their findings? Studying art fosters creative and critical thinking. Bravo. But isn’t that common sense? Well, apparently not.

For better or worse, often what we think we know intuitively requires rational evidence in order to convince others, and perhaps even ourselves, that our intuition is in fact sound. Rationalizing intuition and intuiting the rational is also at the crux of what architects do. We couldn’t do it without

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