Making not-history

One of the interesting and cool ways that Andrew is honoring the spirit of the house's 1920s design is by making the new breakfast room feel more like a back porch. In many houses of the era, you often have a butler's pantry or an interior service stair built in an addition on the back of the house, off the kitchen. In many cases, the original back wall of the house was left intact after the addition, including the windows and doors that used to open to the outside.

Andrew talked again about Six Feet Under, telling us about how the Fishers' kitchen has a sunporch addition off the back, with the original exterior windows remaining in place:


Removing the old pantry and adding a window that opened into the new breakfast room -- exactly matching the existing window in the kitchen -- seemed like a great way to add a little charm, and a lot of light. In fact, the bump-out that houses the bathroom and the current laundry room (soon-to-be breakfast room) appears to be a later addition to the house: They're not part of the original foundation, for one, and all of the plumbing hangs off the side of the house, like an afterthought. Of course, the two houses next to us have identical bumpouts, so maybe this oddball design decision was just a way to have the "outhouse" be attached to the house, and the plumbing came later.


As we were working with Bryan to pare down the budget a bit, Andrew suggested that we turn this window -- which had been spec'd out to be a real, double-hung wood window, just like its twin -- into just a "cased opening". It would look like there'd been a window in that spot at some point, and that someone had removed the moving panes, but left the frame and all the interior jambs. Cam and I both really liked this idea, and we love that Andrew is having fun making the conceit of it feel as real as possible.

One of the cool things he said in his last email was:

I've detailed the kitchen not-window to actually have a sloped sill, to look as if the window sash has been removed. Just working on that not-history...

The flip side of this is that I think Bryan's carpenters are going to think we've taken leave of our senses, making the sill angle down. Noel was really perplexed when we were talking to him and Bryan about the window, and -- even once we explained the underlying design idea so that he got it -- he kind of cocked his head like a pup and gave me a strange smile, like you might if dealing with someone simple, or benignly insane.