"Before" and "After"

[Sacto Diane]

Sharing a link from the friends over at AmBungalow. This was in my Facebook feed and it garnered a lot of comments there. I thought it would generate some interesting feedback here.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_bl ... adena.html

I guess if you buy a house it's yours to do as you please and everyone has different tastes but...

Diane

[lisascenic]

I don't know which I dislike more, the changes to the house, or the self-congratulatory style of writing.

Bleurrrrgh.....

[cberhomengarden]

I liked it better before & I am guessing most people here will feel the same.
As a person whose house was slathered in white paint EVERYWHERE, I am no longer a big fan of white painted rooms.

[cadrad]

I dislike the painted woodwork. everything else is fine and reversible. The colors and furniture in the before were very predictable and overused imo. The kitchen is much better in the after. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing as "craftsman" goes out of vogue with he general public. In my house, I am stripping all of the painted wood and using amber shellac, restoring rooms to their original function, and replacing modern switches with push buttons, keeping the original hardware and replacing it with period appropriate new if necessary, so it looks as it did originally, but, the paint colors, furniture, and in a lot of cases, the light fixtures, have nothing to do with the craftsman style of the house.

[PowerMuffin]

I really prefer white trim, but not in mine and not in that home. I really wanted to keep my trim white but the paint job was so bad that I just couldn't. Then as I used a heat gun to take off the paint on the first piece, it became clear that the trim was originally stained. I could not justify painting it so I strip all the paint off of all the trim and stained and sealed it. I am sure that the first thing that the next owner will do is paint the trim. I am not going to worry about what is done to the house after we are gone.

I like the "after" kitchen in that house better too. To me the house looks very LA. And of course, that particular look will be out of style in 5 years or less.
Diane

[1880 Stick Victorian]

i knew it... i knew i shouldn't have looked...

[Tom and Jada]

All I can think of is the countless hours someone in the future is going to spend stripping all of that paint off.

White painted woodwork has its place - in many Colonial Revivals the trimwork was often painted white to mimic molded plaster. I have yet to see a Craftsman house that has looked right with painted woodwork.

[utopia13]

I'm in agreement with all of you here. I'd also like to know...what were they thinking with the fire place? I guess it's basically temporary.

I just really hate to see everything "freshened up" by painting all that beautiful woodwork. How does painting everything white "allow(ing) the architecture to have a strong presence"?? Personally, I hope their "peeps" show their displeasure!

Edit to add: I'd take that "before" dining set in a heartbeat! Those chairs are sweet!

I also wonder...since so much of the "before" look had very traditional furnishings....was that actually theirs? Or was it furnishings that were staged for the sale?

I will admit...I like both exteriors. They're equally pleasing. At least when they added a porch railing, they didn't have to go with code. And they didn't cover the rafter tails with vinyl, like what had been done to my sister house

[wletson]

Hmmm, oddly enough I'm split on this one. Personally, I would have left the woodwork alone, but at least it wasn't ripped out! The house could have been totally gutted and messed up. At least it could be brought back if someone decided to in the future.
The fireplace, odd. But, hey, not my house.
The exterior, I love it! Why not? It is just paint.

[Lauren674]

They moved walls, painted the millwork and floor(?) That's very hard to undo. Not sure what they did to those colonnades exactly....the floors really have me puzzled. Hopefully the old fireplace is intact under the new.

Maybe the wall moves made the house flow better. I think that new kitchen style in the old size kitchen would have been just great, but people seem to want a big kitchen whereas I think the smaller ones are more efficient.

My final thought is that I accept that not everyone likes the wood, tastes are widely varied.