John and I last changed our garden paths in 2009. While I work in my office in WP668 (our backyard caboose) today, I can see a work crew noisily building forms to pour the new concrete paths and steps for the porch we are constructing.
Our 1930 house is a combination of Spanish Mission, and Arts and Crafts style. We want to make additions and changes look like part of the original house, so we are combining original and new elements. We are lucky that both styles are still popular. Our new porch will feature new tiles from Fireclay and lighting fixtures from Hinkley that go well with what is already in the house.
Our original downstairs light fixtures are black wrought iron Spanish style, while those upstairs are Art Nouveau (both styles being popular in 1930). Our next door neighbor’s house in Willow Glen originally matched ours. Some years ago, he took out all of his original fixtures during a remodel and generously gave them to us. In addition to replacing my son Paul’s garden-side window with two round windows as part of our porch addition, his room is getting a second wall sconce – since he wanted more light and we had a fixture that matched. Even though there are just a few brick paths as they were when we bought the house in 1998, we carefully saved extra old brick for reuse. I will be happy to see the stacks of old brick along our back fence, and the old roofing tiles stored on our driveway back in use.
Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson
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