Paint the Front Door Red

ARCHITECTURE

by EDWIN B. MORRIS

OLD-HOUSE remodeling is not too difficult, in this day of enlightened and steady thinking, and high building costs encourage it. One need not be discouraged, therefore, if misfortune puts him in possession of a square high-forehead house that looks like a biography of General Grant, every town having them in its Old Residential Section. If you are gifted with restraint (and who is?) much of the original house may be salvaged. Then you will have a home that will have cost you no more — or not much more— than a new one. You can paint the front door Pompeian red and there you are.

Suppose, then, that you have been saddled with —I mean that you have—a property that looks, as someone slyly put it, like the panic of 1870; with a wood-filigree porch leaning against it and a large arched-eyebrow dormer that gives the surprised look which is a feature of Centennial Gothic.

What do you do? Climb up somewhere and jump off? By no means. Clothed in the armor of enthusiasm you attack its squareness. With firm hand you tear off the recumbent porch, letting sun in and termites out. The high house now looks as il at any moment it might swoon and fall forward, but before it can make up its mind, you push two bay windows against it and attach a simple, homeopathic front doorway, smartly deadpan.

Now where are you? The structure has been moved up about thirty years, but work is still to be done. You eliminate the dormer and cover the whole roof with moss-green asbestos, causing the ensemble to take on a jaunty New Look.

A dash of drama is given by stark, carefully placed planting; and a subtle exterior color scheme, on the note of slightly faded drycleaned pink, is set up by the drapes already purchased for the master bedroom.

The house now has a giddy unusuality. Somewhat square, with decorative features a little lost, perhaps, on the extensive façade they strive to hide, it is like a Lady Godiva with more area than tresses. Nevertheless it has a gripping newness and creates a sense of difference.

Within-not making the error of pinching the penny too hard — you perform similar miracles. Windows hitherto smothered in heavy drapes come out into the open, and are either made into picture windows focusing on neighbors’ garages or blended into the room with chummy chintz. It would be advisable to have another bathroom, but you wisely decide to spend the money on built-insbuilt-in shelves, built-in cabinets— until the house loses its James G. Blaine appearance and becomes alive and modern, efficiently given over to the filing of towels, ironing boards, skis, bridge tables, and pressure cookers.

Across the end of the master bedroom you place a thrilling built-in, full of shelves and cubbies, surrounding a dressing-table effect with appropriate knee-space-all a glorified improvement, especially if you have had no place to put your valued possessions, including knees. Never before, perhaps, have you had place to spread out, pricelessly, bed dolls, figurines, plastic dogs, and ceramic Dutch ladies, in quaint and darling profusion.

Without question the house has a surrey-with-thefringe-on-top type of mantel in the living room, surrounding a hopelessly outmoded border of Delft tile, in metric dimension, of old-fashioned fabrication, representing fish and windmills or something. Il is the work of but a short time to abolish the mantel, bring the plaster down to the tile, and since most people are not too enthusiastic about sea food and wind power, paint the tile black, thus coming up with a stark and daring décor.

The living room is probably a study haircloth sofa sort of thing. A dining space may be needed at the end of it, especially if the original dining room becomes a library and spot for informal small-group entertaining. For creating this dining space a wholly modern touch is suggested, to set aside the space without resorting to claustrophobic A quaintly original effect is secured by making the partition of vertical plumbing pipes (of all things) se1 a hand’s width apart, with space for entrance, and painted a gay and vibrant color. A wag has mischievously suggested that this gives the room a zoological feeding-time aspect; but, in all seriousness, it actually does make the space overwhelmingly smart and sophisticated.

In the basement, if you wish your friends to believe you are knowing, you will create a play room, which you will call a rumpus room. A fireplace is essential, and a tricky white-painted brick one is suggested, with high hearth to facilitate ash removal and fuel placing. The white idea is subject to smoke stain, but since there is probably no flue and the fireplace will not be for actual use, the point is unimportant.

It is thus apparent how courage and inspiration and the willingness to spend can convert an old Grant-Sherman-McClellan appearance into an Acheson-Biffle-Truman air of up-to-dateness. The thing will be a success and modern, in spite of a liltle sense of the nudist in its expanse of smooth façade.

It may still seem somewhat square.