Adding to Your Italianate

As mentioned incessantly, when I'm not purveying the coolest lace curtains in the world at Cooper's Cottage Lace LLC, I write for a bunch of magazines, one of which is Period Homes. They've just published my latest piece for them, a story about some folks in Michigan who added a wing onto their 1860 Italianate by means of an architectural device known as a hyphen. The story is called "Italianate, Hyphenated" and you can see it here.

Mea Culpa

As many of you know, I write for a slew of magazines, as Dan Cooper and under a half dozen pen names. My area of expertise is old houses, antiques and architecture, along with historic interiors and floorcoverings. I was just reminded of this piece that was published in Old House Interiors a while back. An architecture firm in Colorado liked it so much, they used it as their annual Holiday Card.

Hard Lessons Learned.

They say that doctors bury their mistakes, while we in the old house field just paint them over. After countless restorations, I have learned the following truths the hard way. Please, do as I say, and not as I have done…

1. Never wallpaper with someone whom you share a bed. It will bring out the aspects of both of your personalities that the other finds most loathsome. And if you must undertake this task together, agree beforehand that one of you will shut the hell up the entire time. I once sold wallpaper to a married couple who were both police officers and who intended to hang it together; I refused to ship the order until they promised that they would lock all of their firearms, unloaded, in a car trunk.

2. Assume nothing: That 1870s gas nipple protruding from the ceiling medallion is probably no longer pressurized, but if you’re on top of an 8 foot ladder with a pipe wrench on a Sunday afternoon, you can be damned sure it’s live. And the nearest tube of pipe dope is a good 15 minutes away, if the hardware store hasn’t closed.

3. Never buy cheap paint, or you will be repeating this to yourself as you apply the fourth coat of white that still isn’t quite covering the old white. Never trust a paint chip; they magically transform into the wrong color while you’re at the paint store. Spend the $10, buy a quart, and apply liberally. You can always box the remainder into a gallon to ensure that you don’t run out.

4. Beware the wheels of the Shop-Vac, especially at the head of a flight of stairs. I was sucking up joint compound dust from a bedroom that I had just taped and sanded, tugged on the hose, and the entire appliance just rolled on down, popping open at the seventh riser. The ensuing cloud of dust rapidly blanketed the entire first floor as if volcanic activity had occurred in the parlor. Even the once-black cat looked like a powdered-sugar doughnut.

5. A four-foot level offers a quartet of potentially different interpretations of plumb; and just like a Middle School choir, they’re all a little bit off. Split the difference between the readings, and then average that with how it appears to your naked eye. If it still looks weird, have a beer and try again. Repeat as necessary.
   

6. You can’t transport Sheetrock on top of a Jetta. The flapping starts around 10 miles per hour, no matter how many bungee cords you’ve used. It’s also very embarrassing having to retrace your route on foot to pick up all of the snapped-off corners.

7. Avoid power tools after 9pm. Every horror story starts with “It was late, and I was trying to finish a job…” As of this writing, I still have all ten digits, although I did have an 1880s corner block snag in a table saw, kick back, and slam me square in the sternum…the lights went out for a bit, and I was forced to wear the Scarlet Badge of Shame for weeks. Its impact was so forceful that others could actually discern the molding profile on my skin.

8. Auction previews are there for a reason. Suddenly noticing that wonderful Aesthetic Movement footstool as you return from the snack bar and thrusting your paddle into the air will win you what looked to be an amazing steal. Too bad you didn’t notice that it was actually the top section of a fern stand onto which someone had stapled a little pillow.

9. Never leave a hammer or tape measure on top of a step-ladder that is taller than you, i.e. out of sight. Not only will you forget its presence, you will then move the ladder, and said object will immediately plummet, at full velocity, towards something fragile like a set of stacked glass cabinet doors or a stroller-bound infant.

10. Nailguns are not toys. This advice pertains exclusively to men; human females typically possess the common sense that prevents them from, say, overriding the safety mechanism with a screwdriver and pointing the tool horizontally at the neighbor’s birdfeeder. Not that I would ever do this. Someone must have hit it with a baseball.

Copyright 2011 Dan Cooper

My Book: New Classic American Houses

File this under shameless self-promotion:

My book is finally out; those of you who know me well are probably aware that I've been working on this for over a year. It's about the architecture of three Boston architects who are currently practicing. They are Albert, Righter and Tittmann, and when I was first shown their portfolio by the folks at the Vendome Press in New York, I said "It looks like McKim, Mead & White had stayed in business for another century!" The first review came out, from Resident Architect, and it is very favorable. You'd think my mother had written it.

You can buy my book pretty much everywhere...Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. If you'd like to meet me, I'll be at the Boston Borders Books on School Street at 1pm on Tuesday, Dec. 8th for a brief signing.

I also owe a shout out to Mo at the William Morris Fan Club Blog, for years ago, she gave me a copy of "The Houses of McKim, Mead and White" which was a huge inspiration for me, not only in how I approach design within my own home and when working for others, but without it, I couldn't have been able to write this book.

Aside from blowing my own horn, I'd like to mention what fascinated me about these gents is their ability to embrace the past, and yet reinterpret it without resorting to rote copying. They are part of the evolution of Classical and Shingle Style architecture, and this willful participation in the progression of past to future is also the concept behind the lace curtain patterns of my company, Cooper's Cottage Lace, LLC. I call it "Artful Lace" and I'll go into this in my next blog.