my home is finished and these side rails were put up today .
I am not 100. percent in love with them i thought they would be round pipe or square pipe, I like the rail look but just not sure what do you think They are flat gage still. The neighbors say they like it and my wife likes it I am just not sure .........yet
Hi Lloyd
Personally I think they are gilding the lilly a bit. I don't mind the lower two that are just linera, but the upper on on the chimney (?) looks awkward to me. Your home is beautiful as it is, no additional ornamentation is needed!
As for photos...I think that maybe you post them too large. I recall that most of your posts don't fit within the frame of the forum page. Maybe if you tried reducing them before posting you'd have better luck. Just a thought...
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The intention is to better relate the newest work to Lloyd's earlier additions (see below), and to the architecture of the house itself.
The new rails are presumably intended to make the chimney appear lower, and have no other purpose ? They don't seem to relate to anything else visible. I'd discard them. Two wrongs don't make a right ?
If they must be there, I'd see them as true rails, of square-section tube, rather than as flat cut-outs. They might then appear to be guarding an imaginary roof deck ?
Less is more.
Offending symetry
I also agree with SDR that the symetrical placement of the chimney add the 'wrongness' of the layout. It look somehow phallic, and unpleasant. I like his idea of ivy, but putting some kind of sculptural element on the ledge to the right of the chimney might work as well. Stick with the metal theme and do something mosly horizontal in shape to alter the visual balance point.
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Thanks, Lloyd. I, too.
You put so much love and work into it, I hate to counsel any reversals. But it does seem that the re-done chimney crown might be worth the effort: instead of adding (unnecessary) height, the width, horizontality and sympathetic geometry are all enhanced, aren't they ? And the same can be said of the hardscape below ?
I think this is roughly how Wright saw things, judging from his work. (He said little about his means and methods, but it's all there in the drawings, isn't it. . .)
Again, I know what it cost to get this far -- the stone is lovely stuff, isn't it ?
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Of the two elements, changing the chimney cap will be faster and easier, I imagine, and produce the more important change ?
I've considered all kinds of alternatives to your "tin epaulets" (or are they earrings, Olive ?) but nothing that occurs to me seems able to correct any visual problem without adding another. . .
SDR
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. . .like placing something on just the right-hand "shoulder" -- is that what you meant ? It could be a faux roof, or an oversized jug -- what ? Before anything like that, I would insist the the Chinese fretwork be deleted, perhaps in favor of a plain elevated cap (widely used) or perhaps even broad louvers. . .
Is it too late to add a few courses of stone to the shoulders ? Nah - that just raises the whole center of gravity, not what we want.
I think SDR's approach would...
I think SDR's approach would be the easiest/quickest/best effort.
I cooked something up, but mine would be quite a bitch to do. I am not an architect, so I don't even know the complexities of making mine work.... it would make the chimney "disappear."
I see your second
image ? I would have liked something like that -- if we had only got there sooner ! (That's still quite a chunk of masonry, but it's more effectively shaped, to me. Bear in mind, we aren't seeing the whole elevation, in any event, so judgement is impaired).
Here's some foliage. It could be ivy or a tree. . .
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