This is a cute garden that I snapped a picture of the other day. Could I do something like this with the addition of some shrubs or other taller plantings as focal points? Although there are a lot of plants, it doesn't look too terribly hard. Lamb's ear, sedum, not sure what the variegated ground cover is. I should have added in my first post that I have a 3 y.o. and 1 y.o. and a large vegetable garden in the back, so I'd like the front to be relatively low maintenance. I am not opposed to covering the whole bed with shrubs and ground cover, then adding interest as the years go on.

Emily L - I found this post doing a search. He was responding to someone that was trying to build a new home to look old. gary1227 11 years ago We completed our new 'old house' this past spring (March 2009). We designed the house ourselves with the help of a local draftsman. We came up with our design by taking photos of area homes and going through books of historic homes that were of the period we were looking for. Our house is an Italianate Farm house and fits perfectly in our 12 acre rural setting. The house did cost us a bit more with the added trim work inside and out but to us it was worth it. We used Hardy Board and Azek trim on the exterior and installed a geothermal system for the heat, a/c and hot water. Here is a link that might be useful: Link to our Construction Blog

Historic, thanks for posting these examples. It's always enjoyable to see historic houses, and these are lovely. Each of these is proportioned to be narrow in front and deep to the rear, which is typical of city lots. Have you looked and compared the street front proportions and scale of these houses with your drafted elevations? If you do you will quickly see that these houses have proportions and fenestration that is largest on the lower level, somewhat smaller on the second level and smallest on the attic (third) level. This is very typical of classic houses. Your elevations do not have the same progression and scale--something that your lumberyard drafter probably doesn't have a clue about. Also look carefully at the roof line. There are simple and single gables, and none of the mulitple gable, multiple materials elevations. While Victorians are often highly detailed, and frequently colorful, there is a unity and harmony that characterizes the best of them--as evidenced in your photos. These photos offer good references for your build. If you can get your plans and elevations to this level of refinement you will be very successful and enjoy your new house for many years. Good luck on your project!

Lazy - I do have interiors - I'll dig some out later on today (hopefully will remember!). Columbusguy - that's a shame about the gutters, especially since I recently had them replaced as the old (replaced?) ones were in awful condition, falling off the house and causing water infiltration into the basement. Seeing as you said that, now it makes sense that they were. They were not attached properly at all, and the contractor was somewhat puzzled about how they were put on in the first place. I mean, they were kind of just hanging there on hooks. He said it was a haphazard kind of job and he had to actually build new fascias for the new ones. Which wasn't surprising considering the overall condition of the home. I also was sure the porch railing was not original by a long shot. It just looks too rough and basic. I'd like to replace it at some point but not now. It's in decent condition, sturdy at least, and we just had the floor of the balcony repaired for leaks to the porch. My bigger concern is trying to find a material for the floor of the porch itself, as it only is a torch down and it's terribly unattractive to look at from the bedroom you access it from. The contractor is trying to come up with a solution for that (wood slat decking most likely). Anyway, had I known the gutter situation, perhaps I may have found someone more adept at recreating a more original look for the home, although my money at this point isn't holding out too well. As everyone knows these homes are a labor of love! I purchased the home for $225K, and have already spent another $200K over that to renovate - much on safety issues (electrical, plumbing, water remediation, new windows, and even the kitchen remodel goes under that category as it was not usable in the condition I got it in). So much more still needs to be done (the main bathroom is falling apart daily but it all works - it's a cosmetic issue) but nothing right now which is really pressing so I'm at a much needed lull for a while other than minor things, like light fixtures.