I'm anal and we did a gut remodel so there are so many. My lighting is unique and often noticed quickly but what people don't notice is that every switch plate and outlet matches either the room decor or is painted to disappear or they are stone.

But the most fun part is that on very careful inspection you would see that there is a chicken in every room. Some very subtle, some, like the one in the dining room chandelier that started it all are more obvious but I still never have a dinner party where in the middle of the meal someone bursts out "oh my god there's a chicken up there" lol.

igloochic your knobs are an amazing detail too, I can't believe you didn't mention those!

That's so cool about the chickens! You have to post a picture of your chicken/dining room chandelier! :)

Right now, the dining room and Living room are switched. This allows me to keep my big table out, with all its leaves in place. We store and sort paper on it, and eat on one end of it. Then the red room (LR) is a more intimate size, and I put a loveseat in front of the sliding glass door which is perfect.

We have a twelve foot run of desk for the computers, which allows the family to surf and game together.

We have a small 1940 cottage which had no charm whatsoever. It's less than 40' long, front to back. Came with tiny, dark, low-ceiling rooms.

Gutted it to the studs, popped the main floor ceilings to over 16' cathedral, created an open L-plan for LR, kitchen and DR.

The big thing is that the entire back wall is picture windows. No curtains or blinds, a marvelous east-facing hillside view with privacy - 24' across and 12' high using five double-paned windows (bottom three with sliders, two fixed stacked on top).

People walk the front door and stop in their tracks. They can see straight through the house to the view. I'm a storage junkie, but I designed an unobstructed aisle front to back, a full 4' wide.

Because of this, I had to design the entire kitchen around not interfering with the view. When we go to sell this house, I don't think we'll have any problem. Views like this are very rare in our neighborhood - I've never known why older houses are so often sited poorly in relation to their lot. We live in a hilly area yet like many houses, originally ours had no windows taking advantage of the views in any direction!

There are details probably only I would notice.
My lighting is unique, too.
I have motion & dimmer & two-way switches everywhere.
I have egress in every single room (never getting caught in a fire!!)
I don't have ugly thresholds between my tile batroom & laundry & the rest of the house. It's a smooth transition. When I lay my cork kitchen floor? Same thing will be.
I have pocket doors everywhere. 15 of them. The only regular doors are the front, garage, & mudroom. i.e. exterior doors.

When my house is more towards finished, I know I'll have more, because things already exist in my noggin!

Christine

jkom51 that wall of windows sounds lovely! Our whole back is windows too- I love natural light!

Christine I LOVE pocket doors- I wish we could have incorporated them in our house. They were my favorite feature about my old San Francisco apartment. I miss the charm of that place so much!

Well, I don't have the remodel finished, but what I think will stand out is the fireplace in the living room (already wonderful) and changing all the trim back to what we found in the kitchen. The addition and dining room all have that 1950s narrow wood trim, but in the kitchen, they left the big chunky, but simple, trim around the windows. Nothing fancy, but I love the look :)

My house was built in two stages - c. 1680 and c. 1710. Most would not notice but anytime we have done anything "new" we have had it made to look like the original by replicating hinges, hardware, wide pine floors, door panels, etc. If we could have moved the kitchen into the keeping room we would have the best of both worlds and a fireplace where it should be! We have loved being stewards of the past...but right now jkom's light filled cottage complete with view sounds very appealing.... (hope she posts pictures...hint...)

When they first come in, most people notice the lighting. All are chrome with white in differing styles and all hang from the ceilings in our very open plan. They sparkle and reflect light all over the place.
Then I hear about our eyebrow window, cathedral ceilings and skylights.
Next, as they step in further they either see the vintage stove, 1940 Chambers, or separate fridge and freezer set, which everyone thinks is the largest fridge they have ever seen (no one guesses it is 2 units).
Last, the see out the back wall with the windows and french door and notice the new screened in porch.
It may be because these features are all new to our house, and our friends are surprised by them. Once we get someone who never saw it before, I can answer better as to what jumps out more. I have to admit, I get a kick out of it every day as I walk in from being out. Once the tarps are all gone, things are painted and furniture is placed again, I can't imagine how much more psyched I'll be ;)!

The only decent architectural features in whole original 1954 house were the cove plaster in old living room that is at back of house (now dining room) and the oak floors in all but the kitchen two-panel pine doors. No other distinction whatsoever and a barrel full of negatives. We bought the house because it was inexpensive lakefront property and have fought the oddball floorplan ever since.

Good points we added: Good working kitchen with hardwood cabinetry and floor, large entry closet, double garage, large yard, solar heated second story porch, geothermal heating, parent suite, new roof, and vaulted ceiling in living room are probably the selling points for young snobs. But "large dining room with fireplace and view" and "well insulated" will have a few special people coming back for a second look, probably those in their seventies. The neighbors are thrilled with our work, but then, they live in 1950s houses also. The wood duck silhouette over the house numbers is a particular local fave.

[Like like the pile of snow? DH had just finished raking the roof. He kept on doing this throughout the winter and it rose above the window behind the pile. Photo taken from center of unplowed street.]

The guestroom bath/shower where we had the controls mounted on the left wall near where you enter and the shower heads on the far right wall. SO, there is no need to get the first blast of water which is the wrong temp. Everyone loves that feature. Also, I replaced the original staircase with solid maple with black wrought iron between the bannester and tread. Very stunning look and it eliminated the drudgery of vacuuming the stairs.

Hands down my backyard. It's the reason I agreed to move to this house. And.. the fact that now since we took out walls, when you walk in, you can see straight through to the back. (bitty little house)

I remember when Igloo found her chicken chandelier. ;D

I've enjoyed visualizing everyone's favorite details.

This got me curious--- what are the little details that you paid attention to (because of garden web or otherwise) that most TKO people wouldn't that you think made the most difference in your house/ kitchen?

I didn't discover GW until we were well into our build and the kitchen was decided on (although DH and our GC were wondering if I would ever decide or if we would be moving into a house without a kitchen). I honestly don't think a thing would have changed from discovering GW sooner.

When people arrive, they always say house beautiful the drive is (we're 3 miles in from the main gate) and how the house sits on the lot (4.5 acres with water on three sides). They comment on the use of stone out front, from the walls to the wide sidewalk and the front veranda. Once inside, they comment on the cedar beams, vaulted ceiling and the view through the French doors and large windows across the back of our home. Almost all visitor's the first time walk directly to the back veranda. It's surprised me the number of people who actually open the door and go outside!

But then they see the kitchen, and everyone runs their fingertips along the island's antique pine counter.

For me, it's not each individual thing (although I love every one of them) it's the way these (and more) work together to create a cohesive feeling throughout our home.

**Crap, I just reread the question and noticed the word "little." :-/ In the kitchen, I would say it's the small details of chicken wire, copper tubing (plate rack) and copper backsplash (repeated in the laundry room and on the powder room ceiling). The iron seal over the range that was salvaged from the West Side Hwy bridge in NYC. Aside from the home itself, my accessories are far from the norm. The night before DD2's wedding, when her future in-laws came over for dinner, SIL's grandmother said when leaving, "I had such a wonderful time meeting DD2's family, and almost as much fun looking around the house at your collections. It's like a mini-scavenger hunt!"

I replaced the 1960s colonial revival doors and trim used to subdivide the upstairs into bedrooms and baths. They were solid doors, but this house is Greek Revival and has two- or four panel doors with a very wide center rail. So I had 4-panel doors custom made and reproduced the millwork. The doors were a very expensive detail but I only needed 5, and the millwork wasn't that expensive.

And most people *don't notice it, but they *sense it, somehow. Every contractor who's ever been in here has noticed the doors first thing, but not the typical visitor, at least at first.

I think the most interesting thing about our 1942 ranch house is how quirky it is, and the quirkiness comes mainly from the many different materials used for various surfaces. The predominant interior material is wood: wood floors, wood walls, and wood ceilings. Just about every room has at least one pecky cypress wall. In addition to wood, we have brick floor in the sunroom and travertine in the kitchen. There are a lot of built ins, too, which adds to the uniqueness of the place.

When we redid the kitchen, we found a local woodworker whose father had done the woodwork in all the houses in our neighborhood. He made us some trim from old fir to match other trim in the room, and he used the exact same tools his father had used 70 years earlier on the other trim.

The other main thing that makes my house special is that it is filled with art by my mom and her artist buddies (my mom is an amateur, but many of her friends are professional artists). Other than my Dr. Seuss serigraph, pretty much everything on my walls was painted by someone I know. I have one painting in my kitchen that she did when she was 18 (she'll be 90 in November).

I have to add that, like igloochic, my house has many chickens--in fact, it is overrun with chickens! All of mine are chicken lamps. It's just a collection that got out of control. It all started when I was allowed to take a favorite lamp with me when I left for college. It was an antique weathervane-type rooster with a cool wooden base. A few years later, I later found another one that was very similar and decided that two made a collection. Then, I started looking for them. That started off slow--I think I found three more over a ten year period. Then, all of a sudden, I started finding chicken lamps everywhere! My collection grew to 35 before I declared a moratorium. I've since gotten rid of a few hideous ones that I never should have gotten in the first place, and I'm probably back down in the low 20s. They are all quite different, and the collection does make for an interesting conversation starter.

a little bitty vase that I try to put some part of the outdoors into - here are the first pussy willows of the Spring here up North

{{!gwi}}