My previous house was a 1994 tract-type GenericCape. Borrrring. Reasonably cute on the outside, although whoever designed it was drunk when he chose the window and dormer placements because the proportions were off. But I thought it was plain ugly inside, since the rooms were all open to each other without so much as an empty doorframe or soffit between, and even though it was built in 1994 I swear it was built with all the 1980s crap no one else wanted (guess the builder got it all cheap)! I think the only thing that would have really "gone" with the architecture (such as it was) was Pottery Barn! We had no option at the time of moving to a house that matched our style better, we had a limited budget and the selection in the towns where we needed to live for DH's commute was dreadful - since the only one that was in a great location would have required at least $200k in renovations (on a house that was $265k to begin with), we simply took the best-condition one in our price range. I will admit that I just pretty much rammed my stylistic preferences into it, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, and for the most part it did work okay. Probably because the house was SO much of a dull, soulless, boring blank canvas all by itself. I did tame back some of my more over-the-top urges, like the carved-to-death Savonarola chair that I came THIS close to buying :-) because they would have been too much for the house to carry. When we remodeled the master suite I was able to change out all the moldings which made a HUGE difference in getting the atmosphere a little bit more toward the Arts & Crafts-y look I prefer without trying to make it into a bungalow, although we never got a chance to do the rest of the house as we wanted to. Changing lighting to get rid of the "brasstone" and pressed-glass fixtures helped quite a bit. Replacing the ghastly wall-to-wall with hardwood helped a LOT, as did my color choices. We put enough of ourselves into it that it did suck to have to sell it last year, but now it's in the hands of a family who really like it and have promised to take care of it. To keep your birdies from crashing into the windows, why not hang the sheerest of sheers over the window itself, something like an ultrafine linen (fabrics-store.com has an excellent price on it BTW) or a lovely lace (I love Country Curtains' Point d'Esprit Lace) so you still get plenty of sunlight, as a starter? Those hanging stained glass pieces would also go beautifully with your decor style, and they certainly don't need to fill the whole window to prevent your feathered friends from crashing. Then, put furniture pieces like benches, console tables, low bookcases, sideboards, under/in front of those horizontal windows to draw the eye down and give the whole assemblage more vertical massing. If you can do flanking draperies that just barely kiss the floor and that also bracket that piece of furniture nicely, it will look even nicer. Don't do sill- or apron-length WTs because those will just emphasize the horizontal nature of the windows and you want the eyes to be going up and down; I think blinds with horizontal lines (wood, Roman shades, etc.) do the same thing but some others don't agree with me. Walls of draperies do NOT have to look modern if you use the right fabrics in generous amounts and loads of trimmings! Do you think a jewel-toned velvet or a heavy damask trimmed with bullion fringe and wide silk braid would look modern? No way! Now, to get back to your original question about window grids/grilles. I've never used these, but I did have a site called NewPanes in my sixteen gazillion bookmarks. Because of the connectors I'd still want to hang some sheers over them but I think they might look pretty good without completely gutting your poor pocketbook. Fancier but also pricier is Big Blue Window, which makes custom grilles. BTW, I'll be honest. This last time around, the house I REALLY wanted was a 1972 ranch! It was on a good big lot, had excellent exterior proportions so I could have tarted it up into a cute little cottage with some bungalow flavor, and the interior, although a hideously dated 1970s idea of modern, had a LOT of potential to, again, be tarted up quite prettily. The "Victorian Lite" we ended up in was actually our third choice! Now I do think it's a bit bizarre to take an over-the-top detail-loaded Queen Anne and decorate it in an ultra-contemporary fashion (I cringe whenever I see it, and it's getting all too common) or to cram an Eichler type house with Louis Whatshisface gilded frills-and-furbelows, but something really bland can indeed be amenable to some additions.

Are you saying that you want to fence both your front and back yards? I would not fence the front yard at all. To me, that communicates a very unfriendly neighbor. Just start the fence at the back of your house, where it's needed to meet pool requirements. Looking up your driveway, I would build 2 red brick posts and run a working gate between the posts, for car access. I'd incorporate wood and iron in the gate. Around the back yard, I think a wrought iron fence would look the best; however, given that you really want the privacy, I'd go with a cedar 6 ft fence and then stain it so that it retains color and doesn't grey. I wouldn't do a white fence at all.

"no way it's frequently used in McMansions and is just not right." OK, so your feeling is that the form of the fluted casing mismatches so much that it doesn't particularly matter if it is more appropriate to the period? Unless I jump over to finding someplace with better selection, maybe the Georgian is a better match. It isn't from the same period but it has some similar elements to the first-floor trim. Georgian and Italianate houses are at least both nodding at classical architecture, even though they are different creatures. The fluted Victorian isn't doing this, really. I'm curious about what you said about McMansions. I have spent very little time in suburbs so I have no idea what the new builds are putting in. Is putting rosettes in McMansions a thing? If so, I guess that would explain why its so easy to find the kits for fluted casing + rosette corners, unless there are just a lot of people with old homes looking for something fun. But this news confounds me because the only place I've seen fluted millwork is (1) in old Victorian houses I've been in (midwest) or seen in blogs, (2) in some of the floor-to-ceiling renovations of rowhouses in my neighborhood, where a building company has selected it. To be clear, they are not matching the old trim in those cases - they're removing all the old details and putting in their own.

My parent's house had a lot of Japanese art, especially to start, because my mom did not like reproductions or "decorator" art in the least and Japanese wood blocks were (and still are) plentiful and not all that expensive. (And even faded ones look good). And it fit right in with their Colonial Revival furniture because there was a certain amount of trade with Asia during the early 19th c.