front entry before + after

early in the spring, some clients contacted me, needing some advice on the exterior of their home. they were planning on repainting, and needed some help selecting colors, but also wanted to add some curb appeal to their entry.  they had just put a new roof on, and didn't want to change the pitch of the roof, so we worked to come up with a solution.

we took some pictures of homes that appealed to my clients, and then i sketched up a detail and worked with the trim carpenter to make our vision a reality.

before:

sorry about the before picture. i thought i had taken one on my phone, but i must have deleted it! thank goodness for google street view...not the best picture, but you can get the idea of what it looked like before.

after:

new stone based columns, timber framing, and a king truss break up the empty entry and add structure. before, the roof projection over the porch seemed to be floating, but it is now grounded by the visual mass of the columns and the timber framing. the stone on the base of the columns and surrounding the window add some additional texture and color.

 the slight arch helps to soften the rather severe angle of the roof. the dark trim of the entry door was swapped out for a lighter paint, and new doors and light fixtures were added.
my clients  needed paint colors that would blend with the existing soffit and windows, since they were staying, so i chose paint colors that were slightly darker than the soffit and trim for the brick and new shakes.

 these columns are properly scaled to the surrounding structure, and the stone bases help to keep them from looking too tall. columns that are too small or too slender can look "spindly" and out of scale.

the house now looks updated and has a more appealing, traditional feel to it. isn't it amazing what some

properly scaled columns, some paint and a little bit of stone can do?