In the final stretch of finish

The owners of the Purple Castle (1106 Alabama Ave.) are kindly offering their house up for a tour on this coming Thursday evening, Dec. 1, 5-7pm.  I’ll be on hand to answer questions about tax credits, and there’s a suggested $5 entry fee – a donation to Preservation Durham.  Come and visit!

not-so-purple purple castle

It’s been a busy fall around here, and as we careen into the holidays, it’s glaringly obvious that I need to get some photos up here!  A proper update will be on my thanksgiving break to-do, but a few teasers are in order.  Remember the purple castle?  It’s not so purple anymore, but instead nearly finished.  The homeowners are hoping to move in early December, and Preservation Durham is planning a sneak peak tour the week after Thanksgiving.  The first floor especially has been very well restored, and it’s a treat to see it repaired properly.

Also heading towards finish is the whole house renovation on Ottawa.  It has been under construction all summer, but only received a fresh coat of paint recently.  Given that it had been one story originally and had a wide band between the first and second floors, we chose a two-tone color combination that makes me very happy.  The yellow accent is cheery and welcoming, but unexpected at the same time.

before,

and (almost) after.

New projects on the drawing board include a screened porch design for a sweet little bungalow in Old North Durham, and the reconfiguring of a second floor right around the corner from me in Watts-Hillandale.  After that, I’ll be re-working a stair landing; it sounds small, but the small spaces are sometimes the hardest!  More on all of that soon.  Until then, happy thanksgiving: enjoy the turkey, the family, and the rest.

With that in mind, I finally got around to gathering photographs of some of the ‘afters’ and put them all in one place – take a look, and let me know what you think!

I like to have homeowners pick a few words describing how the house should look when it's done... this house was aiming for 'handsome.'

ps. let me know if something is amiss technologically, would you?  thanks!

Good for climbing... not for much else.

It was lovely to climb up, afforded a view and a breeze on a wet blanket of a day, and allowed for a local history museum of displays on each landing – so I have no issues with it as a lighthouse or tower by any means.  Instead, I have issue with it being presented as a historic feature, something comparable with Cape Hatteras or Ocracoke.  A little googling tells me that it was built in the 1970s and modeled after one in England from two centuries earlier.  To be fair, it wasn’t so much described as historic as it wasn’t described at all – so it was easy to assume, based on the form and the general histories of lighthouses on the coast.  I should have been clued in by the paneling on the stair railing, I suppose!

Back at home, I’m thrilled to have the genuine history around me of the Lucky Strike tower and the Hill Building – one or the other could certainly claim to be Durham’s lighthouse, I think.  And I’m busy pulling together the plans for two houses (one c.1890, the other c.1915) that are in process… authentic and contributing to our real city.