Tudor Revival, of Sorts

Yes, that below is a frame of our kitchen window. No, it is not chocolate fudge smeared around the edges. It is something less tasty but much more exciting.

After six-plus years of living here with the idea of giving it a different look, we are--tah-dah!--doing it!

Well, we are paying someone else to do it, to be clear about that. They do the hard work. We get to enjoy the finished product. My beloved does other hard kinds of work to pay them for doing this hard work. I guess my main role is having the idea in the first place, looking at pictures and dreaming for six years to keep the idea alive, or at least resurrectable--and finally choosing colors and consulting with friends to get their opinions before we dove in with final decisions.

Of course it won't look any different on the inside, so I'm kind of enjoying this stage of seeing a little bit of it, at least, through the windows.

Here is that same kitchen window from the outside.

A living room window in progress.

The dining room window coming along.

And for comparision, my office window with the original trim color--which, though I realize someone must have liked at some point, I always have felt was somewhat anemic and didn't do much for the lovely brick colors.

I can hardly wait now to see it all completed. From a young age I fell in love with Tudor style architecture (and Tudor Revival Architecture). Probably partly because of the home of the former Dean and Shakespeare scholar that sat next to the campus building that house the English department, where I spent many hours, both because my dad taught there and because I got an English degree there.

Probably also because of a house in Brownsville, Tennessee, where my grandparents lived. When we were little, my sister and I would play a game of choosing "if you could live in any house on College Street, which one would you pick?" While we each occasionally picked another house, we usually settled on the same two, and "mine" was a home with modernized Tudor architecture.

Our house is not actually built in that style, but its lovely brick, along with the ivy growing around the front, gives is a cottage-y feel and just made it seem possible to give it a Tudor touch.

I'm thinking once it's finished, we'll have to start drinking more hot tea--and reading late medieval British poetry on a regular basis. Anyone have other suggestions?