The Historic District

Yes, I know what you mean by getting the natural light into all the rooms. Gothichome is situated to get light on all four sides. With the tall windows a lot of light enters the home. As a matter of fact, in the winter months light coming in the windows on the sunny side hits the walls on the shady side with doors open and it is not open concept. Unfortunately, with smaller lots in urban areas the placement of the home is not an option.
We've had the railing hight discussion here in the District on several occasions. I believe the general feeling of the community has come down to live with the code, design around the code or make your restoration meet code in the short term, allowing for returning original feature in the future long after the work has been signed off.

One of the reasons I love living here in rural VT, no building permits or inspectors to insist on meeting codes.... it has it's downsides of course but I like that I can essentially do exactly what I want with the place

Gothichome wrote:We've had the railing hight discussion here in the District on several occasions. I believe the general feeling of the community has come down to live with the code, design around the code or make your restoration meet code in the short term, allowing for returning original feature in the future long after the work has been signed off.

At one time (if not still), Prairie and Craftsman style homeowners in IL (particularly, Chicago) were trying to get the Code to recognize how there should be an exception for them. Statistically, people tend not to be so clumsy that taller railings will significantly impact how many get hurt with a lower (or absent) railing. Some day I might take oldhouseguy's blog posting on the matter and seek a variance.

I need for our house to not be so unique; so people don't take such notice of it and I might be able to lower the railing to a more visually appealing height. We're on a busy through-street. All other homes are late 1960's-1970's tract houses so ours sticks out. We really violated the idea that new homes should be in character with those surrounding it. Only, instead of building a McMansion in an area of small homes with character, we took a small home with no character and built something that doesn't look at all like the expanded tracts houses surrounding it.

This is a fairly typical "victorian" in our neighbourhood: typical Long Island "victorian"

This is the house next door. It's listed for sale as a "victorian". "victorian for sale"

Hummmph, neither of those houses have even a vague resemblance to Victorian. The first looks like a typical suburban ranch with a way out of proportion square box on the roof. And what were they thinking with that great big palladium window? The second is trying to be a Georgen, but just looks cheesy to me. I can see why your efforts would stand out. Only 'retrovate' in the area.

Hard at it Olson. Nice Scaffold set up.

Here's Marina showing off her greater ease of heights than I. It's not that I won't but I can tolerate a faster heart beat only for so long.