When you look at someone's home, you can often pick out the things that the owners truly pride themselves on. Sometimes it is immediately apparent, such as a perfectly manicured lawn that is as green and lush as the fairways of St. Andrews. For others, a perfectly organized garage, well kept porch, or ridiculously clean home (I'm looking at you Wendy) allows you a brief glimpse into their inner workings to understand where time and dedication have almost no bounds. However, if you visit our home, something that I truly pride myself on (and actually hope you either don't notice or assume it has always been part of the house) are period appropriate architectural details. 

I have an attention to original detail that annoyingly permeates almost everything we do in our home. I will painstakingly obsess over the smallest details, especially when it comes to architectural elements and period ornamentation, usually to the point where Wendy contemplates divorce. Many of our home's true original elements have been lost over the years, but I've spent our time in the house attempting to reclaim the known character elements through salvage and restoration. I think it is well worth the trouble. Besides, with a more modest and simple home such as ours, it isn't nearly as overwhelming as it would be with a large Eastlake Victorian.

Last week we covered some of the major items we've accomplished that impact the curb appeal of our home. Within that post, a brief mention was made regarding our home's front stairs. This project, although much of it was hired out to a pro, was the single largest project to humor my obsessive attention to appropriate detail, and remains our most significant contribution to restoring a bit of period Victorian character to our home.

When we moved into our home, a large brick staircase lead to the front door of our house and our neighbor's house. It didn't strike anyone as particularly horrible or wrong, but after living in Old Town for a bit and seeing all of the other houses of similar age, I knew that something was amiss. Through as much research as we could perform, specific details of when the stairs were constructed and what stood before could not be uncovered, but it was obvious that what we had was just plain wrong. 

I decided to start looking around online and in magazines to determine a suitable replacement. Walking around our neighborhood and the rest of Old Town, it became apparent that the proper stairs were most likely a heavy cast iron configuration. 

The photo above shows the stairs that our neighbors have, and the following photo is of a large house across the street, again with a cast iron setup.