US visit - the final installment

A final few quick photos from my recent US visit.

My sister lives in an area full of town houses, or row houses as they call them, predominately built in the 1920s.

Many have been renovated and I couldn't get enough of them.

There were tasteful neutrals:

Some a little more daring - love the red one on the end:

Some seriously loud (and fabulous) turquoise:

Or how about orange?

How about that turret at the end? How about this one (my kids want to live here):

Aww, and check out this little guy. Probably chock-full of rabies, but still so cute!

On many of the houses I saw these lovely bronze stars, or in this case it's painted white. I wondered what the go was with them, they were everywhere.

As always Monsieur Google had the answer. These 1920s houses were built to a basic design - four brick walls, and niches in opposite walls where beams would be inserted (upon which the floors would be laid). House walls tend to settle and move slightly as they age, and these floors beams had a tendency of popping out of their niches. And unsupported walls have a tendency of collapsing which is somewhat inconvenient for inhabitants.

So people started putting steel rods right through their brick walls, alongside their niched beams and out the other side again. Boring folks would secure these rods with a normal round nut while the stylish crowd started using nuts in the shape of a star.

A cute design addition and a house that doesn't fall down. Bonus!