Month: February 2014

I am sure more than once everyone had seen pictures like how to match shoes and dress, shirt and jacket, or…tie and socks…

Yet you have hardly ever seen an instruction how to match frames and home, or patterns of frieze and window frame tops. I don’t think any such rules ever existed.

Old masters said that the house should be decorated as measure and beauty will say (note it is the measure that comes first), but they were in a better position, because they got their taste for measure and beauty from lots of wooden houses which surrounded them.

For them it was obvious that the more laced was the decoration of the house, the plainer window frames it should have. Brilliant example is this photo taken in Kovrov, Vladimir Oblast.

An eye-catching wooden house, or rather, a mansion, stands in the very center of Krasnoyarsk. It was owned by Frida Zimmerman, a merchant woman.

Its window frames (it is often a case with wooden houses made by architects) absolutely do not resemble any other ones in Krasnoyarsk. The house itself is quite different: it was re-built radically (in 1911 or in 1913) in a strange mixture of Gothiс and art nouveau styles, and now is a sure star of Krasnoyarsk wooden architecture.

Many photos of this house are available on the Internet, and even Wikipedia ,writes about it, so today I offer just a fragment of the mansion – gate of the house 66 in Lenin Street of Krasnoyarsk, former house of Frida Zimmerman, and now a literature museum.

It is surprising yet window frames, usually of many different colors, almost never match the color of the walls. The only exception may be houses and frames not painted, when natural structure of the wood remains. It is very rare when the frame and the house have the same color. Especially when the color is as bright as this sunshine yellow from Kineshma – seems these frames are just unique!

Today is Friday, and, in addition, rather warm and even Indian summer-looking!

I wish you more sunshine and more beauty in your life! Let coming weekend brings you a lot of joy, as  these bright window frames from Spas-Klepiki, Ryazan Oblast. Please note – window are made of plastic whose warranty lasts for about thirty or may be even fifty years. Which means hopefully these frames will live this long life, too!

I was lucky to take this photo in the town of Klin (Moscow Oblast). While I was talking to a hostess, a sleepy cat appeared somewhere from the depth of the house; first, he began rubbing against her shoulders, and then tried to get to her hands.

The hostess told me she had found him wounded, with his leg broken; she had nursed him and was about to let go, but the grateful cat stayed with her and now… pleases his owner with mice he catches!

By the way, about the window  frames… they are rather plain there.

This most unusual village stands on the road between Rybinsk and Uglich. When you go through it, you cannot but wonder the prefect condition of its less than fifty houses. Practically each one causes an admiring ah: some has neck-turning window frames; some are proud with their immaculate painting; some shows of its attic of three windows; some has all of it together plus logs painted pink!!

It should be added that as the road goes along the fill, there are no fences to stand in this beauty, and it is hard to understand why  (if only Wikipedia says truth) only 20 people live in these 48 houses each being more than hundred years old

Last week I had a sudden luck to photograph window frames in the town of Bronnitzy, Moscow Oblast. It was rather a brief visit, yet the beauty of the place just struck me and I felt like each and every house tried to catch my eye! Very nice and so many fences like, say, in Malakhovka

Yesterday I mentioned that Kimry miss any wooden art nouveau, and I mean it. This photo taken in the end of 2012 is the best illustration of the condition Kimry wooden heritage is. A dying beauty is just everywhere.

Those interested, be in a rush! Most of these houses shall not survive more than a couple of years. 

As I promised, I show the photo of a window frame made in rare style of Omsk constructional art-nouveau. It was only there that I had seen so many of its examples. Curious thing is that to date there are two certain centers of the wooden art nouveau – Yaroslavl and Omsk.

Connoisseurs may also add town of Kimry. Yes, it was rich in art nouveau. Yet what has survived there is nothing when compared to Yaroslavl and Omsk.