Four Square fix. How to make a production house 10x better.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2023
- The Four Square House is an American favorite. It is simple, and charming. Brent fixes this new house with just a few details. Come check it out.
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Here are a collection of books used in this talk in my Kit.Co library: kit.co/brenthull01/period-rev...
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Design book for houses 1920- Architect Small House plan book: amzn.to/37XWaUI
500 Small houses of the 20's- Good designs for period revival homes: amzn.to/3DiH3kh
Samuel Chamberlain's drawings of Rural France: amzn.to/3utg15G
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The original has no character. Your fix looks exactly like my grandparents house, makes me feel like I’m at home! Haha. Great vid!
THanks.
You are really helping me develop my taste. Before you, I lived my life blissfully unaware of architectural atrocities surrounding me, now I feel sad and desperate :-)
haha. sorry about that.
😂😂😂
I love seeing your tweaks. As the owner of a four square with most of its original (simple) detail, I'm so thankful that my home has stood the test of time.
Nice!
Great fixes. So impressive and inspirational to see you fix a production builder house using historic precedent.
Thanks.
You should do a few interiors as well. Love these little videos.
Working on it.
Great fixes! We love the open rafters and deeper eaves.
Cool. thanks.
This is amazing! You should start selling house plans with the option to buy an entire trim package. That would make it easy for builders and home owners to get the details right. Maybe it’s a bad financial decision, but I believe it could happen.
Interesting. Thanks.
Spot on! Proper dormers are a lost art in new construction and design. Awesome video.
thanks.
Good changes. Four squares almost always have a hip roof with deep eaves. Hip roofs should be utilized more often, instead of those bizarre, multi-gable roofs that modern builders have such a strange penchant for.
Thanks
My favorite is a hip roof.
Dude... now I understand another house in my parrents neighborhood. Both why it stands out, and how they could have done it a lot better. Amazing, thank you!
cool. THanks.
Yes!! Much better. Your redo make sense and is more beautiful.
Nice. THanks.
You are really talented. I love your passion for the past. Great video.
Thanks.
Thank you for making these videos! SO many builders trying their hand at design need art/architectural history lessons as house designs have become terrible Frankensteins😢 I loved my American Four Square and I hope to see it resurge once the mcmansion age finally dies.
Agreed. Thanks.
keep them coming loving this
Will do
Okay, so there's a concept called the uncanny valley. In film-making, which was the context in which it was introduced to me, it applies to CG footage or AI-generated footage that attempts to mimic a real human face and gets very, very close. Because it gets so close without getting all the way there, it drops into an uncanny likeness that draws the attention out of the plot. All that to say: the original house is in an uncanny valley. It's oh-so-close! But that tiny shortfall draws the attention away from what's good about the house and toward what's wrong. Even I could see the two arched windows were way too tiny.
Or maybe binge-watching these Wednesday house fixes is actually giving me eyes I didn't have before!
You're fantastic, Brent, thanks so much!
And in case it isn't clear, I think your fixes were an improvement.
I love learning new things. Thanks for sharing. Cheers
Wow! It's amazing how those small changes transformed the house. It looks much more period correct. I love your videos!
Thanks.
Production home is out of proportions.
Agreed.
We have an arts and crafts house here in upstate NY that has a very similar look to this house. Our house has been vinyl sided and white aluminum flashing over all the architectural details. I am very tempted to pull the aluminum off this summer to see what beauty they covered up back in the late 80's/90's. Thanks for these videos Brent 🍻 this series is a valuable learning tool 👍
Just be careful with lead paint. It's very likely that's what you have beneath and the act of pulling material off (especially if paint below is weather) will get lead dust and debris down. That stuff doesn't degrade (it's an element) and is dangerous, especially for children, so you risk contaminating soil around your home and what not. Good luck!
FYI - XRF guns penetrate through material like aluminum or vinyl and will let you know if you do in fact have lead in original siding or details.
Glad to hear it.
@@thetubekid I'm actually certified in lead abatement so I'm good 👍😎 thank you though! I'm sure many people don't even think about that!
Yes Better, open rafters, proper dormers, much better columns simpler balusters, the front door change and separating the window after getting rid of the decretive shutters all gets my vote.
Thanks.
I wish I has this video 5 years ago!!!
Shoot. Oh well.
Trained doing many arts and craft period homes in Victoria,BC Canada. Our main architect was McLure. A contemporary of Greene & Greene. Loved it and really appreciate the attention to proper ratios and the inter-relationship of said details to each other.
Nice. Thanks for sharing.
I have a Foursquare two-family with a pyramidal roof, so the style is near and dear to my heart. The wimpy door jumped out at me, too! Your rendition looks much better. Also zeroed in on the arched windows and dormers. I like how you changed them. I hadn't thought about the rafter tails. Nice touch!
Cool, thanks.
I would love to see a series where you buy one of these houses and thoughtfully improve it, inside and out. I know that's an expensive, grand suggestion - maybe a chance to partner with a sponsor..I just think it would be pretty cool and informative. Maybe do it with a new production-built house. Great vids, I really enjoy them.
Good idea. Thanks.
Yes, much better. I thought the door looked narrow too and you're right the dormers looked odd. Especially the one over the garage looking like it was going to fall through. I didn't know why it looked funny to me, but know I understand.
Also, I just finished remolding a staircase today. A modern look with iron balusters. The caps that came with the off the shelf newels were big & bulky. Just not proportioned very well. I got to share much of what I've learned from listening to your videos with the homeowners about getting the proportions right. They allowed me to remake the same caps but thinner in height. That one small change and adding an appropriate sized apron under the balcony landing made a world of difference. I don't care for the modern look that much, but getting the proportions right helps make them look better. They thanked me so much when I was done with the job.
Great work! I love that you took design leadership and made it better.
Love the changes. I should take put more attention to details when I look old houses.
Thanks
Here"s a "lost" architect you might like to check out ---- Edgar Miller of Chicago. Most of his stuff is pre-50's. A blend of arts and crafts and art deco. There is a lavish book about him, and he deserved it, just superb work. Also a lot on youtube.
Ok. Thanks.
Love these videos!
Thanks.
I like your rendition is much better than the original look.
Thanks.
Minor adjustments that should have been part of the original.
I think they might have been going for a modified farmhouse with the front gable and arched window. Maybe the builder's kids outgrew their backyard playhouse and he thought he would make use of it by using the playhouse-sized arched windows, and a small gable from his kid's playhouse, and then throwing them on the front of this house. He just craned the playhouse on top of the garage and called it good?
Brent, thanks again for doing this series, I have been wanting to do something like this for 30 years but never got around to it.
Thanks for watching.
Love what you did. So talented. These videos are incredible
Thanks so much!
Love it!
Nice
I would drop the arch in the porch roof simply because it allows a lot more weather to hit the porch floor and doorway. I like your design much better
Thanks.
That’s so so much better, I would be very happy to live there. The original looked all wrong especially that dormer window on the garage.
Thanks for watching.
The 1920’s 4x4 house I lived in when I first got out of college looks a lot like your conceptual depiction. Inside, the upstairs bathroom was between the two rear bedrooms and there was an enclosed staircase to the attic above the front entry, between the two front bedrooms.
Nice.
You are a master!
Nice.
Loved your ideas
Thanks
I love the changes that you made. Can I send you in my foursquare home?
Please. info@brenthull.com. My team will share fees and timing.
Your changes were a huge improvement!
That gable roof definitely looks out of place, especially with such a low pitch.
Even with the changes, the attached garage still really detracts from the curb appeal for me. I realize that their lot might limit the ability to have a side entry garage or even a garage set more deeply on the lot, but prominent, front-facing garage doors are one of the things I dislike most about modern houses.
Yep. Me too.
Be interesting to see what an apartment building could be
Good idea.
Nice work Brent although I don’t think it needed the little dormer in the high roof.
Interestingly, own a 1908 “builder” 4-square that was remodeled in the mid-1940s by a highly respected owner/ landscape architect who moved the center door all the way to the right thus introducing an atypical asymmetrical composition. The carpentry detailing and execution was not cheapened and the detailing language proved to be very flexible in the hands of a person with a good eye. It produced a very nicely proportioned long light-filled room along the street exposure and a perfect backdrop for an asymmetrical composition of mixed flowering trees and shrubs.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I grew up in a foursquare built in 1925.
AFAIK they are only found in the United States. I always wondered why someone didnt start building them again. (most only have one bathroom and the bedroom closets are usually about 2' wide so some changes would need to be made.) I think this topic deserves its own video.
The one feature that i remember from my childhood home was the full staircase up to the attic which was actually pretty big. It was a staircase with a landing and real walls covered with plaster and lath. What i remember is that the plaster didnt quite make it to the top so i always assumed that they plastered the house and whatever was left over went to the attic stairs but they werent worth mixing another batch.
Thanks for sharing. Good stuff.
so much better
Cool
Definitely better!!
Thanks
Great.
Thanks.
Brilliant but could you PLEASE show the garage dormer changes in place, rather than just a sketched overlay? thankyou!!!
Next time. Thx.
Maybe the architect will take your changes to heart for their next project. It did seem like detaching the garage would also be an improvement (also an inconvenience).
Agreed.
I always thought the stairs going down to basement and up to second floor made sense with the side door with landing. Sadly slab on grade has done in basements in OK
Yep in TX as well.
my 1890 house is a confusing combination of four square/ folk victorian / italianate . Kind of an oddball but I like her :)
Nice.
One of my favorite houses. IMO, a true 4 square has to have the staircase bump out on the side, and the front door is offset, not centered, my opinion?
I agree about the offset door, not the bumpout.
thanks.
From an aesthetic perspective, if a house needed shutters for hurricanes - would you still recommend that window style for the first floor and the foldable shutters could be used?
Yes, but shutters are hard on an A&C home because windows are often wide which makes the shutters bulky. I might try and roll down shutter for hurricanes. Thanks.
3:50 Can't be 32", it's 36"x8'. 36" is needed somewhere to move the fridge in.
haha. True.
Excellent suggestions. Would it have cost the builder any more to build the house in this more aesthetically pleasing way? Probably not - or, at least, not much. So, perhaps, it wasn’t a cost issue; therefore one of marketing (“we will be able to sell this house better”) or one resulting from, simply, a lack of architectural knowledge?
I think a lack of knowledge.
The simpler framing on the roof saves money. My BIL was a contractor and every change of direction on a roof means added time framing, flashing and shingling.
@@lazygardens thanks for that. I understand the idea of simplicity saves money - as does repeatability - but it seems to me that what Brent is suggesting would have been simpler to build than what was actually built.
@@theofarmmanager267 Yes! The arch over the porch and that stupid popped-up thing on the 2nd floor are useless bling.
This is "checklist design". If arches are in, gotta stick an arch in there. Dormers, Ditto.
It's sad when the things that are most wrong with a house never needed to be there in the first place. Just removing that junk made a world of difference. What's the historic precedent for side-by-side windows? I have the same situation on my old farmhouse. Is that a Victorian introduction? Do I just need a bit of space between them like you put in to be acceptable for pre-Victorian?
Yes, if they are double hung windows. This allows for the weight pocket. Paired windows start in the Victorian era.
Since I have been watching your videos the algorithm has started showing more house content. This came up th-cam.com/video/WNEvU5PuSM4/w-d-xo.html and I thought, huh what would Brent say about the victorian details vs modern details they put in. Keep up the great content!
Interesting. THanks.
Everything about that house is wrong. Delete the garage and make it a side porch. It looks like a slab house which defeats a four square.
Noted. Thx.