Often the “before” shot is better than the “after,” but not here. Above is a nice use of nearly black paint on an old plaster wall in this Hemet, California midcentury cinderblock house.

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The post The Brick House appeared first on Ouno Design.

I love this house in La Quinta. I asked my California friend Darren why the town is called La Quinta, which means “fifth” in Spanish, and he wrote: “It’s called that because in colonial times, there were haciendas along major commercial routes that were reached every fifth day of travel.

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Patterned concrete walls by the firm Erwin Hauer. Top three photos show a loadbearing cast stone wall in a church in Erdberg, Vienna, Austria.

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The post Erwin Hauer, patterned concrete appeared first on Ouno Design.

I’m developing a taste for these. There are lots of dinky suburban tract versions of these perforated walls, but when the scale and placement are well thought out, they can be the building’s most arresting feature.

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The post Patterned concrete screens appeared first on Ouno Design.

Concrete block and perforated screen fetishists should visit this Flickr pool. The wall above and below is at the abandoned Besser Vibrapac office, a building that served as a display of the company’s own concrete blocks.

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Modernist Vancouver house of the painter BC Binning, who painted his own interior and exterior murals. Photo by Arne Haraldsson. See here for more information on this heritage-protected house.

In my neighbourhood there’s a heritage program called True Colours wherein you can receive a pat on the back from heritage types and sometimes free paint if you agree to paint your house in the original house colours circa 1901.

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The post Painted houses appeared first on Ouno Design.

I’m mesmerized by this door photo by Anna Dorfman-Stark, whose Door Sixteen is one of my favourite blogs. This amazing doorway is in New York City, and I’m probably going to think of it as “door sixteen” from now on. 

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The post Door by Door Sixteen appeared first on Ouno Design.

These shapes are so minimal and so perfect, they might almost be the line drawing you’d find if you looked up “barn” in an old encyclopedia. At the same time their strange blankness almost qualifies them as sculpture.

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The post Someone else’s vernacular appeared first on Ouno Design.

These are all, as usual, from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. I love the photo of the little garden house with the abstract geometric painting, above, and the book actually includes plans for it (click at bottom).

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The post It’s Spring, Let’s Go Outside! appeared first on Ouno Design.