Because he can step off the high roof down into the chimney…
It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to spot ugly or odd things; your senses tell you immediately that something isn’t quite right, but without looking close or wondering why, you might never quite resolve the issue and understand the intuition.
From a design standpoint, the Gable roof stacked on top of the Dutch Gable roof form only stands to make the addition look as bad as it possibly could, short of a flat roof. The placement of it on the structure; off center, above a wide garage door, with no overhangs at all, only magnify the scale of it and draw focus to both the addition and the garage door.
I will give some credit points for the small eyebrow roof extending to break up the 2 story facade. However, it is so poorly executed that it has sagged and warped… (insert Sad Trombone….)
What really amazes and gnaws at me more than the design and aesthetics, is the chimney. I cannot help but to go down a rabbit hole of un-resolvable thought as to the how and why this could have ever happened. I wonder if they actually got a permit and had an inspector show up? Did someone sign off on this? As a property owner, would you not desire your chimney to not be more of a fire hazard than it might already be? As a builder – or a designer – would you just take a blind eye to it? Perplexing.
Aesthetically, if the upper floor had been placed in line with the entry porch, which steps down slightly, it stands a better chance of making sense; the roof line breaks there already. It also allows the Dutch gable roof to extend through as it does on the left side, creating a stronger base.
Further, the placement and sizes of the windows on the addition, as well as the roof form can be better used. A hipped roof follows the largely hipped form of the lower roof and softens the lines and the volume of the addition. Spreading the taller windows on the addition apart helps in emphasizing the horizontal lines of the base. I’ve also changed the entry roof to a hipped roof to further tie the two together.
And finally, extending the chimney, I think, completes the whole composition…
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!
Ugly buildings 