Grid Lock


I’m still riffing on Thomas O’Brien, as I dig his New York digs. The ceiling height here is nothing to sneeze at – the chest itself is significant and the mirror atop it substantial as well. But the mullions deliver the drama. The only thing keeping me from painting my mullions is cowardice and fear. In my “curtains and windows” folder there are no fewer than a dozen images with black mullions. Some are metal and some are painted, but I love them all the same.

Bobby McAlpine in House Beautiful.
Black mullions are comfortable in traditional settings,

Victoria Hagan in Town and Country.

Veranda, I think.

and modern as well.

Nestor Santa-Cruz of SKB Architecture, Met Home, Nov. 2006.

Pretty on the inside and the outside.


Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow’s LA home, designed by J.R. Davidson.

In one of my first apartments, I had a shower with a window in it. My landlord did not apply this jazzy treatment, but, oh, how I wish he had. (I wish he’d installed air conditioning as well.)


And then, by way of House Beautiful this month, Jeffery Bilhuber gained entrance to the file. There are rooms that make you want to rip out everything you have with your bare hands and start over on Monday. This is one of those rooms for me. Wow.


Jeffrey Bilhuber, House Beautiful, Nov. 2007.
I wonder where the boys put my sledgehammer?

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9 thoughts on “Grid Lock

  1. Those last two images are amazing, I must look for my sledehammer too….although I don’t know my landlord would approve!

  2. I love the look of painted mullions! I am seeing it more and more in my neighborhood and think it looks fresh and even a little contemporary. I say go for it!

  3. Fairfax – I picked up my copy of the Van Day Truex on line for like $1.50 – I loved the biography – it was quite a stylish life. He was from Kansas, as you know.

  4. First of all, you really should paint your mullions, and secondly, if my shower weren’t encased in marble, I would want it to be exactly like Jeffrey Bilhuber’s. (And get your hunk some overalls 🙂

  5. mullions… I never knew what they were called. I am so glad you posted this. When I close my eyes to dream, it’s mullions I see! Seriously. I want to tear off the entire backside of my house and have nothing but a wall of these… mullions. Dare to dream!

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