The Little Pink House

There are SO many great homes in Denver. Quite a few of my trips across town include a stop -or two- to gape and take photos of a home that commands my attention. Every once and while, a home will catch my eye because it's such an individual expression of the owner's taste or personality.

On Monday I came across the "Little Pink House" (as I'm choosing to call it). What a gem! It screamed to me that it wanted it's portrait done. Who could resist? I have a passion for small homes - check out my Pinterest board "Small Space Living" and this home was a perfect combination of color, period style, and compactness.

It took a second trip to the house to capture more details that didn't show up in the first photos I took. That often happens and I've learned that "You don't know, what you don't know, until you don't know it". Know what I mean? In this case it mostly had to do with the windows. From the photos I took, I couldn't tell if they were the same height on both sides of the porch...they seemed a bit different, but it wasn't clear (they are!)...so off I went, with Dexter in the back seat, to grab a few more pics (and a necessary afternoon coffee). While there, I found that I hadn't gotten a good shot of the random block pattern at the base of the home or that great little light on the front porch...once I did, I had to include those elements. For me, these are the details that make the portrait come alive. 

In particular, I liked how many different shades of pink had been used by the homeowner. It looks like they choose the colors based on their favorite ice cream and sherbet flavors! Whoever choose those lime green pots on the front steps knew exactly what they were doing. What a perfect color combination! I liked the combo so much that I used the lime green as the accent color for the title bar of the illustration.

I'm including a picture of the actual home...just so you don't think I make this stuff up. Word has it that Barbie did the color consultation.

Maybe on another trip down to Platt Park, I'll slide a printed copy of the illustration under their door -and hope it'll please them that someone thought their great little home was worth capturing in an illustration.

2501 S. Downing St. is in a neighborhood of the city named "Platt Park". It was giving this name in the 1860's...no one knows for sure if it was named for the Platte River (but no "e"), or for James Platt, the founder of the Platt Paper Co. and early Denver Leader. This part of town was booming in the period from 1900 - 1915, when the Denver Tramway Company trolley car line was extended. Many of Victorians and bungalows were built during that time.

Hard to see all the detail...and I'm not stepping onto private property to get a closer look...so some of the detail is "guessed at".