how green thou art...

Recently, I was made aware that in all my excitement about the aesthetic choices we have been faced with regarding the new home, I have neglected to mention that we have been very conscious of the environment as well as building a home that is energy efficient.  One of the reasons that we chose our builder was because he is passionate about building homes that are elegant, functional, and efficient.

Now, while I am confident that we could build "greener" as some folks say, I worry that the "green" movement is becoming the next fad, kind of like the Atkin's diet, good and bad at the same time! 

While I do not want to get into a political discussion, I do believe that "going green" is so overused in the marketplace and the "green movement" is making a huge profit off of folks who think they are doing the right thing.  It is a fact that building anything, including our house, uses up resources.  So, here is what we have done this far to be energy efficient:

Lot Selection and Home Orientation
Now if you have seen pictures of our lot, you can see that we are so fortunate to have an abundance of tall, old live oaks.  These trees are not only beautiful, they will also keep our cooling costs down in the summer.  Additionally, the orientation of the home will take full advantage of the trees.

Sheet Steel Roof
Our roof is made of white sheet steel which is energy star rated for its longevity and durability - and most importantly it reflects light and radiant heat!

Finger Joints

The framing technique used has minimized the amount of wood required by essentially joining wood together to make longer (some even say stronger and more resistant to warping) studs.  The environmental advantage is that lumber yards are getting more out of the tree by using selective scraps, which in our ever growing green mindset is better for the environment.

Window Overhangs
All windows in the home have overhangs which provide much needed protection from the sun.

Fiber Cement Siding, Green Boards, Energy Efficient Windows, and HVAC System
Since I do not know enough about how each of the elements used to build our home will make it sustainable for many, many years to come, I won't even try. 

What I do know is that we are very conscious of our footprint and we are doing what we can to reduce it going forward by building a home that is energy efficient. Could we do more?  Sure!  It becomes a cost-benefit analysis kind of effort.

I know that many of my fellow Christmas Crazies have adopted an all LED display and their displays are beautiful, however when we tried to reconcile the cost of switching to LED lights, it just didn't make sense.

While some of our home choices to this point might seem extravagant (cough cough...appliances...), we are not only going to get to enjoy them while we are in the home, these types of appliances are expected by future buyers of our home.  I do hope that this will be many, many years away - but we cannot predict the future.  All we can do is make the best choices possible with the information given so that at the end of this project, our home will truly be our dream - while being as "green" as possible.  I tried to think of a catchy rhyme there, but as I have said before, I am not quite as clever as many of the blogs I have read...

faucets and door handles and stuffs...

We were recently asked to choose rough-ins and valves for all in wall plumbing - of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I assumed that we had to have all of the faucets picked out and communicated to the builder that week.  Out of this, we did make pretty important decisions as it relates to faucets...and we were able to provide the builder with the information he needed so that the plumber could install the wall valves.

While I am not sure if this is standard procedure for all folks who pick out faucets for their new homes, I do think that for us, we want to have consistency throughout the house.  And funny enough, our decision as it relates to the faucets has helped us narrow down the options for door handles.  We want our door handles to resemble our faucet handles - seems like a logical connection?

Our builder explained to us that he has installed Danze products before and that they are at a good price point and Danze makes a very high quality product.  We took his advice and looked at Danze and found a line of products that fit our style perfectly - the Danze Parma series with polished finish.  More information can be found here...

For the powder room, we chose the wall mounted faucet pictured below:

For the shower and tub, we chose:

With a couple of these thrown in for good measure...

For the kitchen faucet, we chose:

For the potfiller over the range, we chose:

For the vanities (non wall mounted) faucets, we chose these two handle doozies...gotta change it up a bit, right?

So, that just about covers that - I really like the simplicity of these.  And, the handles on the faucets serve as inspiration for our doorhandles...more to come.

houzz is my pintrest...

So, I am reading Stephen King's book 11/22/63 and although it started really, really slow, I am fully engaged now and the pages are almost turning themselves, finally!  The premise of the book (without  giving away too much for those who have not read it) is that the main character discovered a wrinkle which allows him to travel back in time. 

Since this is not a book club blog, I will get right to the point.  I am not sure that I could have survived in the 1950s.  First, there was no internet.  Second, there were no Ipads.  And while it frustrates me at times that I cannot stream flash videos on my Ipad, I can do some really great research related to new home products and photos of all styles using Houzz (check it out here... ).

From their website:  Houzz is a leading destination site for home design enthusiasts-- professionals and homeowners. The Houzz site and mobile apps feature over 250,000 high quality interior and exterior photos, thousands of highly-engaging articles written by design experts, product recommendations and social tools to manage the remodeling and decorating process.

In a nutshell, it is AWEsome!  I cannot imagine building a home without this site.  The craze these days seems to be pintrest, but Houzz is dedicated specifically to home related things.  All of you pintrest nerds can disagree with me all you want...  I don't want to cook or read funny jokes, I want to look at bathrooms or countertops and don't want to have to filter through silliness to get there.

One of the best features of the site once you have created an account is creating Ideabooks.  I have created idea books for living room, kitchen, bathroom, exterior - and I can save images to each ideabook to keep them separate for viewing later with the builder. 

Thank you internet and Houzz for making building a house so much easier!

a slightly different approach to a modern kitchen...

I think that many folks unfamiliar with modern homes envision the interior of the home to be completely modern - inside and out.  And, many times, these assumption holds true.  However, not all modern home interiors are white, sterile, and uninviting. 

Hey, just because we like the look of century modern architecture (basically, architecture with roots in mid-century modern but built today, get it?  if not, google it...) does not mean that our home will.  We want folks to feel welcome when they walk through our big yellow front door (there are websites devoted to yellow doors...promise!).  I think that the combination of modern with transitional modern will work out quite nicely.

From the entry, you can take in the whole space visually.  And, we really want our kitchen to be spectacular - it is the farthest from the entry, but might be the first thing that folks see when they size up the space.

We have chosen Viking applicances and...come to find out, Viking is headquartered in Greenwood, MS which is not an hour from where my parents live.  Dad has already said that he has heard that Viking has repair problems...we have also heard that as well.  However, comparing all the different choices, we think that Viking will best fit our needs.

In fact, I could take a class at the Viking Cooking School in Ridgeland if I was so inclined. 

For the range, we went with a 48", 6 burner with a griddle - all gas (here).  If the power goes out, come on over! 

For the vent hood, we chose an Air King and will conceal it with the upper cabinets.

For the refrigerator, we chose the Viking 36" with custom panel - meaning that the cabinet builder has to build custom panels for the refrigerator doors.  We will also use the same pulls for the doors as we will use on the cabinets.  This is the stainless model:

The island will house the remaining appliances - we chose an ASKO dishwasher with a Viking front panel and a SHARP microwave with drawer - pretty cool that it doesn't have a door, instead the microwave opens like a drawer.

So, the appliances will fit nicely into the kitchen space.  We want the perimeter cabinets to be painted a light gray color (to be determined based on marble selected for island slab).  Painting the cabinets means that we can go with a less expensive wood like poplar because the island itself will be furniture grade wood and stained. 

Now, we know that our choice of countertops are high maintenance, and we get that...so no need to tell us about all of the negatives about our choices.  The perimeter countertops will be Soapstone:

And the island countertop will be polished carrara marble.  We want to match the perimeter cabinets to the gray streaks that will be in the slab we choose - the photo below is just to provide a visual:



The backsplash will be honed carrara subway tiles:

And at this point, we will paint the walls a couple of tints darker than the cabinets.  So, a hazy smoky color - think a gray color with white base.

Potentials at this point for cabinet and wall combinations.  Classic gray for walls downstairs - kitchen really doesn't have any walls except for the small hallway to the pantry and entry hallway - since it is all open, this color would have to be on all the walls downstairs though:



And a potential for the perimeter cabinets:

Ok...so we will be looking for a slight contrast - on the screen the colors are not really different.  But, we do have plenty of time to make final decisions.  Gray is the new beige, right?

starting to love fractions, especially three tenths...

Since my last post, so much has happened.  Apologies for my lack of posting, but I have literally been to Singapore and back.  So, life doesn't stop while you are building a home.  Luckily, our builder is a champ.  We are officially 30% complete - for those of you who are still trying to figure out why I am starting to love fractions...that is 3/10 or three tenths of the way there!

So, the slab was poured - then it rained...the rain cleared up and it has been fast and furious ever since.  We went from beginning to actually see the footprint of our home...and now we can actually see a home!  For all of those folks who would drive by and wonder what the house was going to look like, they have to wonder no more.  Ok, so without further delay...let's go back in time to February 21, 2012.  The photos will hopefully show you a flipbook of sorts.  I have to admit, watching the progress is uber-exciting!

On Feb 21, 2012, you can see the slab and the initial frame work.  I am standing inside, where the kitchen will be - they started with the master bedroom.  (And, in relation to the potty, it would be way off to my left side.)

Later that same day, the other end of the house is taking shape - this photo was taken from Cortez.  From this angle, you are looking at the front of the house.  Tom, the builder, gave me the idea to always try and at least capture one shot from the same angle so that at the end, you can have a time lapse view of the build from start to finish...he is so smart!

Now the next day, February 22, 2012 you can really see what happens when we have beautiful weather and a good crew!

They were even able to work on the roof trusses this day as well!  Now, I haven't forgotten to position the house for you - all of these pictures are taken from a similar angle facing the house from Cortez (potty would be off the screen to the right):

For the next couple of days, things take place really fast and I can only admire them from afar...REALLY afar.  I traveled to Singapore for work - so, that is like travelling forward in time and then back in time.  And, I was only in Singapore for 3 days - but total travel time started Friday, February 24th in the evening and I arrived back to Dallas on the afternoon of February 29th.

I will just post pictures of the progress in chronological order - at least to the best of my jet lagged ability.  I have captioned each photo as best I can remember.

View from Thornberry (former enchanted forest would have been to immediate right as well as potty to immediate right)

View from back yard.  The second story is going up!  (probably if the house wasnt there, we could almost see the potty in front of us).

Now the two photos were both taken on February 29, 2012.  This was the day that I returned from Singapore.  The first of the two I snapped on my way home from the airport.  The second I snapped later that evening when I drove McKinney, the dog, to see his new digs.  The second level is taking shape. (Potty is just off the screen to the right)

Let's just fast forward to March 4, 2012.  Wow.  Most of the greenboard is being installed and you can see the framing of the final element in the top left of the photo.

 And on March 9, 2012 - it's beautiful!

Another taken on March 9 - this is looking through the doors that will be where our breakfast area will be.  All of the open spaces are going to be glass walls and sliding doors.  Oh the fun McKinney will have with all of that brand new, untouched glass.

But who could get mad at that face?  By the way, the Shark hand-held steamer works wonders on windows!

So, on a scale of 1 to the moon of excitement...just call me Buzz Aldrin.  Again, I apologize for falling behind.  Being a blogger is such hard work - I am neither as witty or interesting as many of the blogs that I have seen.  But hang in there, we have a long way to go.

We still have faucets and counters and appliances and doors and cabinets to choose...and flooring and paint...and....  My head is spinning into another dimension, but it sure is fun!!!