landscaping is hard to do...

We were provided the initial plans for the landscaping this afternoon and I must admit, Michael Ann who has worked with Tom for many years, listened to what we told her and really delivered!  She has a very tough job - our corner lot is quite large and the house was built within the easement restrictions of the property leaving the lot with essentially two front yards. 

Our main goal was low maintenance and a wonderful place for McKinney, our labradoodle, to enjoy!  And, I wanted a much larger, formal koi pond!  And, we did not require modern, contemporary landscaping design.

There are a lot of folks that would question why we built a modern home if we were just going to turn it into a transitional home?  Short and sweet...we love modern but we also love carrara and knock out roses. 

You are going to have to take my word for it that Michael Ann provided lovely, easy to read drawings of the landscape design.  Using my iphone to try and take a good, readable picture of the plans is almost laughable...but I thought that having something to look at was better than nothing. 

I already know that mom is going to get frustrated because she just can't see it real good...  Mom, I can't see it real good in these pictures either.  I tried to at least provide a couple of descriptions in one of the picture so that you can kind of try to envision the rest from there.

You will see that McKinney has a nice sized back yard which will basically be grass and fence - nothing special required there...remember, we have to think about budget too.  The backyard space will be larger than our current backyard - and instead of one door leading outside, McKinney has his pick of 3 different sliding glass doors.  We, of course, will have to open the doors for him - but that is ok since we have never been big fans of doggie doors.  McKinney is quite a lot bigger than most labradoodles, so his doggie door would allow just about any human to enter the house as well.  You will also see that we have two front yards.  And, in frontyard 2, right off the front courtyard (the sliding doors facing Thornberry in the dining area) is a wonderful deck and the location of my awesome formal, koi pond (1200 gallons of healthy, beautiful pond)!

Here is the key - just to frustrate you as you try to match up the little plants from the key with the landscape drawing.

Ok...now that you are equipped with a key, here is the entire landscape.  Notice that I tried to give you an idea of where the house is and the front door - that is all I can do unfortunately...  Better than nothing, though!

 And here is a "close up" of the deck and the front courtyard area...the spot of my koi pond.

Wow...that isn't very much better than the first image.  But that little rectangular spec right off the wood deck is the koi pond.  I am going to ask her to make it quite a bit larger and 1 more foot deep - the pond will be partially below ground.  The ledge of the pond on the deck side which will be above ground will also serve as a bench on the deck.  Pretty clever, huh?

Now good luck trying to figure out what each of the plants are...hint, the 6 circles lining the right are double knock out roses.

tile stream of consciousness...

Ok...for those of you who have been asking us what kind of tile we are using in the bathroom, this is for you!  Except, instead of just sharing our choices for the bathroom, we will share our choices for all of the tile which will be in the house.

I can tell you without hesitation that of all of the challenges to this point, choosing tile has been the hardest.

First, there is the budget...we asked Tom what our price range is and he said $3 a square foot.  If  you have priced tile anywhere, I mean tile that you would actually use, you know that this sort of tile does not exist.

I accidentally found Ann Sacks and realized really quickly that some tile can cost more than appliances.  So, with the budget in mind and the internet at my fingertips, away I went searching page after page of tile...glass tile, stone tile, ceramic tile, mosaic tile...  Started to feel a bit like Bubba, except for me it is tile instead of shrimp - for those of you who missed out on my Alabama humor, Bubba was in Forrest Gump. 

But for real, after a while of looking only at tile, I had to take breaks because I felt I was gonna go a bit insane...  I kept telling myself that it cannot be normal to have visions of tile shadowing every aspect of my waking being...even my dreams were consumed with page after page of tile.  How can I best view the most tiles at one time - I really enjoy the sites that allow you to see all products, even though there are like 3000 but why do they do that?  I think the waiting for the images to load is more frustrating than 20 per page.  Now, 100 per page performs pretty well.  If you have searched tirelessly for that perfect something on the internet, you understand.

And, for those of you who would be completely perplexed that we could choose tile online and think that there is no way that you could select tile from internet retailers after only seeing pictures, then maybe you should not read any further.  Just about every tile was selected site unseen with trust based on previous internet shopping adventures and knowing that the pictures are usually quite accurate and reviews really help to confirm any lingering doubts. 

After confirming our choices with Tom so that he could order them, we now just wait and hope that they look like the pictures...

But, I digress.  Since we do not have large areas that require tile, the task of choosing shouldn't be so tough, right?  Wrong...with all of the different price ranges and types of tile all just a click away, we realized that we had to have some sort of a game plan.  The best one I could come up with was to shop one room at a time.  With this approach, we are pretty excited about our selections...and hope that Tom was joking about the $3 per square foot.

Let's begin with the upstairs bathroom.  For the floor, the choice was quite easy and believe it or not, we were able to stay within the budget...actually, I think that Tom might have found these tiles for just a bit under budget at $2.99.  That is a whopping 1 penny per square foot under budget for those of you keeping score!

The tile is by DalTile and is called Fabrique in Blanc Linen.  This tile will be used on the floor of the upstairs bathroom as well as the laundry room downstairs and is a 12x24 field tile.  As hard as it is to believe, this tile is porcelain.  The only site I could find that had a pretty good description has the price at 3.99 but if memory serves me correctly, we found them for less.  Anyway, you can read more about the tile here...

The wall tile was a bit more complicated since we wanted to have a little bit of fun and not be predictable - and not being predictable makes it almost impossible to stay within the budget.  But at least we can rest assured that just about any tile has to be closer to the budget than the tile I was pricing out at Ann Sacks.  Did you know that there is tile that costs $110 a square foot?  Believe it... 

Ann Sacks must love her some rich folks!  Anyway, I got a little creative here  knowing that we were wanting something in the gray family and hopefully glass, so we found some vitreous glass mosaic tiles in three complementary colors (storm, cloud, and beach).  These will be installed in a modern linear pattern which I will draw out for the installer.  This tile will also carry into the common area and be installed behind the mirror and above the vanity.

Storm Color - I sure hope that the dangling tile near the bottom right of the sheet of tile is not representative of all sheets in our order...

Cloud Color - should work nicely with the Storm...

 Beach Color - a nice mix of the two...

Now I know that separately, these tiles are sort of blah.  But here is sort of the vision of how we want these tiles to be installed.

Now, mixing these tiles together really makes some blah tiles pop, if I do say so myself...  The design will probably be tweaked multiple times, but we ordered 40 square feet of storm (dark gray color)  and 20 square feet of the other two.  So, the pattern will have to work out using 2 parts storm to 1 part of cloud and beach.

As you know, we have already ordered the penny tile that we will have installed in the powder room from floor to ceiling on the wall opposite the door - not sure if the vanity will be installed before or after, but I think we have enough either way.  I have discussed this tile in a previous post...

The master bathroom was the most challenging - especially to the budget.  For the shower, we chose this tile which is both a glass and marble mosaic of larger and smaller pieces in a random pattern - this will installed AFF which I just recently learned means above finished floor. 

Now for the shower floor, we will be using natural stone pebbles.  My only hope is that this is not a fad but since it is only going to be in the shower, we took a risk and went with them because we like the way they look and I bet they will feel really cool too!

What do you think?  Will these tiles go out of style in like a hot second?  I have seen some folks go crazy with these tiles on Houzz - but I think limiting them to the shower area and also matching them to the floor tiles will keep these current. 

Now, some folks said that these tiles were quite difficult to line up - looks to me as if the shape lends itself to easy installation.  Now, I am not sure how they will get a straight edge when they lay these against the wall, but I leave such challenges to the trained professionals.

And for the master bathroom floor we actually were able to find some more tile that was in budget!  These tiles are rather large (24x24) and are called Stream in the color Ice by Eleganza.  These too are polished porcelain but have the feel of natural stone.  I actually cannot believe how much porcelain and ceramic tile has advanced in the past couple of years - they can make tiles look and kind of feel like almost anything.  You can read more about these Eleganza tiles here...

The final tile we had to choose had already been decided on for quite some time - the kitchen backsplash.  We are using honed Carrara marble subway tiles.  These tiles will line the stove wall and the refrigerator wall - the Carrara marble on the island will be polished.  We know, we know...we have chosen the two most high maintenance countertop surfaces (Carrara and Soapstone) but we have our heart set on it, and know that if we change our mind at this point, we will kick ourselves...so no going back now.  The tiles below look tumbled, but you get the idea... 

We will update you at a later time on how our decision plays out.  We keep hearing that we will etch the island the first time we cook and that we should go with the honed finish instead of the polished finish...we have heard all of the warnings...and we are stubbornly not changing our minds. 

We figure if we have a high maintenance dog, we may as well have some high maintenance countertops as well!

green green go away...

The day has finally come when we no longer see any green board on the exterior of the house!  I cannot tell you how awesome today is!  The complete exterior of the house is either completed or in the process of being completed - the final element is the stucco. 

And, as luck would have it, the stucco guys started today - but what a monster job that looks like.  I had only seen finished stucco projects, so I didn't realize the steps required to get to the finished product.  So, here is the process as I know it.  First step is to attach some chicken wire looking mesh to the house.  Check.

Next step is to hand trowel multiple cement/stucco layers over the wire mesh.  First layer...Check.

And then the first layer has to dry...  Check.

When that layer is dry, I guess they will then do another layer.  And, of course, that will have to dry!  Then they will maybe trowel the final coat of stucco which is the actual colors we chose - gray and white.  And once that is complete, the only remaining exterior tasks will be to finish painting the trim and hardiboard siding.

My extremely knowledgeable and technical explanation of the stucco process is overwhelming, I know... 

Please do not ask me any specific questions because I am not going to google to learn exactly how stucco is applied.  However, if you do google, I probably won't be interested in learning...all I do know is that it looks like complex and complicated work!

And, I haven't actually seen them in action.  I saw the chicken wire looking stuff and then I saw the troweled on cement looking stuff...

Besides the final painting, all other exterior elements have been completed.  The brick is quite spectacular with many creative laying techniques...  I hope that last sentence is something that a person who knows anything about bricks would be proud to hear about his work, because it was meant to be a compliment.

And the wood panels look equally beautiful...

And the back courtyard area trimmed out nicely...

So, at 60% completion we can no longer see any of the green board...oh what a happy day!

minimalist approach to home theater sound...

Our builder, Tom Greico, posted renderings of the living/dining/kitchen area of our new home to facebook and someone asked about the location of our audio and video equipment.  I assume that this question was asked because choosing the proper equipment and speaker location presents a challenge to any modern design.  Whatever the reason, it provided a timely subject for the blog...so if speakers and stuff bores you, you might want to skip this one.

Luckily, new home construction allows for wider options for speaker placement since there aren't any walls and we know exactly where the studs are.  We instructed the low voltage wiring guy where we wanted to have ceiling speakers and there are boxes with wire cut out of the sheetrock so that we will know where they will need to do the cutouts for the speaker holes.  All of the speaker wires will all be run to a central location so that we can plug them into our AV receiver.   

We will have a custom cabinet in the living area that will house the AV equipment.  Somehow all of the wires will feed the speakers and tv which will be to the left of the fireplace.  We chose not to conceal our television.  It will be in a niche to the left of the fireplace.  The tv will be eye level when you are sitting - pretty clever design which we liked. 

Here is a rendering of the living area which the builder posted to his facebook site:

In ceiling/wall speakers for 5.1 sound can be quite expensive, however we found a company, Monoprice, that receives excellent reviews and offers speakers which are at a 15 degree angle.  The advantage of the angle is that we can place the speakers angled toward the sofa area of the living room - creating a sort of sweet spot. 

We purchased 2 pair of surround speakers, a center speaker and an in-wall sub-woofer for less than $300 and that includes shipping.   Now, I know...you cannot even get a good center channel speaker for $300...I know.  I know.  However, after reading the reviews, I thought that it was worth giving these speakers a try.

We already conceded that we cannot get "audiophile" quality sound out of speakers that are aesthetically pleasing.  Read more about the speakers here...

The surround speakers are quite large...ok, they are HUGE!  But, in order to get the angle, the speakers are larger than a normal 8" speaker [photos included are from Monoprice's website].

The angle of the front left/righ and rear left/right speakers does not change the look after installation.

The speakers feel as if they are high quality and are heavy.  Notice that the connections are not cheap.

 And below is a close up of the speaker angle.

Now for the center channel speaker, it will just barely fit between the ceiling joists, but we will still be able to install it horizontally.  Unfortunately it is not angled, but it should provide adequate sound.  We do not have audiophile ears, so based on the reviews I think that these should meet our needs.  Plus, they will look much better than box speakers would look - I think even if they do not sound perfect, the fact that they look so good will outweigh any negatives.

The subwoofer will be mounted on the wall to the right of the stairs.  The location of the sub is perfect.

For the whole house audio speakers we opted for Polk's - plus we got a steal on 4 pairs of speakers from Amazon.  We picked up the volume controls from Monoprice.  

We have an Onkyo AV receiver that is quite nice and is capable of driving 2 amped zones, however we have a Crown amp that will drive the whole house speakers. 

I look forward to installation day of all of the presents that we have purchased for the house because they are starting to really pile up.  We now have 4 boxes of speakers, the two island pendants from Restoration Hardware, the dining room chandelier, the powder room tile and sink.  But, I digress... 

I will provide a review of the speakers after we have properly calibrated them with the Onkyo microphone - this is a pretty awesome feature for those who do not want to spend hours calibrating each speaker.  That is it for now...cannot wait to update you about these speakers because that will mean that we are moved in!!! 

to match or not to match...

This week, our garage was installed and is a clean slate - bright white:

We have been tossing around the idea that the garage door should match the front door.  For those of you who have not been following the blog, the answer might be obvious.  But, our front door is going to be painted a lovely shade of yellow called Beach Ball. 

So, with this juicy bit of knowledge, should the garage door match the front door? 

At first, we thought we would just play it safe and paint the garage door the same color urban bronze (dark brown) as the trim.  Since you will only see the yellow door from Cortez, we figured we should just make a statement regardless of if you approach the house from Thornberry and Cortez. 

Since the house has a modern design and the exterior color is a mixture of neutral grays, we feel as if we would be doing the garage door an injustice by not painting it Beach Ball as well.

As a reminder, this is Beach Ball:

If you are overwhelmed by the color and are thinking, first, who would choose that color, and second, why would anyone then proceed to paint a door that color? 

Well, let me just point out that yellow front doors are becoming quite popular, so we cannot claim the idea as original.  Yellow garage doors, on the other hand, are not as blogged about.  But they do exist...

One of the many blogs which delve into the subject can be found here...  And then there is blogger who has captured another beautiful image which confirms that we wouldn't be the first to have a yellow garage door either.

So, as the house (and blog) nears completion, we (us included...) will all know if we were brave enough to match both of the exterior doors or not.

On a related note, the house is nearly ready to be locked up.  A temporary lock was installed on the temporary front door.

And we have ordered this awesome illuminated doorbell button by Spore which will make use of the lovely wires dangling from the greenboard.  You can find more information about the doorbell here...  The color of the one we chose is urban bronze with the white illumination, but you get the idea.  We can't wait for all of you to stop by and ring the bell...



ready for exterior material number two...

On a brief visit by the house today, we saw the next material that will be installed on the exterior of the house - the wood panels.  Luckily there are trained professionals on the job, because the staining process looks quite tedious and complicated.  While I am not quite sure how the multiple stacks of wood will be installed, I am sure that I cannot wait to see them off of the garage floor and onto the house! 

The staging area for the wood is the garage and it just so happened that the garage door was installed on April 17, 2012, so the wood stays safe each night.

Here are the stacks of wood being prepped... 

And these are ready for prime time...which will give us another excuse to go look at the house later this evening.



We were told that the boards which are not in the garage are ready to be installed - these are not in the garage...so we will soon have even more of the green board covered!

Update:  After revisiting the house, we have proof that those boards were indeed ready for installation.

This is a closeup of the back corner of the back courtyard.

This is how it looks from farther back.



brick and mortar...

We were presented with three choices for the brick mortar color - in a very clever way.  Honestly, I would have never thought of this...

It is very interesting how the mortar almost changes the color of the brick.  We chose door number three...and not only because it makes the bricks look less pink!  Below is a shot of the bricks with the stucco sample.  The stucco will be on the exterior of the second level and will never really be in direct contact with the brick, but the match is almost perfect!

I know it looks like someone used the stucco sample as a paintball target...but it's just splatter from the drywall. 

I cannot wait for the day that those wonderful green boards are covered with bricks, stucco and wood!  I am not a patient person...and I will not lie to you, I am so ready for the house to be done!  So, I will continue to suppress my impatience because I know that soon the exterior will be done and we will be that much closer to the finish line...

They say that a watched pot never boils...the same can be said about watching a house be built.

exterior color palette...

Today's post will be short and sweet.  The exterior color palette of our home combines multiple elements - stucco, stained wood, painted trim (not included in the photo below...but will be the color of the window trims), and brick. 

From left in the picture below...the stain color is espresso (I hid masked the other colors so we wouldn't be tempted to change our minds...), the stucco colors are total white and soft grey, the brick is a light mocha color (kind of like dark coffee with milk or one of those long dippy things that coffee drinkers enjoy...) and the door will be beach ball.

Things have been progressing a bit slowly since all of the little things like wiring, plumbing, and insulation has been installed over the past couple of weeks.  Now, the bricks have been delivered, the exterior wood is ready for stain, and the drywall is ready to go up!  I expect to really see this project start to near completion...last we heard, we were just over 40% complete!  That 7% since the earlier post sure has taken its sweet time!

So far, this has been a very exciting experience...I keep waiting to experience those moments that turn into horror stories for folks who have gone through this process.  I mean, we heard some STORIES...  So far, so good!

a door that pivots...

Funny story...the front door was installed on Friday morning.  I first noticed the windows - they are beautiful!  But when I further inspected the door I was a bit concerned.  The material of the door looked like hardboard, the kind that many artists these days are using as their canvas. 

Now, I knew that we were saving some money on the front door because we are painting it, but I was not expecting this...

We just assumed that not all of the pieces had arrived and since it is a pivoting door we kind of figured it would all work itself out in the end.  If you are not familiar with pivoting doors, there is no hinge required.  See below for a visual...

There is a happy ending to the story though...  We met with the builder on Saturday and asked about the door and he said that it was just construction door!  We all had a nice laugh...

Now, you might remember that we are going to paint the door yellow...and if any of you are like my mom, you are saying, YELLOW?  I think her exact words, in my best southern accent, were something like this: "You are really going to paint the front door yellow?  Like, lemon yellow...or school bus yellow?  I just can't picture a yellow door." 

I tried to explain that while not what you would expect, yellow doors are becoming popular by those of us who are not afraid of color.  Many posts, like this one (click here) are exploring the precarious topic of yellow doors.

While the specific color has not been decided, I did a quick drive by at lowes and picked up a few samples.  We are leaning toward the color below...and not just because it is called Beach Ball from Olympic, but that will make it easier to remember when folks ask...and we know folks will ask! 

 
And, for those of you who still may be skeptical, you won't be alone.  As was mentioned by another blogger, yellow doors are not for the faint of heart!