Colors, drawings and a porch

We've made some commitments on colors and that feels great, with a couple of exceptions which we have to tweak. I feel grateful to Teri who has been helping us out because I think we would have agonized about this stuff and its actually felt kind of easy.

Joe did a fine job finishing up the set of stairs and small landing entering into the west doorway. I spent almost no time on this design-wise because we're planning to do something a bit more elaborate and integrated down the road, but it made sense to get something in place before the winter so we can call it done.

Meanwhile, I've been hunched over my drafting table working on the plans for our kitchen cabinetry. Having looked over various approaches, I've narrowed in on how I want to go about building them and have starting doing construction drawings accordingly. After a bit of hesitation, I'm getting excited about this project. It'll be a pleasurable challenge.

Color

Teri and Nance working through ideas

Detail of the intersection of the second floor bath and the ceiling

The trim work complete

Designing and building a house may seem like an endless array of complex challenges to figure out, but today our friend Teri came over to help us work out some of the truly hard problems: colors and tile choices. Yes, we can layout a stair case, figure out intersecting roofs, install siding at 28 feet off the ground, but for the really hard stuff you gotta choose what color you are going to paint the place.

Both Nance and I have had this general sense that we're interested in playing it up a bit inside, but neither of us has had a clear vision when it comes to picking paint. Enter Teri. She's been really helpful in making suggestions and sort of conceptualizing the whole thing. There is no one answer but its great to have someone coming up with possibilities and then building on choices as things move along.

We find ourselves continually drawn to green in one shade or another, so at times we've tried to consciously veer away, but sometimes you just have to give in to what draws you, so most of our second floor will be done around a green theme, while the second floor bathroom will be a blue zone with an orange bathtub. I'm psyched about that.

We came up with a plan for the various spaces downstairs centered around more earthy browns, yellows and deep maroon-red. I think it'll all be really cool. We also (finally) nailed down a decision about the mudroom/kitchen floor: purple Vermont slate in a cool varied pattern.

The one area we talked a bunch about but need to do some more work on is the first floor bathroom. There will be tile, but what tile and how much needs to be worked out.

Speaking of color, I finished the second floor bathroom window casing and Nance has given it it's second coat of paint, so next up is the floor. That'll be really exciting.

Joe is working on some last exterior projects, namely stairs and steps to the porch and coming out of the west end doorway. They look really good.

Before the snow...

The back (north) side of the house. The bulkhead is lower right

Our new door

Retaining walls with partial gravel fill--more to come

We spent a couple of days last week building the retaining walls on either side of the basement hatchway. Its been on the to-do list for a long time, but it hasn't been pressing, so it was only now that we got to it. With the retaining walls in place, we can level and fill the ground adjacent on either side, which provides level ground for staging to install the windows on the back side of the house.

We also installed the entry door off the porch. As soon as it was in, I took it out of the frame and down to the basement for painting and finishing. Its a beautiful douglas fir door and we're quite pleased with it. Nance suggested that we paint the exterior a shade of green we'd considered for the exterior of the house and so that's what we are going with. Its a cool color. Stay posted for the unveiling.

Paint Color Test

We've been working on the exterior color scheme for a while now, noting places that we like, looking in books, soliciting advice and anything else to help us get closer to "it".

A couple of houses have inspired us. The first photo shows a schoolhouse in Woods Hole, MA that is being renovated. We stopped by and talked with the painter and were able to get paint color numbers and all. The scheme is basically a grey body, cream trim, and cottage red window frames. In fact, the different walls of the building have been painted and matched a few times, so there are different tints in different areas. The one wall we liked in particular had a ever-so-slight green tint to it, which is the wall on the right with the three large window openings.
This photo shows a house in Moretown, VT that also caught our eye. The scheme: light green body, ever so slightly creamy-green trim, and black frames. Its a striking combination, but we thought we'd try a combination of the two: cottage red frames with the green wall and cream trim.
In order to do this, I mocked up some clapboard siding on the end of the breezeway over our water catchment system; green, cream, red on the left and green, cream, black on the right.
The next two photos are an attempt at showing the colors isolated from the surrounds, but the sunlight was casting shadows making it a little hard. I might try again when the light is neutral. If you, dear reader, have a strong argument one way or the other, speak up soon. We meet with the window guy tomorrow and that'll be when we nail it down for good.

Color

We need to order our window very soon, and before we do that, we need to determine the color of the exterior of the windows and that is a motivation to determine the color scheme for the exterior of the house. We're working on it, but if you, dear reader, have some sense of inspiration or great suggestions, please feel free to speak up. We don't want to be boring; we want to be bold but dignified with whatever we come up with.

I started sketching a photocopy of south elevation without worrying too much about whether it made sense or looked good. I just wanted to start playing with ideas.