My prior post on the electrical, fireplace, kitchen and bath details grew into a monster of a post – so I decided to leave out my thoughts on why and how did we get here? and instead break them out into this post.
This photo on Houzz.com early on became one of the design touch points when I was talking about the layout of the house with Deck. It had the traffic flow layout that I was looking for and it just seemed “right” to me. The house entry is on the left, the kitchen and casual eating area is in the center, and off to the right, is the traffic flow to the private side of the house. This is actually how my house is now laid out – it fits the site well in terms of orientation and ground slopes.
Last week, when we were looking at the giant beam over the center of the kitchen, talking about roof penetrations and other things, Paul mentioned down draft ventilation and his personal good experience with it at his house. That triggered the changes to the layout described in my prior post. The main thing was the deletion of the overhead stainless hood/ventilation system. While talking with Shelby at the design center I realized that, because of the light in the Houzz picture, the hood wasn’t very ‘present’ – so what we are doing comes even closer to what the mind’s eye imagines when looking at the Houzz photo.
We are going to do a white subway tile with an accent color – probably orange or red – not the mix and match in the Houzz photo. The hanging rectangular light fixture will still be made – Paul is going to construct it from maple wood and hang it from cables.
It is interesting how we are getting closer to the feel that the photo evokes even as we in reality depart from it!
In the bath, I really was not interested in having a tub for my everyday usage – I can’t remember the last time I took a bath and I really, really don’t like how water always leaks around a shower curtain into parts of the bath that are not designed to be water proof. So the master bath is being designed for showers only and will have a walk in shower structure. Again in white subway tile but with some sort of accent color. Both bathrooms are specifically designed to not be large and opulent show spaces – mostly because I don’t spend much time getting ready for the day and this way, on cold winter days, they will heat up easily (plus – as part of my design philosophy of putting all the utilities and mechanicals in the core, they shouldn’t get too cold!).
Finally – ceiling fans. One thing occurred to me this month – the sprinkler system is going to be pretty high up near the ceiling – and on a series of really hot days, it could get pretty hot up there – which is probably not good long term for the wax in the sprinkler heads. So I thought about re-circulation. We have near ceiling make up air for the geothermal heating system but a fan may still be a good idea – hence pre-building a mount point.
If I install one, it probably will be one of these – a 52″ inch Haiku, with polished aluminum blades from Big Ass Fans
Finally – while we were wandering around the site yesterday, the Fields (my neighbors and the good folks who sold me the land) dropped by. I had never met them so it was very, very nice to finally speak with them. Their son Chris informed me that he was the one who spoke with Comcast when they quoted $65,000.00 for cable to be dug and run to all the houses on our common drive. Apparently also, if I had a land line put in, Verizon is no longer selling DSL internet service. So, in order to get internet service, I either need to spend uber money on a conduit from the street or go with a service that provides structured internet via the cell network – like this one from Verizon. Essentially they mount a commercial antenna on the outside of your house and you can sign up for 10, 20 or 30GB of data per month. I am thinking I will go this way – at least for awhile – maybe Verizon will bring FIOS to town at some point in the future. I would do satellite for TV services.
As the house comes together and there is more to see, I am going to start working on a post about the design process and influences. More on that in the coming months.