Design seems to be the bottleneck for most things right now

• specification of the exterior siding details
• selection of bathroom fixtures
• specification and placement of exterior lighting
• placement of interior lighting (the cans)

We’ve made a lot of progress over the last week, including

Exterior siding

The first thing to go on will be the window casing.  After looking at tens of pictures in our collection of 30-odd Craftsman books, Houzz, and Pinterest, we felt pretty good about the design specified by our architect, and inspired by an original Craftsman home just a few blocks away:

It is hard to see the window details because of the lack of contract on the casing, but is is pretty cool.  Here is our mock-up.

The siding was relatively easy, just a 7″ exposure on concrete Hardy Board siding.  We are using as much concrete on the outside as possible to minimize maintenance and the chance of dry rot.

The shingles are giving us the most difficulty.  We would like to bring in an element from the hosue we tore down, the shingles on the front sleeping porch.

That is an alternating straight line – staggered line pattern.  We’ve done several mock-ups on paper to get an idea what it would look like but are awaiting confirmation that the prefab shingle sheets can be made in this fashion (with equally sized shingles).

Bathroom fixtures

We were already narrowing in on the style of fixture we wanted, so one trip to a local showroom and we were able to select about 90% of our fixtures, as well as a bathtub and toilets.

And it was fun. 🙂

As a bonus, the showroom also had appliances.  We absolutely love the Thermador kitchen appliances; the high-end look of say, a Sub-Zero, but at a lower price point (and more reliable).  Check out this fridge:

Exterior lighting

We now have a complete exterior lighting package and have selected all lighting fixtures.

We also have a detailed layout of what goes where.

 

This culminated today with a meeting between us, the designer, the builder, and the electrician to mark exactly where each fixture would go.  This stuff is a lot of work!

We got through a bit of the interior lighting today, with more coming tomorrow.  The plumbers, electricians, and siding contractors should be able to start very soon.