Having just spent four years in a condo without a deck, the importance of nailing one’s deck strategy was clear to me from the start of this project. I wanted decks in as many places as it made sense, in order to take advantage of the property’s great views and outdoor entertaining potential.

There was already a large patio area outside where the old house used to be so that part was easy. Here’s what the patio looks like now:

Additionally, the plans called for a master bedroom facing southwest looking over Puget Sound so putting a little reading deck out there was an easy call as well. We ended up making this deck about two feet shallower so we could extend the interior space of the master bedroom out a bit, but it’s still plenty big enough for having a glass of wine or reading a book on. Here’s what it looks like:

The coup de gras grâce, however, is the rooftop deck. I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t build one of these. Flat roofs with rooftop decks are so much more useful and fun than sloped roofs with, uhhh, shingles. If you have any sort of view whatsoever, you should have a rooftop deck. Here’s how ours ended up:

Now on to some particulars…

For the material, we ended up using Trex Brasilia in espresso color. I did a ton of research into decking materials and concluded that there are no panaceas. The only wood that is as durable and trouble-free as I’d like is ipe, but it cannot easily be stained and tends to silver quickly — a look I was not interested in. Concrete pavers are the lowest maintenance option, but they feel tough on the feet and we already have enough concrete around the outside of the house. Composite decking reviews are all over the map with some installations performing well for people and others exhibiting mold and other problems fairly quickly. We ended up going with Trex because it is a brand that’s been around a long time and it looked the least fake to us. So far so good on the Trex.

For railings, we went with ipe for its low maintenance qualities. Since it’s just the railing, we don’t mind the silvering here.

For posts, we went with galvanized steel with steel cables running through them. I’m not a huge fan of how galvanized steel looks and went to great pains to minimize its use throughout the project (particularly on the awning), but considering the low profile of the posts, it was a good low maintenance material to use here.

As mentioned in the hot tub post, we went with a HotSpring Sovereign hot tub for the rooftop deck and couldn’t be happier with it so far. It might be the best feature of the house.

Every so often, a design element just doesn’t end up looking good. Such is the case for the galvanized steel awning that went up above the front door. There are a few things wrong with it, in my opinion, but of course, this is all subjective:

• The galvanized steel just doesn’t go with the rest of the house and is too industrial looking.
• The scale does not look right. It’s neither as thick as the elements around it, nor as thin as some of the aluminum details near it. It also seems like it should span all the way across the box.
• It doesn’t provide a mechanism to cleanly conceal lighting which should inconspicuously light the front door area.

Sometimes when less-than-ideal elements go up, you can make a few tweaks here and there to salvage the situation, but I think this was just a clear (and rare) case of a design miss. Build is working on some ways to keep the steel structure up to provide stiffness and wrap it with a different material, like aluminum or fir, whilst providing a means to conceal puck lighting inside.

My lesson from this is to stand strong against materials you don’t particularly care for. I’ve never liked galvanized steel and underestimated the effect it would have on the front entryway. I’m sure things will work out fine but this is a misstep I would have rather avoided.

Via Freshome, however, comes this nifty piece of technology:

A holographic display to aid in the visualization of your new home. Very interesting stuff. It still doesn’t solve the spatial problems I’m looking to solve with my idea, but it’s interesting and potentially useful nonetheless. How much would I have paid for something like this during the design process? Probably only a grand or two. Seems useful though.

Roofing

The house has four roof surfaces: the south roof, the north roof, the roof deck between those two roofs, and the garage roof. The north roof and the garage roof are standing seam shed roofs in a warm grey tone. The roof deck will be clad with Trex Brasilia espresso synthetic wood decking. I feel pretty good about these three surfaces.

The only roof I’m still not quite feeling is the south roof. It’s almost flat so it wasn’t a good candidate for standing seam metal, so we went with a white single membrane surface. The white doesn’t look great but at least you can only see it from the roof deck. On the bright side, you can easily walk on the roof and it will also be easy to install solar equipment — which I’ve pre-wired for — when the economics make sense. My main concern with this roof is how the edges look from the street. The edges require a noticeably different treatment than the edges on the shed roofs, and I’m just not feeling the gestalt yet. The plan is to edge the south roof with the same Cembonit cement board panels we’re using on the rest of the house. We’ll see how it goes. I’m reserving judgement until the siding is up and I can see how everything meshes together.

My roofing contractor is Nate Dowers Construction and they have done a bang-up job so far.

UPDATE (5/1/2010): We decided to turn the south roof into a matching standing seam metal one after all. It cost us a few thousand dollars more but it looks better and should last longer than the membrane version. Looks great!

Doors

There are a few different types of doors in this house:

• Solid-core interior hinged doors
• Solid-core interior pocket doors
• Raumplus glass sliders (for laundry, office, and media rooms)
• Standard exterior hinged doors
• Huge, super-awesome front doors

So far, everything except the Raumpluses have been installed. The hopefully interesting details are as follows:

• We ended up going with the Linnea Pocket door locks and they aren’t as bad as I feared. Quite acceptable really, as far as pocket door interfaces go.
• For the standard interior doors, we went with Karcher Cyprus handles. They are clean looking and feel good on the palms.
• For the huge, super-awesome front doors, we went with a double-door made of fir veneer. Veneer is apparently much stronger and more resistant to warping than solid wood so that’s what people usually go with these days. The doors are almost nine feet tall. They feel majestic. We’re waiting until the siding and a few other details are done before picking the exact stain color. Some people might choose aluminum framed glass doors for a house like this, but for some reason, I just feel like a house should have wooden doors. Aluminum with glass feels too much like a retail space to me.
• For the front door hardware, we’re going with the Omnia Urban which looks sharp and meshes nicely with the NanaWall hardware.

Scope additions and shifts

Several items related to carpentry, installation, and various other areas of labor have been shifted in the budget from subcontractors to Build as they’ve taken tasks on themselves. I’m happy to have team Build tackle this stuff because of the high level of work they’ve exhibited so far. Additionally, we’ve added $4000 to the construction management budget — bringing it to $99,000 — to cover a lot of the extra coordination that is going into this project. I’m happy to increase the construction management fee modestly in this way as I feel I’ve gotten plenty of value for the money.

Here is the timelapse of framing phase:

I mentioned in my last post that we encountered a few sizing “issues” during framing, two of which were solved by minor shifts in interior walls, and one of which was unsolved.

The unsolved issue centered around the feeling that, at less than 12 feet, the master bedroom was too shallow. While 12 feet is a perfectly livable depth for a bedroom, it just seemed too cramped, especially for a house designed from scratch for its owner. The girlfriend and I both felt the entire master suite was just too small so we asked Build for options, priced out. The options were:

1. Move the entire exterior west wall of the master bedroom two feet west, enlarging the bedroom depth by two feet and shrinking the deck depth by two feet. This seemed like the most attractive option, but it was also by far the most difficult because it posed far-reaching structural problems. Turns out we would have had to re-beam a good portion of the house all the way from the north to the south. Approximate cost: $14,000.
2. Same thing as above but move the wall six feet west instead, to the edge of the deck, eliminating the deck. This was a lot easier structurally, but losing the master bedroom deck did not seem good. Approximate cost: $10,000.
3. Move only the section of the west wall that is glass two feet west, leaving the structural part of the wall in place. This poses no structural issues, shrinks part of the deck to a 4 foot depth and leaves the other part at a full 6 feet. Approximate cost: $1,500.
4. Steal a foot from the already small master bathroom and walk-in closet. Approximate cost: $500.
5. Do nothing. Cost: only disappointment.

After some heavy thinking, option 3 arose as the clear winner. It accomplished the objective of enlarging the master bedroom, didn’t cost too much, and it even improves the deck in a way, since the six-foot-depth area is a bit more private now.

So, sizing crisis averted!

There are a few very important things I learned from this process:

1. I can’t stress how relieving it is to have a design/build firm whose interests are completely aligned with mine and who isn’t interested in nickel-and-diming me for every little change order that comes along. With many traditional architects and G.C.s, even meeting about such a change would “start the meter” so to speak. Build has been great through all modification requests and I feel very lucky to have a team that cares as much as they do.
2. Not withstanding the above, I am a bit mad at myself for not doing more during design stage to ensure the house was sized appropriately. In looking at plans, I tended to concentrate on the more obvious questions like “where is the kitchen in relation to the living room and dining room” and “how many bedrooms are on the same floor at the master”. I really never scrutinized actual dimensions of rooms because I just figured there was a standard size for everything that would be either met or exceeded. What I should have done is physically laid out string in an open space somewhere to match the dimensions of each room in the house. Just a quick “reality check”. This lesson gave me a great idea for an invention/business that I may pursue at some point. The bottom line, however, is that it doesn’t matter who your architect is… they are going to design what they think works and if you don’t have the data to know otherwise and say something, you’ll end up with questions and change orders.
3. In this phase of the project, I will freely admit that I have gone from a “low to medium maintenance” client to a “high maintenance” client, and I think I know why: I am a web designer. My world is not a world in which I spend months planning things with the intent of building them out to the meticulous specs of the plan. My world is a world in which you have an idea, mock something up, prototype a little, iterate, launch, and then keep iterating after that. The foundation is never set, the walls are never nailed, and the paint is never dry. Working on the web is an infinitely iterative process and designing a house is the opposite of that.

After initially inspecting the property (at a cost to me of $116.25), the City also required me to submit a full, written geotech report with my application. You may remember that I already paid $350 for a “verbal” geotech report before I bought the property, but I guess when you ask them to write something official up, it’s much more expensive. I used Icicle Creek Engineers this time and the charge was $2700.

Other matters

I don’t have a whole lot of new renderings to display, but here’s one of a proposed ceiling treatment for the living room:

I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but it — or something like it — will be necessary in order to dampen the echo caused by the vaulted ceilings. The idea is to put something visually nice on the ceiling and pad the area above it with a sound-dampening material.

Also, I’m getting to the point where I need to start thinking about sinks, lighting, appliances, and other interior details. Does anyone have any recommendations as to where the best places to shop online for that stuff is? I’m interested in sites which showcase hardware, lighting, and appliance design as well as retailers where you can actually buy the stuff.

Anyway, here are the two best-looking renderings:

More importantly, however, the front of the house is looking much better now. During our meeting last week, we studied several different materials for the exterior of the house including corrugated metal, fiber cement, stucco, concrete, and a few different woods. Discouragingly, none of the comps that were presented made me jump out of my chair and say “that’s the one!”, but I encouraged Build to refine their rendering with more foliage and multiple camera angles and I would re-evaluate at that time. I have to say, upon leaving the office, I did have a nagging doubt in my head about whether or not the front of the house would ever end up working for me.

Not being able to think about much else, I spent my entire Friday night playing around in Photoshop, adjusting angles, colors, and a few other things. Modifying a 3D model in a 2D program is no easy task, but by the end of the night, I was able to produce a slightly modified model that already looked quite a bit better to me. I shot the model back to Build, and a few days later, they shot me an entirely new set of renderings that were much, much better than even my modded one. Thank god for modeling programs. I couldn’t imagine building a house without this sort of visual aid.

The front of the house is starting to look sharp now! See drawings below:

House front, view from straight-on

House front, view from northeast

Main floor schematic

Second floor schematic

Roof schematic

So, with everything looking great now, I need to do some serious thinking about how and where we can cut some costs associated with construction. So far, that’s proven difficult, as I’ve heard it always does. :)

Back side

Front side

Main floor

Upper floor

I think the back is looking really great. The major addition since the last renderings is the rooftop deck with the hot tub. We’re still figuring out how the roof access is going to work, but a hatch seems like the most cost-effective, least obtrusive (albeit a bit ghetto) solution.

The floorplans are also looking good, with the main floor really opening up, two flexible locations for the dining room (west edge or north edge), and an upper floor that accommodates the requisite three bedrooms. I still have a punchlist of things for Build to nudge around in the floorplans but nothing major.

The front of the house, however, is still not quite doing it for me. It just hasn’t achieved the Feng Shui that the back of the house has yet. I don’t know if it’s the angles, the paneled siding, the colors, or what, but it’s just not there yet. We’re going to experiment with some siding and color options as well as modifying the angles and lines until we achieve curb appeal nirvana.

And now for the costs.

Ohhhh the costs.

Let’s just say they are too high. It’s not Build’s fault as they are just estimating materials and labor for a house of this size and finish, but as the house is currently spec’d, it’s about $400k over my anticipated budget.

That’s a lot.

I’m not sure what we are going to do about it yet, but I’m glad we’re having this conversation at this stage rather than mid-construction. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about architects underestimating projects only to have the homeowner vastly overextend themselves in order to finish the project. In Build’s words, they are trying to “make sure any financial surprises we run into will be positive ones”.

I like that.

We’re going to meet this Friday to discuss packages of things we can possibly save money on.

With the stock market sinking a whopping 18% last week, I have major questions in my head about what the cost of construction labor and materials will be come spring when we break ground. I have thought for the last several months that the cost of construction would decrease as the economy soured but have been told that so far, that hasn’t happened. That’s all well and good because before last week, the decline in the economy was a slow bleed, but last week was extremely damaging. It wasn’t just damaging to wall street fat cats and hedge funds. It was damaging to anyone and everyone who has any money invested in the stock or bond markets. In my opinion, it was the sort of calamity that is going to finally cause people to really watch their spending.

Everybody is always so quick to talk about how the American consumer borrows and spends above their means, but I think this episode shook a lot of people to their core. I think it canceled a lot of vacations and certainly canceled a ton of construction projects — indefinitely. When I think about how many construction projects will break ground in my neighborhood this spring, I think there is a real possibility that I’ll be the only one. Who knows.

Although the financial crisis we’re going through right now is a terrible thing, I’m hoping the cost of building a house during it will be commensurate with the reduction in wealth we’re seeing in the equity markets. If anyone has any good web sites at which to track the cost of materials, let me know. I know the cost of both lumber and copper have plummeted, but beyond that, I have no idea.

I already don’t want a gigantic house so I figured the compromise stage would mainly be relevant when picking fixtures, appliances, and building materials. The problem, however, is that the existing concrete foundation I’m trying to work with is already a bit too big. It’s about 1700 square feet, so a simple two-story house would weigh in at 3400 square feet. Finish out the 1300 square foot basement and you’re at a whopping 4700 square feet, not even including the garage.

I’m trying to keep the house under 3000 square feet so it’s a challenge finding areas to chop out. Although the basement level has a killer parlor room which opens out to the lower lawn and garden, I’ve decided to leave that entire level unfinished for now, mainly to save money (on both construction and the tax assessment). I figure we’ll just frame it, insulate it, run electrical and plumbing down there, and then think about finishing it years later. The rest of the house is so spacious that if the basement level didn’t even exist, I would barely miss it.

I inquired with Build as to whether we could move the north wall of the house in by 5-10 feet in order to create a bigger sideyard buffer between me and the neighbors and also to reduce the house’s square footage, but it turns out that might actually increase the price of construction because it requires some modification the foundation. We may be able to shove the garage 5 feet or so into the house footprint reducing a bit of square footage, but I’m not sure how much that will save.

Without being able to chop much off the footprint, the upper floor becomes the main opportunity to eliminate square footage. Vaulting the ceilings in the living room so that they are double-height chops off a good 500 square feet, and I already wanted vaulted ceilings, so that is a gimme. Build, however, recommended that I think about eliminating one of the bedrooms up there so that the upper floor contains only the master bedroom and one additional bedroom. While I don’t have any problem with this as it relates to me living in the house, this is officially the first time the subject of “resale” has entered into the decision making process. Many people feel that if you don’t have two bedrooms for kids on the same level as your master bedroom, your house is significantly less desirable to potential future buyers with small children. Although I hope I live in this house until I die, I’m not sure I can eliminate that bedroom and risk compromising resale value. Additionally, I feel like the two additional bedrooms on the top floor will be among the cheapest parts of the house. Drywall, carpeting, closets, and lights… that’s about it.

So with all of that, we may not be done cutting square footage yet… we’ll see. Onto other matters.

Chloe seems to like the entire stack of plans.

Build presented three separate designs on Friday to determine which layout felt most comfortable to me. Even though this meeting was supposed to zero in a little closer on a single design, I very much appreciate the fact that I was given three, considering how many variables are still up in the air. Schematics of the three designs are below. I’m concentrating on the main floor for now because that is where the majority of waking hours are spent. Once the main floor is nailed, the upper floor can follow from that.

4B is my favorite plan (by quite a large margin) because it accomplishes the following things:

• Opens up the living room
• Connects the media room to the living room and pushes it eastward away from the giant glass, eliminating glare
• Places the dining room in a dramatic spot, from a view perspective, without chopping up prime main floor space
• Locates main entrance such that it leads to a long straightaway which eventually exposes the grand view
• Doesn’t attempt to dominate main floor with kitchen, but centrally locates it so it can serve multiple areas

It is also interesting to note that Andrew and Kevin over at Build preferred 4C. There is nothing wrong with this, but it illustrates two important things:

1. It’s perfectly ok for your preferences to differ slightly from your architects’. If they differ tremendously, then you may have picked the wrong architect, but there is nothing wrong with putting in first place what your architect may initially put in second place.
2. If an architect picks their favorite early on and presents it without any alternatives, they may be doing you a disservice. I love that Build followed through and presented three separate designs even though they really liked one in particular early on.

So without further ado, below are the latest plans. Overall, I’m extremely happy with the progress Build has made so far and look forward to the next meeting the Friday after this one. So far, all of the meetings have been exactly two weeks apart and that seems like the right amount of time to properly iterate. I’m not in love with how the house looks from the front just yet, but it’s still a rough rendering and we’re concentrating on the interior for now.

Front of the house

Back of the house during the day from the northwest

Back of the house during the day from the southwest

Back of the house at night from the southwest

Plan 4a

Plan 4b (the tentative winner)

Plan 4c