Twilight Field Journal

41: Common Sense Design

2009-02-14T11:43:00.001-05:00

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander is an indispensable reference book for anyone building or renovating a house. It's the second volume of a three book series that gives readers new/old ways for looking at design. Alexander and his colleagues take a common sense, human approach to design issues (or patterns) and follow each with concise, useful advice. While they start in the larger realm of community and neighborhood planning and work their way down through the most intimate experiences of a house, it's all presented in an easy to dive-in-and-out of format that will leave you thinking and planning a more inspired and natural home. I found a lot of inspiration in this book. Fascinating stuff.

40: Inside Kitchen Cabinets

2009-02-13T21:29:00.001-05:00

I like the pull-out shelves in my Plain & Fancy kitchen cabinets so much, I decided to give them their own post with pictures. As you can see, they still need a little organizing, but they really make everything inside accessible.

39: Kitchen Cabinets

2009-02-12T10:15:00.006-05:00

Some details and thoughts about my Plain & Fancy cabinets:

* Slide-out shelves in all the lower cabinets make every inch—front to back—accessible and easy to use.

* Soft-close hinges keep cabinet doors and drawers from ever slamming shut.

* Plain & Fancy offers standard paint colors, as well as any custom color. I picked one of their standard whites to help keep costs down. I matched it as close as possible to the white of the ceiling on the first floor. It's not a perfect match, but I like the character that the subtle variation gives the space. This is another example of when a little planned imperfection be a good thing.

* Their factory applied paint is much more durable than regular on-site painted finish. These clean up easily and beautifully. I use Mr. Clean's Erase sponges.

* I chose a very simple raised panel door style called Vogue.

* There weren't a lot of options for the hardware that can be purchased with the cabinets, but I liked their simple hammered pewter finish pulls and used them on both cabinet doors and drawers.

* My Plain & Fancy cabinets are finished inside with a wood veneer that looks very finished and is easy to clean when necessary.

38: Kitchen Plan

2009-02-11T08:04:00.008-05:00

I had certain ideas (and tears from magazines) of what I wanted my kitchen to look like, but I can't say enough about the value of a licensed kitchen designer. When I decided to work with Plain & Fancy cabinetry, they connected me with Empire Bath & Kitchen in Utica, New York to help me develop a plan. I'll admit that in the beginning I doubted that they were going to be able to show me anything I didn't already know, but boy was I wrong. My kitchen isn't that large, so there weren't a lot of options for how the room could be laid out. The kitchen is partially open to rest of the first floor, and it's also the passageway into the house from the back door. Plenty of reasons to turn to a kitchen expert.

It made more financial sense to have the open upper shelves built by Oak Tree Homes, but Empire Bath & Kitchen worked out a plan for the Plain & Fancy cabinets below the counters and also above the counter on the stairwell wall.

Empire Bath & Kitchen really took all of the guesswork out of planning the space and maximized my storage. They knew where I needed single drawers and where I needed a stack of drawers; where electric outlets needed to be placed above the counter; and figured out how to make it all fit in the limited space. It couldn't have been easier or flawless experience. The counters were templated, cut and installed as per the schedule they developed, and once everything was delivered (cabinet production took about 12 weeks) the entire room came together in a week.

Kitchen showrooms and dealerships are still more or less a mom-and-pop business, and their design services they are figured into the costs of the cabinets. There are mass retailers who make it possible for homeowners to assemble a kitchen on their own these days, but I've never seen one of those that looked seamless. Kitchens are great investments, and I would never recommend building a kitchen or renovating one without the skills of a licensed kitchen designer...even it you just need them to make your ideas into the beautiful room that you imagined.

37: Paint for the Public Rooms

2009-02-08T09:30:00.002-05:00

"Public rooms" is simply my way of collectively referring to the living/dining room, kitchen, mud room, half bath, stairway, upstairs landing, and upstairs bathroom. Working with Sherwin-Williams paint, I knew that I wanted to find a soft blue for these rooms. I'd used this color in my apartment in New York City, and it's a color that I find peaceful, soothing...and versatile. It's I color I almost always wear, and I guess it's just a color that suits me. The house is small (just over 1,600 sq. ft.) so I felt that I needed to commit to a primary color palette for the house...giving different experiences and color palettes to each of the two bedrooms for variety.

I actually saw a similar shade of blue used in a showhouse in Bridgehampton, NY. I had taken pictures of that project, and I had tears from a magazine that published it. (But let me point out here: magazines try very hard to get the printed colors on their pages to match the actual colors of the rooms they publish, but don't expect it to be a scientifically exact match.) With these images as inspiration, I pulled a handful of Sherwin-Williams color strips and spent time looking at them and playing with pairing shades of another blue for a second, slightly darker, shade to use on the trimwork in those rooms.

36: Paint Color Test

2009-02-07T22:38:00.002-05:00

Paint companies and magazines recommend testing paint colors before committing to gallons of paint. Most paint companies sell sample pots of paint, or you can always buy a quart of paint in any color you choose. Most recommendations are to paint a large square (or squares of different shades) on the wall of the room where you're planning to use it. I tried a different method for a very good reason.

I bought several sheets of foam-core poster board. You can find them in most places that sell art supplies, even some pharmacies. They're thicker than regular poster board, so they won't warp as much as regular poster board when you apply the wet paint.

The benefit of foam-core is that you can paint it and then move it around the room to see how the paint looks in different light. And, trust me, it will definitely look different in a corner of the room, next to a window and opposite a window. I went a step further and painted a wide border on one side to get an idea of what the trim color would look like, too.

It's a great trick for fine tuning your color choice. I even placed them in different rooms so that I could get an idea of what it look like seeing the color of one room against the color of another room through doorways. Again, I looked at these samples in various lights: bright daylight, twilight, even with electric light in the construction site.

35: Paint Color

2009-02-04T23:50:00.003-05:00

Many people are paralyzed by paint colors, and I suspect that white (and its many shades) is the most popular paint color for this reason. I decided to be bold—but not crazy. Winters in the Catskills can be long and gray, and I wanted the house to be happy and uplifting. I wanted some variety in the colors, but I didn't want the house to feel like a rainbow. So, I kept to one palette for the public rooms (living room, dining room, kitchen, bathrooms, stairway and landing) and another for each of the two bedrooms.

Color choices are really endless, but I turned to something that I've recommended before: my collection of photos of rooms that I like and pages from magazines that I've liked enough to tear out and save. Even if you haven't been saving things like this for years, it's worth a few visits to a newsstand, buy as many magazines as you can afford, and get to business tearing out images of things you like. You don't even have to limit yourself to images of rooms. Inspiration comes from everywhere: gardens, fabric, cars, plates, book covers, you name it.

I know that if you'll spend a little time collecting examples of things that you like, when you start sorting and looking through the cache, answers to things you like, like color, will become clear. It might look like a tornado blew through the room in the beginning. But the answers will be there.

Then visit paint stores and start matching paint chips to the images. You may not even need to take the images with you. I know that after the tearing and collecting exercise you'll have a very solid idea of what you're looking for—maybe not the exact shade, but the sea of colors won't look so confusing.

I collected paint chips, strips, whatever you want to call from several manufacturers. While they're free, keep your focus on just a few palettes. (I did and I do recommend picking up just one or two other colors outside of your palette that catch your attention. They can be helpful in re-confirming your earlier palette choice.) If your project or house is large, you may want to divide and conquer, say first floor one visit, second floor the next? But the idea is to gather a nice range of shades within the palette you're looking for. Take them home. Sort them out. Then start looking at them in different lights: daylight, twilight, lamp light. You'll be surprised how some colors and paints will shift in the different lights. In my opinion this is a good thing. These are colors will have a life on the walls. It's often subtle. When I say shift, I mean the hue of the color might go from warm to cool or yellow-ish to blue-ish in different lighting conditions It's all very subtle, but magical when you get the colors right on the walls.

I chose Sherwin-Williams paint. You'll also need to ask about your choice's lines of paints. Some are eco. Some are more wipeable than others. And then there are the finishes, which I'll get to later. In the beginning, I recommend "living" with the edit of your color chips. Look at them in the morning when you wake up, on a good day, when you're in a bad mood. Let the palette that you've narrowed sink into your imagination. Trust me, you'll find yourself changing your mind over the differences in subtle shades, but your subconscious will help get close to the final colors. There's one more step that I highly reommend before buying gallons of paint. I'll share that with you next.

34: Don't Let Anything Slide

2009-02-02T20:50:00.005-05:00

At the end of a construction project, the homeowner and builder have to both agree that everything was completed as per the terms of the building contract and the final check is written. The homeowner gets the key to the house, and it's theirs to occupy...as it is. I'm not encouraging anyone to assume that there will be things in dispute at this point, and I don't recommend withholding the final check unless things have gone seriously awry. I do recommend, though, that the new homeowner makes doubly, triply sure that everything is completed as expected and as specified. It's really easy at this point to be so happy that construction is finally complete that details can be overlooked...even ignored.

I should have learned my lesson. About 10 years ago, I renovated an apartment in New York City. The renovation experience didn't even begin to compare in scope and scale with my experience building a house, but when the renovation was complete, I was so happy and relieved to be back in my apartment I overlooked a few things that had been done incorrectly. Ten years later, I'm still living with mosaic tiles that weren't installed correctly in my bathroom, and—worse—a darker grout that was used on only one of four walls. The color is only slightly darker, but I notice it with a tinge of irritation every time I turn on the light in the bathroom.

Here at Twilight Field, there was one problem that wasn't readily apparent when work was finished and I took possession of the house. The in-wall sound system in the living room was installed, but I didn't yet have a TV to check it and discover that the subwoofer was missing behind it's grillwork...and over a year later I'm still trying to get the system connected and working correctly. My builder has come back and installed the missing subwoofer, but something more is wrong with the system. It's still not working.

Mistakes happen, and it's amazing that this is the only real problem that I've had during or after construction. But, don't let anything (in my case needing to purchase a TV in time) prevent you from checking out everything in the project before you agree that the job is done. I'm back in touch with my builder, and he's coming back to work out the problem. I'll share more about the sound system in another post.

33: Porch Sconces

2009-01-26T21:01:00.002-05:00

I found these interesting lanterns at Shades of Light. I had seen a lot of nautical, Arts & Crafts, and modern styles of exterior lights, but I was looking for something that would have a hint of Western farmhouse style. The Catskills were actually a part of the United States' first frontier and "Wild West." These bronze outdoor hurricane lanterns are no longer available, but I highly recommend Shades of Ligh t as a source for something unexpected. They've got lots of styles in their catalog and online.

I used a pair of the sconces at the front door and a single one by the back door. They came in two sizes, and I was very careful to find a size that worked with the scale of the house. I haven't done a lot of specifying product like this, so I didn't place my order until the house was under construction. I used poster paper and roughly sketched the sconces in both of the sizes that they came in. I highly recommend doing this. The drawings don't need to be perfect. After creating the silhouettes, cutting them out and taping them in place on the side of the unfinished house, it was easy to decide on the right size. It was also priceless in determining where to actually have them mounted on the house, which is a decision you definitely want to make with your builder.

I should also point out here that there was one thing that I found really disappointing with my decision to use vinyl siding on the exterior of the house. The product requires mounting boxes, which came in a standard size that is larger than the mounts of my light fixtures. It's a dead give-away that the siding is vinyl, but I like to believe (or hope) that the strong character of the light fixtures distracts from the mounts in the wall.

32: Porch Ceiling Pendant

2009-01-25T11:00:00.002-05:00

I found this great looking Moravian Star pendant light online at Shades of Light. At $450 it wasn't an inexpensive choice, but it gives the screened porch and that side of the house a nice touch of character. I put it on a dimmer (don't forget to consider this detail for most of your exterior lights). It makes it possible to set a variety of moods on the porch. I discovered after everything was in place that dimming the light at night also minimized the reflection of light on the screening...opening up the view from the porch after dark.

If you're on a budget, you're on a budget, but I decided to use exterior lighting that would give my new house a sense of a past...even if it's only in my imagination.

31: Screened Porch

2009-01-24T07:05:00.002-05:00

In the Catskills there's a serious "fly season," so there was no question that I needed to screen in part of the porch, the part that wraps around the side of the house and connects with the mud room. Oak Tree Homes had the foresight to also add screening beneath the floor of this part of the porch, which keeps flies and other insects from coming up between the planks. Flies, mosquitoes, whatever your challenge...make sure that you have as tight a seal against bugs as possible. As for screen doors, you can find them pre-made, but we ended up having them custom made. I wanted them as simple as possible, and I also had the issue of the 8-foot tall front door to deal with. It was more expensive, but the screen doors are very unobtrusive.

I've added a dark green wicker tea table and two wicker rocking chairs to my screened porch. With the windows open to the living room, I think of this part of the porch as the lungs of the house where interior air can freely exchange with the sweetly perfumed Catskills breezes during warmer weather. It's the also the perfect spot to watch the sun set in summer.

30: Porch Floor

2009-01-23T07:54:00.003-05:00

Porch floors can become a lifetime maintenance issue needing a fresh coat of paint every few years to keep them in shape. Composite wood, on the other hand, doesn't wear, and I discovered that the painted look of some product isn't so bad. In the beginning it does loot a little on the shiny side, but it softens a bit in the first few months of sun exposure, and the faux effect should remain pretty much the same without any significant additional change.

The only catch with what I've seen is that there is only one color, this dark green, that I think looks anywhere near like the real McCoy. I just attended the National Homebuilders' Show in Las Vegas where I saw similar products that I wouldn't recommend. If you're looking for composite wood as an alternative to real wood, pay attention to the texture of the molded wood grain and the overall look of the product. My problem with a lot of composite woods is that you can see the particles in the composite, which completely ruins the effect of painted wood.

You also want to plan careful how it will be installed. You don't want an installation where you can see the ends of the planks. It's where the composite material shows. We handled that issue by designing the porch floor with a perpendicular plank that outlines the exposed edges of the porch, which also gives the floor a more finished look.

29: Beadboard

2009-01-22T10:03:00.001-05:00

Beadboard comes in 4' x 8' panels and is relatively inexpensive (as well as easy to install). My original idea was to cover the walls of the first floor with wide horizontal planks of wood that would then be painted. I wanted some architectural texture in the rooms, and I was very leery of using too much Sheetrock. Oak Tree Homes was open to the idea of wood planks but warned me that the wood would expand and contract depending on humidity, heat and cold throughout the year. They were concerned that the resulting ever-changing gaps would drive me crazy. Then when we began to take a scalpel to big ticket items in the budget, I quickly came up with an alternative approach.

I simply took the texture that I had originally planned for the walls to the ceiling and switched from what would have been a labor intensive installation on the walls to easily installed beadboard panels for the ceiling of the living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor.

28: Faux Ceiling Beams

2009-01-21T20:20:00.004-05:00

Ok, they're fake. The ceiling didn't really need the support of beams, but I wanted this architectural detail for the first floor. There were some details, though, that I just couldn't imagine and specify for Oak Tree until construction was underway. I remember times during the initial planning stages when I thought, "if I just had four walls I could figure it out." Fortunately, Oak Tree understood, and helped me solve a few details later during construction. Once the house was framed and the interior rooms were being finished with Sheetrock and trim, Oak Tree mocked up a couple of samples in two different sizes.

When we held them up against the ceiling it was immediately clear that the larger size I had thought would be the answer—I wanted them to look substantial and real—was way too big. The next issue involved figuring out how the beams would meet the ceiling. For this, Oak Tree suggested a very simple crown molding that would wrap the room and provide a clean end for the beams.

I'm really pleased with the results. What do you think?

27: Ceiling Height

2009-01-20T21:35:00.007-05:00

The height of ceilings can have a huge effect on the mood and experience of the rooms in a house. I grew up in the Deep South and have always been attracted to rooms with high ceilings. Here in the Catskill Mountains, I decided to not install central air conditioning, or any air conditioning besides ceiling fans in the two bedrooms. It's rare that there isn't at least a light breeze blowing across Twilight Field and the summers are mostly mild.

Even though the foot print of my house is on the small side, I knew that I wanted to push the height of the rooms as much as possible, which is how I ended up with nine foot ceilings on the first floor, 10 foot ceilings on the second where the rooms are much more partitioned by walls, and a tall house. During the design process, I realized that I wouldn't need an attic with access for storage, because the full basement would give me plenty of storage space. Although the valleys created by the cross gabled roof are steep and cut sharply into the four corners of the house, I also decided to push the second floor's ceiling up to 10 feet and let the roof's valleys cut into the four corners inside. These bump-outs (or bump-ins) are most noticeable in the bedrooms, but they're really not that noticeable. In fact, I think they give the rooms a little character. As you've read before, I was very conscious of trying to incorporate things into the design of the house that would help keep the rooms from feeling like new, perfect boxes. Sometimes that meant letting a few "imperfections" happen and dealing with them logically. In this case, I decided to paint the bump-outs the color of the walls, as opposed to the color of the ceiling, so that they wouldn't create sharp visual points pulling the ceilings down.

26: Shingles

2009-01-19T08:32:00.001-05:00

The original plan was to give the house a metal roof. I really like the look of a standing seam metal roof on a house in, say, a deep red—from the very beginning I knew that copper was out of the question. But in the budgeting process, I decided the metal roof was going to be one of my money compromises. Obviously, the material is pricey, but I learned that what can really make the costs of a metal roof go through the roof—pun intended—is when the installation involves a lot of cutting. My house has a cross gable roof with four peaks, one on each side of the house, and would have involved a lot of cutting of the metal. Oak Tree Homes pointed me toward the most affordable alternative, asphalt shingles. I was surprised to learn that there are a lot of options in that world. So, I started looking at asphalt shingle roofs everywhere and noticed a few things that I incorporated into my specifications that give the roof texture so that it doesn't look like a boring flat surface.

I chose a color that has variations in the single panels. I believe it's called Colonial Gray, which simulates slate. My house looks particularly tall, because it's two stories with a fairly small foot print. It's also situated on a gently sloping hillside, so most of the roof is high above. You rarely have the opportunity to see it up close, which helps with the visual trick of simulating slate. Now, I'm not so delusional to think that it "looks like slate." When you really stare at it and think, it's not. But the overall effect is pretty good. I should also add that I chose a shingle style that has an irregular pattern when installed and a thicker profile (thickness of the shingles) to create shadow lines for more texture like real slate would have in the sun.

RIP

2009-01-18T07:14:00.005-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in the last few days. My pug Jack's health took a turn for the worst, and he passed away early Friday morning. As you might guess, the whole event left me more than a little disoriented and depressed. He was a fine old pug who lived a full life. He was my faithful companion and saw me through many events in my life, both good and bad. He will be missed greatly, but I've been able to take some time this weekend to reflect on the wonderful experiences we shared. I'm really grateful that I'll have memories of him in this new house. Although he didn't like the stairs and had to be carried in either direction, he did have his favorite spot on the sofa where he could keep an eye on just about every corner of the first floor. He also loved the porches—in warmer weather. Whenever I was working outside and looked toward the house, he'd invariably be positioned in a spot watching my every move. House Beautiful recently filmed me giving a tour of the completed house, and sure enough Jack showed up in the final edit right by my side or waiting patiently for me to come downstairs. The videos can be seen on the House Beautiful website. I'll be back to the 101 posts tomorrow.

RIP Jack (5-30-95 to 1-16-09).

25: Alternative to a Coffee Table

2009-01-12T11:20:00.005-05:00

Sometimes a large coffee table is just not the right choice for the area in front of a sofa. In my living room, which is on the small side occupying an area approximately 14'x16', I decided to use smaller tables instead of one large table that would fill up the space and be completely immobile. My solution was a pair of these interesting little galvanized metal tables. They're sweating-glass friendly, easy to move around as needed, and add a nice hint of farmhouse style to the room. They're from Mothology. You won't see the metal cone tables on the company's website, but they can be purchased by contacting them.

24: Water Pump

2009-01-11T21:45:00.002-05:00

I also made the decision to add a pump to the well, which will insure that the flow of water is always consistent. The pump allows me to dial up the pressure if I ever want or need to—like when I have house guests and everyone is showering while we're also running the dishwasher or the washing machine. So far, I've never changed it. The set-up in the basement is very easy to access, and Oak Tree Homes recommended I turn off the pump and close the water intake line from the well whenever I'm going to be away from home for more than a few days. As Mark explained, it's just a good idea to insure that I don't return from being away for an extended period to find that something happened with a toilet or an appliance (things do happen) and the pump kept working away flooding the house for days.

23: Drilling a Water Well

2009-01-10T08:46:00.005-05:00

Drilling for water was something that I knew nothing about. But, like the septic system and utility lines, it's one of the more expensive line items in a construction project.

I still don't know a lot about drilling, but there are some things you just want to have done well and efficiently without having to pay much attention. In my contract with Oak Tree Homes, I had an "allowance" of $6,000 to cover the digging of the well. This meant that my contract covered costs up to $6,000. If it cost more, and you can never predict exactly, I'd have to cough up more money. Oak Tree Homes brought in a drilling company that put in my well by slowly pounding their way down through the ground as opposed to a much quicker—and what I would have expected—drilling method. Mark of Oak Tree explained that while it takes longer, they've had much more success with getting a good well with the pounding technique.

No one explained exactly why it works better, but the well is working beautifully...and I'm not asking any questions. I've got clear, almost sweet water. In the end, the drilling cost a little less than budgeted and the extra money covered something else in the contract that went a little over budget.

22: Tankless Water Heater

2009-01-09T10:34:00.003-05:00

I decided to use a Baxi tankless water heater for all of my domestic hot water, as well as the heating needs of the radiant floor system in the house. More and more people are replacing their expired hot water tanks with one of these new models from Europe. Why has it taken Americans (and American manufacturers) so long to catch on? When I first spoke with my local electricity provider, they made me think that it was a bad idea by mumbling something about these machines being very energy demanding. They're not, and I went with a model that runs on propane. I later found out that the local electric company sells tank hot water heaters....wonder why they tried to dissuade me?

Tankless water heaters are extremely efficient in that they only heat water on demand. That means water when you need it for as long as you need it. I guess that doesn't sound very green, but you get the idea. I won't be keeping a tank of water heated 24/7 when it's not needed. Here's a picture of my Baxi. You can also see the faily simple the radiant floor system mounted to the right on the wall. When the interior thermostats call for heat, the system runs water through the Baxi, and these pipes send it to the appropriate plastic tubing that winds back and forth beneath the floors. It's a closed hydroponic system, so it uses the same water over and over again. There is minimal evaporation over time, but the system simply pulls in fresh water as needed. It's all amazingly compact.

21: Window & Door Lintels

2009-01-08T00:15:00.000-05:00

I borrowed an easy idea from a couple who are friends and designers in East Hampton, New York. Give windows and doors a simple lintel—almost Shaker-like—detail. Here I added a half inch overhang to both sides of the 6.5" wide top board framing each window and door. A nice little touch that really cost nothing extra.

20: Dark Green Window Sashes

2009-01-07T20:25:00.006-05:00

I didn't have a lot of color options for the exterior cladding on the Andersen windows I chose for the house. Fortunately, the dark green option looked substantial (not a flimsy aluminum-like color), so I color matched it in Sherwin-Williams paint.

In the way that one decision is built on the next in process of designing a house from scratch, Cascades SW7623 became the color I used for the inside of the window sashes. I knew I wanted a dark color, because I'd seen it used in this way on older homes. I'd also taken pictures a few years ago of windows painted like this in a showhouse in Bridgehampton, NY. (Don't forget to tear and take pictures of details and things you like long before you start designing. They'll make the design process so much easier.)

The dark color here is crisp and tends to disappear (except in winter) against the landscape seen through the windows. At night the sashes are virtually invisible, which makes the windows appear larger and more open to the outside. It's a handsome vintage look that I think most people never consider.

19: Cafe Curtain Rods

2009-01-06T20:04:00.000-05:00

Rejuvenation is a great online source for vintage looking hardware. I found cafe rods (particularly like the way they mount) and cafe pinch rings for the curtains. I chose the oil rubbed bronze finish to match the window hardware that I'd already picked for the Andersen windows. The cafe pinch rings are probably not the most secure way of hanging curtains that will definitely get some use in opening and closing, but they didn't require any additional sewing to attach them, which was a blessing during my make-it-yourself curtain project.

18: Cafe Curtains

2009-01-05T15:03:00.002-05:00

As I covered in 17: Blackout Shades, privacy isn't much of an issue in the country, so I don't need a lot of window treatments. I came up with a two layer design: black blackout roller shades mounted inside the window frames with simple white cotton cafe curtains over the lower half of the windows. The combination of the two gives me a lot of flexibility. I usually keep the cafe curtains pulled together over the lower half of the windows leaving me lots of blue sky (or star studded night) above.

17: Blackout Roller Shades

2009-01-04T13:59:00.004-05:00

With plenty of privacy in the country, I didn't want a lot of window treatments in the house.. I'm of the school that window treatments should have a function...and function. I'm not opposed to a decorative approach, but I find gratuitous, immobile window treatments irksome. For Twilight Field, I came up with a design that gives me a lot of flexibility in the control of light coming in through the windows, and for uniformity I used the same treatment on every window in the small house. In fact, the uniformity helps them disappear to a certain degree.

The first element of the window treatment, and the foundation for the whole design, is a simple blackout roller shade in black from Next Day Blinds. The style I chose is called Tropez in polyester with the texture of a simple cotton. Black doesn't come with a blackout liner, but it's not necessary in this color.

I think most people are initially startled by my choice of back shades, because most people think that white is the only neutral. I disagree. I also like the honesty of the roller shade design. I mounted them inside the window frames and left the rollers exposed. I don't feel they need to be hidden. In fact, at night the when the blinds are pulled down, the blinds look like the night sky and the windows almost appear to be still open—they don't make the small rooms close in on themselves like white or any other light color would.

During the day, they give me extensive control over the light when I need it: to sleep in late, nap in the afternoon, dim the room for better TV viewing, even softening the light by pulling them down to different levels. One of the core ideas behind the original design of the house was to have the house feel like a folly in the field with light pouring in from all sides. It worked, and the light is fantastic. The vintage look of these roller shades adds to the farm house style, but their function allows for a wonderful and varied experience throughout the day.

Let me add that Next Day Blinds is a fantastic resource. While they do offer an on-site measuring service, it was simple enough to follow their direction and take my own measurements. With shipping time included, I had all of the blinds within a week. A couple of weeks ago, one of the rollers stopped working, and Next Day Blinds couldn't have been more accommodating in getting it repaired immediately. Tomorrow, I'll cover the cafe curtains, the second element of the window treatment design.

16: Tile on the Diagonal

2009-01-03T12:31:00.002-05:00

There are not a lot of options for how a tile can be laid on the floor—especially if they're all square. But, laying them on a diagonal or alternately square with the room can have more of an impact than you'd imagine. The size of the room, the size of the tile and the color of the tiles all play into making this decision. My tiles are 18"x18" squares of a medium gray/blue slate. I used this tile throughout the entire first floor of the house, so I decided to have them set on the diagonal. Why? The floor plan is not large and the diagonal plan makes the rooms feel more expansive–a squared-off plan can feel more confining in a small space. Beware, though, because a diagonal plan can become very animated in appearance. I used only one type of tile. Alternating colors can become very active even in a squared-off plan.

The diagonal plan also require a tile layer to make more cuts and potentially more complicated cuts. With the living and dining room dominating the first floor, I decided to have him start the plan with a half tile centered on the front door of the house. I knew that once rugs and furniture were in place, this would be the part of the floor most visually exposed...so I wanted it to look the best. I actually used a piece of chalk and roughly sketched out this plan on the sub-floor earlier to make sure that it was the right approach. I continued the sketch all the way across the room, because I also wanted to see how the diagonals of the tiles would hit the stone Tulikivi fireplace, which has a few diagonals of its own. Fortunately, the diagonals were on very similar angles and the plan wouldn't need small cut pieces to fill in around the fireplace—I didn't want a lot of little cut diagonal pieces filling in the plan as it met the other walls and objects like the fireplace.

15: Porch Railing

2009-01-02T11:17:00.007-05:00

I looked at a lot of porches on old houses as I designed the details for my porch. It's a forgotten room of the house and a window on the world. When the design of a porch works, there's no better place to watch the day go by in summer—almost magical at twilight when the sun fades and the stars start popping in the sky.

I had noticed that on many newly built houses, porches often looked like prisons hidden behind tall, dense railing. I realized that building codes probably had something to do with the excessive height, so I asked Oak Tree Homes to check the codes to find out how low I could have my porch railing.

The porches of old houses can often have railings that are only knee level, which might be great for someone perching for a few minutes but are a potentially dangerous height when the drop to the ground is more than a foot or two.

So, keeping within our local building code specifications, I used white packing tape to mock up the railing after Oak Tree had put in the simple columns. Sitting in a chair, I made sure that I could still see the view when seated—important! And, I even went further mocking up the banisters (my tape was about the same width that they would be) to find the exact amount of spacing that would give the porch a little sense of privacy but again not spoil the view of the ground around the house. All it takes is a roll of tape and a tape measurer. It's always good to get an idea of how a built-in detail will look...even if it's only a rough impression. You'll have a better idea of what works and what doesn't. I also found it really helped having a "visual" for the discussion with the builder and tradesmen—again even if it's only a rough impression of what you want.

14: Exterior Doors

2009-01-01T15:29:00.006-05:00

I once thought that I would only use "real" materials for the building of my house, but as I learned about new products on the market—and the realities of my budget—I quickly re-thought things. And, I'm glad I did. In the end, no one wants a new house to become a black hole of maintenance and repairs.

Neighbors across the valley have a really lovely mid-19th century farmhouse, but before it recently sold, I watched the previous owners spend a lot of time (and money) getting things into working order. For instance, the beautiful French doors on an addition to the back of the house are solid wood...and at a certain point had warped and swollen to the point that they wouldn't close completely. Nature can really take a toll on a house, and solid wood doors are not as impervious as you might think. They react to moisture, freezing and thawing—a pretty destructive combination for most natural materials. To get the French doors working again a carpenter had to remove them and plane the edges. And, I'm sure it won't be the last time that those solid wood doors have problems again.

I made a mental note, and when I started specifying materials for my house, I turned to some friends in the industry who know a lot more than I do. One is a former magazine editor who now works for a marketing and public relations firm representing Therma-Tru exterior doors. Their fiberglass doors amazed me. They won't have the weathering and maintenance issues of wood nor will they have the denting, rusting or scratching issues of similar metal doors. While they offer a number of interesting door styles, I decided on their very basic Smooth-Star line, which has the look of painted wood (you paint it the color of your choice). It fits perfectly with my updated farmhouse style, and it comes in two standard sizes. This last detail was especially important for me because I had made a decision to go with 8' doors throughout the house, except for the exterior doors opening to the back and side porch, which are the more typical 6'8" height. In the Smooth-Star line, I was able to get the front door in a very affordable 8' size that adds significantly to the lofty atmosphere of the living and dining room while going with the more standard size in the same style for the other two exterior entries. The doors have been in place for a year and look fantastic. The paint is holding beautifully, and they're incredibly energy efficient. They also have a nice weight to their swing when you're opening and closing them—the kind of subtle detail the is very important to me.

13: Porch Lattice

2008-12-31T13:04:00.009-05:00

I'm still thinking about some of the exterior detail decisions I had to make. While I was surprised and happy with my decision to use vinyl siding on the exterior of the house, I didn't like the plastic option for the lattice that was specified for below the porches. So, I decided to use real wood lattice from Home Depot. While it'll need to be painted periodically, it has a texture that the plastic lattice lacked. It's subtle, but I like the shadow lines that the overlapping lattice creates. The vinyl version was completely flat. I also thought a lot about how to handle the color here. I saw old houses where the lattice and the face board trim was painted all one color (dark green or white). I also saw examples where the face boards would be a different color from the lattice. I decided to go with dark green on the lattice and white on the face board trim. I didn't want the color to become too heavy looking in all dark green, and I liked the way white face boards continued the vertical lines of the porch columns. This is a really subtle detail, but the face boards also have a rougher, less finished, surface than the wood of the columns and railing, which gives the exterior nice variation that I—at least—notice and like every time I see it.

Paint colors: Sherwin-Williams Cascades 7623 on the lattice and Sherwin-Williams Snowfall 6000 on the face board trim and porch railing.

Here are some photos of houses that provided inspiration for the porch lattice and other details.

12: Front Steps Handrails

2008-12-30T11:58:00.002-05:00

During the design process, I was always thinking about ways to give the house a sense of history—even if it was only fabricated. I didn't want all of the details in the design to be too uniform. Older houses usually have a layered look—you can often see how things were done to the house over time. In my study of old houses in the area, I realized that one those details is frequently the handrail on the front steps of houses. I noticed that they were often made of a different material than the porch railing of the house. So, I asked Oak Tree Home s to explore a metal option for the front step handrails. I shared some of my scouting shots of examples I had seen, and they first talked with their metal guy about fabricating something for me. This proved to be too expensive, but Eric at Oak Tree found a great alternative for a metal hand rail system sold through the Internet. We weren't able to get some of the details that I really wanted, like the balls in the scouting shot below, but the price for the new system fit my budget. It ended up being a really simple detail and we painted the steel (not aluminum, which would have felt too light) black. The rail is mounted into the slate tread and the columns of the porch. I wanted it to be delicate but strong enough to handle children swinging from the rail. Note: when using a new product to replicate the look of something older—like the rail in this case—pay particular attention to details, like the diameter for the railing here. Something too chunky, or on the other hand too small, would have ruined the effect.

11: Electricity Outlets

2008-12-29T16:09:00.002-05:00

I recommend mounting electricity outlets low to the floor, ideally horizontal in the floorboard trim. Electric cords from lamps don't drop to the floor and then climb back up the wall to reach the outlets. And, the walls are simply left visually clean. I may eventually try painting these plates to make them disappear even more.

10: Radiant Heat

2008-12-28T16:40:00.006-05:00

Radiant heat systems are really easy to install during construction, and if there's crawl space under an existing house, the system can still be installed without too much trouble. Getting it under the second floor of an existing house would be a different issue, but the installation downstairs and upstairs went quickly in my house—maybe a couple of days for the whole system. I'm utilizing a closed loop hydronic system which means that water is heated and pushed through a network of plastic tubes stapled to the sub-floors of the house. Basically, there are two runs of the tube between each floor beam, and they're covered with a sheet of something that looks like metallic bubble wrap to push the heat up into the floor and house. My system is very basic with one zone for the first floor and a second for the upstairs.

There were a few things that I did learn about radiant heat:

- It works under most surfaces, but it never really makes stone surfaces feel warm. They just feel neutral, which is not bad at all. Upstairs I used engineered wood planks, which do feel a little warm to the touch, especially if something has been covering the surface for a period of time. But, no surface is ever hot.
- The rooms heated by the system feel pleasantly neutral in temperature. I keep my thermostats set at 69 degrees. As I understand the principle, warmth under foot makes you feel warmer than heat blowing around or radiating from above. I find that if the system is set at anything higher it can feel uncomfortably warm–but I guess that's very subjective.
- When I'm away for more than a day or two, I'll lower the thermostats to 55 degrees to conserve energy. It does, though, take six or more hours to bring the house back up to 69 degrees when I return. Radiant heat systems are not meant to change interior temperatures quickly. Think of them as slow, steady, efficient heat.
- It's a blessedly quiet system to operate and the interior air doesn't dry out from forced hot air, which is the worst in my opinion.
- My closed loop system is filled with plain water. Sometimes people will add a little anti-freeze fluid that can be purchased for a system, but with the insulation in my house, I'm not worried about any potential freeze situations.

9: Manufactured Stone

2008-12-27T12:15:00.002-05:00

I had originally wanted the foundation of the house to be covered in stone, but it was one of the line items I compromised on when the builder and I went through the budget looking for places to trim. Mark at Oak Tree Homes suggested simple stucco, which actually ended up looking great. I had spent more than a year documenting details on old houses in the region. Occasionally, I'd find foundations covered in what appeared to be concrete, so the stucco doesn't seem particularly out of place with the locale. I hated to lose the stone look entirely, so I decided to keep it for the foundation of the steps on the front of the house. I actually liked the variety it added to the base of the house: stucco, lattice (under the porch) and stone. Mark had advised me the manufactured stone was a much more practical choice the trying to utilize stone from my property, which would never be able to stack and grout very permanently. He really opened my eyes when he showed me the variety shapes and colors that I'd have to chose from with the not so real alternative. What we used are basically brick faces molded to look like a flat field stone and colored to blend in with the native stones. The treads are slabs of real slate. I've thought about trying the old trick of spritzing stone with diluted yogurt or buttermilk to encourage the growth of green moss, but I now think I'm going to leave it alone letting nature decide what to do. One of my reference photos:

8: Hiding Vinyl Seams

2008-12-26T10:16:00.002-05:00

Vinyl siding comes in panels and mine happened to be 12 feet tall. As the crew was about to start installing it on the house, I realized that I could hide where the panels stopped and started on the side of the house. Those seams are one of the worst give-aways that the siding on a house is faux and not real. It looks like two pieces of paper overlapping. By starting with a new panel at the foundation, all the way around the house, one horizontal seam would be hidden by the porch roof line and a decorative plank strip on the other two sides of the house, and then the second row of panels needed to reach up through each of the four gables would give me a natural opportunity for a second decorative plank that I already knew I wanted for the gables. Fortunately, I realized all of this just before the crew started, so it was a simple request for them. In fact, it saved them a lot of cutting and the look is, well, seamless.

7: Hanging Plates

2008-12-25T19:23:00.004-05:00

I found a set of fish plates (with one piece inexplicably missing) that had belonged to my great-grandmother, and I decided to hang them in the dining area of the house. While I liked the look of the plates, alone they seemed too old-fashion and fussy. So, I decided to create a visual narrative and give the whole arrangement a shot of energy by mixing in some of the wonderful decoupage plates designed and sold by John Derian. Taking inspiration from the fish motif and local trout streams, I imagined a very loose stream-to-table story by adding two small platters with clam shells and a toad plus a few small plates with a lemon and orange slices, a swallow, and an ant. I first organized the composition on the floor in front of the wall using the two larger platters as anchors in the middle. Then with plate hangers, which can be found at hardware stores, I started with the anchors and hung the rest of the plates according to the plan on the floor. I did use a tape measure to help with the spacing between the plates, but I also realied on a good eye and kept my anxiety in check when I had to adjust a few nails. Make sure that you use good picture-hanging nails, which are more needle like than regular nails and will leave barely noticeable (really un-noticable) holes if you make any mistakes. FYI, did you know that everyone has one dominate eye that is more accurate in judging alignments? It's usually the eye that corresponds to your dominate hand, but it's easy to test. With both eyes open, hold one finger in front of you at full arm's length and align it with an object in the distance. Then test each eye by closing one first and then the other. The dominate eye will still have the finger in alignment when you test it. With the other eye, your finger will be obviously out of alignment with the object.

6: Behind, Below and Above

2008-12-24T15:01:00.009-05:00

During construction document, document, document. Use a digital camera to take pictures of things that will eventually be covered up by Sheetrock, wood, flooring and even the ground around the house. I tried to make sure that I shot everything I could see before it was covered, and I've already returned to those photos more than once for reference. Here's a list of things you might document, but it's not a definitive list. Digital photos cost nothing and the reference images could prove invaluable in the future:

1. Plumbing in the walls
2. Electric boxes for switches
3. Framing around windows
4. Utility pipes connecting to the house
5. Septic holding boxes near the house
6. Chimney flues
7. Attic crawl space
8. Lighting electrical boxes in relation to wall studs

Photograph anything you can imagine that you might want to know more about (or remember what it looks like, how it was installed and especially where it is exactly) but won't be able to see after it's covered. Why waste time and money guessing if you ever need to know?

5: Slate Tile Source

2008-12-23T14:47:00.002-05:00

I knew what I wanted for the floor before I knew exactly what to ask for. The tile business is funny in that it can be hard to find some of the simplest tiles. I've been told that this is because it's too easy for companies to out price or undercut each other with the simplest materials and designs. I knew that I wanted slate tiles for the first floor of my house, because I love the cool touch of stone tile and the blue-green-gray color of most slate. What I didn't know was how to ask for something smooth (honed not gauged or natural cleft) with the variegated pattern in the stone you see here. So, I went to the Web and started searching for slate. In the process I not only learned more about what I was looking for, I found a great online source for tile. Some people might think it's crazy to buy tile long-distance and pay to have all that weight shipped. But, the Brazilian gray slate I chose was purchased and shipped across the country from California all for a price less than what I thought I might have to pay for something local. If you're looking for stone tiles, check out Marblewarehouse.com. They've got a nice array of materials, and you can get samples before committing to a large order. The tile I bought has worked out beautifully. The variations in color, which almost look like marbleized paper to me, keep the tile from ever looking dirty. Tip: When you're placing an order, think about ordering 15% to 20% over the actual amount you need. Contractors always recommend about 10% to cover any breakage during shipping or installation, but with stone it's hard if not impossible to get matching tile later. Stone comes from quarries, and the quality, color and pattern of the stone can change significantly from one spot to the next in the quarry. You don't want to find yourself in the future needing to replace or add tiles that can't be matched. We ended up using all of the tile I ordered because some pieces came plain with no variations in the color—remember stone is a natural material—so I hope I don't end up learning this lesson the hard way.

4: Warm Hearth

2008-12-22T11:07:00.004-05:00

We're getting a lot of snow this week, and I've been thinking a lot about how much I like my Tulikivi fireplace. I had originally thought I would buy a wood burning stove for the house, but the wise people at Mountain Flame convinced me to push my budget and invest in this Tulikivi. I'll admit that I had a serious panic attack early one morning after placing the order. I was spending 3 times more than I had planned to spend on a Rais wood burning stove. But, I'm glad I listened to them and found the money to go this route. I think of the Tulikivi as a machine as much as a fireplace. It's so much more efficient than a regular fireplace, and once it's heated it emits the most relaxing heat from the soap stone. There are many styles and designs. I chose one of the more simple ones, and Mountain Flame added a bench that wraps nicely around the corner of the wall in the living room. Stone cold, it takes about three loads of wood to get the soapstone up to a room-warming temperature. The bay front glass doors give maximum viewing from just about anywhere in the living area (even a bit in the kitchen) and allow easy access. I really like the fact that they keep sparks and hot coals from popping out. The Tulikivi features several levers that allow you to control the rate of burn by controlling the flow of air into the fireplace. Internal vent chambers move the heat and exhaust around inside before sending it up the chimney, which really maximizes the heat from the fire. Below the fire chamber is a door with a drawer inside to catch ash. Like I said, Tulikivis are really efficient. The one maintenance issue is with the glass doors, they have to be cleaned periodically depending on the amount of smoke and soot generated by the fire. But, even that little chore is easy with a little spray and wipe.

3: Sized Right

2008-12-21T15:29:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons I chose Oak Tree Homes to build my house was because they had the ability to work with me on the design and plans for the house. I started with a very simple plan from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company that we enlarged and developed into a house that would fit my lifestyle and location—28'x28' not including the porches as you see it here. While I'm interested in the philosophies and benefits of living in a small house, I learned a few realities of building. 1. The smallest house isn't always the most cost/value efficient. In other words, when you're working with standard materials, you don't want to find yourself with a design that involves a lot of cutting down standard materials (leaving and paying for waste) just to get a smaller structure. 2. Pre-fab houses are not inexpensive yet...unfortunately. I explored a number of pre-fab options but discovered that most of them were priced without the fees for a septic system, well for water, electricity, plumbing...a number of details that are pretty important if you're expecting to do more than camp out temporarily in your house. 3. Those details will be costly line items in your budget. 4. But, once your builder determines a budget, you can go back line by line and explore ways of trimming costs. There are always options. 5. I can't imagine building a house with a builder that I couldn't trust 95%...at the very least. Trust in something like this is everything.

2: Small Houses Can Make Wonderful Homes

2008-12-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

In 2001 I rented a small farmhouse for summer weekends in New York's Hudson River Valley. It was a simple little building that was packed with character and charm. There was nothing fancy about it, but it became the stage for many wonderful weekends and an escape that fateful September. About the same time, I ran across a story on a young architect named Jay Schafer and the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. I connected with his small space philosophy and couldn't forget the appeal of his little houses. Check out the designs. I purchased one of his simple plans for a 16'x16' two-story cross gable house. While I ended up building something a little larger and much more detailed, his tiny house was where it all started.

1: Just The Right Spot

2008-12-19T20:00:00.002-05:00

Placing or positioning a house on the site is more important than you might ever imagine...and it probably won't cost you much, if anything, to take as much time as you need to do so. I first spent a couple of years visiting my property in different seasons and noting things like where the sun rises and sets throughout the year. Then as the actual design of the house took shape I started imagining the views I would have from doors and windows. I even went as far as using inexpensive surveyor's tape from the hardware store to outline the floor plan and experiment with the position of the house on the ground. It was a really useful exercise. I could literally stand on the plan where a window would be and imagine how the sun would enter the house...asking myself questions like, did I want my bedroom on the east side of the house to wake up at the crack of dawn? During the darkest days of winter, what orientation of the house would give me maximum sun inside? Should I give guests in the guestroom the distant mountain view (which I might someday lose with tree growth) and keep the (protected from potential neighbors) view across valley for my bedroom? There are hundreds of details you can imagine and questions you can ask yourself at this point with simple tape outlining the floor plan on the ground. As fortune would have it in my case, one week before we actually broke ground on the house, I realized that the entire floor plan needed to be flopped from left to right, because I wanted the back service door of the house to be on the same side as the driveway, which I didn't want crossing in front or back of the house. At that point, it was a few simple clicks on a computer keyboard to make the change. A few weeks later it would have been much more complicated...if not impossible to get it right.

A Year Later

2008-12-17T16:46:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been a long time since I posted here. Practically a year! I took possession of my new house on December 19, 2007. I make a point of saying "took possession," because the work for me was only just getting started. I had to furnish the house. And then spring and summer arrived...and everything outside was just too tempting. I've been bad with posting (it almost feels unfaithful), and I'd like to make amends.

Before I start again, there's something I have to share with anyone about to build or undertake a major renovation: prepare to give over most of your life to the process, and know that there's no way you'll be prepared for everything.

That being said, I'm committing myself to 101 days of 101 things I've learned, tips I'd like to share, as well as a lot of products and furnishings I've fallen for in the process of building and furnishing my little farmhouse at Twilight Field. Think of me as the friend you ran into at a cocktail party last week who just finished what you're about to start. Take my posts to heart or with a grain of salt.

Starting this Friday, December 19, 2008 check in daily for a new entry. Or, visit whenever you feel the desire. You can always catch up. I learned a lot and will simply enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with building a house from the ground up.

Fireside

2008-04-19T14:51:00.000-04:00

Spring may not seem to be the most obvious time to talk about fireplaces, but here in the Catskills the nights are still cool. In the depths of winter, a roaring fire feels like a necessity of life. On a really cool spring night, it's more of a real luxury. Daylight stretches into later hours, and a glowing fire is just the thing to take the chill off the house.

When I was first working on the plans for my house, I thought I wanted a modern wood-burning stove. I was avoiding a full blown traditional fireplace for budgetary reasons, and I had seen some really good looking wood-burning stoves. I had visited Mountain Flame in Arkville, New York, to look at the Rais stoves but ended up being sold on a soapstone Tulikivi.

All of this was about the time that I was having panic attacks over the reality of what it costs to build a new house, but Marcia Olenych, who owns Mountain Flame with her husband Brian, is a wise, soft-spoken saleswoman. After a couple of conversations, she knew what I wanted (and needed) better than I did. Before I knew it, though, I was committing to a soapstone fireplace that was about 3-4 times more expensive than what I thought I was going to spend on a fireplace...or stove.

A few nights later, I woke up around 3am in a panic that I was spending so much more than I had originally planned. But, when I stopped by the showroom on my way upstate the next weekend, my anxiety had diminished and Marcia's calm demeanor convinced me to relax and find a way to pay for the Tulikivi. It's what I needed.

Manufactured in Finland, these fireplaces operate with the precision of a machine and all the wonderful heat and beauty of an open hearth, maybe even more so. My order was placed in early July, and the "firebox" was here and installed by November.

Marcia had helped me select a simple bow-fronted design that Brian customized with a side bench, which wraps around a projecting corner of the living room. The Tulikivi anchors the room and the soapstone surround gives the house a wonderful sense of permanence and weight.

Back in the winter, 3-4 "burnings" would heat up the stone, and the fireplace would radiate a soft warmth for hours. I eventually learned to close the damper after the last wood had burned to coals, and I'd often find the fireplace still warm the next morning. These fireplaces are really efficient. Last summer during a visit to Mountain Flame, I noticed that the Tulikivis in the showroom actually helped cool the space. Protected from the sun, they'd hold the cool of the night when the day heated up. Their stone mass seem to have many benefits. So, I'm looking forward to seeing if the same thing happens here this summer.

But, back to the operation of the Tulikivi, they take a little getting used to. Unlike traditional fireplaces, they offer a couple of ways to control the intake of air, which allows you to really control the burning of the wood. At first, I wasn't sure about the glass doors, but they help radiate the heat and prevent smoke or sparks from spilling into the room. The doors do have to be washed daily when you're burning fires, but the little tint of soot comes off easily with a cleaning spray. I discovered it works better with newspaper rather than paper towel, and it's now simply become a part of my fire-making ritual.

When I lit the first fire back in the winter, the house seemed to come to life and take it's first breath of air. I don't regret one penny extra that I spent on this Tulikivi. I enjoy every minute it's filled with dancing flames and radiating its soft warmth.

Underfoot

2008-04-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

As I've discussed in previous posts, I made a number of compromises/decisions in the building process to reign in costs. At the same time, I've made a point to keep some of the building materials real for "substance." The house has a small footprint, so I knew that I wanted to use the same flooring throughout the first floor. I wanted something natural, pretty and—most importantly—easy to maintain.

In the country, it's inevitable that the outside world will get tracked inside. So, I wanted something for the floor that would disguise dirt. I knew that I liked slate, but all I really knew was that slate can range in color from an almost purple to blue, gray and even black.

A quick Google search led me to marblewarehouse.com, where I found the perfect slate tiles. Here's what I liked about them and what I learned:

- I bought large 18" x 18" square tiles, because I wanted fewer rather than more grout lines. Sometimes bigger is also better in a small space, because it's less busy and cluttered looking. I also had the installer lay them on the diagonal starting at the front door. I think the diagonal plan makes the floor look more expansive. The tiles don't look confined as they might if they were laid square to the the room.

- Slate can range from a very plain appearance to very variegated. I really like the variations of color, although I did make sure that it didn't include the extreme ends of the slate color palette: dark purple and black. I found Brazilian gray slate at marblewarehouse.com with beautiful figuring, almost like marbleized paper. The mud season has started in the Catskills, and the marbleized look of the stone does a great job of disguising light tracks from wet and/or muddy shoes.

- Always order extra, beyond the amount recommended by the seller for breakage in shipping. Given variations in the material, some of my tiles had no figuring at all. After the best tiles were chosen and installed on the first floor, we realized that we had just enough to tile a portion of the basement (the laundry area). Later, the builder advised me to buy an additional box of the tiles to keep on had for possible breakage in the future. If I waited until something was broken, I'd probably never be able to find something similar. It's already a bit of an issue, because the seller in California is out of the product at the moment. So, I'm hoping what he's getting in will be similar. It may be obvious, but stone is quarried and for consistency it's best to get all your stone material from the same quarry...even the same area of a quarry.

- Honed refers to the finish of the surface. It's smooth, but not slippery the way polished would be. Gauged surfaces are rougher.

- I did order the tile over the Internet (after buying a sample to check in person). The material was very heavy, and there was a significant shipping cost, but the price was so good that it didn't price the slate out of my reach. Besides, it was exactly what I had been looking for, and I couldn't find anything similar locally.

Using Every Space

2008-03-30T15:45:00.000-04:00

On the kitchen side of the partial wall, I found additional storage space. Between the back splash and the lowest open shelf, I had Oak Tree create a series of one bottle-deep shelves that are perfect for oils, vinegars and spices. These things are up off the counter but within easy, unobstructed reach when cooking. I also like simply seeing the line-up of bottles. Oak Tree added the panels of bead board, which makes the niches look nice and finished even when there's nothing in them.

Faux Stone

2008-03-30T11:38:00.000-04:00

If you've been reading my posts, you know that I didn't start building this house with a budget. I've had to consider (and make some compromises in building materials) along the way, but I now believe that all of these variations from my original ideas have resulted in a house that will better serve me rather than vice versa.

In the kitchen, I had decided to go with Corian for the counter tops, but when I started working out the details with Cindy Miller of Empire Baths & Kitchens, she strongly urged me to reconsider. Her concern was with the fact that I wanted dark counters (to blend in, even recede) in the design. She explained that Corian actually scratches and cuts fairly easily, and she believed that CaesarStone would be less expensive. Was I surprised? You bet. I've known about CaesarStone for a few years. It's a manufactured stone that's make with quartz and looks very "real."

As it turned out, she was right, and the resulting installation is beautiful. I went with a polished surface, because I like the glow and feel that they look really clean with a quick wipe. The design of the kitchen also called for back splashes behind both the stove and the sink. Here, I really wanted the material to have the look of real stone, because the back splashes are very prominent. Behind the stove it rises to just over six feet where it meets the vent hood, and behind the sink it rises to meet the first open shelf.

I chose a color of CaesarStone called Raven. It's very dark, but not severely black. I wish my photos had more detail because the material has a pleasing lightly mottled appearance, almost like fossilized remains in real stone.

For the sink I chose Kohler's simple farmhouse style. With limited space I think your one sink needs to be deep and generous in size. You can pile it with dirty dishes as well as dump in a basket of garden vegetables that need to be washed. Counter to what most people would expect in a farmhouse like mine, I chose Kohler's modern Simplice faucet. I like the bold, clean almost pipe-like shape and the easy to use single lever water control. Another unplanned surprise that I've become addicted to is the retractable spray nozzle that comes right out of the faucet. It's efficient and makes clean-up extremely easy.

Both Sides

2008-03-29T16:48:00.000-04:00

I like to think that I know a lot about kitchen design, but I have to admit that I had the help of a kitchen designer when I planned this kitchen. Cindy Miller of Empire Baths & Kitchens in Utica, New York helped me organize the cabinetry and appliance configuration. Empire sells Plain & Fancy kitchen cabinetry, and Cindy worked with my request for open shelves and a plan that would maximize storage. The kitchen also has to function as a passage from the back door and stairway to the living/dining space on the first floor.

For over 20 years, I've worked as an editor at several shelter magazines, and I've seen an uncountable number of kitchens—some great ones worthy of publication and many forgettable ones lacking good design or cursed with poor planning. I've also had the benefit of getting to learn more than the average person about many appliance lines and cabinet manufacturers.

Plain & Fancy is a family owned business based in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. Last summer, I had the pleasure of actually visiting their factory and was surprised to find out that there was still a lot for me to learn. First and maybe most important is an explanation for "off the shelf," factory made custom, and custom cabinetry. Off the shelf cabinets are the kind that you find at sources like Ikea. Each unit of the cabinet (or box) is a predetermined size and you can outfit any space with them, but you're not necessarily getting cabinetry that "fits" your space exactly. I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with "off the shelf" cabinetry, but you don't get anything close to a custom design.

At the other end of the spectrum is custom, which is most often thought of has cabinetry made by a craftsman in his workshop, or something close to this scenario. This means that you can have made just about whatever your heart desires in just about any way possible for the craftsman. You can also expect a price you probably can't imagine.

In between is the best of both worlds. Cabinetry designed to order, but made in a factory. In the case of Plain & Fancy, imagine a woodworker's workshop but on a factory scale. My visit last summer was fascinating. The first impression was that you could literally see individual kitchen installations working their way through the factory. There was a lot of white, the owners laughing and sighing at the same time admitted that most people want some shade of white. But, I did spot something more daring in red, and a number of installations working their way through the assembly line with the occasional accent color like black or blue...or red.

The beauty of cabinetry produced this way is that you get the much better price of cabinetry made "en mass" so to speak but the almost unlimited options of cabinetry made in one man's workshop. There's also the benefit of quality control and numerous layers of supervision. All in all, you get well made, beautiful product. I chose a vinyl interior for my cabinets, because it's less expensive, and I think that cleaning and maintenance will be easier. The drawers and the cabinet interior shelves are wood. They're beautiful, but this brings me to two of my favorite details. It may be common now, but I wasn't aware of either feature. All of my lower cabinets are outfitted with shelves the slide out for easy access. Why would anyone not have these? It makes the storage much, much more usable and accessible. And, last but not least all the doors and drawers are fitted with something I think is called "soft close," meaning that nothing slams shut. When you close a door or drawer a mechanism catches them just before fully closed and slowly finishes closing with no sound. Like I said, this may be standard, or becoming standard, but I'd never experienced how blissfully quiet it makes a kitchen—especially important in a small kitchen that's so open to the rest of the living space.

The open shelves in the kitchen were made by Oak Tree, and they did a beautiful job. Again, this is another example of how important tear sheets can be during the design process. As it turned out when I organized the many magazine pages I had been accumulating I had maybe 6-8 examples of open shelf brackets, all with slightly varying designs. Mark and I looked at them closely and came up with my design. The shelves sit slightly back on the brackets to give the brackets a little more definition and help slightly break up all the horizontal lines of the all the upper shelves. We also nipped off the front bottom corner of the bracket arms, which seemed a little sharp projecting forward at eye level. I think they did a beautiful job.

Kitchen Ingredients

2008-03-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

While the footprint and general design of my kitchen was a part of the original architectural plan. Oak Tree and I decided to wait until the house was framed and enclosed before we made the final detail plans for this area. As you can see, the kitchen is separated from the main living/dining room of the first floor, but we were able to keep it partially open to the rest of the house. When you're in the kitchen, you don't feel like you're separated from what's happening in the rest of the house, but when you're in the living/dining room, you don't feel like you're also living in the kitchen. Lower cabinets give me concealed storage, but open upper shelves allow light to flood through the space. Glassware, china and some service pieces are easily accessible, even on display.

The design of the partial wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the first floor was crucial to this working. Most importantly, during construction I was able to mock-up the lower part of the wall with plywood to determine the minimum height that the solid part needed to be so that when you are standing in the dining area, you don't find yourself looking through the open shelves and into the kitchen sink.

Last Saturday, I roasted a chicken in the house for the first time, which was almost like a christening of the kitchen. It was the first real test of functionality and just as important the experience of cooking here—everything was perfect. In this rest of this post and a few following posts, I'd like to share some of the ideas that enable it to work so well. While I have nothing against big, really tricked out kitchens, I like to think that what we've designed here is proof that something more simple can work just as well and maybe even feel special. I can't help remembering a conversation that I had with one of the architects that I met with when I was just starting to think about building a house. He had a house not that far from me and couldn't understand why I wanted to build a small-ish house, especially since it would mean a small kitchen. In his mind the kitchen needed to be big enough to accommodate a large gathering of friends when cooking. Well, if he happens to come across this blog and post, I think I've come up with a design that doesn't involve a kitchen the size of a small house with lots of unused counter space, and something that functions equally well whether I'm cooking alone or entertaining friends.

The Upholstery Arrived

2008-03-26T23:35:00.000-04:00

I've been a little too anxious to talk about it a lot, but last month I posted a photo showing swatches of the fabrics I'd ordered for the upholstery coming from Lee Industries. Seven pieces arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say that they look great. I was worried, because I'm not an interior designer. Thanks to my career with shelter magazines, I've developed an eye for combining colors and patterns. But, putting together a scheme of fabrics is not as easy as it might sound. Fortunately, I've been studying the work of interior designers for over 20 years and developed a certain instinct. At least, I have a good sense for what I like.

So after pouring over hundreds of fabric samples in a to the trade showroom where Lee sells their full line in New York, I came up with a scheme of fabrics for the upholstery in the living room that was built around a beautiful silk ikat. If you're reading this before the end of March and just happen to be going to (or in) London, there's a wonderful show at the Victoria & Albert Museum on ikats from Central Asia.

The big question mark in my design plan was, would this fairly busy pattern work on a seven foot long sofa. So, what do you think? I tempered it with a pair of dark navy cotton denim covered club chairs that are fantastically comfortable without taking up a lot of room and an arm chair with a high back in a faded blue floral printed on cotton.

It's really looking great in the room. I'm sharing pictures hesitantly, because I'm not finished. TK are pillows all in the blue and white scheme but in various patterns and designs. A friend gave me a nice piece of old Fortuny, which is going to look fantastic piled on the sofa with other patterns. I'm also working on a rug and simple white cafe curtains for the windows.

Between the inside and the outdoors

2008-03-22T18:26:00.000-04:00

I found the perfect bench for the mud room, which is actually an enclosed continuation of the side porch that connects to the back door and porch. I've definitely seen larger mud rooms, but this roughly 12' x 6' space serves fine. In my part of the world you need plenty of hooks for coats, totes and other things that tend to collect inside the exterior door you use the most. You also need a comfortable, sturdy place to sit down when removing shoes or boots.

Eric came up with a really nice design when he added a row of small square windows just above eye level in the exterior wall. They frame a great view of the mountain ridge across the valley and flood the area with light. Along the bottom of the window frame, we installed wooden pegs, and below all of this I've added Ballard Designs' Levanto 3-seat bench. It couldn't fit better. The worn black finish doesn't feel too perfect or precious, and the woven rush seat adds a great texture in the space. The side and back doors open all the way to the wall framing the bench on each side in warmer weather, so I know that this piece is going to get lots of use year round....and at the $299.95 price, it's a great find.

Fabrics

2008-02-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

I love fabrics. For years they've been one of the more interesting subjects I've followed in my career as a magazine editor. Colors, designs, histories, stories, crafts, new technologies and materials—textiles are simply fascinating.

My appreciation for the role and skills of interior decorators also continues to grow, maybe in a way that I couldn't have ever fully appreciated without going through a decorating process like I am right now. Last month I placed an order for eight pieces of upholstered furniture from a company called Lee Industries. (That's a story I'm going to save until later when the furniture arrives.) One of the perks of my job is the relationships I've developed over the years with home furnishing manufacturers and the "inside" access I often have to that world.

Twice a year I attend the International Home Furnishings Market in North Carolina, more commonly referred to as High Point (which is the small Southern town that has long been the center of the American furniture industry). In brief the visit is one continuous series of appointments to see new designs from the largest pieces of furniture to the smallest accessory. Of course, I have my favorite appointments with some companies who make beautiful furniture and always inspire ideas for stories with their designs.

Some of these companies have names that people even only slightly familiar with the industry would recognize, but there are other companies (like Lee Industries) who are designing and making furniture that is truly affordable and accessible (but usually as private label for large retail and mail order sources. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, and I want to talk more about Lee when I can actually show pictures of the pieces I've ordered.

In the meantime, I wanted to talk briefly about what a challenge it was to pick the fabrics from swatches (small roughly 4-inch square samples). Wow. More power to the skills of decorators! I mean, I've looked at fabrics for so long and thought it wouldn't be too challenging to pick a few that would work well together. I do like color (but not crazy color) and layers of pattern, but it's been interesting process (also a little nerve racking). My choices were even narrowed down in that I only chose fabrics from Lee Industries' collection of fabrics. So the options were a fraction of what they could have been if the entire world of fabrics were open in this exercise.

So, the fabrics above are the ones I've selected for the living room. The order was placed in early January...and I've just gotten word that delivery will be in the next couple of weeks. More later. In the photo above, you'll see an Ikat (a favorite type of woven), a cotton denim (like the contrast with the silk Ikat), a woven Persian-ish fabric, a classic natural linen and a faded printed floral. I can't afford to make any mistakes that will need to be replaced. I think these are going to work together, but things can change significantly when a pattern is on a large piece of furniture...and various shades of blue don't always work together. And, then there's the factors of the paint colors in the room and the colors of the Brazilian slate floor. More later....

Roller Shades

2008-02-10T18:35:00.000-05:00

I've been living in the house for the past month with no window coverings. I'm in the country with no neighbors close enough to necessitate them for privacy, but I do need the light control during the day and just feel more comfortable at night when I can cover the windows. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I need window coverings to do and just as importantly what I don't want them to do. I knew that I didn't want a look that was too fussy but a style that was more in keeping with my retro farmhouse look.

A few months ago in the House Beautiful office, I was looking at the film we had shot of a house in Saratoga Springs by one of my new favorite interior designers, Nancy Boszhardt. (See the bedroom in project #6 of her portfolio.) Senga Mortimer, our editor-at-large and someone of immense taste, commented on the chic dark roller shades in the bedrooms. They looked crisp, bold and above all honest. I knew immediately that this was my solution, but it took me months to track down a source. Ironically, the source found me—a mail order catalog called Great Windows. And, they offer next day delivery for many of their products! With 14 tall windows to dress, though, I wanted to make sure that the Tropez roller shades I found were the right choice. The darkest color they offer is black, so I ordered one last week to make sure it would be the right choice. I chose a spring loaded, inside mount style.

The box was waiting at my door when I arrived at the house on Friday, and I hung roller shade Saturday morning. I had a little trouble installing the brackets with a Phillips head screwdriver, but when I switched to the nut driver it was easy. I know a lot of people are nervous when they're expected to take their own measurements for an order like this, but I had followed Great Windows' guide and the Tropez was a perfect fit.

I'm going to order the remaining 13 roller blinds that I need this week...and will have a project installing them to look forward to next weekend. Luckily, I'll have a little help from my father who will be visiting.

The roller blinds are phase one for the window treatment plan. Now I'm looking for cafe curtains to layer on top of each window. I'm going in this direction, because cafe curtains in a simple white linen or cotton will give me filtered light for privacy over the lower have of the windows, and most of the time this is all I'll need. In fact, the only reason anyone will probably ever use the roller blinds upstairs in the bedrooms is when they want to sleep late. Light and views are a big and wonderful part of the experience in every room of my house. So the cafe curtains won't block any more than is necessary of either. In fact, they'll leave the sky showing in all it's glory (day and night) through the upper half of the windows. But, then I'll have these wonderful black roller shades for light control when needed.

Oh, I ordered the regular Tropez roller shades, without the light block lining, which would have made them white facing outside the house. Regular roller shades roll off the back of the roller, which with the light blocking liner would have made my roller white at the top of the window—not the look I wanted. The good news is that the regular black Tropez doesn't need the lining. It's perfect.

Winter Reverie

2008-01-20T23:49:00.000-05:00

I returned from the Christmas holidays to a new house, but I couldn't let this season go by without at least a little holiday cheer. So, for New Year's Eve I strung Christmas tree lights along the front porch. I'm sitting inside on a rattan sofa that I bought in barn sale in the Hamptons and eating at a folding card table, but my string of Christmas lights make it feel as if I've been here for much longer. Tip: I knew I was going to want something like this for holiday decorations and for a string of Chinese paper lanterns on warm summer nights. So, I had the electrician install an electric outlet in the ceiling at the end of the porch...and better yet...connect it to a switch inside the front door. BTW, that's a gorgeous full moon rising over the ridge behind the house.

Back in Touch

2008-01-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

First, I have to apologize for not keeping my posts up-to-date and timely. The truth is that I was overwhelmed by the pressure in finishing the house. The original completion date was mid-October, which I knew from the beginning was unrealistic. But, then things started slipping, and it was Thanksgiving with a lot still to be done before I could occupy the house. In fact, on December 9, the kitchen was still unfinished (see the photo above), and there were things to finish everywhere I looked inside. Mark made a valiant effort to finish by Thanksgiving, but too much time had been lost in September and October. It just wasn't possible.

I had been renting an apartment in a nearby town, and the lease was expiring. I was also going away for the Christmas holidays. So, to say I was beginning to feel squeezed is putting it lightly.

The good news is that I'm now in the house. I took possession on December 15. Then it started snowing; then I made the mistake of assuming I could move the few things I had in the apartment in my car....by myself; and then I was gone for the holiday. I was fried, tired and disoriented. When I came back from Christmas to spend the New Year holiday in my new house, I had a hard time simply feeling present. Not to mention I now have to furnish the house. I have some furniture, but no upholstery, no dining table, no master bed, etc....

I'm going to save the finished construction pictures and share them over the upcoming weeks. I'll leave you for now with a few more pictures from early December—not much longer than a month ago!

What a Difference

2007-11-25T13:44:00.000-05:00

When you're not on the building site daily, it's sometimes hard to tell how much, if anything much, was done since your last visit. I'm typically at the site on weekends, so I always expect to see noticeable change. There was a stretch of time (some of September and most of October) when little work seemed to be taking place. My builder was tied up with another client who kept adding and asking for changes to work—each guy on the crew had stories to tell. Unfortunately, it put me in the position of becoming the client I didn't want to become: someone who stood over that project breathing down the crew's neck asking a 101 questions about what was being done and when each step of the construction process would be finished. Finally, they pulled out of that project and the full crew reported to my site...and things started moving.

By my calculations, we're now in the 19th week of construction (Thanksgiving weekend) which is pretty amazing, regardless of delays caused by another client. The exterior is almost complete. We're only lacking a few details, porch gutters and shutters. Mark ordered a sample, which was really wise. It was too small. Unfortunately, the wooden and functioning shutters that I had originally wanted were just too expensive, so I had made the decision to go with a vinyl shutter that would be permanently attached. The key to making these faux shutters work will be the size. When shutters become a purely decorative feature, most people make the mistake of slapping up something in a size that would never work on the window if it were real. In other words, my faux shutters have to be (and will be) a size that would completely cover the window if they were functioning and closed. The shutter company we're using has a number of standard sizes...and getting a realistic look for my windows was only a matter of measuring and testing a sample. I'm amazed that more people don't think about the difference the right size shutter makes on a window. I'll posted pictures when they're installed in the next few weeks.

Also outside, they've installed the exterior lighting, which really wakes up the house. In an earlier post, I talked about the decision to find vintage-like lighting to add instant character to the house...and dress up the vinyl siding. The results are great, although I will have to live with the lighting mounts, which sit away from the wall more than I'd like. The doorway lights (front and back) are the great looking lanterns I found in the Shades of Light catalog. I also found there this great outdoor Moravian Star pendant light for the screened side porch. I also had all of these exterior lights installed with dimmers, which will give me wonderful control of nighttime lighting in the summer (in particular). During the warmer months, the porch is going to be an extension of the living room. This past summer, I found a great mix-matched set of wicker chairs that had been painted a dark green. They'll look great and also temper (or age) the new-ness of the house.

Just when you think all of the decisions have been made, there are more. After the front steps were installed. I realized that I needed to come up with a railing, other than the wood railing of the porch, that wouldn't overwhelm the beauty of the (again faux) stone. I also wanted something that felt older. Too much matching sameness is a dead giveaway of new construction. Looking around the area, I noticed that many of the old houses had metal railings on their front steps. So, Eric asked me for a suggestion of what it might look like, and I found this example in Delhi. Many of the houses seemed to have newer railings installed in the 50s or 60s, but I was looking for something that felt more early 20th century. Eric says he has a great (tested) Internet source for something very similar. I just want to make sure it has a look and feel of iron, if not actually iron.

Inside the house, things are moving equally well. The Plain & Fancy kitchen arrived and was installed in the blink of an eye. I'm really pleased with the way it's looking, and the crew was pleased with how well-made it is and how easy it was for them to installed. I chose a very simple cabinet style in a white that was close to the Sherwin-Williams white I had chosen for the interior...but not exactly the same. Again, I didn't want everything (including paint) to be match too perfectly. In the kitchen, the cabinets are just a little more alabaster than the ceiling is and the above counter open shelves will be. I worked with Empire Bath & Kitchen out of Utica, New York to design the Plain & Fancy kitchen. Cindy Miller, the kitchen designer, was terrific to work with. More on the kitchen as the installation progresses. Templates for the counter tops will be made tomorrow. For now, though, I'm really pleased with the way they're looking. And, the "easy close" feature of all the cabinets and drawers is a really pleasant surprise. Nothing slams shut. The drawers and doors, no matter how hard they're closed, have some type of mechanism that kicks in and gently eases them into place. I'm an early riser who can't help fooling around in the kitchen, so guests who like to sleep in will have no idea how much this little (big) feature will mean to them. More on the kitchen in the next couple of weeks.

And, last but not least for this update, I started seasoning my Tulikivi fireplace. Yeah, you don't just build a fire the first time. The fireplace came with a DVD of instructions for operation, but I stopped by Mountain Flame for an in-person explanation. The DVD made it seem a lot more complicated than it is. So, on Thanksgiving morning, I lit a simple kindling fire for the first step in a three day process of progressively bigger fires. Even though the crew is still working on the trim of interior windows and doors (trim that was primed and painted with a first coat off site), that little flame in the fireplace really woke up the house, which is already starting to feel like home. Mark plans to turn the house over to me on December 16, cleaned and ready to move in. A lot will be happening between now and then...and I definitely expect a punch list of things finishing touches to take us into next year. But, it looks like I'll be in residence with a certificate of occupancy before Christmas.

Time Flies

2007-11-11T19:04:00.001-05:00

It's been two weeks since my last post, and there's been a lot of progress...so I have a lot of pictures to share. This weekend started with a snow storm, but the outside crew, thankfully, had already started putting up the siding. At long last! For months, the first question most neighbors have asked when they saw me was, "when is the siding going up?" I think it's a local joke that some people never get past putting up the water-proof barrier, which in my case is a sickly baby blue.

During the planning stages, I had made a major decision to turn to vinyl siding instead of wood. It was purely a financial decision, because the labor of going with wood was exorbitant. The up side with vinyl is that I'll never have to paint it, and the harsh winters of the Catskills can leave people having to repaint their exteriors every few years.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much vinyl siding has improved since the last time I noticed it—which wasn't to admire it. Vinyl today can have a much more realistic texture and pretty sharp profiles. In my case the vertical battens look very crisp and cast really nice shadow lines in the direct sunlight. The down side? Don't knock on it (it feels and sounds like what you'd expect vinyl flooring to feel and sound like) or study the joints and intersections too closely. You'll be able to see that it's thin and not thick like wood.

Again, though, the color is beautiful. I'll never have to paint it. It's virtually maintenance free.

Below the porch the crew has installed the wood lattice. Oak Tree offered me an alternative for this wood product (which will have to be painted again)...a plastic vinyl product, but I chose the real McCoy in this case. The holes in the wood lattice are smaller and the product has a more pronounced three dimensional texture. (The plastic lattice had none.) The last step here will be to apply the trim boards around each of the lattice panels.

Straddling real and faux, the front steps look fantastic. The risers and sides of the steps are covered with manufactured stone (tinted concrete) and the treads are blue stone planks. I had originally wanted to use the manufactured stone around the base of the entire house, but cost constraints prohibited it. And, now, I actually like the stucco that was used instead around the basement. The last thing left to finish the front steps will be the railing, which I had thought would be wood but am now reconsidering. I'm asking Oak Tree to price out metal. I've been looking at old houses, and these railings are often different from the porch railing. I also think white wood railings might overwhelm the steps and feel confining. I've always planned to use these steps as seating for stargazing.

Inside, things are moving equally well. Most of the honed Brazilian slate is down on the living room floor. Scott worked Saturday to make more progress. I don't have covered outdoor space, so the crew is having to stage all their preparations inside the house. In this case, they're cutting tile for the living area in the kitchen space. When the living room floor is finished, they'll cover it and use that room as the staging area for tiling the rest of the first floor.

I don't think I've talked about the slate that I found for the floor. It's gorgeous. Although I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted to use, I didn't know how or where to find the tiles. This was a product that I had agreed with Oak Tree (actually requested) to find for the project. So, I turned to the Internet and started Googling key words like slate and tile. Eventually I found a great source in California. I needed a lot of stone, but the process worked like a dream. I ordered a few sample tiles, they quoted shipping costs (which were reasonable, especially given the good price for the slate), and the tile was delivered within a couple of weeks. I never would have dreamed that it'd be so easy to find building products on the Internet.

Other developments: The wall studs have been installed for the open kitchen wall. Window and door trim (pre-painted at Oak Tree's workshop) is being installed. The upstairs wood floor is about half complete, because there was a small leak in the bottom corner of one of the Andersen windows in the guest bedroom that has to be resolved before going further. And some of the doors are being installed upstairs. Oh, and the first floor ceiling is finished! At least installed with it's first two coats of paint.

A lot has been accomplished in the last two weeks, but the pace can't slack. I'm a little concerned with the holiday season approaching. Hopefully, Thanksgiving will be a one day event, because I'm moving out of my nearby rental...and I'll have to "camp out" in the house during the last stages of construction—not the ideal situation.

Slower than Slow

2007-10-28T10:26:00.000-04:00

Well, two weeks have gone by, and so little has been done. I met yesterday with Scot, who's working on the project, and I'm meeting with Eric again today. There are some details that were never fully resolved: the intersection of the first floor ceiling and the stairway opening, the plan for how the tile will be laid, and a few details on the stairs.

I'm REALLY worried about the schedule. One and a half weeks have gone by and it doesn't look like much has been done. The bead board for the first floor ceiling has been roughly installed, but the beams are still only planks of wood. Granted they're already primed for painting, but if the simple panels of bead board took this long to install......?

I've got to speak with Mark and find out when he's going to stop on the other project and get the full crew going on mine. He indicated to me last week that the other homeowner keeps adding things to her punch list....and he says that it's mostly work that wasn't included in the contract. I appreciate what he's doing for her (and I'm now really expecting the same treatment), but at a certain point it seems like he needs to tell her that he's got another contract that's already past completion date. I'm out of my rental Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm going to need a place to move things to (finished or not). I'll be traveling during much of December, but I'm going to need a house to inhabit soon! I think I'm going to have to quit being so patient.

Meeting with Eric

2007-10-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

I've met with Eric to review some details that needed to be clarified. He assures me that the crew is wrapping up at the other project and will be fully on my job next week. I have to admit that the news is disappointing. I'm here the whole week, and there's nothing to see happening. Bo, the painter, is finishing up the first coat on all the interior walls, but it's really disturbing given how soon December will be here.

Eric has invited me over to their workshop to see the progress on some off-site painting. All the interior doors seem to be painted and ready to install. The bead board for the ceiling is painted, as is some of the trim. Eric also wants me to check out and approve a sample for the porch railing. Other than this, I've only got one task for the construction: visit a local tile shop to pick out the grout colors for the slate on the first floor and the white tiles in the upstairs bathroom.

Light My Fire

2007-10-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

The fireplace is finally installed. When I first started planning the house, I thought I wanted a wood burning stove, something clean and modern like a RAIS. They're beautiful units that I've thought about for a long time, and they're a lot less expensive than a full-blown fireplace.

A RAIS is what I thought I wanted, that is until I visited the local dealer who also represents Tulikivi. Made in Finland, these beautiful wood-burning "machines" are seductive. Encased in soapstone, they're a much more substantial fireplace...and (surprise) more expensive. The good people of Mountain Flame in Arkville, New York don't have to say a lot about Tulikivi fireplaces. The models in their showroom speak for themselves. They offer the hypnotic allure of dancing flames as the wood burns in combination with a soft, soothing heat that radiates from the fire-warmed stone. I was also particularly impressed and interested in how safely they operate. Tulikivis are designed to burn with their glass doors closed. So I can have a fire with out worrying about leaving it unattended if I need to leave the house or head back to the city before the fire is completely burned out.

I confess that the switch from RAIS to Tulikivi wasn't without few panic attacks. The night after I mailed in my deposit to get the order started, I woke up at 4 am in a sweat thinking I'd lost my mind for deciding to spend about three times more than I had set out to spend on a fireplace. But, the good people of Mountain Flame helped calm me. When I look at the newly installed Tulikivi, though, there's no doubt that I made the right decision. I like clean lines, and Mountain Flame designed a fireplace the is perfect in scale for the house with a simple, solid shape. . It's positioned in the living area of the first floor on the corner of the half-bath that projects into the room. There it's now a visual anchor and an axis for the core of the house.

I love the subtle variations in the markings of the soap stone, but I did have a second panic attack when I noticed (immediately) after installation that the center stone of the mantel was significantly different in shade from the colors of the surround stone. It's just the kind of thing that can drive my Virgo nature crazy. I contacted Mountain Flame last night and owners Brian and Marcia came by the house first thing this morning to double check the installation and ease my concern. I learned that these fireplaces are very much alive—by that I mean the stone might and will change to various degrees over time as the fireplace heats and cools and even from the repeated touch of hands. This is why it comes with a maintenance kit for occasional cleaning and light hand-buffing of any stone that might change shades of color over the years. A few simple wipes of the stone around the mantel with the provided sandpaper and Brian easily blended the shades of the mantel stone.

I haven't lit a fire yet because Mountain Flame can't install the last pieces of stone around the flue until the beaded board is installed on the ceiling, which I'm hoping will get done in the next couple of weeks. I can already see the fire glowing in the fireplace. Visit the Tulikivi web site to read more on these amazing fireplaces. If you're in the market, I believe you'll be seduced like I was. I don't think there's anything else quite like them.

Interior Painting Begins

2007-10-13T21:51:00.000-04:00

I'm upstate for the coming week and hoping to see some progress on the house. Checking this morning, I met the painter who is priming and giving the walls one coat of paint before more work continues. Supposedly this will make the very final stages go quicker, but there is still so much to be done in the house. I'm being told that another project that was suppose to be finished by now is dragging on longer than planned. The homeowner keeps coming up with things for the guys to do. I'm getting concerned again about the schedule. From what I can tell, the painter is the only one working on my project right now.

On the bright side, the colors are looking good. The blue is on the walls of all the public rooms and the green and pink are up in the two bedrooms. I have to admit, the amount of color upstairs is a little shocking. But, I think it's mostly because I've been looking at things in an unfinished state for so long. The Sherwin-Williams paint is applying beautiful, and the colors do have a lot of life. I don't know why so many interior designers are such Benjamin Moore addicts. I've used Benjamin Moore paints in other projects and their colors are wonderful, but Sherwin-Williams' colors are turning out to be just as lively in the light. I like colors that "shift" with the changing light from outside. The pink bedroom is the only color that really surprised me. I chose Possibly Pink because I wanted a color with just a hint of pink. I got more than I expected, but it's growing on me, and I know that it'll tame down when I furnish the room and add fabrics and bedding in earthy colors. The trim is going to be white and the window sashes dark green, which is going to make a difference too.

According the schedule we agreed to when the project started, the house was suppose to be finished this weekend.....From what I can tell it looks like an awful lot of things still to be done before we're anywhere near completion. The radiant heat is installed and working perfectly, but the floors aren't installed. The bathrooms aren't installed. The downstairs ceiling is not installed. The stairs aren't complete. None of the interior trim work is installed, much less painted. The exterior siding is still not up, and the first comment on every one's lips is when will it be put on the house. The porch railings have to be made and installed. The front steps still need all the stonework. There's no sight of a kitchen.....I really don't see how this is all going to be completed by the end of the year.

Sheetrock

2007-10-07T08:26:00.000-04:00

The crew has been putting up Sheetrock for the last week, and it's almost complete. Rooms are really starting to look like rooms. Yesterday I met with Eric to walk through a few design details that we hadn't clarified on paper.

The first floor ceiling is covered in bead board and false beams spaced about four feet apart. Mark, Eric and I all had the same general idea with small variations. From the beginning, I wanted to make sure that the beams looked substantial. A lot of design details and materials are false, or more for show than function...and I'm O.K. with that. But, the "false" has to look real and "functioning" as if it was real. In the case of my ceiling beams, I wanted to make sure that they looked hefty enough to actually support the second floor. Early in the design process we had discussed 8" to 10" deep beams, but I'm glad I still had the option of changing the size. Eric mocked up two beams: one as we originally discussed and one 7" deep with the appropriate proportion deep, and that's what I decided to go with. The bigger beam would have been really heavy looking and probably oppressive overhead.

Eric also proposed a small be lovely beaded detail for the lower corners of the beam. Mark, thinking about visual quality, also proposed a flat board to trim the wall where it meets the ceiling and give the beams a logical end point against the wall. In my mind, it will also give us a logical, crisp place for the wall color to change to the ceiling color. It's going to look beautiful.

So, the next step is for the painters to start by priming the walls this coming week and painting the first coat. Then the floors will go down and the window and door trim applied before the third coat of paint for the walls. Apparently painting this way makes things move much quicker. Doors and some trim have even been painted off-site at their workshop.

Septic Field

2007-09-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

I got word today that the septic field passed the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspection. My property is located in the watershed of New York City's water supply, so you can imagine the regulations and restrictions on local septic systems. The initial tests last spring after the ground thawed determined that I needed a "partially engineered" system. This wasn't great news, but it wasn't a big surprise. The property is located at about 2,200 feet where the topsoil is rarely more than a foot or two deep. What it meant, though, was a more costly waste water management system.

During the early construction bidding process, this was one of the line items that took my breath away. It was hard to imagine that I was going to need about 50 truckloads of dirt added to the site. I couldn't imagine where it was going to go, and I didn't want a small mountain in the front yard.

Over the summer, the excavator brought in soil slowly, truckload by truckload, and with great care has managed to form the septic field into a gently sloping terrace in front of the house. Of course there are always more decisions to be made, and the call today was also to find out if I wanted the field seeded with wildflower conservation seed or a grass that I would keep mown.

I used wildflower seeds along the side of the lower driveway when it was rebuilt, but the grasses in the mix are really tall and wild—surprise? With the septic field just below the house, I want to keep the area more tidy, and I'm already imagining my red Adirondack chairs on a field of emerald green grass inviting me to stop and watch the clouds drift by next summer.

Sheetrock

2007-09-23T02:06:00.000-04:00

This morning, a team of guys were putting up Sheetrock. They started yesterday, finishing most of the first floor. I knew it would really change the feeling of the rooms. Before the Sheetrock, they added a second layer of insulation that is a soft fiberglass-type batting. It really makes the house sound hushed. It's being added to all the exterior walls and the interior walls between the bedrooms and on the first floor between the bathroom and the living room to function as a sound barrier.

A bubble wrap-looking insulation for the radiant floor was also installed over the tubing attached beneath the subfloors. The tubes for the system where installed a couple of weeks ago, and the network of pipes were mounted to a control panel in the basement utility room. The boiler, which will heat the water in the system, is surprisingly small. It's not much bigger than a suitcase, and it includes the tankless hot water heater for the kitchen and bathrooms. It's a new system from Italy.

We're in Good Shape

2007-09-18T15:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I'll say it again. Trust in your builder is critical. I can't imagine going through this experience with someone that I didn't think was honest and I couldn't trust at least 95%. Mark and I spoke today about the delay in the building schedule and the increased costs from framing. As it turns out, the miscalculation was on his part and the framing not only took a little longer, but cost a little more...and it's not going to be my financial responsibility. I'm not going to be in the house before Thanksgiving, but it only seems that we'll be about two weeks off. He thinks he'll be finished by mid-December, but he's hesitant to say for sure because the house has a lot more detail work than they typically have on projects. I do trust this guy, so I'm going to relax and try to enjoy the process.

I also found out today the the lighting order from Visual Comfort isn't going to be complete for one shipment. In fact, half of the lighting for the house will come in in stages over the next two months. I told Mark, and he was completely cool. No problem. I'll say it again, great builder.

New Schedule

2007-09-15T21:35:00.000-04:00

Last night I was pretty restless. Just before going to bed, I checked my emails. Mistake. There was a message from Mark with an update on the building schedule. He doesn't think he'll have me in the house by Thanksgiving, but the "good news" is that "it's not going to cost me much more....." So, here it is. The classic building scenario. I think it's rare, probably never, that a new house is finished on time on budget. What was I thinking.

Hopefully I'll have the house by the New Year. I have to admit that he did say we could discuss the situation and work something out. He knows that I need to be out of my current rental by the end of November.

With a day to think about it, I'm feeling more resolved to the situation. It won't be so bad if I can move things in to the basement of the house...as long as I can take possession by the end of the year. I won't even be around that much in December. Now, I'll have to check in with him to see what "not much more money" means.

I can tell that more electronic and radiant heating work was done over the past week. It looks like the tankless hot water heater is installed. Honestly, I can't tell what a lot of the devices now in the basement are. The pump for the well? The boiler for the radiant heat in the floor? Mark will have to fill me in on all of those details, too.

More Lighting

2007-09-04T10:56:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on the lighting specs, and I'll be glad when I don't have to think about them again. With all of the new faux materials I'm using to build the house, I'm counting on the lighting to give the house an authenticity. The whole building process is such an humbling design experience. After so many years as an editor with shelter magazines, most people would expect me to know exactly what I want, but there is one thing I'm now certain of. Interior designers and architects are worth every penny you pay them. If I only had more pennies....I spent a lot of time thinking about the upstairs sconces this past weekend. I'm resourcing them (and the kitchen lighting) from a company called Visual Comfort who's retail division is Circa Lighting. They have the most beautiful fixtures with collections by designers I admire a lot—like Thomas O'Brien and Eric Cohler. Their in-house lines, Charter House and Studio, are also fantastic. The challenge for me isn't finding something that I like, it's narrowing those choices down to fixtures that are the right size and finish for the rooms. I know it sounds ridiculously simple, but it's not.

I finally decided to sketch life-size cutouts of a few fixtures and take them over to the house to see how they looked on the wall. I also wanted to make sure that the electric boxes were at the correct height for the fixtures. It's a lot easier for the electrician to change the position of them now before the Sheetrock goes up.

Seeing the sketches of the sconces taped in place on the wall made the final decision pretty easy. Here's what I've chosen: For the master bedroom I'm using a pair of Yoke Style Bath Sconces in bronze with white glass shades. In the guest room, I picked a pair of the Metropolitan Sconces in an antique white finish with paper shades. And, for the bookshelves in the common area, I'm going with a pair of the Boston Functional Library Two Arm Wall Light s. Some of the finishes you see here aren't what I picked, but the designs area great.

I met the electrician and site manager at the house on Friday, and we made a key change to the lighting plan in the kitchen. It's always good to meet up with the crew to make some decisions in person and verify other decisions that were made when the design was only on paper. In the kitchen it became clear that three ceiling lights were overkill, so we eliminated one. I was also able to more carefully consider the position of the lights. Alignment (of doors, windows, fixtures, etc...) is something that generally doesn't cost anything but can make the design of the whole look like a million bucks or cheap. Of course there are exceptions, but you always want the exceptions to be intentional and necessary, not just poor planning. The ceiling lights in the kitchen are aligned left to right with one of the fixtures also in alignment with the sink. I probably would have aligned the second fixture with the range, but there was a beam in the way on the ceiling. The left to right alignment was the most important visually. The fixtures I'm looking at will hang, and I'll share them in the next post. I've got a couple of spec questions that I need to have answered before I can make a decision. Circa Lighting has stores in Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta and Houston. I'll call one with my questions when they open today.

Lightning Protection

2007-09-01T00:53:00.000-04:00

From the moment the second floor of the house was framed, I worried about lighting strikes. I'm in a high mountain valley at about 2,200 feet with no really large trees around me. The house is situated in an old stone-walled pasture, and the trees that have started reclaiming the hillside are just starting to get some size. The house looked like a sitting target for a lightning strike.

There have been a lot of big storms this summer. Several times I've headed into the Catskills just as a storm rolled in and was astonished at the frequency of dramatic strikes on the mountain side. Mark had never installed lightning rods on any of his projects, which was kind of surprising, because every barn and house I've seen in the area has lightning rods—so many that you'd think there would be a lot of people in the business of installing them. But, there aren't. I turned to the Internet and found two sources, one in Vermont and one in Delaware. So, I called them to ask for quotes. The Vermont company faxed me a very detailed and elaborate plan, but it was more than twice what they had tentatively quoted me over the telephone. The other company, WB Lightning Rods out of Bear, Delaware gave me a quote about the same as the other company's telephone quote...and that was that.

William Burden turned out to be a great choice. I was a little nervous, because he didn't ask for a deposit (pretty unusual today), and he said that summer is the business' busiest season. But, true to his word, he arrived earlier today and within about six hours had the necessary four rods installed and the chimney also grounded.

I feel a lot better knowing that the system is in place, and I'm going to have my electrician also install a surge protector on the electric panel and the incoming telephone line. I've learned that lightning strikes can travel from telephone poles and public utility wires. When you start looking at the statistics for lightning strikes, you don't want to take any chances.

Insulation

2007-08-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

One of the benefits of a new house is the high-tech materials that can make a house really energy efficient and comfortable. The guys have finished with the first layer of insulation in the exterior walls. They've used a product called TUFF-R, which is a polyisocyanurate insulation. (I can spell it, but don't ask me to pronounce it.) This may not be the sexy or exciting side of building, but I'm really looking forward to warm rooms on cold winter nights. I can already feel the difference the insulation makes. Saturday was probably the hottest day so far this summer, and the house was noticeably cooler. TUFF-R's foam core is sheathed with aluminum foil, which acts as a radiant barrier. As I understand it, insulation can only absorb so much heat before it starts working against you by literally holding the heat and radiating it inside the house when you'd rather it cool down. Simply put, the foil prevents this from happening.

All of the seams have been filled with an expandable foam making this layer an excellent barrier against "wind infiltration." Now, the walls are ready for electrical wiring and plumbing to be installed, followed by a layer of insulation batting over it all.

Light Show

2007-08-21T19:15:00.000-04:00

OK, I've spent several hours looking through my clips and magazine tears of lighting fixtures. I don't know what I expected, but picking the lighting fixtures has been really complicated. First, there are many more lights that you think there are in a house. Second, I'm walking that fine line of having some variety in the house without it looking like a circus.

I started with bronze hardware and wall sconces for the first floor living/dining room. I've been keeping an eye on the Julian sconce in the Pottery Barn catalog for a year or more—and it's now on sale! I like its clean lines, metal shade, and pull chain, which will allow me to control the lights individually around the room. I ordered 5 a couple of weeks ago, and they're perfect.

Now, I've got only got 20 more to select! Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and, believe it or not, Shades of Light have a lot of fixtures I like, but a company called Visual Comfort (its retail division is Circa Lighting) makes some of the most beautiful retro fixtures I've ever seen. I've got to check them out before I make any more lighting decisions inside.

Lighting is like jewelry on the architecture. With my new construction, I'm counting on the lighting to give the house an instant patina or vintage look. I'm one of those people who have to at least thumb through every catalog that comes in the mail, and thankfully I did. I never would have guessed that a catalog called Shades of Light would have much of anything of interest to me, but I found the perfect fixtures for my porch. I'm ordering the small bronze outdoor hurricane lanterns (a pair for the front door and a single for the back door) plus a hanging Moravian Star light for the side porch.

Interior Color Picks

2007-08-19T15:25:00.000-04:00

Mark, my builder, wanted the interior color specs over a month ago. When we signed the contract to build, he took me through pages of specifications that covered just about every aspect of the house and project. When we got to the interior paint colors, though, I told him that I couldn't "imagine" more at the time and had to wait until walls were up and some of the materials, like the flooring, were determined before I could make paint color decisions.

Well, that day has come and gone, so I spent this morning finalizing the interior colors (and finishes). I had walked Eric through the house last week giving him an idea of what I planned to do. I know ideas involve a lot more detail than they're accustomed to. I just hope the painter doesn't lose it when he sees some of my specs. For one, there are three different colors for the trim in the house. Two, I'm asking the painter to use a 1/2 pigment of the door color for the panels on the door. (A detail I picked up from a Stephen Gambrel project that I saw published in another magazine.) And, three, I'm sure the paint finishes I specified are more complicated than what they're typically asked to deal with....but then again, maybe not. We'll see.

Here are the Sherwin-Williams interior paint colors list. And, visit their site to try out the room visualizer. Colors are different from computer monitor to computer monitor, but the simulator does give you a reasonable idea of the look.

Living Room
Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (semi-gloss)
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Doors – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels
Exterior Doors (inside) – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 1/2 pigment for door panels
Exterior Doors (outside) – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)

First Floor Half Bath
Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Wainscot/Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (flat)
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Doors – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels

Kitchen/Mudroom
P&F Cabinets – Pre-Painted by Plain & Fancy (fyi: color match is SW 7008 Alabaster)
Open Shelves/Exposed Wall Studs – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (semi-gloss in kitchen, flat in mudroom)
Exterior Doors (inside) – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 1/2 pigment for door panels
Exterior Doors (outside) – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Mud Room Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Row of Small Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Mud Room Trim (for doors and row of windows) – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)

Stairwell
Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Stair Risers and Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Stair Treads – Wood
Stair Banisters – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (semi-gloss)
Stair Handrails (both) – Wood
Ledge Floor – Wood

Upstairs Common Area
Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (flat)
Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Doors – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels
Bookcase – Pre-Painted by Plain & Fancy (fyi: color match is SW 7008 Alabaster)

Master Bedroom (north side)
Walls – SW 6190 Filmy Green (satin)
Trim – SW 6212 Quietude (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (flat)
Doors – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Closet Interior – SW 6190 Filmy Green (satin)

Guest Bedroom (south side)
Walls – SW 6308 Possibly Pink (satin)
Trim – SW 6252 Ice Cube (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (flat)
Doors – SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Closet Interior – SW 6308 Possibly Pink (satin)

Upstairs Bathroom
Tiles for Lower Wall, Bath Stall, and Floor – tk
Walls – SW 6519 Hinting Blue (satin)
Trim – SW 6219 Rain (semi-gloss)
Ceiling – SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White (flat)
Window Sashes – SW 7623 Cascades (gloss)
Door - SW 7074 Software (semi-gloss) with SW 7074 with 1/2 pigment for door panels

Note: ceiling finish is semi-gloss downstairs for ceiling beams and bead board. Elsewhere, where ceiling is Sheetrock, the ceiling finish is flat.

Hooterville

2007-08-06T22:11:00.000-04:00

When I first showed the house plans to Stephen Drucker, the editor in chief of House Beautiful, he admitted that he had imagined me building and living in something modern! A glass and wood box? He jokingly mentioned Green Acres, which made me laugh. When I was growing up, I loved that show. I also watched The Beverly Hillbillies...with their cement pond. And I fantasized about the train station's water tank on Petticoat Junction. What a cool place for a dip! Is this why I keep thinking about converting the bottom of a old silo into a plunge pool? Or splurging on a wood-fired, hot tub? It's interesting when something strikes a note that suddenly throws your thoughts back years...and you realize that ideas today may have roots in things you were exposed to so long ago!

The Foundation

2007-07-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

Things are really moving quickly. The hole was dug and now the foundation is being poured. Oak Tree uses an interesting block system to form and pour the foundation. It also allows them to do the work themselves instead of having to contract it out—more control over the process. The foam blocks are stacked and the concrete is poured inside, giving you an insulated foundation. Here are some shots of the scene.

The Big Dig

2007-06-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

The excavator has been at the site today digging the hole. It's amazing how fast he's working and how neatly he's digging the hole. I don't want to hover, but it's been so exciting to see things finally happening. Glenn, the excavator, said that they'd probably start pouring the foundation this coming week. Unbelievable. At this pace they will be able to finish the house in 16 weeks! Glenn hit a small stream of water at the SE corner of the hole. It's not a lot of water, but he's going to have to put in a pipe to take it away from the foundation.

Ground Breaking

2007-06-23T00:31:00.000-04:00

Well, we didn't break ground on the shortest day of the year, but the excavator started scraping away the topsoil today. Here, high in the mountains, there isn't a lot of topsoil to be scraped away, so things are moving quickly. It's started. I can't believe it!

Surveyor's Tape

2007-06-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

I've spent a lot of time this spring plotting the site of the house on the property. With surveyor's tape and flags, I've stepped off a rough approximation of the floor plan. It's helped me imagine what the views will be from the different rooms in the house and the porch that wraps around two sides of the building. It can be really gray in the Catskills during the winter and early spring, so I want to take as much advantage of the sun as possible. I made a mental note back in the winter of where the sun sets over the ridge on the shortest days of the year—likewise last summer during the longest days.

I've probably spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about the placement of the house, but in the process I realized that the plan of the house needed to be flipped so that the side porch would face the nice view across the valley instead of looking into the hillside. Fortunately, the computer program that Eric has been using to design the house allowed him to flip the plan with a few strokes of the computer keys. Wow. It would have been awful if I hadn't realized this too late...after the house was under construction.

When Mark and the excavator visited the site a few weeks ago, they recommended that I move the house about 40 feet up and about 30 feet south on the site. Moving the tape was easy. I finally decided to make the house face due SW, so I used a compass to get the correct orientation. This is it. They'll break ground any day. At this point, it'd be kind of cool for things to start on June 21, the longest day of the year.

Tearsheets

2007-04-08T22:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I mentioned tearsheets, which are worth more discussion. Over the years, I've been tearing out pages of magazines with pictures of things that I like—houses, rooms, decorating details, architectural details, gardens, resources, you name it. If I liked it, I tore out the picture and tossed it in a box or one of several files I started.

Before I started the design process with Mark and Eric, I gathered the files and box to sort through what I had collected, and it was fascinating. It immediately became clear that there are certain things that I like. I found ideas and designs repeating. I've always thought that my tastes are wide ranging, but the tearsheets revealed that my tastes are very consistent.

I can't emphasis how important it is to collect tearsheets to help define and refine your design ideas. Pictures also make the design process with your architect, interior designer or builder 100% clear. Words can have many meanings and interpretations, but an image is what it is. With pictures there's very little room for variations and misunderstandings.

Farmhouses clearly hold a lot of appeal for me. I had pictures of them in ever form and fashion.

Follies

2007-04-08T19:29:00.000-04:00

Tumbleweed Houses are pretty affordable, but their dimensions and amenities are pretty much like those of a trailer camper. Not what I want to be living in 10, much less 20, years from now.

My meetings with architects weren't a total waste of time, because the conversations did help me see more clearly and become more confident about what I wanted to build. And, I'll admit that I did pick up an idea or two that I'm incorporating into the design. I also stumbled across a book by A. J. Downing, an early American tastemaker. In the mid-1850's he published a book called, The Architecture of Country Houses. It's still available in paperback, and many of his ideas for how Americans should build country houses are still surprisingly relevant today.

One architect did have a glimpse of what I want to do. He's a classicist, and toward the end of our meeting he commented, "basically you want to build a folly." Ding! Ding! And his advice? "Make sure that the design of the house allows light to flood in from all four sides. You'll have the feeling of a wonderful pavilion in the field."

He nailed it on the head. I've always fantasized about garden follies. In my magazine tear sheets, I even have an example of an onion-domed folly in a field. I think it was something I had torn from The World of Interiors. When he made that comment, it suddenly became clear. I wanted to build an American farmhouse folly. A small house inspired by the rural, agrarian landscape. Small but big enough to call home.

My Tumbleweed Houses plans for a simple, small house evolved as I worked with Mark and Eric Misner, his architectural draftsman. Oak Tree Homes offers a design service. With my simple plans (and I mean simple) I needed something with more details specs for a builder to even start estimating costs. I paid an initial design fee, which would cover the costs of Eric developing new plans for a house. With the fee paid, I could have taken the plans and gone to another builder, but I chose to stay with Oak Tree. The design fee will be reimbursed when we sign a contract to build.

I started meeting with Mark and Eric back in January. It was quite a heady experience. Week after week, we'd meet late on Friday afternoons. As I explained, Eric started with the cross gable concept, and Mark walked me through lists of design features, building materials and utilities. I felt like a kid at Christmas. I want. I want. I want. And, a new house started taking shape on paper.

That was until bids started coming in and the estimate started escalating. I use the word escalating, because at one point a couple of months ago the costs for building the house were growing by $100,000 every week. When we pasted the half a million mark, I came to my senses and told Mark I didn't think I could build the house. In fact, I felt confident that I had to stop. To put this into some perspective, in the beginning I thought I was going to build a Tumbleweed House for about $80,000. Ha....

Fortunately, I was in good hands. Mark explained that there were aspects of the costs that we could revisit. So, we started looking at alternatives, and here we are today. The house plans are looking beautiful, and the price is coming down, and we're getting closer to a figure that I can manage to afford.

Little Houses

2007-04-07T18:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago, I ran across the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company on the Internet. Jay Shafer is a young architect who is designing small (tiny) houses that are completely charming. A lot of their appeal comes from the proportions of his designs, which I think he nails. The houses caught my attention because they're like little follies. They also reminiscent of cottages on old Methodist summer campgrounds in the early 20th Century—little mini-me's of farmhouses and cottages.

At that point, a few years ago, I had just purchased my property in the Catskills and had become fascinated with the idea of a little house that wouldn't cost a lot to build. So, I purchased one of his plans for the largest house he had designed at the time—a 16'x16' cross gable design.

Jay has gotten a lot of attention since I first read about him. Last year I caught an episode of CBS Sunday Morning which had a segment on his ideas for living in small houses. His work has also gotten much more interesting and diverse. I think he's still living in his gypsy wagon-size house, but he's offering more variety and sizes in the architectural portfolios that he sells. Definitely worth checking out.

Renting a house in the Catskills for the past year, I've looked (and asked) around for builder recommendations. At a friend's dinner party last summer, I met a couple who had just built a house nearby. While it wasn't the same style of house I intend to build, I'd never heard anyone speak so highly of their builder. They put me in touch with Mark Barstow of Oak Tree Homes, and I couldn't be happier with how things are going. Granted, I had dreamed that I'd be building by now...but the inevitable wait (and planning time) over this past winter has been invaluable. I'm so ready to get this project going!

Getting on the Site

2007-04-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

Last spring, I hired a land excavator to open up an old road that crosses my property as a driveway. At a point about half way across the width of the property I had him make a turn and take the driveway up to the small field that straddles my property. In the aerial view at right, you can see the shape of the old field, because it is lined with stone walls that are visible in the photo. You can also see the old road, because it's also lined on both sides with stone walls. I have a lot of stone walls, but many of them have fallen apart over the years. Some day I'd like to have someone rebuild them.

The property is long and narrow, but the angle of the driveway and the way it turns to go up into the field makes the site feel much larger than it really is. My plan is to use these existing features to develop a master plan for the whole property. The lower triangle to the right of the driveway has a few old apple trees. I may just clean out the underbrush and the newer, smaller trees, but I could also clean out the whole area and start a new small apple orchard.....some day.

The triangle to the left of the driveway has a number of large maple trees and a few other interesting trees like a Rowan. The land there is very uneven and populated with a few really large boulders. My thought is that this could be developed into a more wooded area with a wandering path from the field down to the road at the foot of the driveway.

The field (Twilight Field) is where I'll build the house, which I think I'll orient to the old road, not perpendicular to the main road. Maybe this will help make the house feel like it's always been there?

And, at the top of the property behind the field is another triangle with more maple trees. This is the highest elevation on the site with great views to the south. I'm not sure what I'll do there, but the stone walls naturally organize the property into sections that I can develop over the years. I've got to get the house built first.

Mountain Views

2007-03-31T20:53:00.000-04:00

Five years ago I bought a small piece of land in the northwest Catskill Mountains of New York State. These are old mountains that have wide tops often cut with high mountain valleys, which is where my land sits. It’s not the most stunning site, but it’s nestled on the side of a valley with gentle views of the ridge to the west and a mountain peak about 10 miles to the south.

I saw the property for the first time on my birthday. For years I had dreamed of one day owning a second home outside the city. Don't get me wrong. I love the city, but I had reached a point (an age?) where I needed a counterpoint to the fast, rushed pace of the week days.

I was with a friend who was house hunting. She couldn't find anything that interested her, and unexpectedly I bought these few acres. I was starting a new job that kept me from getting Upstate very often. So, I took my time. Paid the annual taxes. And, occasionally drove up to check out the site, although it was a year or two before I had someone clear some of it with a brush hog. I could see that a road had once crossed the land on a diagonal, but it had long been abandoned. In fact, the old road bed had become a seasonal spring that was muck any season I checked.

The Backstory

2007-03-31T17:08:00.000-04:00

Twilight Journal is a record of my experiences in building a house—for now it's actually a second home. I've called New York City home for almost as long as I lived in Mississippi, where I was born. I love New York, but after years of living in the city, I started to realize that I needed a alternative to the fast pace of my weekdays and an escape where I could refuel in a lifestyle that was more connected to the land and the seasons.

It was the now ominous summer of 2001 when I first started "getting away" for the weekend. Little did I know then how much more important a place outside of the city would come to mean to me. I had found a little farmhouse in Columbia County that I rented that summer. It was big on charm but short on amenities. The kitchen was a little room with a refrigerator, a range and an old-fashioned metal hutch. The bathroom was even more basic: toilet, sink (no mirror) and a tub that I couldn't imagine sitting in. So, I rigged a shower with a hula hoop, wire, shower curtain and a garden hose that I managed to connect to the tub's faucet. The few visitors I had that summer were fascinated by my ingenuity and the variety of showering experiences you could have with a hose and spray nozzle attachment. Even in that little house, or maybe because of it, life felt so real.

Despite the things the little house lacked, that summer was one of the most relaxed, enjoyable summers I can remember. Friends and I spent a lot of time hanging in a trio of hammocks behind the house, and I started thinking about how to make the experience a permanent part of my life.