Picky

Whenever I tell someone we’re in the process of building a house, the conversation invariably goes to the details: flooring, paint color, cabinets, etc. The person I am speaking with will then say one of two things:

• “Wow, I would love to make those kinds of decisions.”
• “Wow, I would find all those decisions too overwhelming, so I’d probably just let the builder decide.”

As you can imagine, I fall firmly into the first category. I knew what kinds of lights I wanted even before we had land. By the time we had finalized the drawings, I had a spreadsheet with almost 100 different items that needed my stamp of approval. Each line item was sorted by:

• location within (or outside) the house — kitchen, living room, master bedroom, etc.
• what that specific item was — lights over the peninsula, the light in the pantry, etc.
• where that item could be purchased — local hardware store, eBay, IKEA, etc.
• details about that item — the specific brand name and other details

Going into this project, I warned our builder that I would be picky about details. Very picky. Luckily, he’s a mellow guy. But, I suppose there’s always the possibility he’s going to hate me by the time we get our certificate of occupancy next winter.

I freely admit to being a bit, um, controlling. But, Pete and I have been dreaming about this house for years. This isn’t just the dream to live in a nicer/bigger/different house. We have had some very specific reasons for some of our design decisions. I’m going to obsess about the details, because I don’t want to move in and immediately start making changes because I hate the paint color or the dining room light isn’t quite right. And people, I’m here to tell you that I am THAT picky.

Want to know how picky?

When I visit people’s houses, it’s the rare time I don’t mentally rearrange the furniture or choose a new paint color for the living room. I visited the WHITE HOUSE — which we all know comes fully decorated — and I was mentally re-doing the East Room. And don’t even get me started on the Blue Room.

[Note to all of you: I would never do this to YOUR houses. ]

[I lie. Yes I would.]

[Please don't be offended. It's not you, it's all me.]

So, it’s safe to say that I have very strong opinions about my new house and am not leaving any details to chance. Not a single one.

Color is the worst area in which I am picky, because I can be infuriatingly difficult about it.

For example, my favorite color is cobalt blue. Cobalt is a very specific color. Gentian blue is a similar shade, but I hate it. To me, if cobalt is the old money relative, gentian is its po’ white trash cousin. Sapphire is a nice shade of blue, but I’m not wild about navy. Cornflower blue is nice, but I loathe Carolina blue. (And not just because I went to U.Va.) Pete doesn’t even notice the subtle gradations in blues, but I sure do.

The exterior of the house is going to be gray. A lot of people have red doors with gray modern houses, but I think that color combo is overdone, so we’re thinking about painting the front door cobalt blue. Plus, if we were to have a red door, it would clash with the landscaping I’m planning in the front yard.

See? That’s how picky I am. I’m matching my landscaping to my front door.

Thus I have all sorts of paint chips in varying shades of blue, trying to figure out which one will be just right.

Even for a color as seemingly simple as white, I have around eight different shades I am considering.

In case you’re wondering, no this doesn’t stress me out at all. In fact, I am enjoying it greatly. I am thrilled that I FINALLY get to do a house exactly the way I want it done. We’ve owned two houses and before that lived in several rentals and in every single one I would imagine changes both great and small. New paint here, moving a wall there, and so on.

The chances are really good that there is a detail that Pete and I have overlooked and we won’t figure it out until we move in, such as hardwiring a light in a specific spot. But, given that we will have sorted out dozens, if not hundreds, of other details, I’m hoping that one or two minor things won’t bother me. Too much.

Good house, cheap house

One of the books that inspired this house project and really helped us think creatively was Good House Cheap House by Kira Obolensky.

Rarely do good and cheap go together, but this book shows you how you can have both at the same time. Obolensky says you don’t have to be a millionaire to live in a home that’s special. The unique homes featured in the book helped Pete and me brainstorm a lot of fun ideas when we were designing our house.

For example, one thing we’ve seen done a lot in modern design is using basic Ikea cabinets in the kitchen, but jazzing them up with great counters. Or, using simple materials in interesting ways, such as corrugated galvanized steel in unexpected locations. At one point we considered using it as our house siding, but we eventually opted to use it on the roof and on the front porch.

Most important, Good House made it clear that it is possible to build an amazing house on a tight budget. When we were first researching construction costs, we were seeing numbers like $200/square foot or $250/s.f. or [gulp] even $300 or more per square foot. There was no way we were going to build a house with those numbers — we were hoping for around $150/s.f. or less and it appears that we’ll hit that, even considering the cost of the land.

Obolensky used to have a website that I would love to direct you to, but it seems to have disappeared, so my idea of showing you some of the homes in the book that influenced us is not going to work the way I’d hoped. If you go to this Amazon.com link, you’ll see under the photo of the book a link to search inside the book. Around the fourth page, it starts to get interesting and you can see one of the kitchens that influenced me when I was planning the new kitchen.

This wasn’t the only book that influenced our thinking. Coming soon is The Not So Big House, which also helped us with our plans.

Getting closer

It appears groundbreaking will be the week of July 7, so we’re finally getting closer to our fantasy becoming a reality.

Since last week, Pete and the builder have met with more HVAC people and gotten one quote. Seeing the numbers was one of those GULP moments because I think most of us don’t know how much it costs. (Hint: Definitely more than I had thought.)

(A lot more.)

(I really had no clue.)

(I wasn’t even in the ballpark.)

Also in the past week:

We’ve chosen the tile for the two upstairs bathrooms. Mosaic postage stamp tiles in blues and lavenders for the girls’ bathroom and the same thing in mixed blues for us. Yes, the two pre-teen girls chose the colors for their bathroom. If you’ve got a problem with pastels, then plan to use the bathroom on the first floor.

We’ve made absolutely no progress whatsoever on choosing kitchen counters, other than to look at a lot of samples and sigh over how expensive they are. At this point, I’m thinking I want to wait on this choice for as long as possible and see how other expenses are shaking out first.

I priced closet organizers. To paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara, with God as my witness, I’ll never have unorganized shoes again. Don’t even get me started on the hall closet.

I also looked at mailboxes and posts and even house numbers. Seemingly trivial, but still important to me. Yes, I really am that picky.

Then again, I am so organized that I’m already thinking about where I’m going to hang art. I’ve even planned a bench and an auxiliary coat rack I’m going to build for the foyer. (I am pretty handy with tools and pretty much never need medical care afterward.)

So that’s what’s going on this week.

Decisions, decisions

This part of the construction process is seemingly quiet. There doesn’t appear to be much going on, as there’s nothing going on over at the construction site.

It’s too soon to get the construction permit from the city, but we still believe that we’ll break ground in a little over two weeks. The builder has also filed the application to have the meter hooked up for water and sewer as quickly as possible. There’s some urgency to this, as we just found out a couple of weeks ago that the fees will triple on July 1st — going from around $2,000 to $6,000.

In the meantime, Pete and the builder are meeting with different local companies to get bids on the HVAC system. The plumber and electrician are also on the list, although I believe the builder may already have taken care of those.

Now on to the fun stuff (for me) …

We have a lot of decisions to make about finishing details inside the house.  Cabinets, lights, paint colors, and so much more.  I have an opinion on pretty much everything, including the outlet and light switch covers.  We’ve been shopping and researching for months and have started to make some decisions.

First off, we finally chose our kitchen cabinets, which involved a lot of thought.  We’re going with birch cabinets that are very sleek, with no moldings or ornamentation of any kind. We’ll have an almost unbelievable amount of storage space in the kitchen, including an 8′ long peninsula and wall cabinets that will go all the way to the ceiling (9′ tall). Oh yeah, and the 5′ x 10′ pantry. Mustn’t forget to mention that little bit of Nirvana.

We’re still debating different counters, including Fireslate and a good quality laminate. Fireslate is a counter that is used in labs and is very durable. It looks like slate, but costs less. The laminate we’re looking at is a dark gray/almost black. It looks really good with our cabinets. The up side is that it’s a fraction of the cost of Fireslate. The down side is that we cannot get a piece of it large enough for the peninsula (3′ x 8′). We’ve thought about using laminate everywhere except the peninsula and then using Fireslate there, but I need to do a side-by-side comparison of how the two materials would look in the same room. Picky, I know, but for a project like this, we have to be.

We’ve also chosen almost all of the light fixtures. We’ve found most of the lights for the kitchen, including over the peninsula, but not over the table. We’ve also chosen lights for the foyer, living room, study, and children’s toy room (very fun!). We’re putting sleek chrome ceiling fans in the bedrooms.  What remains is some task lighting (pantry, laundry, etc.), sconces for the halls, and lights for two of the bathrooms. I know what I want and have good candidates for most places, but want to search a bit more before deciding.

We’re still working on paint colors but think that we have most of it decided. The exterior of the house will be grey and we’re thinking about cobalt blue for the front door. Inside, most of the rooms will be a creamy white. The girls are still planning their bedrooms but right now the older one is leaning toward lavender and the younger one prefers pale pink. Their bathroom and ours will be some shade of pale blue, but I’m waiting to pick out tile before I decide on the paint.

Ah yes, the bathrooms… We chose a sleek glossy red cabinet for the half bath on the first floor. Very sexy. Upstairs, the two bathrooms will have glossy white cabinets with glass and chrome doors. The hall bathroom will have some sort of mosaic glass tile for the tub surround, and I’ve ordered several samples. We’re leaning toward mixed blues, but just haven’t decided which ones yet.  We haven’t picked out tile for the master shower yet.  Well, that’s not true.  We picked out some but then got an estimate for the project and decided we’d look around at other options.  We might use the fun tiles for the floor of the shower and then basic white subway tiles for the walls.

So that’s where things stand for now.  We’ll post again when we have more to share.

So now what?

Now that we own the land, what happens next?

Since we had to submit the house plans to the mortgage company along with our application (and about 47 other pieces of paper, including the builder’s resume and references), we are ready to apply for construction permits, which the builder is doing today. We should have those within three weeks, at which point he can start excavating for the foundation.

Also, the builder gets the first check from the mortgage company today. He set up a detailed draw schedule of what will be done and approximately when. Before he can withdraw the next chunk of funds, the house will have to be inspected and whatnot.

The surveyors staked the corners of the house yesterday, so we’ll go over there in the next couple of days to take a look at that.

Since the exterior walls will be constructed of Superior Walls (basement) and SIP’s (first and second floors), the builder will order those in the next few days so that they’ll be delivered at just the right time and there won’t be any lags in construction. I know you’re wondering what Superior Walls and SIP’s are — don’t worry, I’m supposed to know and I keep mixing them up — and Pete’s going to address that issue once the wall are up so that he can also include photos.

Pete and the builder are also in the process of interviewing local companies to install our HVAC system. Again, this is one of those areas I’m fuzzy on, so Pete will address this later on. The builder has also met with multiple excavators to talk about siting the house, plumbers, electricians, and even a “stair guy” who will build some beautiful stairs for the foyer.

What I am very clear on are finishing details inside the house. I have a spreadsheet that lists every light fixture, paint color, kitchen and bathroom cabinet, etc. that needs to be chosen and the list is currently in the 90’s. We’ve decided on almost everything, but there are still a few things we need to choose. Specifically, we’re picking out the kitchen cabinets this weekend. We also need to finalize our paint colors; most of the walls will be some shade of white. I’m also narrowing in on the exact color of the front door (some variation on cobalt blue), but our daughters need to decide what they want in their rooms. The older one thinks she knows (lavender and purple), but the younger one is still waffling (pink? green?). Again, we’ll post photos of everything when we’re further along.

So, while a look at our little piece of land doesn’t show much progress, there’s actually a lot going on. Pete and I keep comparing this to a pregnancy and this part is the first trimester, when there’s a lot of activity, but you just don’t see anything quite yet.

In the beginning

What does our small piece of terra firma look like?

Here it is from the sidewalk:

In the front of the property, there’s a sharp hill that looks forbidding, but once you get past that initial incline, the yard looks like this:

See? Not so bad once you’re up there. In fact, the slope is pretty gentle and we’re not anticipating having to grade the back yard.

Here’s the view looking across the street:

Peaceful, don’t you think?

So, the plan is to regrade the front of the lot, as well as have a front-loading garage in the basement. Might as well take advantage of that hill.