Chipped, Chopped, and Sawn Oh My!

Hi there!  We've been drowning in decisions and loan docs over here but I've managed to gather up a few pics of the process that we've taken to choose some exterior finishes.  Since the last post we've picked up some stone samples and that made a big difference when looking at colors for the stucco.  I  had previously chosen some colors that were way too light and now that I have the stone next to them we can make a more accurate decision.  

So how do you even begin to know where to start?  I've been collecting pictures, pictures and more pictures.  Even before the days of good ol' Pinterest I had a folder on the computer where I would throw anything that appealed to me in any way.  After collecting pics for some time you begin to see what you like the most over and over again.

I had many many pics of the overall look and feel of the architecture but when it came down to details I just love this one!

This was a picture that I had stored away from a picture on a real estate web site so I don't have a link or any more detailed pictures:(

I can't decide what I love the most about it.  Is it the stone, the pattern of the stone, the door, windows?  I like it all but this picture is what led me to the type of stone we will go with.  It's called Lueders stone.     

After sending this picture to the stone company that we will probably be ordering through I was told it is more than likely "antique" lueders.  Lueders is quarried in Texas but surprisingly I had never heard of it and now that I know better I see it's all over the place here in central TX.  After a few phone calls I found a place with a price for Lueders in our budget.  Yay!  Don't you hate it when you think you've found the thing that will work and yet it is beyond your reach and you have to start over?  

It's amazing how there are soo many decisions that you need to make when you are starting from scratch.  Not only will we choose the stone, but the pattern of the stone and then the grout!  Below is one of the random patterns we have considered. (yes we drive around and take pictures of random buildings with our phones)  It may very well creep people out if they see us.  It would me!  Except for the fact that we are rollin in the mini van..

This is what I'm calling a "random" pattern but have no idea if that's what the professionals call it;)

Here is another pic of the same pattern but with bigger stones.  Ah yes we need to decide the stone size too.  This was actually one of my faves at the stone yard and we brought some home to play with.

Below I'm trying the tried but not so sure if it's true...Lay it on the shingles next to a paint swatch trick.   I liked it with the Sherwin Williams Pavestone and the charcoal shingles.

Oh but it looks pretty good with the Gateway Grey too.

Oh and not to confuse you as much as we began to get confused but you have to decide if you want the cut "chopped" or "sawn".  The above stones are chopped and the pic below is sawn.  Can you see the difference?  

We actually ended up at this particular stone yard because of the Lueders prices that I mentioned above.  I had also seen grey lueders that looked great online but in person it was super blah.  It looked very bland and there was almost no color variation.  We don't want a lot of variation but don't want it to look like concrete blocks either.

See what I mean?

This Santa Maria below actually looked kinda cool in person but seeing it here I don't like it at all.  They actually achieved this look by chipping off the "skin" of the stone in some areas to give it a more rustic look. 

So just to make it more complicated you can have it "chipped" too!  You can see how we might have felt just a little "stoned" when we left now huh?

And then we came across these pretty babies.  This one is called Sonoma Tan and it made me realize that I wasn't really as in love with Mr. Lueder as I thought I was.  I think senior Sonoma may just be the perfect one for our casa.  There was some slight variation in the stones and it was laid in the same pattern as the awesome house in the first picture in this post so Mr. Sonoma stole my heart from Mr. Lueder and just so happens he is in our budget too!

I think we may have a winner in the paint department too!  As I downloaded these pics I realized that I was apparently really digging the mix of the Sonoma Tan with the Pavestone from sherwin williams, the charcoal shingles and you see that little sample there?..that is the metal roof that is a greyish color as well.  

See what I mean?  I took a ton of pics of this combo and you know what?  I like it!!  One bonus about selecting the Sonoma Tan in the pattern above (I wish I knew what it is called, I will soon I'm sure!) is that we won't have to select a grout color. Score!  One less decision in this process is a good thing!  I can't wait to see how it all comes together.  When it's all on the house and not just small little samples will it look totally different?  Only time will tell! 

Cha cha cha changes

Remember a few posts back when I shared our first color drawings of the beautiful home that Wilson drew up for us? So fun to see what you have been thinking of building come to life on paper with details, color, and shadows right?

Well what is not so fun is the realization that you can't make it a reality because of HOA requirements and oh you know...the budget.  Truth be told when we received a preliminary quote for the beauty above we were actually just at our max of what we wanted to spend and that was with a lot of bells and whistles which we knew and assumed we would probably have to nix and DIY a little at time in the future.  Sadly this board and batten look is not o.k. in our neighborhood unless your house is 3,000 sq feet or more and ours will not be.  Believe it or not for a split and possibly irrational second we thought "hmm you mean if we added a couple hundred sq. feet we could actually save money because we wouldn't have to have so much stone on the exterior".  Stone is pricey people!  But...we don't want a house that big to clean and heat and cool.    Actually I wonder if someday we(we meaning all of us) will not even look at stone as an option anymore due to there being so many more green and less expensive ways to clad a home.  One day HOA's in our area may rethink what is acceptable as long as it is not depleting the value of homes in the neighborhoods.  People want efficient, green, pretty, and inexpensive ways to build spaces.  Us included!  So anywho...IF we were to ever leave this house that we haven't even started on...(did I dare say that?) then I think we would have a ton o' fun playing with other materials.  But for now this is how we have gone about changing some things up to meet the requirements and changing some details that I mentioned in that previous post about the front porch area.

Ta da!  She is pretty too isn't she!!  We changed up the roofline a bit to add more interest and in doing so  went to 9 foot ceilings everywhere except the kitchen/living area.  We also obviously added more of a front porch.  We have always loved this look over an entry...

 Sources of these 3 pics is unknown(before the days of pinterest:) and I wasn't savvy enough to note where they were from so if you know please advise!  

In the drawing you will see many of the columns are stone and due to budget those will be changed to cedar clad posts.  The materials have changed to a stone and stucco mix which unfortunately is more 

cha ching:(

Here is a drawing of how the back of the house did look

and now (not in color so a bit harder to compare)

Not a huge difference but did replace the board and batten with stucco and will clad the columns in cedar here to to save moola. 

Here are the previous side views

and here they are now.  You can see we have had to scale her back a bit in the ceiling height and window category.  Oh and you know that side of the master bedroom was my favorite right? :( Boo and oh well!  I will get over it...Actually done...  I'm over it.  We don't have the time or the money to care too much at this point.  I still have those awesome square windows that I can't do without! 

We have to get this baby done soon...our lease is a tickin and little man starts kinder soon!  No matter what it will be our home and we will fill it with noise, love, fun and stress and life and I am oh soo grateful for that!  Don't get me started I am on a teary eyed hold on to my family and try to enjoy every moment ride right now.  As I should be!  

So this may be it?!  Our future home...We think she is pretty! 

 But...Happy inside is what makes her pretty!(there I go again;)  Seriously if I could type tears and a swelling heart I would.  I am all hormonal or convicted or something.

We shall see....at this rate we may just have to sell the lot and grab us some rusty old metal and start that whole "green building" "off the grid" life I dream of;)

Let's Go Out Back

If our first front porch wasn't welcoming enough...then mosey on into the back.

Gulp..

See that screened in porch?  

It actually wasn't even a screen but more like a "cage" built with hog wire.

There were two abandoned raised beds, a neglected paint job, no window screens, no grass..you name it ..it was neglected.

Here is the side yard..Gotta love my pose and the really grainy photo! Photography has come a long way in 10 years for sure.

This is what it looked liked in the middle of our demo of the inside of the house....Talk about gratifying and overwhelming..Nothing classier than a toilet in the back yard;)

And here is the "view" looking back across the yard from the other direction

And here is the transformation!  

We removed the "screened in porch", painted, added solar screens to the windows to cut down on the morning sun(an prevent flying creatures from coming to live with us), built a deck, added an outdoor fan and planted tons and tons of drought resistant plants(and some that weren't native to central texas or drought tolerant that didn't do so well).  We babied what little grass was present and it eventually filled in really nicely.

Through this process we definitely learned what kind of plants work well for us and which don't.  If something wasn't doing well where we put it then we would move it and try again(if it wasn't too late).  Another thing that we learned with this yard is how to "not" space things.  We have a tendency to put things too close together and underestimate how big they are going to get.  I have a feeling this yard is a bit overgrown now..We haven't lived there in 4 years and before we left we noticed that several of our trees were getting a little cramped where they were placed.  Oh..we also added trellis to the top of the fence in order to block the "view" of some duplexes right behind us.  

Here is hubs tilling up the ground so we could add compost and provide a healthy base for the St. Augustine to spread.

You can also see that he added new taller posts to the back fence in preparation for the lattice that we added to block the "view".

Here the lattice is up, we have made a curvy bed along the back fence and planted the big players in the  yard...the trees, rosemary, agaves and such.

Here is how it was looking before we build the deck.

Amazing what a deck can do for a space!

Didn't the hubs do a nice job?  I think a deck makes all the difference in the world..It pulls you out into the yard to enjoy all your hard work!

Sadly I don't have a picture of the side of the yard but I promise we got rid of the toilet and it was looking might fine.  We also had a huge garden on the other side and I don't have a clue if I ever took pics of it or not.  I sure hope I come across them some day.

I did find a pic of this awesome that hubs built as an entry to the side yard.  I'm a lucky girl.

That's a carving of a tree in the circle on the top of the gate..

Cool huh?  

We LOVED this yard and spent many many hours drinking coffee(yep I am officially old and addicted to it) and grilling out here.   Can't wait to see what kind of deck we can design around the new casa in in the near future!  Hill Country View..Yes Please!

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Houseography

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Focusing Outside!

Since spring is among many of us I can't help but to want to focus on the great outdoors a bit.  There is a lot of outdoor maintenance and curb appeal sprucing up going on around our current abode but I am going to flashback to our first house again for the next couple of posts.  

I mentioned in this post how the hubby wasn't necessarily thinking that he just had to have this house when we went for our first look.  I can't imagine why??!

Doesn't this front porch just reach out and pull you in?  Now granted this could have been a lot worse and the very fact that we had the opportunity to own a home in our financial situation at the time was an awesome blessing!  Oh but I couldn't wait to get my hands on this little entry that would greet us home from work on a daily basis.  I am weird like this but I like to be greeted by a tidy home that smells good and makes you feel like sticking around for a while.
So to start we had to get rid of a few things like:
 The nice little ceramic kitty welcoming you in or warning you to stay away(depending on how you feel about cats that is).
The metal screen/storm door thingy..I think you can totally pull off a screen door in a classy, cool, or funky kind of way depending on the house and/or the neighborhood but this one just took away from what I think should be a welcoming and really functional(it was awkward and noisy) part of the home.
And....
See that blue post towards the front...this really dated the house and looked like a big turned leg from a piece of furniture in the 80's...unfortunately it couldn't be removed so we had to work with it.

Oh and the blue...For the longest time blue was one of my least favorite colors(if you look through any of my more recent posts you will see I am now a fan of many blues) so we started the whole exterior transformation with lots and lots of exterior paint, gallons of sweat , and some major paint spills from the tops of ladders(we still have evidence of two gallons of paint that were uh dropped and splattered on some of our planters)

After the major paint overhaul of the entire house

 we could focus on the smaller details like adding wood around the column to make it look more substantial and just update it period. We also added some funky fun house #'s that really made a big difference in the look/feel of the whole porch as far as I'm concerned.  We loved the look and feel of all the older smaller homes in central Austin but they were about 5 x the cost so we had to come up with ways to make it "feel" like a cool little bungalow instead.  Isn't it crazy what some house #'s can do?  If you think about it I bet that is one of the things that changes the whole look and feel of the curb appeal and I bet it is overlooked a lot.  Oh and the options out there these days are awesome.  These were just some cheapy home depot #'s but they worked.

 So in the picture above the big changes were of course as mentioned the column, paint, house #'s and the blinds.  The blinds actually lightened the porch up a bit and made it look more finished..and obviously had some function too.

In this next picture you can see that we had stained the porch and the whole sidewalk leading up to it.  We ended up using WOOD STAIN because that is what we had on hand and the real acid etching stuff wasn't in our budget at the time.  It held up really well!  I will say we did this at our current home on the back porch and it isn't holding up as well?  Not sure why? This change helped so much and was one of the best things we did for the whole "warm up" of the front of the house.  Stained concrete can really finish off a space because it takes away that cold gray look.  We also painted the front door black, added some new door hardware, and of course the landscaping changed a ton..It was actually a bit out of control in this picture..We couldn't get a handle on that lavender that wanted to grow right into path leading up to the door but if your going to trip on something it might as well be something that freshens the air as you fall to the ground right?

 And here is a pic of it from a little further away..I think we warmed it up a bit and brought out its "welcoming potential" don't you?

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Houseography