July 2012 – On ErikaRS' Mind

Exterior Design and Colors

Posted on July 30, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

The exterior is finally painted, and other than a few touch-ups, the exterior design and color is fully finished. Let’s compare what we ended up with to our original plan and inspirations.

This picture gives the best evidence of the look we were trying to achieve. The garage has larger panels, and the dark grey stands in contrast to the light grey lap siding on the rest of the house. Details such as the windows, roof fascia, and deck edging, are in a dark color to provide an accent.

The charcoal frame of the windows was the first piece in place. Those were ordered when construction started, and installed back in February.

The fascia around the edge of the roof was installed in April and May. We were limited by the colors available in the metal, so we decided on a dark bronze. It was just shy of black to avoid too stark of an accent, with just a touch of warmth from the bronze.

Unfortunately, this didn’t quite work out. The dark color of the metal highlighted the flex and imperfections in the metal due to the height of the fascia. After some trials of different installation techniques and different materials, the roofing contractor decided to use a thicker metal. This cut down on the warp and flex of the metal, giving a smoother look. However, the colors in this metal were different than our original colors! The fascia ended up with more brown in it, as an espresso color.

At the time, we decided this would be acceptable, as the color was not directly next to the charcoal of the window frames.

The paint colors are the largest applications of color and really define the look of the house. ‘Dark grey’ and ‘light grey’ and not specific — there are thousands of varieties of grey in all different shades. Colors look different under different light and against different colors. Not only do we have the window trim and the fascia to compare against, but we have the reddish wood on the deck, and the neighboring houses. The house directly next to ours has a blue theme, while the first house has a bit more of a bluish-grey style; but the house across from ours (which is not painted yet) is aiming for more of a brown/cream palette.

In our original design meetings, well before construction had started, we had picked out a couple of candidate pairs of colors. One was a bit cooler, and the other was a bit warmer, but they were fairly close together. These were not chosen under realistic conditions; the samples were small and the light artificial. Once we painted these on some pieces of siding to compare against the window trim, deck wood, and neighboring houses, it was clear neither pair were right for us. The cooler pair was noticeably blue against the window and decking. The warmer pair was noticeably brown against the other houses (in fact, one of the shades matched the dry dirt around the house rather well).

We took another look, and came up with two more palettes. The first was Dovetail and Dorian Gray. The second pair was Attitude Gray and Unusual Gray. The Dovetail/Dorian pair was a touch warmer, and was a good match for the existing colors. However, it matched a bit too closely, and ended up looking bland.

The Attitude/Unusual pair has a bit of a green undertone. It works with the rest of the colors, but gives a more interesting look. The green pairs well with the trees and foliage around the house, but the colors are still grey enough to appear as such to the casual observer.

The surprise came once the paint was applied. The colors look good, and we’re pleased with them. However, there is large variability in how the color is perceived. In bright sun, the light color is a nice light shade of grey, almost a bit cream-colored; while the darker color has a noticeable green tint.

In shadow, the lighter color darkens up noticeably, but gains a bit more green.

Right next to each other with some sun, the lighter color gains a touch of blue.

Overall, a bit more contrast between the colors in the shade would’ve been nice (as shown by our initial inspiration picture), since Seattle isn’t known for its abundance of sun.

The other problem at this point is the fascia. It is noticeably browner, especially when compared to the various accents painted to match the window trim.

Ultimately we think it will be OK, but we’re tweaking the colors near the entry to prevent too harsh a comparison between the various shades.

At this point, the exterior of the building is largely done. There are still some details left — deck rails, stain around the door, a little more trim paint — but after that, it will be more or less in its final shape!

Flooring

Posted on July 23, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

Floors are an unavoidable fact of life in this gravity conquered world. It seems to be little more than an expanse of necessary eye candy. But flooring can have as much impact on the feel of a home as any other element.

And, of course, A Pattern Language has a pattern to capture the approach we should take with flooring.

Floor Surface (233):

Problem: We want the floor to be comfortable, warm to the touch, inviting. But we also want it to be hard enough to resist wear, and easy to clean.
Therefore: Zone the house, or building, into two kinds of zones: public zones, and private or more intimate zones. Use hard materials like waxed, red polished concrete, tiles, or hardwood in the public zones. In the more intimate zone, use an underfloor of soft materials, like felt, cheap nylon carpet, or straw matting, and cover it with cloths, and pillows, and carpets, and tapestries. Make a clearly marked edge between the two — perhaps even a step — so that people can take their shoes off when they pass from the public to the intimate.

This ties in closely to…

Intimacy Gradient (127):

Problem: Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence, which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward.
Therefore: Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains.

In our house, the entrance and main level are public spaces. The lower level is semi-public, the upstairs landing and laundry room are semi-private, and the bedrooms are the most private spaces. Combining that with the flooring guidelines led us to

Hardwood for the main level and all the stair landings: these public and semi-private spaces need durable flooring
Tile for the entrance and the wet areas (laundry room, full bathrooms): these areas take the hardest and dirtiest wear
Carpet for the bedrooms: the softness of the materials provides comfort and emphasizes their private nature

The media room is a bit of an exception. Its status as a semi-public space might suggest hardwood. However, since sound reflection is something that needs to be controlled, we will use carpet. The office and powder room on the main floor are not technically public spaces, either, but hardwood is a reasonable choice for them because of their adjacency to the public areas and the way they are used.

Flooring in depth

Hardwood

Hardwood dominates our floors. Its pervasive presence makes a major contribution to the character of our home. Because of this, we spent a lot of time making our choice. The obvious consideration is the type and color of the wood, but there are other aspects to consider.

Structure
The first consideration is wood structure. Solid hardwood is what it sounds like: each board is a single solid piece. Engineered hardwood is made of several layers: a top layer of the desired wood above a few layers of a manufactured wood product such as particle board or plywood.

Solid wood flooring can be completely sanded and refinished 5-7 times, since the wood is the same all the way down. Engineered flooring has a thinner layer of the surface wood; the better products can handle 3-5 sandings. Engineered flooring is much more stable. Wood expands and contracts based on temperature and humidity. The several layers in an engineered plank mitigate this by expanding/contracting at different rates. This allows for the use of wider, tightly seamed planks.

This choice was easy: we decided to go with engineered wood. Our builder recommended it, and the stability and precision of the boards was appealing. The wear layer is 1/4″, which is on the thicker end for engineered flooring, and the refinishable layer of solid wood (before the tounge & groove and nails become visible) isn’t necessarily much thicker.

Finish
The second consideration is finish. We considered polyurethane coat and oil finish. A poly coat is basically a liquid plastic that coats the floor. It completely covers and protects the wood, and leaves a smooth, glossy finish. It needs little maintenance, can be mopped, and gives a much glossier look. The disadvantage is that the poly coat will collect noticeable scratches over time, and cannot easily be spot-repaired: a large section (up to the entire room) has to be refinished to keep the coat consistent. In contrast, an oil finish gives a more natural look to the wood and allows spot-repairs. The disadvantage is that it requires an annual application of oil and requires more care when cleaning it. A big difference from polyurethane is that an oil finish does not create a barrier, and so the wood will acquire more wear (including stains) over time.

This was a tougher decision. We weren’t attracted to the poly coat finishes. It doesn’t fit the natural look we want on the main level, and the propensity to show scratches was not appealing. While a yearly re-oil of the all the wood floor is far from ideal, we were attracted to the natural aging gained by an oil finished floor. We like materials that age gracefully, and having a floor that will accept changes fits that desire.

Yuval recommended Navarre Oiled Floors. They are wide-plank, thick-veneered, engineered, oil-finished hardwoods. We wanted something fairly subtle so that it wouldn’t overwhelm the room. We eliminated the options that were too red, too yellow, too dark, or too busy (mainly in the exotic woods). We ended up going with Montauban, a nice white oak.

Hardwood is installed fairly early in the finishing process so that cabinets, trim, etc. can be installed on top. But it is more easily damaged than tile, so it needs to protected during the rest of construction. They ended up using the boxes that the flooring came in to protect the floor. They are taped down (with painter’s tape) so they don’t slide around, and the edges are left clear for trim installation. I thought it was a clever solution.

Tile

Keeping to the theme of natural-looking materials, we decided to use a stone-look tile throughout. In the bathrooms a bit of texture will help to prevent the floor from getting too slippery when wet. Many of the tiles we looked at can be used outside, which would allow us to unify the interior and exterior portions of the entry with the same flooring. Yuval recommended Ecotech tiles, which we really liked. We settled on the Ecogreen in the structured (rougher) finish for all the tiled floors in the house.

Carpet

Carpet is installed at the end of construction to prevent unnecessary wear or damage. We have just started looking at products and colors. We will probably choose a light- to medium-grey color for the carpets in the bedrooms. It should be fairly neutral, and work well with dark woods (in the master suite), and whatever paint colors we use in the second bedrooms. The media room will take a darker color, possibly something similar to the Bordeaux color from our color palette.

The media room will use a fairly dense carpet that will wear better, but isn’t quite as cushy. The bedrooms should have less traffic, so we will use something a bit plusher and more comfortable on the feet. Yuval suggested a couple simple nylon green carpets: Americana (denser) and Mica (plusher), both from Masland. We are also looking at Karastan SmartStrand carpets, which are an interesting green carpet made from corn. As novice fiber nerds, we were required to look briefly at wool carpets. These are generally considered green, but are more expensive, not as plush, and are generally looped carpets (less good with clawed critters).

Conclusion

Despite having only three types of flooring, a lot of effort has gone into choosing exactly the right material and style for each portion of the house. It needs to fit the intimacy gradient, be appropriate for the amount and type of wear, and give the appropriate character to each room.

With the majority of the flooring installed, we are pleased with our choices. Having flooring goes a long way toward making our building feel like a real house and really starts to give a sense for how nice of a space it will be.

Building envelope: Windows

Posted on July 16, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

Windows are one of the most important parts of the building envelope. Despite the effectiveness of modern artificial lighting, a room that has no windows feels dead and uncomfortable. Windows bring a room to life by bringing in natural light and connecting people to the world outside.

Natural Light

When available, natural light beats artificial light. It is generally brighter. Even on a cloudy day, outside will be brighter than your average living room. Natural light is dynamic — it changes throughout the day and throughout the year. This gives life to a ream that static artificial lighting cannot.

Our home has a great amount of natural light. With no artificial illumination, the light is better — brighter and more even — than in our temporary living space.

Wings of Light (107):

Problem: Modern buildings are often shaped with no concern for natural light — they depend almost entirely on artificial light. But buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not fit places to spend the day.
Therefore: Arrange each building so that it breaks down into wings which correspond, approximately, to the most important natural social groups within the building. Make each wing long and as narrow as you can — never more than 25 feet wide.
Our house is not long and narrow — in fact, its main body is a square. Each side of the square is 32′ long. Thus, we are violating the letter of the law. But how do we rank against the spirit?The reason for the 25′ width restriction is that in an average room, significant amounts of light only penetrate about 12′ from the window. A 25′ wing with windows on both sides will just barely get enough light.
Fortunately, our home uses several techniques to allow above average light penetration. Our ceiling is 10′ high, and the main windows in the living room go all the way to the ceiling. Walls are mostly white. These factors together allow more light to go in further and reflect effectively. As the picture below shows, this results in a living space that can be illuminated primarily by natural light.

Natural light on the main floor

Indoor sunlight (128):

Problem: If the right rooms are facing south, a house is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy.
Therefore: Place the most important rooms along the south edge of the building, and spread the building out along the east-west axis. Fine tune the arrangement so that the proper rooms are exposed to the south-east and the south-west sun. For example: give the common area a full southern exposure, bedrooms south-east, porch south-west. For most climates, this means the shape of the building is elongated east-west.
In our home: We have a great southern exposure. We took advantage of this by making sure the southern wall of our main floor has a lot of windows. Because we have an open floor plan, we are able to get large amounts of natural light even with a fairly square building layout. The picture above looks from our living room toward the kitchen. The window nearest the back corner of the kitchen is about 27′ feet away, but it is still well illuminated — and we haven’t even taken the protective films off of the windows yet.

Light on two sides of every room (159):

- Problem: When people have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.

- Therefore: Locate each room so that it has outdoor space outside it on at least two sides, and then place windows in these outdoor walls so that natural light falls into every room from more than one direction.
- In our home: Having windows on multiple sides evens out the light. If light only comes from one window, there will be a high contrast between the window and its surroundings. Most of our primary rooms have windows on two sides. (See the floor plans below.)However, since our home doesn’t have crinkly edges (they are not energy, material, or labor efficient), we could not achieve this everywhere. For the most part, the impact of this was minimized by putting rooms that aren’t as important in the non-corner positions. Where non-utility rooms have ended up with windows on one side, we are able to mitigate issues by using glass doors to help borrow light from other rooms.

Light on two sides of the living room

Upstairs windows.
Yellow arrows highlight windows.

Main floor windows.Yellow arrows highlight windows.

Views

The primary views from our home are to the west. In the background, we have a view of the Cascade mountains sitting above a view of the not-so-lovely Factoria mall. In the mid-ground, we see a lot of trees with some limited views of our neighbors to the sides. Overall, it’s a pretty good view, and something to take advantage of.

Looking west from the living room deck

Panorama looking west from the living room deck

Panorama looking west from the master bedroom

Zen view (134):

Problem: The archetypal zen view occurs in a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name. [A Buddhist monk has a beautiful view, but it is only seen in passing as you enter the home.]
Therefore: If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look onto the view at places of transition — along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms. If the view window is correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of a distant view as they come up to the window or pass it: but the view is never visible from places where people stay.
In our home: We mostly failed to achieve any Zen views. Our windows, especially in the living room and bedrooms are large to let in the light, but they make for gaping views. To some degree, this was unavoidable — the views and the light were coming from the same direction.However, we did manage to apply a little of this philosophy in our stairway. We intentionally placed our stairway to the west. This cuts off some of the western view from the main living spaces. Instead of having big gaping windows in the stair tower, we choose to use multiple smaller windows. These break up the view, and because they are smaller the view shifts as you use the stairs. This gives the view a bit of mystery and dynamism that it would have lacked if we’d made the more predictable decision of having the west wall given over to view with the stairs pushed to an interior wall where they wouldn’t effect the view.

Breaking up the view with smaller windows

Windows overlooking life (192):

Problem: Rooms without a view are prisons for the people who have to stay in them.
Therefore: In each room, place the windows in such a way that their total area conforms roughly to the appropriate figures for your region…, and place them in positions which give the best possible views out over life: activities in streets, quiet gardens, anything different from the indoor scene.
In our home: A challenge of our site is that it is fairly heavily slopped. The second picture below is taken from our main floor — ground level on the entry side but, as the picture shows, rather high by the time you get to the other end of the building. Thus, all the life we look out on is rather distant.But almost every window, expect those on the north facing the neighboring house, are fortunate enough to have a view of the nearby trees and, eventually, our gardens.

The main floor is rather far above the ground

Choosing a color palette

Posted on July 8, 2012June 18, 2023 by ErikaRS

We’re still a bit away from done with the house — about a month further away than we thought (more on that later). However, we’re close enough to done that it’s time to start thinking about a color palette.

Based on our preferences and some art we own, our color designer chose some candidate colors for us. Now we need to narrow it down to three or four colors to use for our palette. We have some ideas, but it seemed fun to gather some other opinions. Here are the colors. Let us know in the comments what combinations of three or four colors are your favorites.

Details: the walls are going to mostly be white. The color palette will be used for a few accent walls and for accents in furnishings and accessories.

slate teal

azores

marble canyon

saratoga springs

bordeaux

dreamy