Thought for the day....

I have been having one of those weeks. Nothing bad has happened per se but I have just been a bit frustrated. So, this afternoon, I made this image hoping to remind myself that things will work out.

House Exterior & Painting Progress

I started the weekend out on fire and fizzled a bit on Sunday. Today we kicked it into gear and got some work done. We have been working on siding and finishing the exterior of our house on and off between projects for almost a year. Today, we finally checked a task off our list. The metal siding is 100% done.

Listing of items completed this weekend:

1. Planted remainder of garden
   
2. Husband drove to Himrod, NY to pick up rough cut trim wood from Amish mill
   
3. Painted house red
4. Finished metal siding
5. Finished wood door and window jamb extensions.
6. cleaned up yard (a bit).
7. kids planted a tree - only one more left to plant.

Left to do this week:
1. Paint window and door Jamb extensions
2. Order Cap flashing metal
3. Plant last tree.

View of house from driveway - waited too late to snap a picture.

View of kids bedroom windows


View of house from the roadNew tree (and beginnings of garage in background)


Our road (with a kitty sitting in the middle of it) .

3/50 Project

I have seen this now in a couple of places and thought it was my turn to make a note of it. It is a great concept... and a great way to live. Support your local economy...

Research: Lake Cottage - Wrought Iron Railings

I am currently working on a Lake Cottage for a client. This client has given me the freedom design every aspect of their house - in short, I am detailing everything from the foundations to the door knobs. This is a dream job. This weekend's projects are to start refining the exterior detailing and come up with a preliminary design for the porch and stair railings. The cottage will be a modern twist on the Upstate New York lake cottage.

I am looking at the railings to be open enough that they do not obstruct the views to the lake, and have clean lines to reflect the modern nature of the house. The railings should also have a softness (I know that his is a bit oxymoronic when we are talking about wrought iron) to them.


I am leaning very heavily toward a combination of the styling of these:

I really like the idea of adding depth to the railing and eliminating the flatness of it:

Simple Rail - but quite harsh:

I like the regularized slender vertical elements of this gate with the applied medallions:

These organic railings just caught my attention - beautiful. I am going to try to incorporate some kind of organic elements into the design of the rail for this project.

Windows

Our house sits in the middle of an open field with great views all around. There is no reason to have window coverings for privacy unless, that is, we are concerned with the deer and rabbits watching us. We are all early risers so there is no need for room darkening. The largest reason that i haven't gotten into having treatments in our house is that have a huge fear of them. I can't ever find the right fabric or pattern or style or hardware. I ultimately end up with a simple panel that looks like junk.

So, with that said, the only place where I even remotely am considering putting in any kind of window covering or obscuring device is in the master bathroom. It looks out onto the back yard, where the kids will eventually play with their friends. Not necessarily the best place to have a clear view of a bathroom with a large window. So, our thought is to have a piece of stained glass made. I have been playing with the actual design of it for quite some time (since before we started building our house over 2 years ago), collecting images, examples, etc.


This image is the latest rendition of the window (two panels 30"x30"). It will be largely composed of clear, white, frosted and patterned clear glass. The remainder of the glass will be black and gray as shown below. The panels will be hinged at the top and center and will be able to be folded up out of the window should we want it to be opened. I won't get into the meaning of the design, but I will gladly take any comments or constructive criticism that anyone is willing to offer.

Energy

I read a many blogs daily to trend watch. Today, I stumbled upon another , design & inredingsbloggen, the blogger has a fantastic eye, and a way with words (although i used the google translator to read the blog and I am not sure that it does the best job with true translations).

There was a quote in one of the author's posts; "Energy flows where attention goes." It got me thinking that it would not hurt if I started to focus on living by those words. My energy (and focus) have been scattered and, as a result my business, family, home, life, health have all been suffering. Today, I resolve to focus my energy (only positive), and find the places where my efforts needed and wanted.

House Color

We just ordered the remaining materials required to 'finish' the exterior siding on our house. I can't wait for it to finally be done. Our house looks so unkempt as it sits now. It needs the batten strips to be added over the cement board siding and the parapet metal cap flashing.

My husband is very eager to remind me that I can very easily choose finishes and colors for other people's offices and homes, but when it comes to my own, I hem and haw over them, choose one, then choose again. I admit it is very frustrating and time consuming and generally a waste of time, because I end up back at my first choice in the end - perfect example - the paint scheme for the exterior of our house...

Last summer in a fit of desperation, I chose to paint the cement board sided portions of our house dark gray. I loved the color when it went up and into the fall. By mid-winter I started disliking the color and by the end of winter I absolutely could not stand it. Driving over the hill to see a gray house, in a gray field, under mostly gray skies with a backdrop of gray trees was really a bit much.

So, enough of the narrative on the gray. I have purchased beautiful barn red paint. This weekend, our house will change again. The red will look so beautiful against the corrugated metal siding(not shown in the picture above), the gray windows and black front door. I can hardly wait.

Chocolate

Warning - This post has very little to do with architecture or design.

Things have been a bit crazy here so, my intentions of keeping this blog kind of went on the wayside for a couple of weeks. So, I am going to try to make nice by offering chocolate (this is what i give my husband to smooth things over when i have neglected him or my responsibilities to my family). Maybe it will work here too...

Over the last several years there has been much discussion about chocolate and its favorable qualities and health benefits. In our house chocolate is supreme. There is nothing better or more coveted... We are not chocolate snobs by any means and we don't turn down chocolate just because of who makes it. My husband and I do have a Favorite it is by Equal Exchange Organic Fair-Trade Chocolate - Their Organic Dark Chocolate with Pure Cocoa Nibs is just heavenly.

Little M and I took the opportunity to check out The Chocolate Pizza Company on one of our adventures delivering drawings to a client last week. We decided to give the Pizza Co. 'Lots of Stars' for both their ability to accommodate Little M, provide wonderful service and A+ chocolate. Their 'Pizza' is the best. Not to mention that they ship all over the world too!