Those first two photos really show what a difference landscaping makes - wow! The first picture is pretty, but the plants add so much.

I don't know why you couldn't change the look of the front of the house from a materials perspective, particularly by using a mix of siding and stone like some of your inspiration photos. I like the middle two, but particularly love the white siding and wood mix of your final example.

I'm sure the architects on the board will help more in terms of what may or may not be appropriate, but it seems like it will be a lovely house regardless of what you choose.

This is one of the ones Virgil linked to the other day. It is pretty interesting looking.

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olivesmom, your photos of the small red and green house in North Carolina is one of my favorite houses on the Internet.

There is a world of difference, however, in the design, massing, form and scale of this wonderful little (unique) house and the very large, sprawling (stock) builder's house in your first two photos.

You could adopt the materials and finishes of the North Carolina house to the larger builder house, but it's still going to look large with all of the latest builder cliches. It just is what it is. Whereas the smaller, more creative house in Norht Carolina is designed by a creative firm with a track record of similar designs. It, too, is what it is.

Your challenge may be whether you are drawn toward the latest in repetitive builder houses which are simply decorated with different materials or whether you are drawn toward more creative and imaginative, one-of-a-kind houses that respond to one's special life style.

Each approach has its pluses and minues, but they are so far apart that one simply cannot take one approach and try to mimic the other. Said differently, your choice appear to be: 1) a stock house that can be built with different finishes, or; 2) a one-of-a-kind house designed specifically for you and your site (and budget).

Either can work, but one can't make one from the other.

Good luck on your project!

Thanks for the replies so far!

Virgil-

Most of the architect designed homes I'm drawn to online have clean lines, unique (or at least not ubiquitous builder type) exterior materials, nice windows and tend to be smaller, thus having a cuteness sort of appeal. The latter is where the disconnect lies. I like the look of a cute cottage, but we want a floorplan of around 3,500+ sq ft. We will be building on close to five acres so we have the room to spread out and we need a three + car garage.

Additionally, I don't want to go the architect route. It would delay our project at least another year due to cost. And I'm not sure I'd end up with something much different from what I've already focused in on from the online plans.

As far as this particular house plan goes, I think the floor plan is good and the exterior is pleasing, it just isn't exactly what I want. Obviously the exterior materials can be changed, I'm just having a hard time visualizing it and I'm wondering if it will look alright.

olivesmom, you situation is clear, and it is obviously up to you as to how best to proceed.

Just a thought through an analogy: some people look cute and appealing in some clothes, but not others. The same applies to houses. One size and one manner of dress does not fit all universally--people or houses.

Good luck on your project.

Well, I love small homes. The first house linked does nothing for me and actually bores me quite a bit. The next two are like a breath of fresh air! I would give up space for that cute cottage look in a second. But we are all so different. :)

I think could easily change exterior to achieve your look. Also, check out Hardie Board (boards and cedar shake looks) and similar products to achieve your look without the mainteance of the real thing. Something like this maybe . . .

Or this . . . (do a search on Houzz maybe typingin Hardie Board and I'm sure you'll come up many photos to help you visualize your dream) Good Luck!

Do you have links to the smaller homes that you keep coming back to? I love them!

Jkziel- I don't have the links right now, but if you search for "red windows" in houzz and filter by exterior photos the house should come right up. I think it's called something like the farm at elk mountain, NC. The white one I found probably by searching board and batten exterior or white exterior.

Found it! Thanks

So I stayed up way too late past night messing with this and I think I'm off the red siding, at least for now anyway. I don't know if it's just my lousy paint skills, the limited colors I had, or the fact I only have my iPad, but it looks terrible. Maybe the house is just too large for red, I don't know.

Here's my attempt at changing the exterior, don't laugh

It doesn't look much like the inspiration photo. Sigh.

For now I'm thinking painted hardie, probably board and batten. Maybe even no stone and instead spending that money on try to do a metal roof instead.

The white inspiration photos has stained posts and front door and I think that might look nice. I think a nice white might look bright and cheerful in our wooded setting. White would allow me to use white windows which would be a cheaper option I'm sure.

Big fan of the Hardie Board and Batten and shakes! I love the white too. You should look at the Hardie Artisan boards--they are truly magnificent and in white they would look gorgeous on that house elevation.

I think the real mistake was making the siding red. You could either go charcoal with red windows and some stone (but no red siding please!), or white with wood. Either would be lovely.

We made the same choice - to go with a builder type house and try to adjust finishes etc to our taste wherever possible, rather than go with our innately creative (incredibly expensive) tendencies. I feel fortunate to have this option and hopefully we'll all be happy with the results!

Mayberry- yeah the red looks pretty awful on my attempt. I really like the red stained siding on the inspiration house. And I like red barns, but I don't think red siding is going to work on this house. I'm not even sure about red windows, but I do swoon every time I see them.

Unfortunately though, I think on this particular elevation red windows will end up looking like this home below, and it doesn't look quite right

Staying up late again...

All white version, tried to draw window overhangs like the white inspiration house. Of course texture won't show, but there would be varying widths of board and batten or white painted singles. The garage area is giving me problems

Olivesmom, you are fighting an uphill struggle. The small North Carolina house is appealing due to its simple, iconic "house" shapes and other simple, straightforward residential design motif. Due to this simplicity of shape, it can have a variety of exterior materials and finishes (including the great red windows with green trim on one side and the equally great green windows with red trim on the other side).

In other words, the design of the house is quite simple, which allows some creative diversity in materials and finishes.

On the other hand, the builder's houses that you have posted are very complex and competing shapes and forms, and they are very large, further complicating the idea of unity and harmony. When these complex and competing shapes are combined with a variety of materials and finishes (as they almost always seem to be on stock plans and builder's tracts), the final result is anything but simple, unified and harmonious.

These large, complex and competing shapes almost always require a very simple and consistent use of chapes, materials and finishes if unity and harmony are desired. Far too often, however, builders and owners seem to want to have as many shapes, materials and finishes as possible with the result that the finished house often looks like an advertising display for residential product manufacturers.

Thus, if you stick with the large builders house, you need to simplify and unify as much as possible.

For exampe, one of the first things to do is eliminate the arched garage door openings. There are no other arched shapes in the design of the house, as far as I can see, and thus, the arches are a completely foreign and inconsistent element which add to the discordant look of the exterior.

Adding "borrowed" projecting shed roofs over selected windows to the existing design is another aesthetic inconsistency. For them to add to the overall character of the house, all of the gabled dormer windows should be changed to similar shed dormers.

These are just a couple of examples. Do you see the issue and what needs to be done?

Good luck on your project.

Virgil- thanks for your comments. I get that this builder house isn't going to suddenly become one of the houses from my inspiration photos, but I think there's got to be a way I can simplify and use different materials to make them look more *like* the inspiration photos. I agree about the arches, and I'm not sure about the arched window in the smaller gable. I've even thought about removing that gable entirely as I don't really need that den space. I don't know though, what it would look like without a gable there.

I will probably continue playing with colors to get an ideas about what I like and don't like and who knows, when we meet with the mascord office in Seattle maybe they will have some ideas.

On the other hand my husband likes the exterior as is and it will be difficult to get him to change it much. He is only used to builder styles and it will be a hard sell trying to convince him to not use stone veneer, for example. So maybe I ought to just find a pleasing combo of hardie and stone.

Thanks for your input.

I made a model of your plan on SketchUp and played around with the colors a bit. I modified the floor plan and made the den and dining room the same size, simplified the rooflines, and rearanged the master bedroom area. In the plan I also moved the bedroom above the kitchen to above the den and added a front staircase... I'll post the plan soon! Here's what I came up with for the exterior.

I'm loving Nicke's first photoshop, above. As a purely old-house person, one of the main things that grates for me in your Mascord design are those three honking garage doors in one's face. The shingles plus wooden doors do a LOT to mitigate that effect, which is purely McMansion.

One of the reasons this elevation doesn't work, vis-a-vis your other inspirations, is because it's got bright white trim:

Heinously bad photoshop, but here:

I really hope you don't mind my bluntness -- I do applaud your desire to find a good compromise between the economy of a pre-made plan and the creativity of a custom style. Keep at it! :)

nicke360's three renderings are a much improved design for the builder's house--much better proportions, more unified and harmonious shapes and massing (consistent gables as the major form, augmented by shed dormers as a secondary form), and a range of exterior materials and finishes, each of which works well (but differently) with the building's envelope.

All of this may be pointless however, based on olivesmom's previous comments, "...my husband likes the exterior as is and it will be difficult to get him to change it much. He is only used to builder styles and it will be a hard sell trying to convince him to not use stone veneer, for example..."

Sounds like we may be having an interestind discussion, but it isn't going anywhere except for sharing ideas.

Oh my gosh Nick(e?), I LOVE what you did, especially in white! I misssed the past few responses to this thread, I've been busy exploring arched windows because i was worried that everything would look too horizontal, and i was going to give up and just go with the current look...but I was wrong. Your design is so perfect! You have no idea how happy I am. Thank you so much!

Virgil, I'm pretty sure my husband will go for the version nick did. I tried to explain what I wanted and he couldn't understand what I was taking about. He has a hard time visualizing things but now that he can see that it looks nice he'll go for it I think. I was also feeling a bit defeated when I wrote the part about my husband and was looking for an easy out to give up on what I wanted.

Thank you again Nick! I'm off to print out your design and tape it to my wall so I can stare at it some more, that's how much I love it!

This post was edited by olivesmom on Mon, Mar 11, 13 at 19:54

wow, I am way in love with nicke's first rendtion with the red & the shake :)

Sweet!
Amazing how clean it looks. Like the white too, but am not a fan of white..

Can't wait to see the floor plans!! :)

Nicke you are awesome! So fun to see what you did!