I like option A better for a sense of balance with the stone but prefer the arch doorway. If you choose not to arch it I would square the garage doors.

Option A, but skip the garage door arches.

Option A is more cohesive. Option B looks like a mix of a lot of styles.

I like B

Yeah I think I'm going to go with option A without the arches, although I do like them I don't think it fits the style I'm going for. Cpartist the roof pitch will be less with larger overhangs, my designer said with the rough sketch he didn't get the roof pitch exact. I'm sooo excited for this house!!

melanieni look up prairie style for homes. Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the first proponents of the style and I think your house would look great moving in that direction. I just searched on houzz for prairie style so here are some to look at: Prairie homes

They are among my favorite looking houses, next to craftsman. :)

thanks cpartist, I'll take a look at the ones you pinned. I asked for a prairie style house after discussing this with you in a past post.

It has become my favourite too after craftsman since you told me to look at them, lol.

I would choose Option B; a two story curtain wall in a stone structure in option A just doesn't make any sense to me.

Rather than change materials arbitrarily try making the lower story all stone and the upper story all shingles.

Either option needs a lot of work..

As far as the high window for the shower, since the shower is in that corner, wouldn't it make sense to move the window to the side wall? I love and have high windows in showers, but they should not be in your front facade.

JDS the designer put the curtain wall on the elevation but realized that there is no way we would want to put our money towards that, lol. It's interesting hearing everyones opinion on which elevation they like the best, it shows you everyone has different tastes of how they think a house should look. Chispa I had the designer reorganize the bathroom so it'll be a regular window in that corner. He didn't want to put the window on the side wall because it is very dark and wouldn't add much light, the front is my southern exposure.

For the time spent in a shower sunlight should not be an issue. IMO a window helps to make a shower feel more open but it is not a very important feature; its better to pay attention to how the house looks.

This house is begging for a clear distinction between floors. That can be achieved by setting the upper floor back, adding a lower roof or a band detail at the floor line. Shingles over stone would be a natural well balanced choice. I would flare the shingles over the stone.

I was immediately drawn to option B without much pause.

One of the difficulties in comparing these options is that they do not represent the same house plan.

Option B is larger than Option A by about 5 feet horizontally (much larger garage) and its main roof eave is about 2 ft higher than that of option A giving it a different slope and a taller second story wall.

In short, the drawings are oddly unprofessional. You should give your new designer an architect's scale and a roll of tracing paper ask him/her to give you elevation drawings you can compare.

JDS the drawings were a quick hand sketch so I could have an idea of what the house could look like, the drawings were by no means perfectly to scale. He didn't want to invest much time at it if I didn't like the initial concepts. I'll ask him about the other options you suggested when he gets more into the design. I appreciate your suggestions for separating the floors.

Actually tracing paper sketches would have been quicker and more accurate. I should add that this is too early a design stage to be thinking so specifically about material options. You should first establish the rough massing of the house and that is best done with simple perspectives rather than elevations. There was a time when it was necessary to hire highly trained designers to get that level of service but that should be offered by any house designer today.

I'll let him know JDS. The rough massing and general layout of the house has already been completed. I don't think it's ever too early to be brainstorming design ideas, better to start at the beginning than at the end when you already have to have it figured out. I already have simple perspectives but he thought it didn't do the front justice.

Well we've been working on figuring out the front elevation and I think we are almost there. I would love to hear everyones opinion on this elevation. Two things that I'm not sure if it's needed or not is A) lower the roof pitch to 5/12 but I'm not sure if that's a good idea since we are in snow country. B) incorporate stucco on the left upper side.

To be honest, I think that any elevation that needs a LEGEND to note what material is where probably has too many of them. Right now the house looks like a sample wall for a siding contractor.

To get meaningful input here a plan would be helpful.

I'm with architectrunnerguy -- pick either stucco or cedar for the upper exterior, and do the bottom with stone if that's what you want, and if it works with the house plan. Stone most likely won't need to bleed up into the second floor, or the cedar (or stucco) down.

Can you mimic the materials and roofline to the right and left side of the entry? The balance doesn't seem appropriate.

Watch out on the stone around the entry. You're pretty close to forming an H.

It's not the most recent plan but it's pretty close, McNabhousecom.shutterfly.com

I can mimic the roofline and materials to the right side but I was looking for asymmetry if possible by balancing it with material choices. Also, there's a fair amount of roof on the right side and I didn't really want to add additional roof if possible.

Here's the plan.

The original sketch was better.

ARG stole my sample room reference. The arbitrary use of so many cladding materials does nothing for the design of the house and suggests an extremely chaotic and amateurish design philosophy.

A header in a masonry wall should be wider than the opening below and there should not be wood trim below the sill of a window.

These ideas are all signs of an inexperienced unsophisticated designer. I'm sorry if that happens to be you. I recommend spending a bit more money and finding a better designer. You will get the cost back and then some when you sell the house not to mention the savings in maintenance of the multiple materials and the joints between them.

This is similar material colour choices to what I was thinking, I don't think it looks too much on this house. I probably will go with a darker stain though and lighter stone.

Charles Residence · More Info

I call those 'Halloween Houses' due to the color scheme being basically orange and black.

Like the floor plans at first glance, but not the roof above the garage.

JDS thanks for your input, I'll let him know that the header should be larger. I'm surprised you say not to have wood under a window since there's a ton of houses on houzz with that design. This is the second designer I've had and he has been working for 15 years designing houses so he has loads of experience and I've seen the jobs he has done and they look amazing. However, this is the first house he has designed in the style I've chosen.

Mark, lol, "Halloween houses". Well I don't want my house to be called a Halloween house so I guess I'll need a new colour scheme. I did plan on doing a darker stain so it doesn't look orange...

JDS my husband also liked the original better but we were trying to see if we could do an asymmetric house. I kind of wondered based on the inherit symmetry on the plans whether it should stay symmetrical.

I'm not a fan of the stucco on the house. I think unless you're really careful stucco and stone together can look like a mish mash. The way it's done on your elevation it looks like was done in a misbegotten attempt to save money.

In my opinion a little like who done and ran. Too much going on and in different directions.

I don't see the asymmetry unless you are referring to random placement of materials.

I agree with the others. This doesn't look prairie. It looks like a hodge-podge. Simplify and symmetrical would be so much better.

Regarding your question about the roof pitch, I probably wouldn't go less steep because you are in snow country.

Omg I have a Halloween house and didn't know it!!#!

I went back to my designer once again, we added more depth to the front of the house in the upper left and right side of the main part of the house. I really don't want the right side to have another roof so this is what we came up with. I decided I don't want a ' Halloween house', lol, so my new decision is to do light grey stone, medium grey cedar and a slightly darker grey stucco to make the cedar pop. If you guys have more feedback it would be appreciated, if you are all out of feedback and are sick of commenting on this I understand...oh and please don't be mad that I didn't want to mirror the roof.

https://mcnabhousecom.shutterfly.com/pictures/21

Quick random comment to consider...

We were looking at a jack and jill similar to yours and someone brought up a good point with this particular configuration.

If one is taking a shower/using the toilet and locks both doors but forgets to unlock the other, the other kid will have to walk all the way around to the other room to unlock it.

melanieni would it be possible to get a download of the elevation and would I have permission to play a bit? I can't say I'm a fan of what's happening with the roof over the garage on the right side.

yeah of course cpartist. What's your email?

good point whaas but my thought was to not have locks on the doors and use the knock policy if the door is closed. I am sure there will be whoops moments, but they are family so I'm sure it won't take long to get over it.

melanieni message me and I'll message you back with my email. I don't post my email on public sites.

My boys have a jack and jill bath and it works really well. They share a toilet, shower and tub and have their own private sink areas. They've shared it for 4 years and there have been no issues with locked doors. Before my younger son was born my older son shared the bathroom with my mother-in-law (she lives with us half the year) and there were no issues then either. My mother-in-law preferred it in fact to her current set-up even though she doesn't have to share now since she now has to go down the hall to the bathroom.

The former owners had two daughters and their daughters liked it since the set-up offered privacy for them since they didn't have to walk down the hall or share a sink area.

I'm thinking more for the later years. I wouldn't want a sibling walking in on me so locks are inevitable.

We're going with a jack and jill bath as well but it only has one entry to the toilet/tub area.

A builder brought it up to me as he got complaints after the fact so he doesn't recommend the dual entry jack and jill anymore.

Just throwing it out there just in case. Sorry didn't mean to get your elevation question off topic.

Oh I see, how does your layout look with just the one entry into the toilet tub room? And no worries about getting off topic. I would rather you say something than not.

Wow it looks great. Contemporary with hints of prairie influence. Love the color scheme too. Not Halloween at all. ;) Thank you for showing us. Can't wait to see the interior pictures.

(Can't say though that I'm a fan of your front steps. ;) )

Haha! Cpartist. I'll be happy when those steps disappear. And yes Stacey the house is near Guelph.