Need suggestions for Kitchen Flooring and House Exteriors

7 years ago

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!

We would like to seek for advice on the following:

1. What are your thoughts on the flooring for kitchen and family room?

Originally we were thinking to do all engineered wood (chocolate color) since both kitchen and family room are in one open area in one big room so for a better flow, this would look better.

However, I am now also considering doing tile in the Kitchen area for maintenance purpose (easier to clean spills, scratches from the chairs and bar stools.. )

Below are some pictures from an inventory home. We are doing woods everywhere except for bedrooms and game room on the second floor.

2. The builder recommended us a 8 ft door, maybe its the trend now? but we will lose the transom at the top.

With our floor plan and hallway ceiling height, do you think 6.8 feet or 8 feet door would look better and more natural light? (Our entry is 10 ft ceiling and then the hallway is 19 ft)

6.8 ft door shown below:

3. For the exterior, I plan on getting white stones in the front porch area and the study room portion. Others would be brick..any suggestions on the color of brick? I am thinking to get a very dark color, maybe brown to have a contrast..but no red bricks..

Any suggestions on the brick color, trims, and garage door color? We are adding a third bay to it, so there will be three garage doors and i am thinking either cream or dark brown.

Appreciate any suggestions! Thanks.

Exterior (Color combination suggestions)

Featured Answer

cpartist

7 years ago

First of all, I'd do nothing to emphasize the garage. I'd paint it a color so it sits back. You want to emphasize the entryway as that's where you welcome people. The very best house in my not so humble opinion put the main focal point at the front entry.

Honestly?

House 1 is not bad, except the first thing you see is not the entry, but the massive garage.

House 2 looks like a builders special or a McMansion with all the different things going on. You have a turret, gables, a hipped roof, several different window styles. It's a hot mess in my opinion.

House 3 isn't so bad except I honestly think it would have been better looking and more elegant all in one stone.

House 4 has too many elements going on and I don't know what to think of house 5.

A wonderful book for you would be What Not To Build. I linked it to Amazon. I highly recommend it.

When I think of your house, it reminds me of the old Sears Houses, elegant in its simplicity.

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Comments (17)

cpartist
7 years ago
Will the sides and back of the house also be brick?

I would not do chocolate floors. I'm speaking from experience. With such a dark floor you will see every spot of dust, dirt or footprint. However I didn't find cleaning my engineered wood floor in the kitchen any harder than cleaning it in the rest of the house and I liked how it gave a continuous flow throughout the house without breaking it up.

Those transoms look skimpy (and wrong). If that's your option for a transom, I'd go with the 8' door instead. Especially with a 10' and higher ceiling.
just_janni
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Whatever floor you decide - I would not break it up like the model home. It's awkward. I have "natural" hardwoods and the pretty much hide a multitude of sins. :D

For your door - I would go for the larger door. I don't think that arched transom, with the single sidelight is very appealing - I would much rather see a larger, centered door. Will the single door be wider (edit) too? and arched at the time to mirror the arched opening?

As for exterior finishes - there's a lot of geometry moving around and pattern on that model home. I am liking the stone and bring really - but then I start seeing the (stucco?) and then the trim and then the white windows and it starts to get busy. If the rest of the house is brick - then I think the stone is okay - but too many more materials and it starts to drive your eye a little nuts.

One question - what are those shutters that are "closed?" over on the left side doing there?
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MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
cpartist Thanks for your inputs! The side and back on the 1st floor will be brick. the side for the 1.5 game room upstairs will be wood plank (Can't really see from the pic, its a game room hidden behind the roof of the garage). We did ask for a quote to change out the plank to bricks.

We have an option to do all bricks too, but I see other houses nearby have stones, so it would be nice to incorporate some to our elevation. (Front porch and the study room exterior)

I guess this floor plan is really stingy on the transoms lol. (with the family window ones). I would only want to keep the transoms for the purpose of more natural light only.. and of course a 8 ft would have a more grand entry

The chocolate wood we picked is this one below: We were thinking of a greyish wood too, but that will bring it up to a level 7 wood according to the builder, which is way more expensive.
cpartist
7 years ago
I personally dislike mixing brick and stone. I prefer the more classic look of the all brick house. Keep it classic and elegant and don't try and tart it up with the stone.

Additionally, I'm so glad to hear the house will be all brick and not the brick front with the siding on the sides and back. Gosh I hate that fake look. LOL.

Your floor choice is beautiful. Don't get me wrong. I love the look of a dark floor, but we just sold our condo with the same color flooring and our new flooring will be closer to the carmel color. LOL. If you are ok with dust and marks showing I say go for it.
MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
jannicone The small windows above the garage is a decoration and it will be stucco, I guess we can select a color and trim that blends well.

What trim colors and windows would you suggest for a white stone and possibly dark brown brick combination? and would you just do the front porch like the inventory home or +the study room exterior as well?

I honestly dont think this inventory home did a good job on designing the exteriors and inside designs..So I won't be following this design.

By the way, the left window closed is a fake window..
Justine
7 years ago
Have you thought about all brick but having stone lintels over the porch archway and garage door and windows? Perhaps a stone with less contrast. I've seen a few homes with this and it looks really nice.

I like your wood floor choice. If you feel you need to go with tile in the kitchen and breakfast room choose a dark tile. I think you will find everything will flow better, unlike the picture you've posted. Anyway, this is just an opinion. Good luck with everything!
MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
tisme Thanks! I thought a big contrast would look good (from my research and drive around I have been doing, but nothing has really wow me yet) Any pics to share from what you have seen that look good?
Justine
7 years ago
MJ, I'm sorry, I don't have any pics to share. Are you in a big hurry? I can take a couple of pics in the next few days. I just have to remember which subdivisions I saw them in! Lol

It's basically the stone and brick reversed in your last house picture.

Maybe some of the GW pros will post pictures too.
Sammy
7 years ago
What about pre-finished, solid hardwood flooring for the entire first floor? They're very durable and can be sanded/re-finished several times should the need/desire arise. Depending on the thickness of the top layer of the engineered wood, you might get one refinishing out of it. Just something to chew on.

Oh, and to the people who think the multiple facade materials are too busy: You must never have been to Texas, have you? It drove me batty at first!
cpartist
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Depending on the thickness of the top layer of the engineered wood, you might get one refinishing out of it. Just something to chew on.

All this worry over resanding floors is a bit unneeded IMO. I know in my last house I lived there for almost 20 years and they never needed to be resanded. In my house before that I lived in it for 8 years and the house was built in 1927. It had never been resanded. Of course it had also been covered with carpet for at least 30 of those years. (We bought it in 1987) But even 8 years later with two kids, and gardening, etc they looked as good as when we moved in.

Especially with today's finishes a floor shouldn't need to be refinished in most people's lifetime in the house. That includes engineered hardwood floors.

There is nothing wrong with engineered hardwood floors. They are just as durable, and if you're on a slab, or in a high humidity area, they are MORE durable. What you want ideally is engineered hardwood with at least a 2.5 mm wear layer. With that thick a layer it can be sanded between 1-2x.
cpartist
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Here's how it might look with a stone lintel above. This would be more solid looking and not like brick but I wanted to give you an idea.
cpartist
7 years ago
Personally, i prefer the house with all brick. It reminds me of the traditional houses built back in the 40's. (Except most of those were built with gable roofs.)
MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
cpartist Thanks for your idea!

so we checked with the builder yesterday and they said per the community guideline - they don't allow brick border on stone. Not sure if the reverse is ok tho?

I'm not very good in drawing..but this is what I was thinking of... Using stone in that white shaded area (possibly WHITE stone? or GREYISH stones) and then have white or grey garages to match it.

and then maybe a dark trims and dark stucco for the fake windows above the garage..

Below are some houses I that I like..but they are much bigger and diff , not sure if I can really resemble their look
MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
Samantha Is that a Texas thing? lol so as we were driving around looking at house exteriors..and I noticed that too.( we are in Texas) I never used to pay attention to the exteriors until recently.

and I do see a lot of houses like that. I think with bricks, stones, stucco, showing 3 diff color patches and possibly with diff borders are a little too much for me too..
MJ MJ
Original Author
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Thanks for everyone's ideaLily'smom @cpartist

We made our decisions on the flooring, front doors, window and stone brick exteriors :) but now deciding on bricks, trim and body color..and looks like it will start building in mid Aug!

1. We decided to do the flooring after close so we have more choices and time to decide. and we are not stuck with the chocolate color wood flooring. However, we had to find other things to upgrade to make up for the cost of the wood flooring..

2. We went with the 7 ft windows, the architect suggested centering it, so it would be about a 1.5 ft from the floor and 1/5 ft from window top to ceiling.

3. Got the 8 ft front door and eliminated the transom

4.We decided to just do the front porch entry area with an Austin Cream stone.

So now we are doing our brick selections...so far we have picked the bricks, trim color and body color as follow: Any comments on the trim and brick color? We wanted a light color garage, so we picked that light grey - alphaca color

Trim / metal window roof/ shutter color: Taupe Tone

Body color / stucco parts in window and window above the garage/garage door: light grey - alphaca color

Bricks: Addison

We drove around a couple times to make our brick selections, we picked 2 that we liked but the builder said its not available anymore...we were going for something lighter and not as much variation.

so we have chosen one that would look like this+ Austin Cream stones

and this was our other lighter option but more variation:

Any thoughts?
madpebs87
7 years ago
we are staying at a friends house for a month, she has DARK engineered wood floors, We have finish is place red oak naturally stained, LOVE THEM. These dark floors are killing me, you see everything , its a bright house lots of light, shows everything. Good Luck !!!