What is the style of the house? Overall look? All this needs to be coordinated together with the overall feel of the house.

I would say traditional one level ranch with 10' ceilings. Neutral colors, white trim. Two Heat n Glo 6000clx fireplaces - one in Great Room and one in Master Bedroom. Kitchen white cabinetry with SubZero / Wolf appliances. Master bath herringbone basalt, shower white subway tile, freestanding tub. If you look at my idea board, you will see the overall style we like and are striving for. Does this help?

Do you have any interior elevations of your home? Floor plans? That also would help.

And yes your idea books help.

No interior elevations.

Looking for more feedback and recommendations?

Do what you showed in your inspiration pictures. You mentioned "hickory hardwood" - do you mean your woodwork is to be stained and not painted?

Why do you have such tall ceilings and such low window heads? None of the interior photos you posted have this odd design feature. One of the primary benefits of a tall ceiling is the ability to raise the window heads and allow natural light deeper into the rooms. The resulting exterior blank wall above the dining room windows is a real eye catcher especially since the roof eave is higher than all the other eaves. There is simply no reason to align window heads with standard door heads.

With so much stone, why bother with a few spots of lap siding? Why not let it be a stone house? What is the function of an imitation masonry keystone above windows in a wood framed wall?

Given the big roof and big stone clad cross gables one would expect to see some kind of windows rather than little louver vents in the upper level. What would be the purpose of a large expensive stone gables if not for living space? The house looks like a typical 1 1/2 story configuration with windowless rooms under the roof. It would be a serious mistake to use those little vents for ventilation of an attic.

The general impression I get is that of an expensive dark house and molding is not going to help much.

Why do people take time to comment, disparage what is posted, and not answer the original question I asked? I didn't ask for anything but dimensions. Sometimes posters can be really annoying on this site!

It's funny...I agree with you, some of these guys are overbearing, but honestly I think in this situation you may want to take their advice. They're looking beyond the specific question and seeing right to the root of your issue, and trying to guide you in a way that you're not even prepared to accept. So I wish you luck.

So for 10' ceilings, would you do 7' Doors with 6' windows at a 7' header height with the following trim / moulding dimensions? Or different sizing for any of these variables?

Base: 5.25"

Window/Door Trim Casings: 4.25"

Crown 5.25"

And would you recommend going down to a 9' ceiling or can we still pull off 10' with the above and have it look balanced?

I have 10' ceilings and am going with 6' tall windows in our living room for the reasons stated. We are doing 8' doors. I just like how an 8' door looks in a 10' ceilinged room better than a 7' door.

I'm having my windows start 2' from the floor and end 2' from the ceiling so the top of the window is the same height as the top of the door.

I would do at least a 7" base and preferably 8".

For your crown molding, I'd also do a minimum of 7" and you could easily go to 10" for a more formal look. Again I think 5.25" would look skimpy.

I think your window and door casings will be fine at 4.25".

Joe, I know you didn't ask, but for the exterior, I'd get rid of the shutters on the sides of the windows. Shutters should look like they could actually cover the window and not just look pasted on. Yours are too small to look like they could cover the window. (In days of yore, shutters were meant to cover windows when weather was bad, or in winter, or to keep the sun out, etc)

I would also love to show you another way with your elevation if you're amenable.

Thanks cpartist...Unfortunately i can't really change much with the elevation at this point, however, I have asked about increasing the size of doors / windows and setting an appropriate header height for a 10' ceiling. Waiting to hear back.

Even if you can't change the elevation, can you remove the shutters?

How about changing the way the materials on the exterior are?

What were you thinking?

What people are trying to say is that all the dimensions, shapes, proportions of the house have to work together as an interrelated, harmonious system. That's why they can't give hard and fast rules about sizes. The style of the house dictates the general look and feel of all the millwork.

What you have shown is a sort of neo-cottage/Craftsman look; it's very similar to the Donald Gardner plans. The inspiration pictures also show this type of look, which is bolder and heavier than, say, the sort of traditional ranch that might have been built after the war.

So with that in mind, IIWY I'd let an interior designer do this job, someone with a good track record specifying interior millwork. An architect could also do it, provided he or she has the expertise. There are a few builders who can do this sort of thing, but most these days do not have a good background in this area, so they tend to throw things together, and it just does not work. At any rate, it can get quite complicated, and really isn't a good DIY task to set yourself if you have no experience.

I got rid of the bump out in the front of the garage. It's unnecessary.

Then instead of the facade of stone only on the very front of the house which looks pasted on from the side, I moved the stone to the bottom where it looks like it's holding up the house.

Then I made the gables in shakes and the rest in clapboard.

The big change is I enlarged those windows and the door. Even if you decide not to make any changes in terms of materials, you can see how making the windows 6' and the door 8' actually looks more in keeping with the overall proportions of the house.

Edited to add, I also got rid of the shutters that didn't work with the windows.

Cpartist,

That's a huge improvement in the elevation. I'm sure everyone read the recent thread about McMansions. If you haven't, you should. There was some valuable information about architectural trends that are applicable to the first elevation.

That's why I put the caveat that even if he decided to leave everything as is, except the windows and doors. I was hoping to show him another way to do his house.

I have less of a problem personally with stone facades if they wrap around the sides, but all too often the stone is only on the front and the sides are clapboard siding. So instead of the stone looking like it was used to build the house, it instead looks like it was applied like make up on a woman.

Thanks Cpartist! So we are going to do 8' doors and and 6' windows throughout.

Yes Lily's mom, we added the rock gables to fit with other homes in the community and to give our one level ranch a little more heft considering there are a lot of 2 story colonials.

The rock is bucks county cultured southern ledgestone http://www.boralamerica.com/stone/cultured-stone/southern-ledgestone/cs-sl-fog.

Here's a mockup I did in photoshop to get an idea of how it would look. ...it doesn't take into account larger windows / doors or our colors. We are doing gray with white trim. I mocked it up based on another home they built.

"Why do people take time to comment, disparage what is posted, and not answer the original question I asked? I didn't ask for anything but dimensions. Sometimes posters can be really annoying on this site!"

Make it all one kind of cladding; ditch all of the layered gables; align the eaves; ditch the cornice returns if on stone - use corbels instead (returns ok on siding); use an 80" door with a transom light, and add upper level windows in the gables (its a 1 1/2 story not a 1 story house). You might want to use that upper level space some day so don't use trusses; a stair could fit on top of the basement stair.

I'll leave you in CP's capable hands; I have a lot of work to complete by Friday.

I got it JDS...sorry didn't mean to be rude. This has just been a stressful experience.

If you need to keep the stone as shown, then I'd remove it from the front of the areas with the siding and instead use it on the bottom as I show.

Also I'd get rid of the shakes, which adds a third element to the exterior.

However, I personally still prefer removing the stone unless you make the whole house stone like the older stone houses in Bucks County. This one below feels very disjointed and so does your version.

Do what JDS suggested. That looks the best of all.

Guiding clients through this process is what I do every day. I've learned to not wait for the right questions to be asked.

Its a good idea to reduce a design to its simplest expression before adding back any trendy features. Sometimes the forms are strong enough; certainly stone houses don't need decorative features from wood houses, And lintels on a fieldstone house would never have a keystone.

Google Cotswold Cottage.

Good stone work is major money, and once you start buttering it all over the exterior there's a lot less money available for the expensive trim you are considering, along with everything else. A combination of stone and stucco can work, as long as the textures and colors harmonize.

Take a look at the little American Craftsman cottages from between the wars. They would tend to use stone sparingly, where it makes logical sense: foundation, entry, terrace, and fireplace. Then the stucco picks up the dominant color of the stone.

What she said ^^^

So here's a follow up question.

Per the recommendations and after seeing a visual, we have changed everything to..

* 8' Doors + 4.25" Casing / Trim (Interior and Exterior)

* 6' Windows Throughout @ 8' Header Height + 4.25" Casing / Trim

...with the following window exceptions....

* Window over freestanding tub. Don't want the window to fall behind tub (Height 25") , so thinking 5' Window @ 8' Header Height + 4.25" Casing / Trim

* (2) Windows on each side of the king size bed. Don't want them to fall behind the nightstands, so thinking 5' window @ 8' Header Height + 4.25" Casing / Trim

* Guest Bath smaller window @ 8' Header Height + 4.25" Casing / Trim....not sure what size??

...Does this make sense? Thoughts?

Thanks everyone!

Yes it makes sense. My windows over my counters in my kitchen are of course smaller, as are the windows that will be above my DH's desk and over the tub.

What have you decided about the exterior cladding?

In the wall behind the tub I installed a 4' x 18" window. I put the bottom of the window at around 6'. This way, I get the light and no one can see in as I walk around in the buff. There is no rule that says you need a big picture window in front of a tub. In my case, my tub looks out onto the driveway and turnaround area. There is not scenic view.

The only way to tell if it works is to draw it. Either on graph paper, with software, or mocked up at full scale on a wall. This is a very cheap way of figuring out the problem, and it will work. Crowdsourcing from afar is risky, there are just too many variables in play for a quick and simple answer.

Typically safety glazing is not required above a tub because there is no floor below the windows. A window in a shower would usually not be large enough or low enough to require safety glazing.

In addition to an egress path to the exterior thought doors and halls, each bedroom must also have an "emergency escape and rescue opening" of a certain minimum size and a sill height of 44" or less. These window sizes are usually marked in the manufacturer's catalog size charts.

"Typically safety glazing is not required above a tub because there is no floor below the windows. A window in a shower would usually not be large enough or low enough to require safety glazing."

Like so many GardenWeb discussions, this one has gotten bogged down in trivial issues like molding sizes and safety glass while the house remains in need of a major redesign. I hope Joe will find someone who will do that within the constraints of his builder contract.

The best I can offer at this time is that the most important issue is human scale which is currently obscured by trivial builder features like pent roofs, layered gables and random juxtaposition of cladding materials. Please don't add to that scale problem with an 8 ft door. Use a standard door with a transom light above it. Doors should relate to the ground; windows should relate to the sky.

"Doors should relate to the ground; windows should relate to the sky."

I've never heard that said before, but I find that to be quite an elegant statement.