sowngrow: Well, I've been thinking. Since we now have a TWOFOLD question--what to do with a wall, AND a wall on a slope that may retain water, let's deal with the water retention first. You seem to have a solid concrete wall, so I wouldn't be nearly as concerned about it accepting (and holding paint) as I would a block wall. There are plenty of good water-based paints (thin, and clean up with water) that adhere to concrete. You have only to call your paint store and have them point out WHICH paint they recommend--and if they're guaranteed not to peel. People have been painting concrete steps and porches for years--not only concrete, BUT, concrete that receives heavy foot traffic, and most of it wears extremely well. You don't even have to worry about the foot traffic--you have a wall. You can mention the part about the water retention, but I doubt whether that will be a factor. If they think it is, they'll probably try and sell you a water-sealant paint (like you would paint a leaky basement with), and you MAY not need it. You be the judge--taking into consideration that paint that holds back water is 2 or 3 times as expensive as regular latex paint. If you're still concerned after conferring with your paint store, buy some latex paint (listening to their recommendations, somewhat) and paint the TOP of the wall. Let it stand a year or so--through your rainy season, and through Winter, and see if you're satisfied with it. If so, continue the pattern on the face of the wall. I'd certainly give it a try, if it were me. I'd at least talk to someone knowledgable at a good paint store--not someone in the paint department at Wal-Mart.

I built a beach house with Hiline Homes 2 years ago. I actually blogged about it specifically so people could see what our experience was like because I too could not find anything online. I haven't updated the blog with what the house has been like since we moved into it because I got burned out. But overall, I think the house was pretty solidly built. The build experience was far from perfect but that is also true of my sister's super high end build that I got to hear about going up as well. I will say the fixes and responses to getting things fixed on the higher end home were a lot better than what Hiline has done. But our house itself seems like a very good value to me. All inclusive with our land, permits, driveway, excavation/ground prep, etc, we paid about $118 per sq foot. With the builder we quoted with, the cost would have been $160 per sq ft. and the quality at that price would have been comparable to Hiline's since the builder also would have been using similar materials to get their quote that low. (By similar materials I mean the finishing touches like countertops, carpet, flooring, etc. They would have used the same construction materials, and in some cases, Hiline's construction materials were actually nicer.) So, I think you could go with one of these companies and come out okay, though I can only speak for one of them. We had a terrible project manager but he was fired after our build. Hopefully their next one is better.) Here's a link to my blog if you want to read about it. I always meant to go back and pull out the salient details that people would want to know, but I never did. So it's mostly an online journal, I'm sure it's incredibly painful to read! http://myhilinehome.com/

We purchased a Sun Cloud Infrared electric space heater and it will certainly pay for itself this winter from all indications. It will cost about $1 a day to use and that's all we've used for heating our home with the exception of a few days. We had teens and single-digit weather for two weeks in December and our gas bill dropped 41% from December a year ago and our electric only went up about 20%. Gas is higher here now than electric. We only had our natural gas furnace on for 5 days during December. During the day, the main area of the house is about 63°-66°. We also found out by keeping the furnace fan on constantly that there is less variation in the temperatures in the house. We haven't heated the basement rooms at all and they have maintained temperatures in the 60's as well. I also made window quilts for all our windows and that has made a huge amount of difference. Our bedroom is on the north with one (fairly large) window. Our bedroom is closed off from the rest of the house because we don't need to heat it just for sleeping, and the coldest the temperature has been in there is 59° and is usually arount 62°. Just Google - thermal window shades - and you'll find several methods to making them. I'm sure these same shades will help in the summer as well when we're trying to keep the heat out. I made some of mine with furniture packing quilts that I got free. I gave them a vapor barrier on the side towards the window by using 97 cent emergency blankets (see camping gear at Wal-Mart - they are thin sheets of foil-lined plastic that have some thermal quality) and used spray adhesive to stick it to the packing quilt. Then I made a "pillow case" covering from a $4 sheet that happen to match the room perfectly, and it is removable for laundering. You can make these into permenant window coverings, or use inexpensive tension rods at the top and the bottom and fit them into the window. If you need to raise the window covering, just place the bottom tension rod up in the window casing. Something else we've tried is heating water in an electric kettle for dish washing water. There are only two of us at home, and we found that by using a small plastic tub in the sink, we could use about 3-5 cups of boiling water and a little cold water and it was sufficient for rinsing dishes for the dish washer and washing those things we don't put in the dish washer and general clean-up. An electric kettle will make boiling water faster, using less energy, than a stove-top or microwave. We figured we have also saved a bunch of water by using this method. Think how much water goes down the drain before you get hot water to the sink. And everytime you turn the tap to anything but COLD, cold water goes into the hot water tank to replace hot that is used, which reduces the overall temperature and your hot water tank fires up. These are simple-to-do things that we think have made a significant difference in...

The open frame and truss was a design we liked but I don’t think it works with the slope of our roof unfortunately. The pitch of our roof and the width of our portico are somewhat limiting. Our architect had suggested an “eyebrow” arched design, but I was struggling to draw that and make it look right. Some people do an open design with a beam straight across between the posts but I have never seen a really great example of that. I may be able to get my husband on board with double posts. He hasn’t read all your comments yet or seen the latest renderings here! We shall see. I think the double posts add more interest. The single posts are a little plain to me. My designer did say she liked single posts and suggested hanging lanterns on the posts... so that is yet another idea!