New build/log home: Exterior light/doorbell placement
country_girl_at_heart
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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country_girl_at_heart
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When building a new home .. when do you hire a designer??
Comments (11)I have built 2 houses. One with a little designer help, and one without any designer help. We have "mistakes" in our first house that we are now correcting before we sell it. A designer could have helped us avoid those and I am sure we would have had a better laid out basement plan! (it is pretty bad.) Whenever I have had a designer, they have usually saved me money by choosing a cheaper option, using things I already had, or avoided mistakes. We had a little designer help on the 2nd (vacaton) home. The things she picked out were great. Again, we made a couple changes on the plans, this time (our 2nd house) the changes we made were better, but I think the designer could have really helped make those changes great! To save money on the designer, I usually do a lot of thinking and leg work before I meet with her. I collect fabrics from Joanns (cheaper) bring tile from big box store, or tile store, I just try to be ready knowing what I want and avoid more hourly fees due to my indecisiveness or trips to stores. So I say go with the designer, but know what you want, and choose carefully. Ask the hourly fee or fee per job. Check a few and talk to happy customers. And make sure she knows your budget. I am OK if some things come from Joanns, big box stores, etc. My designer was too. Another designer I worked with couldn't use cheaper things, so I won't use her again. Make sure you and the designer are on the same page. And have fun!...See Moreplacement of exterior lighting for new garage
Comments (6)Once you determine who's security camera/floodlight you want to use, they should provide you with the preferred install locations. For a Ring floodlight/cam, they recommend 9 ft off the ground for optimum placement. I'd personally look to mount it higher as at 9ft, just about anyone with a baseball bat could knock that sucker to kingdom come with a quick swing without a ladder. Looking at your pic, I'd put it 1/2 to 2/3 up between the door and the peak. And Beverly, they may not look as nice as some of your fancy lights, but they are for security reasons as thieves don't like automatic lights that shine on them as they do their mischief....See MorePlease give me ideas for exterior siding on new build
Comments (26)Shead - I've been thinking about your suggestion to swing the garage out (similar to the first photo) and I think it's a good suggestion. It will also resolve the roof issue that PPF mentioned. I'll take that up with my designer when I meet with her next month. Do you have any suggestions for siding as well? Cpartist - The kitchen in the plans is just a preliminary concept that my house designer included. I've since met with a certified kitchen designer to create a detailed kitchen plan - the plan now includes a sink in the island. Re: east/west axis. There were several factors we considered with direction. Our property is south of the road. We want to see the front of the house when we drive up the driveway, not the back or sides of the house (if you look at the first drawing I posted, you'll see what I mean. Keep in mind that the driveway actually has a much slighter curve than that depicted in the drawing). We could turn the house so that the large expanses of glass in the kitchen, great room and basement living room face west, but I don't want the late setting sun to shine into those room at that angle (I have that in my current office, and it's very aggravating - I have to close my blinds to work in there later in the afternoon and evening). That being said, I'm open to reading your ideas about how the house should be situated. Patricia Colwell - You stated that the interior needs work - can you be more specific? I like the layout of the house (although I definitely like the idea of changing the direction of the garage). What exactly is it that you think needs work? bot494 - Thank you!!! You are one of the few who actually provided an answer to my original question, and I really appreciate it! I love the look of Hardie, but I've read so many bad reviews online that I'm leery of going there (the contractors I've talked to also don't recommend it). The LP Smartside sounds similar to the Maibec siding we are looking at. Can you get it prepainted? (the Maibec comes either stained or painted). I like the idea of using both lap and vertical - what colour(s) would you suggest? Or do you think a natural wood stain on all the siding will look good?...See MoreBuilding a home, and struggling with the exterior design
Comments (74)I didn't realize modern farmhouse would send so many responders into a tizzy The term doesn't send responders into a tizzy, but it does prompt them to start warning the prospective homeowner that, as you discovered, there is a good chance of design problems ahead that can adversely affect the build and the homeowner's enjoyment of the final product. That's because, as Holly explained, modern farmhouse isn't an actual architectural style, it's a series of elements popularized by Joanna Gaines and others. And as PPF mentioned above, the problem is how the different parts/elements of a house don't work together. What some forum users don't understand is that when the people here offer critiques -- and some can be quite blunt, and usually the blunter the critique, the more concerned the pros and experienced amateurs are -- for interior layouts and exterior elevations, it isn't to be mean or snarky, but to alert the prospective homebuilder that expensive, time consuming, and unpleasant to live with mistakes and consequences are on the horizon if the homebuilder isn't willing to understand the suggestions; a phrase that often comes up here is "you don't know what you don't know", and yet it's often an uneasy sense that a design isn't quite right -- that "struggle" you mentioned in your original post, that brings posters here for the first time. That's a very valuable inner voice and more people should listen to it : ) . As GardenWeb member Buehl has written on the Kitchen forum FAQs, and it certainly applies here in the Building a Home forum: When asking questions (e.g., asking for layout help), please keep in mind that everyone here is trying to help, not criticize maliciously. Some of us can be blunt, but no one is out to deliberately insult or hurt anyone. When your kitchen is done, we want you to have a kitchen that functions wonderfully well and looks nice overall -- but the process will take time and may entail comments that many times you won't want to hear (e.g., when a layout is dysfunctional). We strongly recommend you "keep listening" to what others have to say but, in the end, you don't have to take any advice given here. It's your kitchen and you are the one who will make the final decisions! It is definitely a process : ) ....See Moreremodeling1840
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