I am not fond of this. It is an early-2000s time-stamped house--better than the 1990s houses, but not by much. What I dislike is all the clutter at the front. It's trying to evoke the past, but gables used to be for a reason, not just for visual clutter. I'd clean it up substantially. I'd take the front down to two gables, total. Bumping out the gables won't cost hardly a thing because it'll simplify roofline and foundation. That means that the gable on the L will stick out farther, and the porch on the R will continue the entire width of the gable. Right now, the only purpose of the extra gables is to be a surface for more trim and materials. Even at the most insane excesses of the 19th century, there were never such abortive movements in architecture. If there was a tower, it was a tower, dangit. If you're going to have a gable, have a real GABLE, not some sad little thing pinned onto the front like a flower. For the love of all that's holy, DO NOT!!!!!!!!!! brick/stone veneer just the front of the gable and have Hardiplank on the sides. That looks kitschy and cheap--far cheaper than being honest with your materials and just using hardie all around. It's like any gable that's less than 3' deep--or even 5' deep. It looks like the effort was made but there was no conviction, no carry-through. If you want it to look authentic and still mix materials, put stone on the connecting wing between the gables and hardiplank on the rest of the house but with a stone foundation. The shingles can then go only in the gables without looking too busy. Just like Macv said, that makes a story: The connecting wing (ell) was the original modest house, made from the native stone that was dug from the fields where the house was built. (It's a romantic design for a house--it must have a properly romantic story!). In the 1880s, it was added on to as the family grew wealthier, using the fashions of the day (if a wee bit behind the times--these were very comfortable but somewhat provincial people), and what little of the stone remained was used for the foundation. The shutters on this house are all shown installed wrong, and they are the wrong size. The gable shutters should be replaced by a single shutter, the twin windows' should be installed so they at least LOOK like they'd work, and the narrow window needs a single shutter while the big windows either need none or folding shutters. For that matter, the sidelites, as pictured, dont' go with the house. I'd expect bigger molding around the door with the way the windows are treated, and I'd shutter the sidelites if everything else got shutters. Click on this link for some inspiration. Note that the original shutters for this house were lost, and there's cheap stick-on shutters instead. :-( But it still has a LOT of bones, and you can see that simplicity in pattern isn't always bad. Here is a link that might be useful:

Congrats Mickey! We're 3 months to go ourselves. While some things don't happen as much as they did leading up to pregnancy, I must say that eating like a pig has been nice the past few months. Of course, I look as pregnant as my wife now, but that's another matter. As far as overseeing is concerned... I don't think the natural place for the homeowner is to be the QC person. It's best to have an objective professional in that position. We should understand what I'm saying here, though. We're not just talking about how well the joints fit on the oak trim or where the lights are offset. There are a myriad of construction issues that must be closely looked at before the finish items are put in place. Now, you, the homeowner, will have oodles of things to look at and make decisions about. It's best you be concerned with what you want and where you want, allowing the GC and/or your inspector to handle the "go / no-go" on the actual work. I'm NOT saying that the homeowner should altogether be out of the picture, just that on resolving issues of construction, the homeowner would do best to have an advocate. If the trust and relationship isn't there with the GC, hire someone to help on matters that we homeowners just do not have the knowledge or respect to handle. Also, do not underestimate the importance of "knowing what you want and where you want it". The building process is either 0 miles per hour or 100. It's never 50. If you're not prepared for the decisions @ 100mph you're gonna cause trouble. If you have a GC you trust to handle construction items, you can focus on the stuff that you absolutely need to handle, like picking out/ordering finish items. This is not a small job and will directly impact the finish feel of the home. Do not expect that you can pick everything out in a day. Do not expect that your exact picture in your head will pan out. You will be making adjustments that directly impact everyone on the job. If you're convinced that you need to be on the job as the GC, then these other duties that only you can perform will suffer.

When my remodel is done, my DW will be at the end of a run, next to the wall. It will probably add a minute, maybe two, to the unload time as all but the daily dishes/cutlery/glassware will be a tad farther of a walk to put away. But I don't care as the advantages will totally outweigh the disadvantages. I disagree with your KD. Strongly. I currently have my DW between my sink and range and it is the most hated thing in my kitchen. Everybody hates it, not just me. And when I say everybody, I mean my parents (who owned this house before me), my sister and her entire family, and my entire family. Plus all our kid's spouses. That's 14 people who have all voiced hatred for the DW placement. When my niece's husband, who was a chef before he became an engineer, heard we were remodeling the kitchen actually called me up to remind me to move that damn DW. And he's only cooked in it a few times. I remember he commented that it's poor placement from both a chef's and engineer's perspective (for whatever that's worth, lol). That is the only time he's actually ever called me. At the time, I didn't know where else to put it but the good folks here guided me to the new location. In fact, if the DW placement was good to begin with, I would probably have just redecorated my kitchen instead of remodeling. Of course, I'm getting other good things out of the remodel (like a prep sink) but I'm pretty frugal and would have probably saved the expense of it all if the DW placement hadn't been so annoying. If you use the sink on the window wall for prepping most often because you're facing the fabulous view (and who wouldn't?), the DW will NOT be able to be left open for immediate loading. You will need to keep the door closed most of the time and pop it open to load. If you're prepping and someone is loading/unloading or even just popping it open quickly to pop something in, it often coincides with the moment I need to get some water for my prepping. If you had a much longer counter between sink and cooktop, it might make some sense. But you don't. It will be crowded. And note that I have 54" between sink and range so I have more space to move over when that DW door is open. You have only 39". 36" is the MINIMUM recommended by the NKBA. You really can't afford to lose work space there if you want to use it for prepping. Of course, you will have the option of moving over to the other sink to do that but then that also adds extra unnecessary steps. And if you are prepping and have to move over for someone to do stuff with the DW, you might as well move all your prep work there because it also cuts into the available counter space unless you don't mind leaning instead of standing in front of what you're prepping. I don't understand the view argument. If you use your DW properly, as DW manufacturer's recommend, you'll be spending little time at the sink as you should scrape, not rinse, before loading. Washing fruit and veg doesn't take long. I wish I could remember the statistics exactly but studies have shown that prep time is something like 70% of the time spent in the kitchen with the remainder divided between cooking (like when you're standing at the stove, not counting unattended oven time) and cleaning up. So the majority of your time will be in the prep area, not in front of the sink or at the DW. For that short period of time, you won't miss the view. Ha! Can you tell I feel strongly about this? It's your kitchen. I would never do it in my kitchen. I hope you won't regret your decision.

Another beautiful house that fell into the gray trap. Get rid of the gray and the house will be fine. Choose one of the colors out of the bigger color scheme of littlebug. The white is too white too. A tone of light beige will accommodate the walls to the brick. A truly dark red or dark green might be nice accent colors, but don't overdo it. Maybe just the door and the swing (which can stay in my opinion, but the pillows are too modern). Besides that: do people not build and buy such houses for the 'dated' look? It is supposed to look like from another era. So do not update, but preserve the look. The rest of the house is beautiful as it is. It doesn't have to be all Tudor style, per se. Have you seen the movie 'pride or prejudice'. That house also has such a wooden railing. In my opinion your door and windows look beautiful too. Some agents of styles tend to become to stringent. So: paint will do a marvelous job on an already lovely house.