The Finale - follow up to the previous posts about our construction
My first post on houzz is located here: link
2nd post here: link
I hope you will notice that we got more sophisticated over time, but perhaps that is untrue. In any case, we took all of the feedback from those two posts, considered what was most important to us, finalized the floorplan, and spent 18 months building the place. Thanks to everyone who commented (both positive and negative) you were extremely helpful. We are all very happy with how the house is shaping up. Just need a few years on the landscaping and a few odd pieces of furniture. We are in our early 40s so intend to live here 30-40 years. If I outlive my wife I'll replace the french doors on the front. If she outlives me, she'll add shutters.
I need to take some pictures of the interior, but in the meantime, I'll post some photos of the outside. Also, please notice that the floorplan and elevations changed after feedback from post #2. We painted the bricks white and used black shutters, but for God's sake don't call it a farmhouse. We can hear cows from the back porch but I am a businessman!
Floor plan:
George:
Closer view. The bushes in front of the retaining wall are azaleas and should grow to make a hedge over the next few years. Bright flowers twice/year.
One of three planter boxes, this one happens to be kitchen window.
Custom weathervane modeled after our dog Scout:
Livewall on porch by the most used entryway. We haven't cracked the code on this thing yet, but will ultimately be solid plants. There is also a wood border that hides the scaffold and plumbing, I really need to get to that this weekend...
Someone asked about black gutters. You can't tell, but the downspouts are round.
And now for a few interior pictures that I took before the home was fully furnished:
From living room into dining room:
Swing bed on back porch:
When this post rolls off the front page, my Houzz career will probably be over. I had two goals here: build a house and get on ARG's Top 100 List and I accomplished both. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to my previous posts and if you have constructive criticisms that can be rectified without me writing a check that has a comma in it, fire away!
Comments (40)
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Comments (4)You mention your lawn was dead when you converted it to garden. Any idea what killed it? Or did you have a green lawn and just turn it under or spray it with glyphosate (glyphosate will leave no residues to harm what you have planted, but other herbicides may)? I ask because if the lawn was already dead, whatever killed it could be affecting what you have planted. Low soil nitrogen will not prevent your seeds from germinating, although after they come up it will certainly stunt their growth. The classic symptom of lack of nitrogen in a growing plant is yellowing and dying leaves on the lower parts of the plant while the top/newest leaves remain green Corn is an excellent indicator plant because the symptoms show up so clearly. Legumes such as peas and beans show much less problem because they host bacteria that will manufacture the nitrogen--if the bacteria are present on the seed or in the soils when planting. What you have described of your plants suggests a couple things to check out. First, your symptoms are consistent with herbicide damage. If it is herbicide, the wide range of seeds you have planted suggest it may be broad spectrum, soil active which may be wearing off. If this is the cause, time and heavy watering will take care of the problem. Second, the symptoms would be consistent with excess salt in the soil. Seeds often don't germinate well and die of drouth after coming up because the salt prevents the plants from absorbing water. However, I have found peas to be highly sensitive to salt compared to some of the other things you planted, so if they are doing well it may not be salt. Third, your problems are consistent with lack of moisture. Fluctuating soil moisture can result in poor germination and stunted or slow growing plants. Stick your finger into the soil going in a couple inches every day or two for a week and make sure the soil is moist all the way down. You don't want it waterlogged, but you don't want it dry. You might also take a shovel and check down 6-8 inches and make sure there is moisture there. If you water frequently for short intervals with a sprinkler, the surface could be getting wet but not soaking in deeply enough to provide the plants with what they need. I would suggest searching further for a soil testing lab. There have got to be a number of them in Calif. and Arizona with their huge ag production. The county extension service should be able to point you to a lab. Otherwise, do a search in the yellow pages for soil testing and search the net. It doesn't have to be nearby, although I think it is better if the lab serves an area with similar soils to you (warm, arid). All that is needed for a test is about a pint of soil, it can be shipped quite easily, and the basic test usually costs around $20 or less. A test will fill you in on your nitrogen levels and your salt levels. If your salt level comes back above 4 (listed as EC or mmhos), some plants will have problems, and above 6 will really cause problems. Good Luck...See MoreFollow up on our White Spruce
Comments (8)If they're not strong, it won't matter, Spruce, since the ones like that are few in number - I've got 5 1/2 wooded acres. I've seen lots of odd things with trees since the hurricane. There are several small trees that were bent over, and for whatever reason, I didn't right them. They've developed new main trunks/leaders that grow straight up - it looks like in the future, the bent over part will just be an insignificant lower limb on the trees. There are also some bent over trees that are developing lots of new growth that grows straight up along the bent over part. I've left these, because they make the woods more interesting, at least to my eye - I may plant some vines to grow over some of the bent over trees. Many rose growers force branches to grow laterally so that the sunshine hitting the limbs will cause many new straight up stems, all with roses - this is the same thing, just natural! I had a catalpa tree before the hurricane that was completely destroyed. It grew back from the roots about 5' or 6' away from the original trunk, and grew straight up about 12' tall in one year. It finally made one branch in the summer - I hope it'll branch out more this year! Sherry...See MoreGMO in the food supply (follow-up to previous post)
Comments (102)I posted this in another forum, but since the person who dug up this old thread to talk about "gene 6" in multiple forums... In case anyone wants some information about "gene 6"...better/correctly known as "P6"...as it pertains to current discussion based on a study by the EFSA... This is a very wide range of proteins found in virus encoding from HIV to mosaic virus...these proteins are also found in the smoke of burning meat and tobacco. It's a very wide range. In this case, one of the biggest dangers would be a chance encoding to re-invigorate the "dead" version of cauliflower mosaic virus (or P6 residues) that's very commonly used as a carrier string for DNA/RNA insertion that it's inserted into. This could lead to some allergy problems, too, even if it doesn't fully express the mosaic virus but still overlaps enough to express P6 proteins. P6 is a known allergen, though it's not one that everyone is sensitive to. The expression of this gene is highly unlikely, though...and would be regulated to a single (or very small groups) of plants doing this replication rather than entire seed source or a field suddenly replicating mosaic virus or P6 residues. If it is the case that encoding suddenly made it large-scale available it would show up heavily in the research stage and it wouldn't make it out into the consumer market since it's showing inferior/bad genetic expression. One of the biggest parts of GMO research is tossing out 99%+ of everything you're actually trying to create because positive effects of expression aren't stable enough to sell it as seed...or it's showing "bad" expressions. There's a lot of otherwise harmful viruses (to plants or humans) used to insert GMO traits for start/end points into a genetic change that are made inert (and distinctly different) from their original genetic package, but still contain large parts of what makes up the virus, itself. Viruses can easily carry genetic information and they're ideal vehicles for transferring it. The genetic carriers of the virus are merely vehicles. Once you change the "genetic package" inside a virus it's not even what you started with. The "guts" are changed dramatically. If you put a Dodge Neon engine in a Porsche very few people would still consider it a Porsche. That's the level of dramatic change in sequencing going on inside of these packages. You can take certain virus types, depending on what you're trying to achieve, and precisely insert genetic information with start/termination points into existing DNA/RNA...totally turning it's genetic information into something totally different in both makeup and application. Btw, to those with P6 protein sensitivities...this would be a big deal. I'm not trying to knock the research at all. I'm just saying it's overlapping expression would most likely be contained to a very few plants in a field, not widespread. While genetic start/termination points are very good with insertion and replication once stable, nothing is perfect when you're exchanging genes...we see it even natural breeding. The major problem with this particular chain of insertion is the overlapping of the 2 sequences given as example in the paper and what could happen as a consequence of them being genetically linked so closely together...even if there's a very small chance of it happening as defined. It's also worth mentioning we're talking a single virus carrier, not the 100s of types (or the 20-ish most commonly used) carriers. It would also be greatly influenced by the new information inserted, what was cut out, and where the start/termination points overlap (if there is any replication overlap). There's more than 1 way to insert genetic information into virus and the chances of overlap encoding or reversion is different depending on the type of method used....See MoreFollow up to WHY I didn't want kids at our party.
Comments (26)Ultimately this is to me the new "motherhood" where children are cosseted and protected ("I can't hang a picture on the wall next to the crib because it might fall on the baby" or buy ahouse with a swmming pool cause the child might drown) in ways that are beyond bordering on the absurd. We had a friend who married one of the most fun, charismatic and bright women I have ever met. Then she had a child. She brought the child to our adult only party and was so absorbed in this kid that her entire personality had been erased. It was the most tragic thing for her husband who eventually left her. I am not fond of today's toddlers because they are raised with no manners. You might say that toddlers are too young to have manners, but my children did not bang on furniture, stick their hands into food, or run wild through the rooms. We did not know to childproof and our kids knew to stay out of certain places. We didn't play with them 12 hours a day and they were left to their own devices while chores, personal time and other things were done. That resulted in children who were curious, had an imagination, weren't glued to the TV and knew how to play. And be by themselves and enjoy it. How novel! And the same with my friend's children. This is new phenomenon. We won't invite people with kids any more. The kids are little monsters and I don't need that disruption in my life....See More
just_janni
3 years ago
shead
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
rustynail
3 years ago
Mrs. S
3 years ago
cpartist
3 years ago
Denita
3 years agonjmomma
3 years agoshead
3 years ago
Cheryl Hannebauer
3 years agostrategery
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agoshead
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agoshead
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoEDITED CAPTIONS FROM DESKTOP
Attempting this from mobile, may be hard to caption properly. The 1st two photos are the living area into the kitchen/dining. My wife (and Pinterest) did all of the decorating.The last three photos are of my study, which has been effected by COVID-19. Who knows when the plantation shutters will be installed and I can't go into a furniture store to pick out some nice leather chairs. The wood for the floor in this room came from an oak tree that was on our property that fell during Hurricane Michael which was week 1 of our construction. If you look closely you will see that I pegged the boards to (hopefully) make it look vintage. i literally did this myself, so if you don't like it, blame me.
Looking from living room into dining/kitchen:
Living area:
My partially furnished study:
Another view:
Closeup of the floor:
lafdr
3 years agorustynail
3 years agokriii
3 years ago
nhb22
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agoThe builder selected a brick paver for weight purposes. My wife doesn't know the name, but she sent me the picture below. It was white washed (lime washed?) to get that color.
Adam Thomas
3 years agonhb22
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agoThe stair treads were pre-made. The hardwood floor crew measured them exactly and ordered them from somewhere. They arrived unfinished. Perhaps they don't offer stair treads in #2. Not sure.
It's a preference thing, because structurally I don't believe there is a difference between #1 and #2. We had #2 white oak in our last house and like the character.
With regards to the pavers, we built on a crawl space. I think they were worried about the weight of a solid brick fireplace. I suppose if they'd worried about it early enough we could have poured support.nhb22
3 years agoshead
3 years agocpartist
3 years agoCheryl Hannebauer
3 years agoLyndee Lee
3 years agoterriwatsonlsu
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agoterriwatsonlsu
3 years ago
Kimberly G
3 years ago
B Carey
3 years agoAdam Thomas
3 years agosheepla
3 years ago
Adam ThomasOriginal Author