"Lots of people only do the front."

Herd mentality.

Your sister has a $3M home not because the front is different from the sides, it is because it is in San Rafael.

Yeah duh just explaining that even in the best of neighborhoods In the country, only the front is done to save money. Our house in campbell was the same.

When your in-laws give you a house, I guess you don’t get too picky.

A red and black palette with grey brick would be a fabulous look.

You could save even more money and do all stucco on the front, too.

"When your in-laws give you a house, I guess you don’t get too picky."

You need to get better in-laws*.

(*I AM JUST KIDDING!! POSTED FOR PURE HUMOROUS PURPOSES!!)

Lots of people only do the front. My sister has shingles on the front only of her $3M home in San Rafael

My Mom used to counter that argument by asking if everyone was jumping off the cliff, if I would too. Just because everyone is doing it, doesn't make it right or good.

If you want timeless and good, do all stucco on the front too.

Better an authentic stucco house (4 sides), than a pretend sided house (1 side) with a bare bum.

Mark that was a good funny!!! And I looked up your work, it’s gorgeous.

That’s what they have so far

Looking at the elevations, I'm even more convinced all stucco would look the best

Looking at the elevations, I'm even more convinced all stucco would look the best

Along with a different front door and lots of landscaping.

Thank you for the kind words. I have been very blessed with good clients and what they allow me to get away with.

Agree. Make it stucco or whatever all around. One side is not a good look, IMO…no matter how common it may be. FWIW I’m not a fan of that front door, either. Is a side garage an option? But a free house is a pretty nice gift!

Do whatever you want with the exterior, but get a different front door.

Rather than dressing up the simple massing/form with a patchwork of materials, I would use a similarly simple material like horizontal Hardie 7” V-groove, 9” shiplap or 9” sq channel Artisan siding with mitered corners.
The house just doesn’t have the weight/mass for stone even if it were full height.

Yes this is not the front door they are going with, just an idea I guess

Something along these lines but made of alder

And these

Mark you have some particularly gorgeous roof lines, just love it. And the mix of materials is spot on! My husband always wanted to be an architect. Ya know, like George Costanza?

Believe it or not, but yesterday was the first time I saw the Sienfeld episode with George Costanza pretending to be an architect. I have heard about it for years but I have not owned a television since 1984 .

I use to have a boss that would come into my office and talk to me about the television show he saw the night before. I would look at him with a blank stare until he realized I did not own a television and had no concept of what he was talking about.

But now I have this damn laptop . . .

I cannot believe you don’t have a TV! Seinfeld was the best, still is…..and George as an architect….

So I snapped some pics of my hood with various stucco textures. I really like the smoother type. And I hadn’t realized how pretty our own house is. Stone, wood siding….

The all stucco is elegant in its simplicity.

Yes agreed!! And if you beef up window trims and they have the columns etc with wood and stone I think it will be beautiful

No stone. It's not needed and will look like it's pasted on. But yes on beefing up the windows.

Ok. I have a picture of a house in our old neighborhood I need to find. I want their columns

Ok I like these 2 front entrances too. Even if they did all stucco I think both would work. Would make the column the same width as house is not craftsman?

Those are craftsman columns and there is NOTHING craftsman about your house. Make wood columns that go from the ceiling to the floor without stone,

You don't need to try and turn the house into a tart.

I know it’s not craftsman CP I even stated that in my post! And said columns should be same width! But ok glad you commented!

Just to refresh your memory…. I mean half this house is roof! So really think the wood on bottom will just clutter it up!

Found it!!!! Only all stucco!!

^^^Now those columns will look great with the house. There's an old saying that less is more and in this case it will help the house shine, And yes to a sand finished stucco. No knockdown. :) Please come back and show us when it's done.

Not a pro, but like George Costanza I think it would be cool to be an architect :). My former house was a different style, but posting because my old porch had nice columns with no stone bottoms. (I had the porch rebuilt in 2017ish):

Like your daughter's porch, mine had an arch. I had stained bead board following the same arch shape on the porch ceiling. It looked nice!

While your daughter and fiance are at this stage of the build, they might want to consider their exterior lighting and outlets. I had outlets at each side of my porch and another near the driveway, all on switches controlled from inside. Handy for holiday lights.

My porch had a blank spot above the arch, like your daughter's, where I had the address number. Previously, no one could see my house number at night, and I didn't want to drill into my new door to put numbers there. I searched many options and found these backlit numbers by Luxello. They switch on with the porch light, and the LED transformer box is hidden behind the numbers / above the bead board. I loved how they looked at night and finally people could find my house. Just something for your daughter to think about.

here's a night shot, before staining and painting were done:

The existing portico is inappropriate for many reasons:

1. there is no logical structural or visual relationship between the portico roof and the main roof, i.e, there's no central idea.

2. a fundamental feature of a structural arch is that forces are required at the spring points to reist the horizontal thrust of the arch. If the designer meant for the portion of the wall above the arch to act as a tie, it would have been better to let the horizontal tie beam show so it would be clear that the arch was decorative rather than structural or omit the arch altogether.

3. the gable, arch and hipped shapes seem to contradict rather than reinforce each other.

I would try a hipped portico with a lintel beam in a 3D CAD program. I might also try enclosing it with large windows; I'm getting a bit tired of these spindly legged things with booties that say "look over here; this is the front door".

RES Hmmmm if only I understood one whit of what you’re saying…..I do not speak architect, but I know a mediocre design when I see one and this is it. However as I am not paying one dime for this house build, I have to be careful what I say. I think the all wood column would look nice. What exactly do you want done with the arch part?

Essentially, because the main roof is hipped, the gabled arch looks funny-- like wearing running shoes with a suit: they are both valid things to wear but they don't usually belong in the same outfit. And then the gratuitous arch-- it's purely decorative but it's pretending to be structural. It's the pretending that's jarring. Add in the fact that the portico is just "stuck on" with no context, and design people become just plain unhappy.

The suggestion is to echo the shape of the hipped roof with a hipped portico. And to ditch the arch. Since it appears that we're past the planning part (the pictures are of your daughter's actual, under-construction house, right?) I think that ship has sailed. What's left is to figure out how to mitigate the issues.

Yes that shipped has sailed. Just trying to help with the finishes.

Could somebody just draw that ? Hipped portico?

Oh gotcha I looked it up!!! Agree with all you’re saying.

It would be something like this. It would look shorter from the front because it has no vertical angle like the current one does on the face.

Oh yeah waaaaay better!!!!! Thank you so much

The house is spectacular!!! Too bigcdlmost

Too bad I can’t post a pic I had a stroke in June and my brain isn’t sorking

Like it used too

Have a great 100% recovery. It takes time.

Thsnkyou doing evetythibgtgrytellme too!’didyiu hsve one!? I pray my eyeballs out too!!!!

My brother-in-law had one not too long ago. We see him every several months and it is becoming less and less noticeable over time.

Thanks so much that is so Sergio to hear!!!

I can’t walk so mine must’ve been eotrse