Hope all of our California Kters are okay
Kathsgrdn
2 months ago
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OT Hope all of our California friends are doing well...
Comments (7)Hello Everyone, Hey Bill, Glad to hear that all is well in Costa!! You all are so lucky to have missed those nasty winds..50 miles isnt that far!!! Lets see some pics of Psycho and Kimi...Those beauties will make the Winter a little easier to deal with!!! All of the inflos that i had are dropping buds everywhere. Hi CHuy, Glad to hear you all are doing alright too! That was a mess out there...so glad no damage! Hi Iso, Glad to see you are doing well!! I know how sad it is to see all of the leaves falling ...glad to know that you still have some blooms! The trees that i left with leaves and are inside in the living room and then some upstais under lights are doing well. The others in the backroom are finally settling down and resting... I cant wait for spring!!! Hey Sun!! Do you live north of Bill? I hope you have some help with your trees... Im having issues with my greenhouse too! Hopefully while i have some time off this winter, i can get it straightened out... it is very frustrating!!! I was thinking of you all and seeing all of the damage made me want to check on you guys!!! Glad to see everyone is doing well!! : ) Take care, Laura...See MoreEarthquake - Hope all the Canadian friends are okay!
Comments (15)I'm glad to hear all is cool with you to Sharon and all of our other friends north of the 49th. I have to say I feel for those working and or living in downtown Toronto area with the summit meetings going on. I'm sure it will be a PIA for them more so than this quake. Not mocking or anything bad towards Toronto or their test of security today. I know it's a big deal to host these events.... to me it would be easier to have them in a more remote area away from major poplulations/traffic areas. I would think security would be easier too. Maybe it's just me??? but it does make sense to me in so many ways. Again, glad to hear/read that everyone is okay. David...See MoreOur architect's draft for a home in California
Comments (30)Traditionally, stone has been used to build the foundation of houses, because it's a substantial building material. Even though today most stone is just a thin veneer "glued" onto a substrate and house foundations made of reinforced concrete, it looks best when it's used in a manner reminiscent of its historic purpose. Often in a historic house, there would be a core of the home built from stone, and added onto more economically later with wood siding giving the classic version of siding variation. Today's custom homes typically start large and aren't added onto, but we try to add such interest by choosing a few exterior cladding materials to give that effect. There's been a trend over the past couple of decades in making a more complex building footprint with many bumpouts, so you can better achieve that historically accurate look by choosing some section of the house, perhaps the core, and taking the stone all the way up to some logical termination point. For some homes that could be all the way up to the roof, for some, the top of the first floor, and for others, below the first floor. The "water line" treatment looks wrong because I don't think there is a historical style that builds a foundation halfway up a single storey. But there are plenty of houses imagined by designers and builders that feature this detail. I recognize the house you posted a picture of, it looks like one built by infill spec house builder Kansky/Nash and marketed last year. IMO the waterline stone doesn't look good there either. Also I'm not sure it's real stone, could be a "cultured stone" product. Nothing wrong with that, just you might notice some repetition in the pattern eventually as they are man-made out of concrete. I think they are cheaper than natural stone, but if you're budget sensitive you could go for a more careful/limited application of the product and save even more money. Here's a snap of the front of our house with our stone treatment. We took it up as far as the top of the lower storey because it looked like a "ledge" that the upper floor was built on: Of course this is all subjective and I'm conveying my opinion, which is worth as much as anyone else's here who's not paying for your project. You could ask your architect though, and he/she should be able to describe the options....See MoreSouther California kt'ers... SCE
Comments (7)i am not an A/C fan, even thou i live in sunny hot orlando, but i would never ever do this. i already know for fact how this works. yrs ago DH allowed his father to move in w/ us because he could not care for himself and his dad paid the electric bill. well his dad promptly signed up for this 'energy saving' program and the A/C was off from 8am-6pm...well since i worked 5 days a week on 12 hr schedules & i was gone 15 hrs a day LOL but it took forever for our townhouse to get anywhere near 80 at night. it would have been even worse if i was not working outside in the blazing fl sun all day and 80 was long sleeve temps to me lol. here we are in the mid 90's from may thru nov so it can get quite hot in a house w/o A/C by 9 am for most people. we do the averaging program and save $$ on it. dh pays utilities and is lucky i'm comfy at 80-82 during the day w/ ceiling fans running and 74-75 at night :-) he was miserable at our old house w/ that energy program his dad did. atleast i know we'll never do that in this house. i don't believe it saves you much $$ when your A/C has to run extra hard trying to cool down a hot house in the evenings, not to mention the wear on the A/C ~ liz...See Moremorz8 - Washington Coast
2 months agolast modified: 2 months agoKathsgrdn thanked morz8 - Washington Coast
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