The #HilltopHouse is in the final days of construction and our client is counting down until move in time. The builder, Sauder Builders, Inc has delivered his signature high level attention to finish details home. The cabinetry done by Lantz Woodworking and, as you would expect from them, is like artwork. The interior brick walls, wood floors, floating stair, exposed steel beam, heavy timber, industrial windows, and wrap around porch are just as we hoped after hearing our client describe what they wanted.
This home is truly a result of listening to the dream of a client and putting the pieces together. We have known these clients for a very long time and have even worked with them in a variety of roles in the community, so we know each other well. It is even more special to hear that their daughter was able to flex her design skills in several parts of the interior of the house.
We are fortunate to have been able to work on their house with them and to get to work with Larry to see this project through to construction. It is breathtaking.
This home is less than 30 days from the finish line and the details are almost done. In a time when delays and shortages have become the norm and when the unexpected has become the expected, I am so impressed with the quality that Larry and his team has been able to deliver.
It is a beautiful home and I know our clients are going to love the space and all the memories they will be able to create here, for many generations to come. This is why we design. Taking the dream that someone has in their mind and putting it on paper so that a builder can execute it – this is the process that should happen. I wish I had gotten to design every corner and pick out every finish, but that’s not what needed to happen on this project. This project had a team and each member of the team brought their skills and knowledge to deliver the dream home that our clients wanted in the end.
We will hopefully get finished photos very soon so you can see it all clean and dust free!!! Stay tuned.
Kicking off a new dream home project has some very special milestones. The first site visit after developing a concept sketch is hugely important to realize a custom home that’s just right for you, and it’s tremendously exciting. You can stand on an open piece of land and say, here is your front door, here are the views from your recliner, you will get a beautiful sunrise while making your morning coffee from here. It is a needed part of the design process for our clients to start to get a feel for their new home, but also to discover any special elements of the site that can enhance the design. It’s hard for most people to visualize a house that is not there yet, but our architects are able to verbally describe what is coming in a way that help clients to feel their design taking shape.
On this recent visit, a wet day for sure, we were able to get a sense of the slope of the land, talk about driveway location and routing, discuss how to manage the cows on the site, and get a sense of the scale of the home. While we could not see the views due to the cloud cover (we will go back to shoot grades on a slightly dryer day) we could see enough to know that our first sketch worked. We even identified a basement workshop that we didn’t know the slope of the site would allow.
“You can stand on an open piece of land and say, here is your front door, here are the views from your recliner, you will get a beautiful sunrise while making your morning coffee from here.”
Having a trained eye walk the site with you is critical to get the placement of your new home just right. The exact location may move a little throughout the design process or even just before
We get to design a lot of cool spaces for our clients and kitchen design may be one of my favorites. As a former cook at The Virginian restaurant I learned the value of an efficient kitchen with all the right tools. It is so much easier to make delicious food if you have a kitchen that is easy to cook in that does not tire you out walking too much and has the right amount of counter space to prep and serve. We have designed a lot of different kitchens over the years and I went looking for photos this morning of some of my favorites. Some are renovations and some are all new spaces, but all have a special quality to them.
They all are highly functional spaces as well as aesthetically beautiful.
Some are all new spaces.
They all are special to the home design and to us.
So yes, we design kitchens too, as well as additions, renovation, new construction……
Almost at the end of a dead end road overlooking the South Fork River a beautiful historic farmhouse was deteriorating. The structure had seem many renovations over the years for what I could imagine was a growing family that enjoyed the beautiful setting. A storage room was added, a kitchen was “fit” into a space, some outdoor decks to enjoy the views – but there was never a holistic plan to preserve the beauty and make the home efficient and comfortable. As many of these historic farmhouses do over time, it lost its luster and the owners just could not maintain it anymore. Our clients however, fell in love with the beauty and purchased it with a goal of bringing it back to life and restoring the former beauty. I am pleased to say that this historic farmhouse renovation in Luray is well underway.
Our clients have worked hard to balance the costs of renovation while thinking through the building science impacts of an old house. You cannot just “add insulation” for instance without thinking through the impacts of such a decision. Sealing up a house that is used to being able to dry out can be very hazardous to the existing old and very dry structural members. You have to protect the old bones while working to make the home comfortable and durable for many years to come. You also run into those past decisions that are now a challenge to handle, like the wet crawl space caused by a new deck and poor grading or a buried cistern that is now under part of the house that was added without thoughts to how that impacts everything.
We were able to design a functional addition that will blend well with the historic structure, but also consult with the builder, home owners, and insulation contractor on how to deliver the goal of preserving the house on a budget. There is not one right answer that will solve all the issues and not all right answers are right for every home. It takes a team to get it just right and we are thrilled to be part of the team working on this historic farmhouse renovation.
We have had some pretty awesome projects come up out of the ground this year. While it is super fun to design a home or business, there is nothing better than seeing the design take physical form and the parts become a whole. Check out some construction progress highlights this year in the below projects.
This house on Afton Mountain is the first in a series of homes in the same neighborhood. It features amazing views and traditional details. Click here to see photos. Blue Ridge Mountain Home
An amazing home with amazing views, this modern cottage is incredible. Click here to see photos. Muddy Creek Modern House.
We don’t just do houses, we have a lot of commercial projects on our resume including this addition to the Petro truckstop in Raphine. If you have not stopped to shop, you should. Click here to see photos. Petro 2 Addition and Renovation.
We get to work with some amazing people on some really cool projects. This project in particular has some of my favorite people (clients) of all time. They appreciate what we do and allow us and trust us to design for them. Phase 1 of their project is to design a detached garage / barn / workshop addition. The goal with this addition is to help with the scale and proportion of their existing home as it sits on the beautiful site in Shenandoah County. They learned during the construction of their home, designed by a builder, how important it is to have a holistic approach to a project to compliment the building site and to achieve their aesthetic and functional goals.
The detached garage / barn / workshop addition will house some of the equipment used to maintain the property, give a place to store the messy stuff in a neat and orderly fashion, and expand the space to make stuff in a second story workshop. The structure sits in the corner of the lot not to take away from the existing structure, but to complement it and tie both together aesthetically. We will also do some work on the existing house to improve function and aesthetics in a later phase.
The framing is in process and the builder is taking good care of our clients. Here are some photos of the progress.
