Clean the Wood First

After the siding is installed, it should be cleaned with “Problem Solver Wood Cleaner” (also made by Cabot). That will remove any bacteria or mold that may have accumulated while the cedar was stacked up in storage can be destroyed and removed. Once the wood has dried, the bleaching oil is applied. The stain within the oil tints the wood and then allows the wood to age gracefully in a uniform shade.

The entire process from application to the final driftwood grey look can take a good amount of time. But in a few months, the stain to settle into its long-term appearance. Some stains are clear, some are tinted.

Warning – the pigment in the stain can settle quickly in the paint bucket.

The stain must be continuously stirred to keep the pigment suspended in the oil to ensure the application of the coloring is fairly uniform. Anything less than continuous stirring will result in a diluted and uneven finish.

Not Your Typical Stain

Bleaching oil is a unique stain. It includes a grey pigment within the mix. The color gives the cedar a color similar to what it will ultimately become. The rest of the mix is made of chemicals that accelerate the natural weathering of the wood toward its driftwood color it would eventually become if left untreated and out in the weather and sunshine. In about six months, the initial stain fades away and the bleaching takes over.

A Beautiful Finished Appearance

In theory, once bleached, cedar shingle siding will need no future treatment. In reality, it will need some occasional touching up, particularly on the north side of the house where mildew is prone to grow. Bleaching oils used to contain chemicals to prevent mildew growth, but those chemicals were hazardous and environmental problems, so they were banned. The newer stains and bleaching oils are not as effective at stopping mildew. Nevertheless, bleaching oil on cedar shingles is the authentic way to get the look of the Shingle Style houses of the New England coastline and the Hamptons mansions. 

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Bleaching Oil for Cedar Siding appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

The fact there are millions of colors in the world with very subtle differences in hues actually makes the task of selecting among them harder. With so many paint color choices, but with a hundred times more color possibilities, it often feels like the perfect color lies somewhere between one color sample and the next. For greys and beiges, this is particularly true. And just yesterday, a client of mine said she had gotten large paint samples of all 26 tones of white a particular paint company offers. How hard is her decision going to be?

Here are Some Tips to Help with Choosing Paint Colors

1. Find Something to Match

Sometimes it is easier to pick a paint color when you are not standing in front of many, many color choices. So instead of starting your search while standing in front of the rack of a zillion colors, start by finding an object, such as a throw pillow, a dress, some curtains, or similar that has the color you love. Take that object to the home improvement store and find the color that matches. Automatically, this will narrow your choices and make the selection easier.

2. Follow Your First Reaction

Take note of which paint colors are your “first blush” choices. Often, the colors that catch your eye initially will end up being your best and final choice. Spending too long pondering your decision can lead to you questioning your own judgment.

3. Try It Out at Home

Don’t make your final decision in the store. Take a strip of color samples (or several strips) that might be candidates home to evaluate there. This way you will see the colors in the context of your home and under the lighting conditions in your home.

4. Look at the Deeper Version of the Color

If you are choosing light colors, especially off-whites, look at the deeper colors, the paint colors with more color saturation, on the color strip that belong with the off-white color. This will show you the underlying tint of the off-white. Who hasn’t chosen a white paint color only to see it turn pink, or yellow, or greenish when the whole wall or room is painted with it. This is because the reflected light from one wall to the next will intensify the underlying tint or hue. By looking at the deeper versions of the off- white, you can more easily see the faint tones that are in it.

5. Eliminate the White Border

Cut the paint sample strip or fold it so that you can see only the paint color itself and none of the white backer card. Because our eyes gauge contrast, the bright white of the backer card will distort your perception of the actual paint color. You’ll get a better read on the true color without the influence of the white card.

6. Do a Small “Brush Out”

Finally, buy a small can of the paint color you choose, or a small can of a couple of possible colors. Then paint out a sample area (a brush out) of about two or three feet square on the wall at home. This small cost of the can of paint will be a worthwhile investment to get the color right before you spend a good deal of money on all the paint for the entire project, not to mention the time wasted if you have to repaint the room to correct a mistake.

Ultimately, It Might Be Worth the Cost of a Few Hours of Consultation with a Good Interior Designer.

One advantage an interior designer can have is they have used many of these colors on many projects. They have learned which colors they can “trust.” An experienced interior designer will have a dependable palette of colors they have used many times that won’t take on the wrong hue once the paint is on the wall and they will get the expected results. They will also know which colors can turn funky when painted in large areas.

Doing these things I suggest might take a bit more time than simply picking a paint color while standing in the store. But it will be worth it when the colors work out just as you had envisioned.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Choosing Paint Colors Is Challenging appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

Often, folks decide to not get a permit for home improvements because they worry this will alert the authorities to the fact that their house will be worth more due to the improvement, especially if the finished living space is being enlarged. They are afraid their appraised value will go up and the tax office will raise their property taxes. That is probably true.

But is it Worth the Risk?

What’s the risk of not getting a building permit? You might think I mean the risk of getting caught. No. That’s a risk, but it is not the BIG risk. What you should really worry about is the risk that your home improvement project might cause damage to your house, primarily in the form of flood or fire. If your uninspected wiring job happened to cause a fire and burn your house to the ground, your insurance company would have a perfectly valid reason to deny you compensation.

Would you like to pay for rebuilding your home after a fire? of course not. Getting permits and the proper inspections will keep your homeowner’s insurance intact. Your insurance, or your contractor’s insurance, would cover the cost.

A Bigger Risk without a Building Permit

I would guess this isn’t on your radar, but someone could get injured or killed if there is a construction accident. Building permits, and the associated inspections, give you an assurance that everything has been done correctly and safely.

Personally, I don’t think skipping the Building Permit is worth the risk. And professionally, I say you should always get a permit for any work that requires a permit. Avoiding it is just plain dumb.

So please get the proper permits and have the work properly inspected. If you are hiring a contractor to do the work and he tells you he won’t get a permit, take that as a warning that he is probably not licensed. Get rid of him and find a licensed contractor.

Get a building permit for your project. Don’t turn your “How to Remodel Your Bathroom” project into a “How to Burn Down Your House” project. Getting the proper inspections will make your house, and you, safer.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Do I Need a Building Permit? appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

That would seem logical that a fireplace would be a great way to heat a home. After all, when you sit by the fire, you get warmed up. But sometimes what seems logical is not really logical, at all. Let me help you separate fireplace fact from fireplace fiction.

You might think fireplaces offer an available (and renewable) source of fuel and they are easy to use. But the fact is they actually take more heat out of your house than they add. The reason this happens is because hot air rises. I’ll explain.

Hot Air Rises

When you light your fireplace, you want the fireplace and chimney to “draw” well. You want the smoke to go up the chimney, not down, so the house will not fill up with smoke and asphyxiate (kill by suffocation) the inhabitants. In order for the smoke and hot air to go up the chimney and leave the house, fresh air must enter the house from somewhere else to replace it. The air must flow, just like water does. It’s physics. Because the hot air is much less dense (lighter) than the room air, it rises with some pressure and actually sucks air in behind it. Air comes into the house to replace the warm, rising air. This incoming air is known as “make-up air” in the Heating and Air-Conditioning world. It makes up for the air that went up the chimney.

Now think about where the make-up air comes from. Air gets sucked into the house through every crack and crevice it can find. It comes in through cracks around windows and doors. It comes in through the vents in your bathroom, dryer, and kitchen hood where the air is supposed to go out when the fans are running. But when the fans are not running, air can seep in from outside.

Even a Well-Built House has Many Places Where Air Can Enter

Outside air comes in through a million little cracks most houses have around electrical outlets, under baseboards, and around recessed light fixtures in the ceiling. In fact, the average house has enough cracks and gaps to equal the area of a completely open window! That’s amazing, but true.

Now back to the fireplace. When you have a good hot fire going, you have created a “convection” current of air that rises up your chimney with some significant power. It is stronger than an exhaust fan. The result air movement means that instead of the fire in your fireplace working to heat your house, it really is working like a giant exhaust fan that is ventilating your house. That’s probably the last thing you want on a cold winter day.

I’m not saying that a cozy fire is not a great thing to sit by when the snow is falling. But just realize that it is a poor way to actually heat your house.

If you want a fire AND some energy efficiency, take a look at some of the better “Direct-Vent” gas fireplaces on the market. The best of these types of units will give you the look and heat of a real fire, but they won’t suck the heat out of your house in the process.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post A Fireplace Will NOT Heat Your Home! appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

The insulating window shades made by cellularwindowshades.com are good examples of shades that save energy. These cleverly designed, double-cell pleated shades look great, as you would expect. They come in many colors and translucencies, from full blackout fabrics to thin, light admitting types. But what is not readily visible is the insulating benefit they provide.

When the window shade is pulled down, the double cellular honeycomb pleats open up and forms small air spaces. Still (non-moving) air is the best insulator in the world. The cells in the shades provide a double layer of still air. Installing these window shades over windows that usually turn very cold on winter nights, helps keep the cold out of the room. You are covering your energy-leaking windows with covered with an effective insulating blanket, cutting your heating bill significantly. In the summer, the insulating shade helps keep out the hot summer temperatures and sun, thus lowering your air conditioning costs.

You can further enhance the insulating benefits of the shades by installing the sidetracks they offer. These “enclose” the open ends of the cells to hold the insulating air inside the cells even better.

The manufacturer claims these shades can pay for themselves in energy savings in as little as five years. I can assure you there are not many products you can buy for your home, or build into your home, that will pay back their cost this quickly. And that doesn’t even consider the aesthetic and privacy benefits they provide. Here’s a bonus. They are made in America.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Window Shades Can Save Energy appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

Plastic Laminate Countertops  

Plastic Laminate Countertops are by far the most economical option for kitchen countertops. They may not have the social status and market appeal of granite and solid surface countertops, but plastic laminates, like Formica, WilsonArt, and Nevamar are reasonably priced, very durable, easy to care for, and can look quite nice. Plastic laminate is available in many colors and patterns, including realistic stone and wood patterns.  

Premium laminates have special textured finishes and finishes that add visual depth, much like polished stone. You can even get patterns that are unique to laminates and give a special look you can’t find anywhere else. Of course, the special finish laminates come at an additional cost. But even the top of the price range of plastic laminate will be below the cost of solid surfaces or stone.

Plastic laminates are easy to clean and because they are non-porous, they will not stain under normal use. The shortcomings of plastic laminate kitchen countertops are that they can scratch and knives will cut them fairly easily. Their biggest shortcoming is they are not heat resistant. You cannot put a hot pan directly on them or you’ll damage them. One tip. The plastic laminate choices with matte finishes will hide day to day abrasions.

Glossy surfaces will show even minor scratches. If you put a very hot pot on a plastic laminate countertop, it will almost certainly be damaged. If the edges are not sealed properly and water can get to the substrate (the particle board or plywood below the surface) the countertop will swell and be ruined. However, these issues are easily managed with trivets and making sure edges are sealed. 

Improving the Appearance of Plastic Laminate Countertops

Plastic laminates can be constructed with special edge details to enhance their appearance. Standard square edges will show a dark line where the horizontal surface joins the vertical surface. This is not very noticeable in dark colors or patterns, but it can be disconcerting with light colors. Now, mitered edges are available that can hide the dark line. Rolled edges and edges that are slightly raised to prevent spills from running over the edge of the countertop can be molded in during fabrication.

These rolled edges have no seam and therefore show no dark line. For a bit more money, you can have a wood edge added. This can elevate the aesthetics of ordinary plastic laminate and give a designer look to the kitchen countertop for a small additional cost. I find that integrated wood edges can look great with leather-look or stone-look plastic laminate.

Another limitation with plastic laminate kitchen countertops is they usually cannot have undermount sinks installed in them. A surface mount sink with a rim that sits on top of the countertop surface must be used to keep the exposed edge of the substrate beneath the plastic laminate from being exposed to water. But even with these limitations, plastic laminate kitchen countertops give you a lot for your money and will look good for a long time. 

Solid Surface Countertops

A big step up in cost from plastic laminate tops are Solid Surface Countertops. Solid surface materials such as Corian are made from acrylic polymers. The color you see on the top runs all the way through the countertop and is not simply a layer on the surface like in plastic laminate kitchen countertops.

For many years, Corian  was the only choice for solid surfaces. And the color options were essentially non-existent. But now that DuPont’s patents have run out and there are competitors in the marketplace, solid surfaces are available in many colors and patterns.

Solid surfaces have a distinct advantage over laminates in that seams are virtually invisible. Plus, small scratches can be sanded and buffed out. Sinks can be installed as surface mount units or undermounts. 

But one sink option that is unique to solid surfaces is a sink made of the very same polymer material as the countertop that can be “welded” to the countertop creating a seamless connection. This removes all crevices for dirt to accumulate and is an appealing feature. 

Solid Surface Countertops Can’t Stand the Heat

Solid surfaces are not heat resistant and hot pans can melt and burn them. The integral polymer sinks can crack if extremely hot water is poured into them. These are not extreme worries and a modicum of care will prevent these problems from occurring. But you will have to treat solid surface kitchen countertops differently than some of the other options.

As I said, solid surfaces are a significant step up in cost from laminates. An in between option is a plywood and solid surface composite. This type of countertop consists of a plywood backing with a moderately thick solid surface layer on top. By reducing the amount of polymer material needed because the solid polymer layer is thinner, the cost of the kitchen countertops can be reduced while still providing the look and feel of a thicker solid surface.  

Granite Countertops

Granite Countertops are the stylish and functional choice in high-end kitchens. You can get granite in a wide range of colors and patterns, all created by Mother Nature herself. Granite is virtually indestructible and will look good for a very long time with minimal care. 

Granite is available in two and three centimeter thicknesses, but three centimeter is the popular choice for kitchen countertops. Two centimeter is often used for bathroom vanity tops.

You may automatically think of a shiny, polished appearance when you visualize granite countertops. But granite is also available in a honed finish that is smooth, but not shiny, and it’s available in “flamed” and “leathered” finishes that have a textured surface. The flamed or leathered surfaces are still smooth enough to use for a kitchen countertop and can be cleaned easily. But they are irregular enough that it would be difficult to write your shopping list out neatly on a piece of paper on top of it. Because the honed and flamed surfaces are not yet widely used, i.e., seen everywhere, they can give your kitchen a very distinctive look.

Granite is non-porous. It will not stain under normal use, although I have seen a bottle of olive oil leave a ring after sitting in the same spot for several days. Granite does have minute voids in the surface and because of that, many people recommend sealing it to close these irregularities and keep food and bacteria out. Sealing a granite countertop is not hard. It is simply a matter of cleaning the top well and wiping on a liquid sealant. This takes just a few minutes and only needs to be done annually.

Granite Countertop Benefits

Benefits of granite kitchen countertops are that it is tough, heat resistant and beautiful. It can be fitted with undermount sinks and can also have integral drainage grooves cut into the surface to let the section of the countertop adjacent to the sink act as a drainboard.

Granite countertops are more expensive than plastic laminates, but the cost has gotten much better in recent years. The actual cost will depend on the color and pattern of the granite you select, not on the physical quality of the stone. Types of granite that are plentiful are competitively priced. Granites that are scarce are more expensive. But don’t overlook granite for your kitchen countertops just because you think it’s too expensive for you. Price out some of the more plentiful varieties and you might be surprised to find granite can fit your budget. If it does, the market value of your house will be enhanced and the small added cost may be worth it.

Some granites have patterns that are consistent throughout the slab. Others have “movement” or veining that can vary from one slab to another. If you select one of the granite types with movement, it is wise to preview and select the exact slabs for your kitchen at the granite slab supplier’s warehouse and work with the fabricator to determine how the countertop will be cut from the slab to get the veining and feature colors in the best place in your kitchen countertop.

Marble and Limestone 

Marble and Limestone Countertops  are other choices for stone tops. These are beautiful, but very hard to live with. They have many of the same virtues of granite, such as the ability to have undermount sinks and the continuous color through the thickness of the slab so edge details will not show seams.

But marble and limestone are very soft and porous stones. Mild acids like orange juice will etch the surface and dull the polished shine. Spilled liquids, like red wine, will soak in and stain the stone. Scratches will happen easily. I recommend against marble and limestone for kitchen countertops because of those shortcomings. You will be disappointed in them in a few short years.

One solid stone that has similar visual characteristics to marble is quartzite. This is not to be confused with quartz solid-surface countertops that are made of stone chips bonded into a resin. Quartzite is a solid stone from a quarry. Quartzite is a hard stone and does not have the maintenance problems true marble has. It is a good choice if you are looking for a marble type of appearance.

Quartz Composite Countertops

Quartz Composites are another kitchen countertop option. These are a man-made product, like the other solid surfaces. But quartz composites are made of over 90% crushed quartz, a very hard stone and one of the minerals in granite. The quartz stones are bonded together with resins to form what is called an “engineered stone.” It is cut into slabs and polished. Quartz countertops will give you many of the same benefits of granite, such as heat and chemical resistance and the ability to install undermount sinks.

Quartz tops come in many colors and styles. The main visual difference between these and granite is the color and pattern in a quartz countertop is much more even and uniform than granite. This is either a benefit or shortcoming, depending on your tastes. Newer offerings from the quartz top manufacturers have more movement than they have in the past. In some cases, it is hard to know if a top is quarried stone or an engineered stone. 

My clients often think that quartz tops and even solid surface countertops will be less expensive than granite, but this is not true. Quartz and Corian can be more expensive than the more plentiful and better priced granites. So, don’t select these countertops for a cost savings. Select them if they are the look you want and if you like their functional advantages.

Porcelain

One other recently available countertop choice is porcelain. Porcelain had come to dominate the tile market due to its good looks, durability, and reasonable priding. Now, large slabs (effectively giant tiles) of porcelain are being produced. These have the realistic stone images printed into them like the porcelain tiles. They are not low priced but could become so as time goes by. They are extremely durable and actually harder on the Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness than granite. And they are resistant to heat. Porcelain slabs, such as Dekton, can be mitered together at the edges allowing extra thick edges and waterfall ends to be made.

Edge Details

Edge Detail Choices for granite, marble, limestone, quartz tops and solid surface tops will be similar. You have the choice of square, slightly rounded, bull-nosed, and shaped or ogee edges with any of them.

Concrete Countertops  have grown in popularity. They are not like the concrete in your sidewalk. This kind of concrete is smooth and can be formed and colored in many different ways. Unique items like bits of glass and sea shells can be imbedded in the concrete to give the kitchen countertop a personal and distinctive appearance.

Concrete countertops are sealed and polished to give an attractive and easily maintained finish. But even though concrete is an inexpensive material, concrete countertops are not inexpensive. Because of the labor that goes into making and finishing a concrete top, the cost can quickly exceed the cost of even a high-priced granite top.

Wood Countertops

Wood Countertops are possible. These can be built from many different species of wood and will give an elegant, warm look to your kitchen. But they require more maintenance than stone or plastic laminates. Wood tops need to be oiled annually to keep them sealed and prevent splitting. This is not a hard task, just like sealing granite or other stones. But wood tops cannot be exposed to water without incurring damage. They also can be damaged by very high heat.

Incidentally, there is one manufacturer of wood countertops that has a proprietary finish that allows for contact with water without damage. Grothouse Lumber has a finish they call Durata that works well and will let you have wood kitchen countertops with an undermount sink without water damage problems. Wood tops cost about the same as the higher priced granite choices, but the distinctive and warm look of the wood may be worth it.

Tile Countertops

Tile Countertops can be a three-way compromise between cost, usefulness, and appearance. Granite, ceramic, and porcelain tiles can be used to construct a countertop. The stone tiles are much less expensive than full slabs and will give you the benefits of heat resistance and the appearance of granite for less money. Ceramic tile and porcelain tile will do the same.

Tile countertops have grout between the tiles and the grout can be a cleaning challenge. If you are planning on using tile for your kitchen countertop, look at large tiles to reduce the number of grout joints and then be sure to use an epoxy grout. These kinds of grouts are very resistant to stains.

There are other exotic choices, such as slate, soapstone, and slabs made from recycled content that can be used for kitchen countertops. Each one comes with benefits and shortcomings. No single one of these is the answer to everyone’s needs. So do a little research and get samples of your prime candidates. Be sure to choose the other parts of your kitchen at the same time. It’s important to select the complete palette of countertop, backsplash, cabinets, cabinet hardware, kitchen flooring, and paint simultaneously to make sure you have everything working in harmony.

 I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Kitchen Countertops Can Make a Kitchen Beautiful appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

We’re not just a website. We are a full-service architectural firm. We offer our services several ways. Let me show you.

Three-Hour Design Consultation

This is our most basic service. It works like this. You send us your sketches or plans, even at an early stage, along with questions and notes about your goals for your house design or remodeling project. We’ll review everything and then make a list of recommendations, answers, and suggestions. Then we will discuss our recommendations with you through a one-hour video conference. If you haven’t done a video conference before, don’t worry. It’s very easy.

We sometimes do Three-Hour Design Consultations several times for folks as they develop their projects. Our suggestions often solve problems, suggest better ways to do things, and provide a valuable second opinion that might confirm what the builder, architect, or house designer is saying. We can give you some confidence and ammunition to push back on things you feel just aren’t right and need to be altered before accepting the design. Geography is no object. We have consulted on houses throughout the US and Canada, as well as, in Europe and Asia. Click here to get the full description and fees for our Three-Hour Design Consultation service.

“Design Only” Architectural Services

This is the next step up in our services and involves many, many hours of consultation and design services. Here, we will start with your Wish List, site information and a conference call and ultimately end with a complete custom house design for you. The entire process is interactive and will involve several web conferences to review and critique the house design as it progresses. If you wish, you can come to our offices in South Carolina or Delaware for in-person meetings instead of the web conferences. Or we can include one or more site visits, if you choose. We’ll provide floor plans, elevations, preliminary building sections, a site plan, three-dimensional images of the exterior of the house and other drawings to fully describe the design as we develop it.

You will be involved throughout the process in the same way you would be with our Comprehensive Architectural Services. This work can take several weeks or even a month or two, depending on the complexity of the project. When these services are complete, you will have full design concept drawings and three-dimensional views of the exterior of the house. From this point, you can retain a builder, draftsperson or local architect to prepare the actual construction documents and structural design.

Comprehensive Architectural Services

This is our full-service package and includes everything that’s in our Design Only Architectural services plus we prepare all the construction documents, structural design, specifications, and we assist you with the selection of the builder, bidding, construction contract review, periodic on-site construction meetings, on-line meetings, and construction administration services. With our Comprehensive Architectural Services, we are with you from start to finish. Usually, these services include monthly site visits during construction, even for projects that are distant to us. We have provided these services for projects from Maine to Hawaii and Florida to Wisconsin.

With our Comprehensive Services, we strive to be your guides and advisors in addition to being the designers of your house, even including helping with fixture and finish selections, review of builder’s payments, periodic site visits to review the construction, and final review of the completed project. Our goal is to be your “best buddy” and professional eyes and ears from start to finish.

We want to provide you with services you feel are highly valuable and we do not want you to feel you were obligated for services you did not need or were not valuable to you. For this reason, every service we provide is customized to the needs and desires of our clients. When it’s all done, we want you to feel we were well worth the cost and that we added value and quality to your perfect house.

If you are interested in finding out more about our design services, please drop us a note. We look forward to discussing your project with you.

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You can avoid this bad smell. We’re coming up to the time of year when we need to turn on our furnaces to heat our homes. If you are like me, you will switch on the heat early one evening in anticipation of lower temperatures during the night. Then when the furnace fires up, maybe at three in the morning, a very bad smell will come along with the heat. It’s not something you want to smell while you are pleasantly wandering through dreamland.

Should I Worry about this Bad Furnace Smell? Can I Avoid It?

Some people might worry that they are smelling carbon monoxide and they are now in danger. Relax, it isn’t carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is a completely invisible and odorless gas. That is precisely why it is so dangerous. It can kill you before you know it’s there. You should have carbon monoxide detectors in your home, but that is not what you are smelling.

What you will be smelling is a layer of dust that has settled on the heating elements in your furnace over the summer and is now burning off when the heat goes on. It is totally harmless, but it does stink.

Personally, I really hate having this smell waft through the house in the middle of the night. Ugh! It’s like a bad dream. But you can avoid being bothered by this smell with a little pre-planning. On a balmy day when you might like the windows to be open, crank up the furnace.

The smell will come as the heating elements burn off the dust. Then open the windows and let the house air out the noxious smell. It really won’t take long. Then when you really do need the furnace for heat in a few weeks, there will be no smell when the furnace comes on. No worries.

A Safety Note 

Your furnace can produce dangerous carbon monoxide if it is operating improperly. You should have your furnace inspected and serviced annually to avoid any chance of a carbon monoxide problem.

The post Your Furnace Will Smell Bad appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

Building Material Costs Always Seem High

The first consideration in choosing building materials and parts for your house is cost. The one constant I’ve seen over the years is that everything seems to cost more than you expect and exceeds your budget. You’ll have to get past that. It is no different than when you go to buy a new car, you get sticker shock. Cars and building materials are not items you have bought recently. In your mind, you think things should still cost what they cost last time you bought them. This is a reality you cannot change.

It’s good to remember that cost is a relative term. With building materials, as with most things we buy, the less expensive something is initially, the shorter its lifespan usually is. Some things that are less costly when you first buy them can turn out to be very expensive in the long run if you must keep maintaining and replacing them. There are some exceptions to this rule, but most of the time you can count on replacing or repairing the less expensive item sooner than the one that costs more at the outset.

Unless Your Budget is Extremely Limited, Consider the “Life-Cycle Cost” Method of Analysis.

Life-cycle cost refers to the actual cost of a building material over a period of time instead of just thinking of its purchase price. For example, if roof shingle A cost 75% of what roof shingle B cost, but roof shingle B will last twice as long as shingle A, shingle B will actually be cheaper over the time frame of two installations of shingle A. Shingle B’s life-cycle cost is lower because one installation of it is cheaper than two installations of the other over its life-cycle. If you plan to own your house for more than a few years, you’ll want to consider the cost of building materials and building components in this way.

Another life-cycle cost consideration is the cost of energy. Less costly windows may not be as energy efficient as more expensive windows. The energy savings of better windows, better insulation, or a more efficient heating and air conditioning system might offset much of the initial cost over time.

Cost is not the only factor you should consider when selecting building materials or components. The aesthetics are extremely important. Only you can put a value on how something looks.

We all make these decisions from different viewpoints. Are shingles with a thicker, slate-like look worth the extra money? They might be if your house has a prominent roof. A good looking roof material might be the pivotal factor in making sure the house will look great.

Maybe your house needs the solid look of stone masonry. This is one of the most expensive materials of all. Most of its cost is in the labor to install it. Stone masonry is slow to erect. And because it’s heavy, the higher up on the wall it goes, the more costly it gets. Is it worth the cost? It might be if your house depends on the appearance of stone for its style and character. Or you might simply like it. That alone can make one material better than another for your particular house.

Building Materials, Components, and Parts You’ll Need to Select

Throughout my website, we’ll take a look at most of the building materials, components, and parts you’ll have to select. I’ll offer comments, advice and suggestions, just as I do for my clients, to help you gain the knowledge you need to make the right choices. Often the decisions you must make are not easy, at first. But, if you consider things carefully, ask questions, and do your homework, you can be sure your home building budget will go toward the things that are worthwhile to you and best for your house. We’ll start from the ground up.

Basements and Foundations 

Is it worth building a basement? That will depend on the slope and soil type of your building site. If feasible, the relatively small added cost of a basement can give you a lot of usable space. Should it be concrete block, poured concrete, or precast concrete panels?

House Framing 

Wood framing is most common structure of houses in the United States. But steel framing and concrete block are gaining in usage. What are the pros and cons of each? What benefits are there with engineered lumber and construction adhesives? Your architect and builder can offer advice as to the type of framing lumber that might be best. Should it be dimensional lumber or engineered lumber?

Siding 

There are many types of house siding, including wood siding, composite siding, fiber cement board, vinyl siding, stucco, and masonry. The cost range is wide and the life cycle is extremely important. This is an item where you might want to select a more expensive option because the material will last much longer and be less costly to maintain.

Brick Siding 

Brick offers a very long, maintenance-free life and can properly be considered a “green” building material. But it can be expensive to construct. The style of the brick, how it is made, and how the brick is laid are factors affect its cost.

Stone Veneer 

All stone we build with today is a veneer. What we call “real” stone is a 4” to 6” thick veneer of quarried stone. Cultured, man-made stone is only about an inch or two thick and is adhered to the wall framing with special adhesives. Both types of stone have benefits and shortcomings. Now, you can get real stone that has been cut to be only two inches thick. The face of the stone remains, but much of the heavy mass of the brick has been cut off. These veneer stones, like cultured stone, are adhered to the wall sheathing with very strong mastics and adhesives. The end result is a wall that looks exactly like a solid stone wall.

Windows and Patio Doors 

You could write a book about all the options available in windows and exterior patio doors. And I practically have. House windows are highly engineered and sophisticated building components. They are a key player in energy efficiency, maintenance, and the appearance of your house.

Front Doors 

Front doors are one of the few remaining places where you can create a unique, custom design for your home without spending a ridiculous amount of money. Your front door and the entire entrance way make a statement about your home. And it sets an aesthetic tone. Choose from many pre-designed entrance doors or have some fun and create your own. A good millwork company can build almost any style you can think of.

Roofing Materials 

Asphalt shingles, wood shingles, metal roofing, cement tiles, and even rubber roofing are available. And like most building materials, the price range is wide. The look and utility varies considerably, too. It’s not always a simple decision. And there are energy issues to consider. Roofing is definitely a building material where life-cycle cost is an important factor in your decision about what roofing to select.

Interior Doors 

This is an area where technology has improved on the traditional solid wood door. We’ll look at composite, MDF doors, solid doors and hollow doors and examine the merits of each in other articles on this website.

Drywall 

This seems like a simple item and should not warrant much discussion. But beyond the physical properties of its strength, moisture resistance, and fire resistance, there are several finishes to consider, too. In Florida, many houses are finished with what they call “orange peel.” it is an economical choice because the finishers do not need to be as precises as they do when they are trying to achieve a smooth, imperfection-free finish.

Hardwood Floors 

I have some of my most in depth discussions with clients about hardwood floors. You have more than simply standard-width oak to choose from. There are many tropical woods, from sustainable sources, that offer interesting appearances and high durability. Engineered hardwood flooring has many virtues and may be a better choice than solid wood planks.

Tile Flooring and Wall Tile 

Beyond ceramic tile, there are many choices in stone tiles and porcelain tiles available. Which one is best for your application? Look for other articles I’ve written on the blog to learn more about some of your options.

House Paint 

Both interior and exterior house paint has changed in recent years. Sustainability and environmental responsibility in building materials have raised new concerns about off-gassing and chemical content. We’ll look at what questions you should ask and what benefits each type of paint will offer.

Kitchen Cabinets and Bathroom Cabinets 

From totally custom cabinetry to factory made cabinets, you again have almost unlimited choices. Where is the three-way balance of cost, appearance, and function that meets your needs? There is a “language of cabinets” you need to know to make the best choices.

Door Hardware 

With so many styles, finishes, and functions of door handles and hinges to choose from, you will want to understand what you’re getting for your money. Some choices for your exterior doors may be limited. Early planning can assure that your interior door hardware will be compatible with your exterior hardware.

Shower Enclosures 

Full-framed, semi-frameless, or frameless. Which one is best for your shower? And then there are all those glass choices.

Deck Materials 

It’s not just pressure treated wood anymore. You can choose from composites and tropical woods, too. Tropical woods that come from managed “tree farms,” are sustainable and are not depleting critical rain forests. While expensive, tropical woods such as ipe and jatoba might be good choices for certain applications.

Driveway Pavers 

If you want to add some elegance to your home, take a look at some of the pavers for driveways and walks. You might be able to get the cobblestone look at a fraction of the cost. Plus, pavers can remove the risk of cracks in your driveway.

For other house parts and building materials, please explore other areas of this website. You’ll find information in the Kitchen Design, Bathroom Design, Interior Design, Heating and Air Conditioning, Plumbing, Home Electrical, Home Lighting, and other sections that cover many other products and materials.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. You might also like The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live. It will show you how to make your home a happy place.

The post Building Material Choices – You Have Lots to Consider appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

Wikipedia defines Green Building as “the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources.” Under this definition, “green” could apply to most anything as long as it was more “resource efficient” than something else. In our world of advertising claims and everything being the “next greatest innovation,” we might immediately think of some new techno-gizmo that controls energy consumption or items like floor tiles made from recycled beer cans as being green and sustainable. These kinds of things might be a bit better than similar products, but does that mean they are sufficiently better to warrant being called “green” and “sustainable?

I would suggest that you look at the larger picture of “green” and “sustainable.”  Just because a product is made from recycled material does not mean it is doing good deeds for the environment. You need to look at the energy consumed in its production. Consider the energy needed to transportation of the product to where it’s needed. Can the product be recycled? What materials are used in its fabrication?

The Ethanol Myth

The current craze for ethanol in gasoline is a case in point. Did you know that ethanol consumes more energy to produce than it provides? Most of us are unaware of the true “energy cost” of ethanol. Because ethanol cannot be pumped through pipes like gasoline and oil due to its viscosity. It must be transported by trucks to distribution centers. The trucks, of course, consume fuel and emit greenhouse gases. Add to that the fact that making ethanol uses up corn, a food source that millions of very poor people around the world desperately need and you will see the lunacy of using our food for fuel that does not even result in a net fuel savings.

We jumped on ethanol because it was a fuel derived from an easily renewable plant. That seemed like a good idea. But few of us considered the big energy and food picture. It made us feel like we were doing something good, but that good deed was actually an illusion.

Sustainable and Green Building is Not Always Obvious

In homebuilding, sometimes the tried and true materials are actually more “green” and more “sustainable” than you might think. The traditional use of brick is an example of sustainable and green building that does not initially seem very sustainable and green. Although brick consumes a large amount of energy to produce as it is being “fired” in a kiln, it is made of readily available, abundant, non-toxic, clean materials – clay and shale. Bricks last a long, long time, so replacement is not necessary, meaning that no future energy or resources are a part of brick’s “life cycle.” And even when unpainted bricks are discarded, they are inert in the earth, thus they do not contribute to ground water pollution.

Decide What Counts as Sustainable and Green Building for Yourself

My message is this. When choosing your building materials and products, consider the big energy and natural resources picture. How much energy is used to produce the product? How long is the product’s useful life? Can the product be efficiently recycled into some other useful product? Is it a product that saves energy or resources during its useful life? I’m thinking of things such as insulation. And at the end of the product’s useful life, can it be disposed of safely and with no potential of pollution? If you take all of these factors into consideration, you will be able to determine what products and materials can rightly be used in sustainable and green building.

I hope this information is helpful to you. You might want to get yourself a copy of my best-seller, Designing Your Perfect House. It is chockfull of valuable tips and advice that will save you many times the cost of the book on your house building or remodeling project. And check out my other book that will help you make your home a happy and “restorative” place. The Well-Centered Home.

The post Sustainable and Green Building – The Rest of the Story appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.