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.

In high-end houses, ten-foot high ceilings, and above, have gotten to be standard. High ceilings make rooms feel larger and more spacious. But in small rooms, such as a powder room, a room that might only be 6’x6’, a ten-foot ceiling or higher can make you look for the elevator “down button.” Did you know you can use mouldings and colors on a wall to make tall spaces appear more human sized? I recently received this question from a reader:

Question about High Ceilings in Small Spaces:

“We have a powder room with ceiling 12 feet high. What suggestions do you have so it doesn’t look like tunnel?”

My Answer: 

“Good question. You could use a trick people used in old houses with high ceilings in small spaces to make the room be more appropriately proportioned for people. These old houses, especially southern houses, had high ceilings to let the summer heat rise and make the rooms more comfortable. But often, the very high ceiling would make the room be too tall and “out of scale” for people.

But they devised a clever solution to the problem. What they did to limit the “visual height” was to place a piece of crown moulding with a small shelf on top, kind of plate rail arrangement, at the desired visual height of the room. The wall below this “cornice” was painted the wall color or wallpapered. They painted the wall above the cornice the ceiling color. There was no moulding placed where the wall eventually met the ceiling. This little trick would make your eye “stop” at the cornice and the uppermost portion of the wall would visually blend in with the ceiling thereby causing the viewer to perceive the room to be at a lower height than it actually was.”

Try this at Home

If you have an “elevator shaft” room with a high ceiling in a small space, in your house, you might want to try this tip to see if you can bring that elevator down a few feet into a more visually comfortable position.

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 Dealing with High Ceilings in Small Spaces 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.

The post We Can Help You with House Design Services appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

If you were to ask me what mistake I see most often in house design and homebuilding, I would say it would be errors in the “siting” of the house. By “siting,” I mean the way the house is positioned on the property. Houses are often set too high or too low, making them look awkward or creating water drainage problems. 

Many other times I’ll see houses that don’t make good use of the site’s opportunities. It’s a shame to see a house built from a “stock” house plan plopped down on a site in a way that wastes view opportunities and ignores sunlight and energy efficiency opportunities.

If you take the time to analyze and evaluate a piece of property, you’ll be able to select the best property for your house before you spend money buying it. Once you have a great piece of land, you can design a house that suits that land and takes advantage of all it has to offer. Let’s look at some of the things you should pay attention to when evaluating a piece of property.

A Brief List of Information and Criteria to Include when You Analyze a Home Building Site 

Property Lines

These show the legal limits of the land. They will show on a site plan or plat. There may also be stakes or metal pins placed at the property corners. Keep in mind that your property will not actually extend to the street. There is usually a right of way area between your front property line and the pavement. Physically, it will look like your yard extends to the street. But legally, it ends at the right-of-way.

Building Setback Lines

These lines, established by the local jurisdiction’s zoning regulations, show the required front, rear, and side yards where a building cannot be built. Your analysis of the building site will show you where you can build and where you cannot build. This will allow you to see if your house fits on the property or not.

Easements

These are other legally defined areas where building cannot occur. They area areas where utilities or access lanes might be located. Utility easements are created to allow water, sewer, and electric lines to be placed to allow access to other lots now or in the future. naturally, you cannot build your house over these easements. in some cases, you cannot even pave over them. some easements are provided to allow nature walking trails and other paths to allow other residents to cross through. regardless of the easement’s purpose, easements might impinge upon the area where you can build your house.

North Arrow

 This indicates the orientation of the site relative to the points of the compass. Does it face north, south, east, or west? If you take the sun’s direction at various times of the day into consideration while designing your house, as I hope you do, you will certainly want the sun angle information on your site analysis.

Sun Path

Make your sun angle information more useful by noting where the sun rises and where it sets in both winter and summer. Take special note of where the sun is at midday. That direction is due south and is important to determining the best orientation for rooms and windows. Which rooms want morning light? Which rooms want afternoon light? An artist’s studio always values northern light that casts no shadows and is consistent throughout the day. Analyzing a home building site for sun angles has a tremendous impact on the brightness of your house and its energy efficiency.

Slopes

You should note areas of moderate and steep slopes. Moderate slopes can be opportunities to create walk-out basements and they can work nicely with many house designs. Steep slopes are challenging. And in some locales, building is not permitted on steeply sloped land. Some building sites are simply too steep to build on. Check your local zoning codes.

Significant Trees

 Locating significant trees and woodlands is important and plotting where they are on a site analysis will help you place the house in the proper position to preserve the trees and maximize their aesthetic beauty. Note the extension of the tree limbs. If construction or traffic disturbs the land within the drip line of an established tree, that tree will die within a few years.

Site Features

 Note the location of boulders, drainage swales, creeks, and other features you want to avoid or integrate into your design. And not that rock outcroppings might be warning signs of underground rock that may present a construction problem.

Primary Direction of Approach

Knowing the direction from which you and your visitors will come and go will let you design a house that feels right on the land. Avoid placing the front door in a position where it will be hidden by other parts of the house, such as the garage, and cannot be seen as you approach.

Significant Views

 Note the direction of views you would like to capture in your house design. 

Locations of Neighboring Buildings

 It’s important to note these so you can plan screening for your privacy and your neighbors’ privacy.

Possible House Locations

As you analyze building sites, you’ll find yourself thinking about good spots for your house. Note these when the thoughts occurs. This is the primary reason for going through the exercise of doing a site analysis.

Zoning and Community Restrictions

Check to see if there are height limits, area limits, lot coverage restrictions or other rules that will influence your design. 

Draw Out Your Site Analysis

Here is a portion of one of my site analyses.

By putting this site analysis information together on a copy of the survey, I can see everything at a glance. As I start my bubble diagram of the room layout, and later, the preliminary floor plan, I can keep all of the site opportunities and difficulties in mind as I go.

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 Analyze Home Building Sites: Make the Best Use of Your Land appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

I try to create a “graduated” degree of inside versus outside and a thoughtful transition from the public domain of the street to the private domain of your home with the entryways I design, regardless of house style. This is one of the key tenets in making a house “feel” right.

Unfortunately, many houses are designed and built where this transition occurs abruptly in one or two steps. I’m referring to houses where you simply walk up to the front door and step through right into the living room. I guarantee this feels uncomfortable to you even if you can’t explain why except to say that it seems to compromise the privacy of the living room. Actually, what is happening is there was no “middle place” to let your mind adjust from public to private. There is no place where the visitor, or you, can be inside the house, yet not be completely inside the house.

Front steps, porches, vestibules, and defined foyers are all part of a better entry transition from outside to in and public to private.

You really need at least two intermediate places to make an entryway feel right. First would be a front step and porch. These are still open to the public, but they have some private aspect to them since they “belong” to the house and the porch might even be covered, thus making it become a little bit of an indoor space. I consider this space to be 75% public and 25% private.

Next is your foyer.

It’s much more private because it is inside your house and beyond your front door, but it is not as private as your family room. It still carries some publicness because you greet guests there, visitors can see into it from the front door, and there is no sitting furniture indicating that people linger there. I consider this space to be 25% public and 75% private. 

Including these two semi-public and semi-private spaces as part of the entry experience, no matter how small they may be, will make your house feel more comfortable and the design will feel more “resolved.” Most people cannot verbalize why some entryways feel right and others feel wrong. I would suggest that the omission of proper transition spaces is usually the cause of things feeling wrong.

This idea about the entrance to a house and the concept of transitioning from public to private might not have been on you design radar screen. But it should be. It’s a concept I discuss in some detail in Designing Your Perfect House.

Our minds seek order. Our senses are uncomfortable with abrupt changes. We like gradual transitions. If you consider the sensation when you step from your dark bedroom in the middle of the night and turn on the light in the bathroom, you get a pretty good idea of how harsh a change can feel. Our psyche reacts to changes in spaces, albeit subconsciously, the same way. Sudden shifts from one type of space to another can be jarring and disconcerting. Transitions that feel nature and unforced are the key to designing your perfect house.

Happy Holidays!

Be sure to leave a comment. Tell us your story!

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 Welcoming Holiday Entryway appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

The first critical step in bathroom design is to do what architects call Programming. It’s an important part of House Planning. This is the process of listing your needs and desires for your bathroom. You might call it pre-planning. If you don’t set clear goals, your perfect bathroom will become a moving target and you’ll never know when it’s just right. Start by asking yourself questions about your bathroom. Prioritize your desires. Chances are costs will play a role in your decisions somewhere along the line.

Bathroom Design Programming Questions

• What should your perfect bathroom design be? What will its feel and character be?
• Should it be spacious or cozy?
• What sort of Bathroom Layout will be best?
• Should it be large enough for two people to use at the same time?
• Do you want it “compartmentalized” with a separate room for the Toilet, or Shower, or Bathtub?
• Do you want two Sinks?
• Will the sinks be on the same Vanity or will they be separated and located in different places in the room?
• Do you want a sit-down makeup Vanity?
• What style of Cabinets will your ideal bathroom have?
• What type of Countertop is best for you? Material? Height?
• Do you want a Bathtub? Is it free-standing or set into a platform? Is it integral with the shower?
• What kind of Mirrors will your bathroom have? Will they be framed or a full wall of mirrors?
• What kind of Lighting do you want?
• Will the mirrors have built-in lights?
• Will your Shower be built for two?
• What kind of Shower Enclosure do you want?
• Will the shower have glass or Tiled walls?
• Will your shower have a door?
• Will your shower have a curb or be flush with the bathroom floor?
• What type of Flooring? Should it be Tile, Wood, or something else?
• What type of Towel Bars will your bathroom have?
• Will it be Handicapped Accessible now?
• Should the bathroom be set up to be handicapped accessible in the future with a minimum of alteration?
• How will you keep the mirrors from steaming up?
• What kind of Bathroom Fan is most efficient and quiet?
• How much storage do you want for linens, makeup, and other necessary items?
• Do you want a heated bathroom floor?
• Do you want a heated shower floor?
• Do you want a heated towel bar?
• Do you want a heated mirror?

The list can go on and on. It can help to use a Checklist to guide you. This will guarantee you think of all of the aspects of bathroom design you should consider.

It’s also helpful to look for photos of bathroom ideas and other Bathroom Tips. Photos and images of other bathrooms can help you visualize the style and character of your new bathroom. You don’t have to copy these images exactly, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. But, your collection of photos and images will help communicate your ideas to your architect or interior designer.

Here are some general rules for a good bathroom design:

Plan enough space for each fixture and function

For example, plan for a place to dry off when stepping out of the shower. Plan a convenient place, and enough wall space, to hang towels within easy reach of the shower and tub. Make sure there is room to stand at the sink and not get hit with the door when your partner comes into the room. Think about where things will be stored near your sink. Is there enough countertop area? Do you need things plugged in for power? Can drawers open and close without hitting other things? Make sure to have enough room to maneuver around the toilet. If the toilet is in a separate room or “closet,” is there room to step in and comfortable close the door behind you? Consider how you would move if you have restricted mobility in later years.

Plan for daylight and privacy

A good bathroom design, like any room, benefits from natural light. Getting natural light into your bathroom while maintaining privacy from the neighbors requires good planning. Think about what’s around your house when placing your bathroom windows. One way to gain natural light with privacy is to create a private outdoor garden space with a privacy wall around it. You can then have windows without shades or even patio doors into the garden and never need to worry about prying eyes.

Think through your daily routine

If you and your partner need to get ready in the morning at the same time, you might want a bathroom that is split into zones. I call this a compartmentalized bathroom design. You could separate the vanities and sinks from the bathing area so one person could shower while the other is fixing their hair. Think about where you place the toilet. You don’t want to walk farther than necessary in the middle of the night.

Plan how your bathroom relates to the bedroom and closets

Some people prefer to have their closet accessible directly from the bathroom. They feel it makes dressing easier. Other people like to separate the bath and closet. They prefer to enter the closet only from the bedroom. Design your bathroom-bedroom-closet arrangement to suit the way you really live.

Consider your mechanical and electrical needs

Don’t place shower valves on exterior walls. They are more susceptible to freezing and harder to repair if they ever leak. Plan for access to whirlpool tub motors and isolate them for better sound control, if possible. Provide good ventilation for odors and humidity. Design in the lighting from the beginning. Light for the vanity should come from two directions, if possible. This will allow one light to fill in shadows cast by the other.

Plan for your future needs

Yes, we do all grow older. If you’re going to the expense and effort to remodel or build your ideal bathroom, make sure it will still be ideal when you are less mobile, susceptible to falling, and need more light for good vision. Make sure there is enough floor space to move freely. Make sure your doorways are wide enough. They don’t have to be huge to work. But a 24” wide door is not wide enough for a wheelchair. Plan for the placement of grab bars and other wall-mounted accessories. It’s easy to install wood blocking between the wall studs now to be sure these items are solidly anchored when they are installed later.

Think about your luxuries

Do you want heated floors or towel bars? Do you want a steam shower? Do you want a spa experience in the shower with body sprays and a rain-head shower? Should your perfect bathroom include music, a television, a fireplace, or aromatherapy? This is your chance to make your bathroom design exactly what you’ve dreamed of.

Consider cleaning and maintenance

What type of flooring, countertop, and wall finishes are best for you? Some finishes look great but require constant maintenance. Make sure you know all the characteristics of each of your selections before finalizing your choices. Chances are you will make different choices for your master bathroom than you might for your children’s bathroom.

Your other bathrooms require proper planning and design, too. Even though they might be less elaborate, don’t neglect them. Every bathroom design is important, including the powder room. Doing it right will make your house better.

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 The Right Bathroom Design Is an Important Part of Your Perfect House appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

Your foundation should never settle. Settlement in a house is a misconception. You often hear people refer to settlement cracks in their house. They have doors that stick and drywall with cracks. They think their foundation has failed and believe this happened because the foundation has settled into the earth. It probably has not actually done that unless the basement construction was very badly designed and built or the soils were not inspected or tested before the footings were poured. Actual settlement, or soil subsidence can happen, especially in clay soils. But houses usually change shape for other reasons.

Settlement Cracks Are Actually Your House Shrinking

The reason new houses develop so called “settlement” cracks is because they actually shrink. The wood joists, rafters, sill plates, and even the studs the house that are the framing of the house will shrink as they lose moisture. The wood shrinks most in the direction perpendicular to the grain. The wood fibers move closer together as the moisture leaves. Studs don’t shrink much along their length since that direction is parallel to the grain of the wood. But the plates and sills that lie horizontally on the top and bottom of the studs, the floor joists, and the ceiling joists can shrink quite a lot.

I did a calculation once and was shocked to discover that a two-story frame house can shrink as much as two inches from top to bottom as the wood dries to its ultimate moisture content. Drywall, doors, windows, and other house components do not shrink that much. Because of the differential shrinkage, you end up with sticky doors and drywall cracks. You get gaps at mouldings and in floors. These cracks will grow and shrink seasonally. But after the first winter heating season, things should stabilize. Once that happens, you can patch things up. Most of them will not return, if your house was built right.

Soils Testing for Strength

Sorry for the diversion. Now back to our discussion of basement construction. If your house is built on solid soil, you will not get any settlement of the foundation or basement walls. If you are building in an area that you know or suspect has poor soil or unsuitable soils, you will need the advice of a soils engineer, more properly called a geotechnical engineer.

He or she will test your soils and prescribe what must be done to make the soils strong enough to support your house for a long, long time. It might require removal and replacement of the bad soil. It might mean draining and compacting wet soils. But whatever you have to do, when the amendment of the soil is complete, be sure to have the engineer retest and certify that the soils are now good for construction.

Types of Basement Wall Construction

Basement construction can be done with concrete block, poured concrete, pre-cast concrete, or even treated wood. I have not built a basement with treated wood walls and cannot comment on their benefits or shortcomings. But the International Residential Code has requirements and details about this type of construction.

Precast concrete foundation systems can save money by reducing on-site costs. This type of basement construction uses factory-made concrete panels that are shipped to the site and assembled on site-built footings. Many times, the footings are actually trenches filled with gravel and not poured concrete. The cost savings with this system come from the elimination of the need to build concrete forms and then strip away the forms and transport them off-site. But usually those benefits are not significant for a “one of a kind” house. In houses that are built repetitively in a subdivision, there is an economy of scale with precast concrete foundations that can save both time and money that is multiplied over many houses.

Precast concrete basement construction is quite strong. But this foundation system is not as commonly used as poured concrete or concrete block. If you’re buying a house with this type of foundation, you do not have to worry about that. Just be sure to get documented engineering certification on the design. It will give you peace of mind and also reassure a future buyer of the integrity of the basement and house foundation.

Basement construction with concrete block is quite common. It will produce a strong basement in most locales. Concrete block tends to be the most economical way to build a basement. You’ll have many more concrete block masons to bid the job than sub-contractors who can do poured concrete basement construction. The competition tends to produce lower prices. However, concrete block, even if reinforced, is not appropriate for areas that have expansive soil, such as many types of clay. That’s soil that swells a lot when it gets wet and shrinks when it dries. The swelling of this soil will apply lateral loads (pressures) to your basement wall (push on it sideways) and can actually cause the basement construction to crack and fail. If this is your soil type, you’ll need reinforced concrete basement walls. Again, the local Building Code or a geotechnical or soils engineer can help you determine this.

Although not as strong as reinforced concrete basement construction, concrete block basements are absolutely strong enough to support a house and can be reinforced to make them even stronger if your site conditions require it. The amount of reinforcement you need will depend on the amount of soil your basement walls will hold back. A structural engineer can advise you on the exact way to do this. But here are some basic guidelines.

If the level of the soil outside your basement (it’s called the finished grade) is higher than your basement floor, you are said to have an “unbalanced backfill” condition If the height of the unbalanced backfill is less than four feet, your basement construction can be done with a simple unreinforced, 8” block wall. If the unbalanced backfill is up to five feet, you’ll need a 12” block wall. If it’s up to six feet, you’ll need a 12” concrete block wall that is filled solid with grout or built with solid block units. If the unbalanced fill is higher than that, you will need additional steel reinforcing. Remember, these are merely rough rules of thumb. Your local Building Code can give you specific requirements for basement construction in your location. It’s always a good idea to consult with a structural engineer to make sure your foundation and basement are structurally sound and comply with the Building Codes.

For areas with expansive soils and if your house will have an unbalanced fill condition above six feet, reinforced concrete basement construction would be best. This is the most expensive option. But consider how much you are investing in the construction of your house. It is probably a prudent investment to make sure your house foundation will perform as intended and not require expensive repairs in the future. A structural engineer is necessary for the design of a reinforced poured concrete foundation.

Reinforced poured concrete basement construction is a multiple step operation. First, forms are erected according to the structural or architectural plans. Next, reinforcing steel bars are assembled within the forms and tied together. When that is completed, concrete is poured into the forms.

When the concrete is a day or two old, the forms are stripped away and the concrete basement walls remain. By then, the concrete is strong enough to support itself in that short time. After seven days, the concrete will be up to 90% of its ultimate strength and the framing of the house on top of the foundation walls can begin. Interestingly, the concrete curing process will continue for several more weeks until the chemical process within the concrete is complete and the concrete gains 100% of its strength.

There is one aspect of poured concrete basement construction that actually offsets some of the additional cost. Concrete foundations can be built very quickly, sometimes in as little as a week. This speeds up the construction schedule. Rain and foul weather can delay progress on a concrete block basement. The time savings converts to money savings you’ll see in site supervision costs and construction financing.

One additional benefit of poured concrete basement construction is that concrete walls are intrinsically much more resistant to water infiltration than concrete block walls. You still should waterproof the basement walls properly. But the added water-tightness of poured concrete will give you a second line of defense against damaging water intrusion.

That’s how you build a strong basement. Next you want to make sure it’s a Waterproof Basement.

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 Basement Construction and Structural Design appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

And if you position it adjacent to other frequently used spaces in your house, like the kitchen or family room, its influence can light up the spaces around it. Sunrooms can be used for many purposes. They can serve as a pleasant sitting room. They can be the nice retreat from the rest of the house. They can even serve double duty as the casual dining space.

What makes sunrooms unique is their special characteristic of being a room that is not entirely an indoor room.  A sunroom design should give the feeling that the room is partially an outdoor space. In other words, when you are in the sunroom, you are not “completely” inside the house. But you are not outdoors either. You are in a pleasant “in between” kind of place. This is a quality that is essential to capture in order for a sunroom design to be successful.

Making a Sunroom both Indoors and Outdoors

How does a sunroom design achieve that feeling of having one foot indoors and the other foot outdoors? It starts with the position of the room relative to the yard and the rest of the house. Sunrooms are best if just one wall is touching the main house. More than that and the sunroom will simply feel like it is filling in a gap in the exterior shape of the house. In other words, don’t try to wedge the sunroom between two or three solid exterior walls.

If the sunroom is going to be rectangular in shape, it should jut out from the house so three sides of the rectangle have windows and the remaining side is the only point of contact (common wall) with the house. This will provide a panoramic view of the yard or garden from the sunroom and allow the sun to enter the room for most of the day. It will enhance the sensation that you are “outside” of the house.

Other aspects of a good sunroom design have to do with how the room interacts with the outdoors. With lots of windows, the landscaping around the sunroom is important.  The landscaping becomes a part of the décor. The room will feel better and be more attractive if instead of simply being surrounded by a lawn, it is embraced by a garden.

Even in winter, a garden can be an attractive view. After all, who doesn’t enjoy looking at a fresh snowfall on a sunny winter day?

Passive Solar Sunroom

Sunroom design can be an integral part of a passive solar house design. It can serve as a solar collector on bright days and provide a cooling benefit in summer. A properly placed and oriented sunroom can heat itself on sunny winter days. If you want your sunroom to go beyond heating itself and start to help heat your house, it must be allowed to essentially overheat. And there must be a way to circulate that excess heat throughout the house. With some thought, a minor adjustment to your heating system ductwork can draw in that heat and send it through your system to warm the rooms on the northern side of the house. your sunroom then becomes what we call in passive solar design jargon a “sun-space.”

In summer, you can gain some additional passive solar benefits if you cause the sunroom to induce a draft to ventilate the house. For this to work, your sunroom should have operable skylights to allow the heated air to rise and escape while windows on the north side of the house are opened to let the cool, shaded air be drawn in. This is the principle of creating a convective loop, much the same way hot air rises in a chimney.

This method is particularly effective in arid climates where humidity is not a concern. Using a sunroom for passive solar benefits requires thought and can compromise the usefulness of the room from time to time. But the energy savings can be substantial.

Sunroom Flooring, Walls, and Ceilings

Since the sunroom is not a typical interior room, it should not have the same flooring material as your living room or dining room. Skip the carpet and maybe the hardwood flooring, too. Hard surfaces, like tile or even stone are best. These are materials you would expect to see on terraces and patios and subconsciously enhance the sensation of being outdoors.

Tile and stone laid on concrete will for a “heat sink” to store extra heat gained in the daytime in the mass of the concrete and reradiate it at night. The same concrete mass will help keep your sunroom cool in summer by helping the room maintain the nighttime temperatures and absorbing excess heat as the day warms up. The concrete needs to be isolated and insulated from the outside temperatures. I discuss this more in my Passive Solar topics.

An outdoor oriented sunroom design might indicate the wall and ceiling surfaces should be something other than painted drywall. Tongue and groove or shiplap wood boards, either smooth or rough-sawn, are good choices and help create a porch-like atmosphere. The wall that adjoins the house might have the same material that is on the exterior of the house. If the house is brick, for example, putting the same brick on the sunroom wall will clearly reinforce the sensation that you have stepped outside of the main house limits.

Sunroom Windows

Of course, a sunroom design has to include lots of windows and possibly skylights. Choose windows that are high quality with insulating, double or triple paned glass. Many of the windows should be operable to let in fresh air when the weather is right. I like to use casement windows because they open fully and provide an unobstructed view, provided they do not project out and interfere with a walkway when open.

Choose windows with Low-e glass that blocks out the invisible spectrum of sunlight. Low-e glass dramatically reduces the fading of fabrics due to sun exposure. And low-e glass also improves the energy performance of the glass.

Temperature Control

Consider providing a way to close your sunroom off from the rest of the house and setting up your sunroom with a separately controlled heating and air conditioning system. This way you can leave the windows open on the summer days that are not too hot and allow your sunroom to serve as a screened porch without needing to turn off the air conditioning in the rest of the house.

Sunrooms will gain and lose heat faster than the rest of the house because of all the glass. Having separate HVAC controls for that room will give you the option of letting the temperature in the sunroom go down on very cold nights and save on your heating bills.

Proper Orientation of the Sunroom

A good sunroom design requires some thought about how it will behave year-round. Think through the orientation of the room, where the low, hot western summer sun will come from, and how you will block it out. Lots of windows are great. But there may be times when your room will be unbearably sunny and hot. Plan for this and provide ways to control the incoming sun with shades or blinds.

Usually the best orientation for a sun room is east or south in northern climates where you want to gain as much light as possible and east or north in southern climates where shading the room from the direct sun is required to keep it cool.

A good sunroom design will open up your house, give you additional living space and brighten your spirits during a long and dreary winter. Plan the function of the room and be sure there is enough room for everything you would like it to do.

I like to make sure there is room for a small table and chairs for breakfast and casual dining, plus room for a comfy chair or two for sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee while reading the Sunday paper (or your iPad.) There’s a good chance your sunroom will quickly become your favorite room in the house.

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 Good Sunroom Design Brings Charm and Character to Any Home appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.

I find the trend toward an open floor plan is changing a bit these days,” says William J. Hirsch Jr., an architect and author of ” Designing Your Perfect House.” “People seem to be looking for more definition of the rooms, although they still like to retain the ‘shared space’ aspect of the open plan.”    This is from an article posted on Realtor.com and also on Fox News.com ,   What are 5 things you can do to delineate spaces in an open concept

It is great to have an open floor plan, but you still want to be able to tell the purpose of the spaces.  Read more by going to the following article.

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 Define Space in Open Floor Plan appeared first on Designing Your Perfect House.