Busy Beavers

Today my husband actually had a day off during the week because of the Easter holiday, which is a rarity. This allowed us to have a whirlwind of a day, choosing our exterior colors and materials so that we can submit our choices for approval by our Home Owner's Association's architectural committee.  We have made some solid choices, but there are a couple of decisions still up in the air.

For the stone, we settled on Foggy Hollow.  We felt it's lighter color palette and more golden hues would better complement the stucco by offering just enough contrast without standing out too much.

This is the only shot I have right now of Foggy Hollow:

Next was the brick for the arches above the windows and the quoins (sounds like "coins", which is how I incorrectly spelled it in numerous emails to the architect and builder).  I'm not 100% sold on the color, but it was the best complement to the stone that allowed for some color variation and more of an antique feel.

The color is "Peppermill" by General Shale.  The salesperson assured us that it would look great with our overall color scheme.  I'm concerned that there is a bit too much rust color in the brick, but the sample we saw had more burgundy and red than orange.

By the way, in case you're wondering, the bricks on the corners of the house below are "quoins". The picture is taken from Houzz.com

Next were the windows and front door.  Our HOA covenants require us to use aluminum clad windows with grilles on the outside of the glass, as you would see in a French door. We wanted to recreate the look of true French style windows that open out as French doors would, but due to the smaller size of the upper windows and emergency-egress rules for bedroom windows, we went with casement windows that have a thicker center piece (part of the grille) that runs down the center of the window to emulate the look of two windows that would swing out.  Our builder, in order to help us to cut costs, had recommended double hung windows for the windows in the back of the house.  My preference is for all casement windows so the window salesperson will be recalculating our quote to see if we can make it work within our budget.  The windows are Windsor Windows & Doors' Pinnacle line.  I chose French Vanilla for the exterior color, and not just because there was the word "French" in the name, although that was a funny coincidence.

The doors that the builder included in our price to build are pictured below (on the right) and are by DSA Master Crafted Doors.

They are pretty doors, but nothing extraordinary.  I prefer these "fancier" doors with the "swirlies"(can you tell I have read too many "Fancy Nancy" books to my preschooler?) shown below.

Of course, like every other design choice I have made, there will be an up charge if we go with these.  The distributor we are working with promised me he's going to try to get all our choices within our budget.  We'll see.

Which brings me to the typical issue when building.  If you want anything beyond standard offerings, you will likely end up going over your allowances.  Our builder included some pretty generous allowances for things like cabinets, doors, trim, etc., but inevitably, my tastes tend to gravitate towards choices that end up stretching our budget. Our compromise is this.  We will spend a little more on the home's exterior, since these are elements that won't end up one day being updated and try to save money on things that are easier to change as trends and our tastes change, like interior decor.

I would love to hear reader suggestions for some alternative brick color for the coins and trim that would complement our stone.