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mct401_gw

Exterior Elevation Review and Color Question

mct401
10 years ago

We are about ready to submit our plan to the architectural review committee. I have worked with the architect pretty much on my own (hubby really doesn't care, lucky me :)) and wanted to see if anyone sees anything glaring. We are building in southern Alabama in a lake community but we are no where near the lake. The neighborhood has a historic southern theme and most of the houses seem to be craftsman, cottage or bungalow (there may be 3 or 4 plantation homes). Also, the colors here are not set and I am having a difficult time coming up with anything besides brown. Does anyone have any suggestions on colors? I want something a little different but don't want to be tired of it in a few years. Thanks for your help!

Comments (15)

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Here's the plan...

  • LuAnn_in_PA
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    As far as colors go... wouldn't you get the list of approved colors from the architectural review committee?

  • carra
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like it mostly. The things that jump out at me are the very small closets in bedrooms 2 and 3 and the laundry room is too far away from the bedrooms (which is where all your laundry is coming from). As far as colors, there are many 'brown' choices if you like that. We are most likely going with a very dark green - so that might be an option for you.

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    LuAnn: Thank you for your suggestion. There are no approved colors per se. They just require that they be harmonious. There are several different colors throughout the subdivision. However, we are only the second home built on our street, the other one being light green.

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Carra: I do like dark green. Do you have stone as well? If so, what color are you going with?

  • carra
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    We like the SW Rosemary for the color - we will have stone but haven't chosen the color yet.

  • Annie Deighnaugh
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'd pick the colors after I picked the stone. We picked house colors based on the colors in the stone and it does end up more harmonious that way.

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That's what we'll probably end up doing. The committee asks for colors for the preliminary approval which I thought was a little premature.

  • bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I agree, pick your stone/brick first then find the paint colors. It's pretty easy to tweak a paint color that "almost-but-not-quite harmonizes" with the stone you've chosen so that the two look good together. Much much harder to find a stone/brick (among comparatively limited choices) to go with a preselected paint color.

    But just to give you some ideas other than browns, take a look at the link below to see some historic paint colors shown on craftsman cottages and bungalows. (Scroll down to see the colors applied to houses.)

    BTW - you didn't specifically ask for feedback on the floorplan but, since you posted it and mentioned that you were wanting to see if anyone saw anything glaring... there is one thing I noticed that may wind up bothering you once the house is built. That is, when the door to your front powder room is standing open, a person standing at the kitchen sink will have view straight to the powder-room toilet. That would really bother me. Not sure I see an easy fix tho.

    Another thing. Are you committed to the idea of having your master bedroom open to the back porch? Most people I know who have a door leading out to a back porch from their master bedroom admit that they never actually use it. It seems to me like a much better use the space you have allocated to the master suite would be to move the bedroom to the front of the house, put the master bath at the back of the house, and have his/hers closets in the middle with a hallway aisle way between them. I think switching would give you more total useable closet space AND a more spacious masterbath. You could still keep the double patio doors that go out to the back porch. They would just open into the master bath instead so the glass in the patio doors would need to be frosted. Don't know if you ever plan to have a swimming pool in back, but if you do, having the bathroom where it could be accessed from the pool without leaving dripping puddles on other floors in the house would be a big advantage. Just a thought.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Historic paint colors

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thank you bevangel for the sample pictures. That does give me some other ideas. I do think it's important to use historically accurate colors.

    As far as the master goes, it has been a bit of a thorn in my side to say the least. My husband is an engineer for the railroad and is on call 24/7. I tried to set it up in a way that would enable us to get ready without disturbing the other person who is usually sleeping. After several attempts, this is our best solution. I do plan on getting rid of the double doors and using single doors that will keep light and sound out. You did mention, the doors that lead to the back porch and that is also something we are not 100% certain we will keep. I have talked to several folks who don't use their's either. Thank you for you input!

  • bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    It's always difficult when one spouse works the graveyard shift, isn't it? If you have kids, I'm not sure how good an idea it is to have the masterbedroom share a common wall with the greatroom. Won't noise from the TV and the kids playing wake your husband when he's trying to sleep during the day?

    If your back porch is covered and you were to flip the master suite as I suggested and keep the doors leading to the back porch from the master bath room, your DH COULD slip out that way when he gets called in to work in the middle of the night. Of course, he would need to always remember to keep his house keys with him when he goes to bed so he could get into the garage or into the great room via the porch doors. LOL!

    You're probably right tho that the way you have it now is the best option. I just hate seeing so much floorspace dedicated to hallways. I would much rather see part of that hallway space incorporated into more spacious rooms that one actually spends time IN (rather then just passing thru).

    On another issue, someone else had already commented on the very small bedroom closets so I didn't pay any attention to those before. But, looking more closely at your plan, I realize that the USEABLE space in bedroom #3's closet is much smaller than you may realize. Hanging clothing requires about 24" of depth perpendicular to the clothes-rod. While you can run a closet rod across the closet as shown, due to the angles, you are not going to be able to hang clothing along the entire length of the rod. Both ends of the rod are going to be wasted because, measured perpendicularly across the rod, you will have less than 24 inches from wall to wall.

    Additionally, a portion of the space where you will be able to hang clothes won't be all that useful because you won't really be able to see those clothes from the door without shoving the ones that are right in front of the door out of the way.

    Here is a drawing I made by copying that section of your plan and then blowing it up 10X bigger. Because kitchen countertops are usually 25-26 inches deep, I used a section of your kitchen countertop that was also angled at 45 degrees to draw an angled arrow that (as closely as I can estimate it) is 24 inches long. Then I copied and pasted that 2ft long arrow into the closet space several time to show how hanging clothing would fit. Hopefully this will help you see why that closet is, IMHO, totally unacceptable as a bedroom closet.


    Of course, because I started with such a small copy of your plan, my drawing can only provide a very rough estimate of the useable space. But before you submit your plan to your ARC, you might talk with your architect about this issue. Ask him to accurately measure and tell you the linear portion of that closet where the depth perpendicular to the hanging rod is 24 inches or greater. Then decide if you can live with a bedroom closet that tiny.

    You might want consider using the space where you show a desk in your kitchen area to create a still small but reasonably useful closet for bedroom 3. Most people that I know who have a desk in their kitchen don't actually use it. A kitchen desks LOOKS like a good idea... a place to pay bills, work on grocery lists, etc., and maybe at one time well-organized housewives actually put such areas to good use. But nowadays most of us now do our household organizing on our laptops while sitting in our favorite comfy chair. Desks just become landing areas for junk. What most of really want/need nowadays is a place to stash away the little bit of snail mail that we still get until we have a chance to sort thru it plus a spot to store and recharge our electronic gear. A dedicated mail drawer or cubby works as well or better than a desk.

    So, unless you KNOW that you would actually make regular use of that desk, wouldn't it make more sense to give it up in favor of a more useful bedroom closet?

    You could then turn that tiny bedroom closet into a pantry accessible as you enter from the garage. It's size and shape would actually work quite well as a pantry.

    And, If you moved your pantry over near the garage, I think the HVAC unit would just about fit into the area where you now have that very small pantry. You might have to enlarge it slightly but I think you could make that your HVAC closet if you rotated the doorway to the hall.

    And moving the HVAC unit would then allow you to enlarge the foyer closet and revamp the powder-room area and move the PR door so that you can no longer see the toilet from the kitchen sink! (A pet peeve of mine is a view of the toilet from a food prep or eating area. Not sure why but it just seems icky. LOL!)

    BTW, you should also know that the tiny triangular closet in the hallway by bedroom #2 is not going to be terribly useful either. I have a what I think is a similarly sized triangle shaped cabinet (not closet) in my master bath. My triangular cabinet shelves have sides that are just under 18 inches long and a hypotenuse that is just a smidge under 25 inches so you can compare that to the floor space in your closet.

    Here is a picture where you can see the two 13 inch wide doors on the front face of my bathroom cabinet and immediately below is a picture showing the useable interior space.


    Notice how much of the shelf space just THREE rolls of toilet paper takes up! Without stacking, I can fit a grand total of 6 rolls of toilet paper on the shelf. On the bottom shelf are mine and my husband's travel kits and you can see that there really isn't much room for anything else. This works for me because it gives me a big enough spot to store extra toilet paper and a couple of other small bathroomish type items and the closed cabinet looks prettier when seen thru the glass door between my bedroom and bath than open shelves would have.

    But, a closet with similar dimensions would not hold a typical 5 gallon bucket and definitely could not be used as a storage spot for the vacuum cleaner or the family's collection of board games, nor a box of Christmas ornaments, nor really much of anything else that I can think of.

    Such a corner is mostly useful for displaying nick-nacks and trinkets. So do you really want to spend the money to close off the corner and pay for a door to enclose such a tiny space? Since it is out in the hallway, maybe just putting up some pretty corner shelves for displaying trinkets or family photos would be a better use of the space.

    Again, just some things to think about.

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Wow! That's fantastic information. I am a very visual person so I appreciate the pictures. I will definitely consider this further. We have one child and the room will be mainly for guest. However, I know it will be a consideration if we are to ever sell the house. As far, as the corner closet goes, the original plan had no closet there at all...my builder said it seemed like wasted space. I figured I'd add the small closet for linen, etc. I do like your suggestion to make it an open closet for decorations.

    After looking for so long, you miss some of the alternatives. I guess that's why this site is so popular :)

  • palimpsest
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Would you be open to simplifying that front facing hipped roof with the dormer projecting from it?

  • mct401
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Possibly. Do you have any suggestions on how to do that and keep correct proportions?

  • palimpsest
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    What is underneath that hip, behind that shed dormer?

    I would consider some sort of simplified shed dormer without that large, blind projecting hip.

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