Build Notes (New Construction, Older Homes, Renovations, Interesting Finishing and Details)
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Here’s a handful of shots from a house I completed almost two years ago. It took my client and friend about 18 months to sell. Beautiful house and, in my opinion, well worth the original asking price, but it just hit that weird timing with interest rates and the slowdown we started to see toward the end of 2024 here in the U.S.
It’s approximately 5,200 square feet finished, with another roughly 900 square feet over the garage that could be finished.
I’ll pull together some other pictures at some point. I posted this house a while back in one of the threads, but it’s a pretty cool project. I’ve known this particular client for 21 years, and this was the fourth house I’ve built for him. We’re actually working on getting another one going on the adjacent property he owns, which is approximately six acres. This one sits on about eight acres.
Really great guy and a great client. He enjoys the process and is very creative. We’ll typically use an designer, but he and I tend to tweak things ourselves as we go. I’ve always enjoyed working on projects with him. So much so that he always gets the friends-and-family discount on my fees. At least on the last two, lol.
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@northsouthdenimguy beautiful house and property!
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Thanks! I have some better pictures somewhere, but I need to get better at putting things into folders…
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Edit: should’ve put this at the beginning originally, but where these homes really shine, at least for me, is two or three years down the road when the landscaping has filled in, the vines have grown, and everything starts to develop a little patina and age. Even when the house is technically finished, it never really feels completely done. That evolution is part of the process.
Here are some details from the house with a small pool. This is a mahogany gate to the pool equipment. The wall is a 4” cement block with 3-coat European hard coat stucco. Notice the little radius or semi radius on top of the wall, looks nice and helps to shed water. Same detail they were supposed to do on the water feature monument, so it would look less like a headstone. Still debating whether I’m going to get them to fix that or not. The guy’s shook their head like they understood what I was telling them to do and they proceed to not do it. I can’t totally blame them because so much of how I build is “off the cuff” sketched on pieces of paper, not architectural drawings. More often than not just something mentioned in the field.
This is another mahogany built detail. The louvered screen lets in a little light while also blocking the view of the neighbor’s HVAC condenser. Fortunately, their condenser is whisper quiet.
This is actually next to the front door at the terrace level. Since they chose not to build the stairs going up to the main level, it was important not only to screen this area but also to make it attractive. It would have been easy and more cost effective to simply extend the masonry wall or fill this in with siding, but this gives the area a much more intentional finished look.
Below is the opposite end of the terrace-level porch area. The metal screen was fabricated by a guy I’ve been using for over 20 years. When my landscaper does the house next door, they’ll plant a creeping vine here, and the gardener who maintains everything will weave the vine through the screen as it grows. Eventually, this will become a green living wall.
After acid washing the PebbleTec this morning, the pool is now being filled. With the darker color, surrounding landscaping, and the colors of the home, it should end up having more of a lagoon feel to it.
And after asking my pool contractor about half a dozen times, supposedly they’re putting the water feature spout on today, but I won’t hold my breath…
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@northsouthdenimguy that’s a great idea doing that in a smaller bath. I’m actually about to redo a bathroom at my house soon and I’m gonna consider this. We have a marble look stone hexagonal backsplash in our kitchen and it looks so good. One of my favorite things in my house
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The pool is filled and some shitty interior shots. Don’t have time to set up for this, will have some more professional ones done later today. Keep in mind this is the client selections, which I think are very tasteful, but may not be everybody’s cup of tea.
Fingers crossed it’s closing on Monday was supposed to close today. Daddy needs a closing. I haven’t had one since October of last year….
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A few little things that drive me crazy on these final punch days.
One, the painters were here yesterday afternoon and still completely missed the spots around a duplex light switch. In their defense, the electrician had to add a switch at the last minute for the client, but still, it needs to get done.
Two, I’m going through the house cleaning little specks of drywall mud off the hardwood floors from some last-minute repairs. The cleaners came through this morning and did a good job overall, but definitely didn’t get everything 100%. I don’t really have to be doing it myself, but I’m kind of bored and my project manager is here knocking out some other punch items, so I’m just going through things.
And then, of course, there’s this light hanging down directly in front of the elevator door. I opened the elevator and almost destroyed the damn thing. Nobody told me the client was apparently OK with it hanging this low and actually wanted it this way, which makes absolutely no sense to me. So we’re zip-tying it up out of the way until they move in before somebody destroys a very expensive light fixture.
Edit: and the spout is still not on the pool water feature as promised yesterday, imagine that…
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A few curves
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Gorgeous lines!
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@Giles thanks! Appreciate the comment. I know you have a keen eye.
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Great detailing. The person who does all of our exterior detailing and quite a bit of the interior actually hand sketches all of these types of details to scale. He’ll take something like this, not copy it exactly, but pull the general idea from it and work it into a newer plan. It’s funny because every time he does something I’ll think it looks familiar, then months later I’ll be traveling somewhere and realize, that mf’er, that’s where he got it from.
Other than some of the really extreme modern stuff, I don’t know how much in residential architecture is truly new. Most of it has some connection to things people were already doing 70, 100, 150 years ago, sometimes way before that. Even Arts and Crafts and mid century modern were still borrowing from older ideas. Really it’s just taking those things, changing them around a little and making them work for what you’re building now.
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@northsouthdenimguy
Impressive examples of real craftsmanship. Nowadays, it is becoming less common. -
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@northsouthdenimguy
Unfortunately, the client for the marble tub did not pay his last bill in full, therefore only
of
As a small, equalising justice, he is currently behind bars in Austria -
During the economic downturn from 2008 to 2011, I was doing a lot of renovations because new construction was virtually dead here in the States. The last year I was doing renovations, I got stuck a few times with people refusing to pay their final bill, usually the last 5% to 10% of the job, until they had squeezed every possible extra out of you for free.
Fortunately, shortly after the last time it happened, I was able to get back into building custom homes again.
Some people just aren’t good people. They’ll take advantage of you as long as you let them, and somehow convince themselves they’re justified in doing it.
@selveldgesteps
