Architects Have Great Tools - Exterior Color Studies

At Ron Brenner Architects we have been working on a series of color studies for a client of ours.
I have included a number of the studies below.  The client has selected a medium gray for the base body color; however I also did a couple of non-gray variations.  The black roof is a given on all schemes.  Which one would you choose?

scheme 1 - all white horizontal clapboard siding

scheme 2 - gray board and batten siding, rusty corrugated metal inside porch and in 'link" area

scheme 3 - dark gray board and batten body color with white clapboard inside the porch and in link area

scheme 4 - gray board and batten body color with dark plum inside the porch and in the link area

scheme 5 - gray board and batten body color with white clapboard inside the porch and in the link area

scheme 6 - gray board and batten body color with dark gray shakes inside the porch and  in the link area

scheme 7 - gray board and batten body color with white shakes inside the porch and in the link area

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Houzz on Fire!

I was recently at the "Capture, Communicate, Create" event at the W Hotel in Minneapolis where Liza Hausman from Houzz was the featured guest.  If you have never heard of Houzz you should probably check it out.

Houzz is quickly becoming a leading destination site for home design enthusiasts.  It features over 200,000 high quality interior and exterior photos that have been uploaded by the original designers.  This makes Houzz the Internet's largest database of design and decorating ideas.

Houzz has a number of features for homeowners, but I think the coolest is that you can create your own ideabooks.  It's the modern day version of the old "cut and paste scrapbook" from magazines. Preparing to build a new home or take on a major remodeling?  Create an ideabook and share it with your Architect. In my own practice I love ideabooks because it helps me to understand my clients tastes and preferences. With this information I can design something new and fresh, but in a vein I know my client will love.

So do check it out.  You can view the Ron Brenner Architects Houzz page at http://www.houzz.com/ron-brenner-architects.  

And please don't forget to like us!

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Design Minimalist Home - Modern Home Minimalist

For those of you who want simplicity and efficiencyDesign Minimalist HomeSimple Home PhotoDesign Modern Minimalist HomeDesign Minimalist Home PhotoDesign Modern Minimalist Simple HomeModern Minimalist Home PhotoBeautiful Design Modern Minimalist HomeDesign Modern Minimalist House

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Contemporary House Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Contemporary house design has an elegant look and can follow the trend model house design. Contemporary house is exceptional design and sound, providing an open and uncluttered environment that remains warm. Contemporary house design has a characteristic that has a sleek facade featuring horizontal stripes and has a lot of open space. Contemporary house design is almost similar to the modern home

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Interior Luxurious Living Room - Modern Home Minimalist

Decoration Interior Living Room DesignInterior Luxury Living Room DesignDesign living room has a variety of models, environments and furniture that you can come some new good ideas for decorating. With so much light and space is increasingly affecting the mixture of styles. Furniture, sofa, chair and coffee table living room, all different from each other. This space makes them all important,

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Minimalist Home Design Idea - Modern Home Minimalist

Minimalist house design, modern style and has a feature that is minimalist design as it is now of great interest to most people. Because it seems that it is not obsolete, the original drawings that can be used in a limited area, minimum funding requirement for the manufacture of home, making it modern trend of home design minimalist.Each part of the modern minimalist home was carefully designed

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Best House Plans - No Groupon Required!

Here at Simply Elegant Home Designs we are convinced that we offer the absolute best house plans in the business. To prove this point we are going to start featuring a “Home Plan of the Week”. The idea is to illustrate what makes our plans so special. Better yet, we will also offer a special discount for the featured plan for that week. And you don't even have to join Groupon!

Apple Valley Four Square

The Apple Valley Four Square is our first House Plan of the Week.

What makes this house so special? Let one of our recent clients explain through their testimonial.  I have excerpted portions below.

“Yes, absolutely: feel free to share my delight in finding The Apple Valley Foursquare. It is a darling house.  We love the prairie schoolhouse vibe and the simple elegance of the exterior. As well, we appreciate the 2-sided light in each room. We are treating the entire staircase as a room - esp the landing at the top of the staircase with the large window that will overlook the center of the property: a meadow with Grandfather Oaks, the rushing winter creek winding through the far grove of fir trees. The Master Bedroom and screened porch will overlook the orchards, herb and vegetable gardens and if looking to the right, up the hill, we'll be able to see the small pinot noir vineyard.

I've had a chance to look over the .pdf doc - so fun to see how the house will be built - and the possibilities of an exercise room in perhaps a modified 1/2 basement option.  Love that!  (along with the machine room, storage and root cellar.) Also, it's funny - most of my furniture, mirrors, and key elements are from Pottery Barn, Room and Board, Restoration Hardware (neutral energy) and decor from Wisteria, home collection from Anthropologie (http://www.anthropologie.com/) and P Barn - design, textures and characteristics that will lend itself to the design of the house.

Ron, also the interior photographs of both the Deephaven Modern, and the Excelsior Farmhouse Cottage won our hearts over, too! The photographs are wonderful suggestions of lighting, color and carpentry for our own design.

The Den will be the Library - with to-the-ceiling bookcases, comfy chairs - a place to study and write.

Thanks so much,

We'll be in touch - L&K

PS - I've read A Pattern Language and other books by Alexander Christopher (The Luminous Ground) and most of Sarah Susanka's books about "the not-so-big-house" including her Home By Design.  Also, Roots of Home by Russell Versaci and Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own. Add to that list William J. Hirsch's Designing Your Perfect House (Lessons From An Architect), and House by T. Kidder. Stacks of books! I've searched through Mascord, Garrell Associates, a whole bunch of architect's websites, purchased Designer Dream Home magazines at the market, created a vision board and pasted exterior and interior images into a journal, for years. It's not like I haven't done my homework!  Finally, we found Simply Elegant Home Designs and The Apple Valley Foursquare. Eureka!  We break ground this Spring. We're going . . Home.”

Now that is what I call a testimonial!

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Contemporary Home Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Minimalist house that looks elegant. Houses like this has a simple exterior design but capable of giving the impression is very interesting. not much use of wood in the making, the house models such as these tend to more often use a toy cement which was applied to the wall.If you are going to buy a house that is so, you should ask the building's construction force, from the use of iron and depth

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Home Design Ideas - 3 Tier Kitchen Island

A 3 Tier Kitchen Island is a simple Home Design Idea I have used many times over the years.  Most kitchen islands tend to be one tier or two.  On a single tier island one counter provides kitchen prep and eating / serving purposes.  On a two tier island one tier is the cooking counter and the second tier is the eating / serving counter.  I like to add a third tier because it adds another dimension and offers more storage possibilities.  See below for a few examples.

Three tiers - one for kitchen prep, one for eating and serving and one for storage.  Here we used glass doors for display.   I like the way the taller tier "anchors" the other two counters.  It also helps to define the edge of the kitchen from the hallway which is to the left.

Here (in our Excelsior Farmhouse) tiers on both ends "capture" the kitchen and eating counters.  The eating counter is highlighted with a natural walnut surface.  The taller end cabinets also provide another display surface.

Another simple example (from our Midwest Living Farmhouse) with a curved serving counter.  The taller end cabinets also help to conceal kitchen clutter from the living room beyond.  This is a good design strategy within an open floor plan.  

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Modern House Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Modern House DesignModern House DesignModern House DesignModern House DesignModern House DesignExplore more Apperance beautiful house or Home Design Ideas on this site.For those of you who have a dream house, it would not hurt if you do your home insurance, to avoid the unexpected that are not expected.

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Modern Minimalist Home Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Home Designminimalist modern designHome Designmodern design ideasHome Design 3D DesignHome Design3D plan DesignHome DesignMinimalist 3D designHome Design PhotoExplore more Apperance beatiful Home Design Ideas on this site.For those of you who have a dream house, it would not hurt if you do your home insurance, to avoid the unexpected that are not expected.

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Form Home Design - Modern Home Minimalist

If you want to create a home you usually see the buildings around you. Here you do not need to go anywhere you can explore at this site and find your inspiration. you can combine several pictures or photos, and incorporates elements that you think is important. you are free to copy pictures or photos design houses here.Some form of drawings or pictures of home design;Home Designwith swimming pool

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Exterior Home Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Modern Home Design IdeasExterior Design in a house is very necessary, because it makes makes the appearance of a house to be very interesting. as for some Exterior that have been fused during manufacture of the home and additional exterior, Exterior is in add when the house was finished.Appearance Font of HomeExterior home DesignHome PlanAppearance Home Designnatural themeExplore more Apperance

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3D home Design Plan - Modern Home Minimalist

Beautiful 3D Home DesignIn making a house we usually have to make preliminary sketches of the house in 3D. this needs to be done to see the appearance of the house before spending a lot of cost in the making, and hope we can form a dream home that we dambakkan. 3D sketch of the house if the preformance is we do not match we can change to adjust to our wishes.Some sample home design pictures in 3D

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Beautiful Home Design - Modern Home Minimalist

Design a House Home Sweet HomeCreate a need is careful, once we make a house, we do not have to change it again, because if we change the house's money we spent could be bigger than when we make it.No matter how big or small our house, my house is my palace we make home sweet home.Beautiful Home Design3D Home Building Planbeautiful home designMinimalist Home DesignSmall Design Home Sweet HomeWood

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Home Design Modern Ideas - Modern Home Minimalist

Modern Home DesignMinimalist Design IdeasAppearance of a house would be most important for us demand that will make a house, whether big or small house. This design forms ruamh some that may make your inspiration in creating or renovating a home.Home Design PictureAppearance of Modern HomeA beuatiful small house,although small but this performance was one of the Home Sweet Home.Beautifil Designa

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Home Design Minimalist Idea - Modern Home Minimalist

3D Home Design ideasA modern minimalist house design, which became a dream for those of you who want to have a beautiful home modern minimalist. Minimalist house design options for today is very much in the interest because of limited land, where more and more small, limited growth driven material prices are making homes more and more expensive.Here are some minimalist modern home design that may

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Home Design Ideas - Split the Garage!

At Ron Brenner Architects, I am currently working with a client on a new home design to be constructed in Rochester, MN.  Here we have run into a very common dilemma.  What to do with 3 1/2 cars worth of garage?   

If you put all of that garage to the side of the house you get one very wide plan.  If you put all of that garage forward of the house you get one very deep plan.  Many lots cannot accommodate either one of those plan arrangements.  So what I have proposed to do here is to split the garages into two separate structures.  The main two car garage is directly connected to the house via the mudroom zone.  The additional 1 1/2 car garage is placed on the opposite side of the lot; resulting in a nifty little entry court.  See sketches below.

Here you can see a birds eye view of the layout.  Notice the roof between the garage and house is low.  This helps to reduce the mass of the house.  Pulling the garages a bit forward of the front porch creates a nifty little courtyard.

view from street

view approaching courtyard

nice little composition

So when you develop your next house plan - please think about the impact of that garage and look for creative solutions.

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Home Design Ideas - Funky Fireplace

You can learn much from studying rooms that you love. Below I have attached a living room picture from a home I designed a few years ago. This turned out to be a very calm and soothing space. I wish I were sitting there now!

A few key points:

• Windows were placed on both of the outside walls of the space. I always try to have natural lighting feeding into a space from more than one direction.
• Fireplace wall design was asymmetrical. Here form followed function. We needed a hideaway for the flat screen on one side, but not both. That left space for a cozy bench on the other side of the fireplace.
• A funky half oval shaped fireplace was used. This adds a very unique detail to an element that is normally very predictable (the rectangular fireplace box).
• Yellow walls with cream trim; natural wood floors and leather - the materials and colors are comforting.
• Dark ebony stained trim is used sparingly to cap off the fireplace and media cabinet and at the stair railing. This adds richness and sophistication to the space.
• Recessed lighting above highlights the details of the composition.

The moral of this story is - if you are looking to remodel a space in your home; find pictures of similar spaces that you love. Then study them to discover what it is about that space that makes it work so well.

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Design Challenge for a 2000 SF House Plan

Lately I have been getting inquiries for modestly sized new home designs that feature main floor master bedrooms. A search of the web reveals a gazillion main floor master bedroom plans - but most are massive or ugly or both. So I decided this might be a good opportunity to design a new plan fitting this unique need, and to illustrate for you a little bit of the design process at the same time. So let's get started.

The design process I use typically involves the following phases:

• Programming
• Schematic Design
• Design Development
• Construction Documents

Today we will start with Programming. Programming really means just identifying a list of functional needs and qualities that you would like to see in your home. I'll start with a list that reflects the kinds of requests I have been receiving.

• Modest plan size - as close to 2000 square foot as possible.
• Open floor plan - Living, Dining and Kitchen spaces very connected with each other.
• Mudroom with space for hanging coats and sitting for putting shoes on.
• Laundry space should be on the main floor.
• A main floor master bedroom with walk in closet and bath. The bath should have a walk in shower, but not necessarily a tub (the days of the jacuzzi tub seem to be over).
• Spaces that are functional, but not over sized.
• A reasonable sized entry porch.
• A screen porch with spaces for eating and sitting.
• A main floor powder room.
• Possibly a den or away room - if space allows.
• An attached 2 car garage - possibly with some additional storage space.
• 2 additional bedrooms on a second floor.
• A shared bathroom for the 2 upstairs bedrooms.
• A basement that could allow future expansion space.
• Beautiful home but not overly complex. Should be reasonably economical to construct. The house plan should be simple, yet unique.

That's a pretty good list for now. But I wanted to leave room for your thoughts. So please feel free to comment. Did I miss anything? Throw your 2 cents in.

Next posting I will update the program with your relevant comments - and we'll see some initial design thoughts.

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