Here are images of the two smoother finishes (Quartzscapes).
Anvil
St Martin Shade
Here are three finishes from Stonescapes (the mini-pebble series)
Tahoe Blue
Black All the black images I could find were this dark and difficult to see.
Midnight Blue
In all cases the color gets bluer as the water gets deeper.
After looking at things in 3D I wanted to ask about the addition of one more ottoman to bridge the seating areas. It looks a little too open to my eye. Take a look below and let me know what you think.
Here are the elevations for the Library cabinets. They have nice thick shelves for a contemporary look and a fixed shelf at the top (around 8.5' off the floor). The various depths are shown. We are wiring for a TV in the center section.
Let me know your thoughts or approval and I will get these in the works.
Based on our discussions, here is the updated bar drawing for approval / modification before I release for the cabinet makers to start on it.
We have 11" deep cabinets at each end with 24" deep cabinets in the center. This wide center block also contains 6 deep and 3 standard drawers. Some glassware can be stored on the unlighted shelves along with the liquor. The balance of the glassware and barware will be stored behind the solid doors to the left and right both above and below the counter top. Rather than have the entire glass collection showing (which proves really hard to keep clean) I have placed some of it behind doors. The wine ref and the ice machine both have wood fronts to match the cabinetry. We will do a decorative tile or stone backsplash. We could do mirror if you wanted but it means that we will have light bouncing off the mirror which can be problematic. Let me know your thoughts and I will make any needed modifications, then send it back for your review / approval.
Alex
Here is a possible sink for the powder room and the wall faucet that has been purchased.
White Bronze sink
Wall mount faucet
Here are some possible tile choices:
Secondary Bathrooms.
This would be used on the feature wall (the long side of the tub) with a 6 x 12" white tile on the end walls. The Pewter limestone would be used on the floor as throughout the rest of the house excluding the carpeted bedrooms/closets and studio.
Powder Room
The Limestone would be on the floor and the gilded glass tiles would be on the accent wall behind the Vanity.
Guest Room One (King Guest)
The large format limestone tiles would be used on the floor, the white 6 x 12's would be used on the end tub walls and one of the decorative tiles would be used on the feature wall.
Entry Hall
Kitchen
Powder Room
Master Bath
Guest Bath One
Guest Bath Two
Guest Bath Three
Exterior Shower
Pool Bath
Mud Room
We have some options on Lighting Fixtures to explore.
OPTION ONE:
The Camino (round iron style fixture) that you like doesn't blend well with the other hanging fixtures that we considered. I would recommend that we place one of the large round Camino Fixtures in the middle of the Seating area in the Family Room and one in the very center of the Great Room (centered on the fireplace). The round fixture doesn't work well over the dining table. The smaller fixtures that we used over the table at Cousteau are still available but they don't give off enough light even with combined with recessed lights for a Dining Table when the ceilings are as high as they are at the Villa.
We would then use the wire mesh fixture shown below in the Gallery (three of them). Alternatively, the Camino comes in a 63" diameter and 38" diameter sizes. We could use one of the large in the Family Room and three of the smaller ones in the Gallery and no hanging fixtures in the Great Room.
With either of these scenes we could use the Sconces that you liked in the Entry. Or if we use the French Oak console, we can use two tall buffet style lamps as accent lighting rather than a sconce set.
OPTION TWO
Here we would use the Camino in the center of the Great Room and nothing in the Family room (the room may have lamps depending on what happens with the furniture. We would use the sconces you liked in the Gallery (one set on each side of each door to the four bedrooms) and have no hanging fixtures. We will have a lot of indirect light in there at night so the hall will still be lit well enough. We won't have any hanging fixture over the table. There is a rectangular version of the Camino but we I would hesitate to do that since we don't know the size or the shape of the dining table.
OPTION THREE
We can eliminate all hanging fixtures in the Great Room, the Family Room and all secondary bedrooms. We can put boxes in for them (using best judgement for possible future placement) and put them in sometime in the future when the furnishings are established. The fixtures really have to make sense with the furniture and if we select fixtures without furniture then we limit your possible optimal furniture choices. We can still install the fixture we kept from your Cousteau Master Bedroom in the new Master Bedroom. Or plate that one as well and see how you feel later. We would only need to select fixtures for the walls outside the garage doors and sconces for the Powder Room.
Thoughts?
Here are two different ways we can go: A set of equal double doors that are 3' wide or one 4' door and a 2' operating or fixed panel. In either option, the doors will be 8' tall.
The doors can swing in or out. The most secure doors swing out but that is not typical. The hinges can be exposed or concealed.
The hardware options are three: wide "U" pull, round bar pull and flat bar pull. Or we can use a standard lever. as shown on center door. Click to enlarge.
The piece of wood that hides the gap between the doors is called the astragal. We can do a concealed astragal (below right) or an exposed astragal (above right). To have it concealed we will need to make the doors 3" thick.
Here are some additional images to show a bit more.
The doors are available in Mahogany or Oak. The color samples are shown below, but actual swatches are coming soon.
Here are some suggested items for the Kitchen
This is a commercial style pre-rinse faucet. It also has a pot filler spout. Chrome would be the suggested finish. The single basin sink is 16 gauge steel (the small the number the thicker the steel) as opposed to the 18 and even 21 gauge that some folks use. It also has sound deadening on the bottom and sides.
Here is a polished chrome cabinet pull that comes in various sizes that would work for the Kitchen and Bar. It comes in sizes from 3" to 12" which would allow us to match it to the Ref panels. The 12" version is shown below. With the curve, it is comfortable to hold and no corners on which to catch the pockets of cargo shorts.
Here is the 5" version.
The cabinet pulls in the Mud Room, Pantry and Guest Bath Rooms have the same requirement of ease and finish. We could also use these on the towel cabinet in the pool bath. The piece below would accomplish our goals while allowing the Kitchen hardware to stand alone as a special item. It also comes in various sizes (but none so large as to be used on an appliance). Again I would suggest chrome. The sparkle is nice and is "gutsier" than a satin nickel.
For the Pool Bath and Secondary Guest Baths (not the Powder Room) there are a couple good options. I would suggest that we make them all the same. Both brands have good reputations and are easy to get replacement parts for. Here is the American Standard group. For the Tub/Shower combo units, we would use the trim and valve as shown. For Guest Bath 3 with the large shower only, we would use the tub shower trim and add the hand held to the main head. The diverter would allow the guest to chose which they would prefer to use. Or we can get a valve and trim that has only the single shower head with no diverter. The hand held unit does make cleaning the shower easy and is helpful to guests who don't want to get their hair wet.
Here is a Kohler group. The sink faucet is about 1" taller. The sinks are interchangeable.
This would be a great toilet for all bathrooms (except the Master). It uses the latest double cyclone flush technology and scores at the top of the flushing system tests. This is the Toto Carolina II. There is a toilet from American Standard that also performs very well BUT is only available in a super traditional style. It looks like something that would go in a very traditional bathroom.
In the Master Bath things do get a bit more complicated. There are two options. First we look at the Toto NeoRest. This unit is fully self contained. Secondly, there is the Inax seat which can be placed upon any toilet. Both have remote controls. Inax is the pioneer in luxury Japanese toilets. Here is the difference:
The Neorest is an order of magnitude more complex than the Inax toilet seat alone. Simply, here is much more that can go wrong, which is not saying that something will go wrong, merely that opportunities for failure compound with added complexity.
So which is better?
There is a 27 degree difference between the Inax line of advanced toilet seats and the Toto advanced toilet seats. Inax, which invented the category, determined in its research that for the posterior cleansing function, the optimum angle at which the spray should contact the user is 70 degrees from horizontal or, to put it another way, 20 degrees from vertical. Extending the spray wand properly to deliver the stream of warm water at 70 degrees, however, the wand was not well placed for the feminine (bidet) function, so Inax toilet seats use a second, dedicated, wand for the bidet function.
Toto designed a single wand to perform both the posterior cleansing and bidet functions (from two independent nozzles in the same wand). That necessitated a compromise of the angle of the spray for posterior cleansing. The Toto posterior spray hits the user at an angle of 43 degrees from horizontal, which is to say, 47 degrees from vertical: a 27 degree difference from the Inax.
So for this reason and due to our experiences in Japanese travels, we chose the Inax. On the plus side for the NeoRest, it provides on demand water heating rather than using a small tank so the hot water for the bidet function doesn't ever run out.
Here are a series of solid front doors that I think would be handsome. Ignore the glass sidelights. They are not required but we could do a transom for a bit more light. One of the things that is cool about the wood doors is that we have the option of having a single door with panels that match to each side and it could even be offset on the Porch. The types of handle and hardware would be determined.
Here are additional items for consideration....
Thoughts?
We went out to the site yesterday to place some uprights so that I could be 100% confident of our ceiling heights. I wanted to be sure that the house was not going to look squatty next to the neighbors and to also give a real feeling for the interior heights of the rooms. Most of them very closely meet the Golden Mean so I'm happy about that.
This is the view of the house from the far side of Royal Lane at a height of 6'2. That is about the eye level height of a normal person inside a full size SUV. The shown height of the Master Bedroom ceiling is about the height of the parapet around the roof of the rooms that have 10' ceilings so you can see how it would relate to the street.
Our lovely model Dale is showing the relative heights of the rooms. It's a very grand house for sure. Easily the most handsome in the area. If we have the very private fence at the front, what do you think about using more glass in the front of the Entry. It would be frosted if you like. I ask because I would like to carry the stone that we use on the sides of the porch on into the inside of the entry on the same walls.
Then we would do a cool detail on the wall opposite in a color (Peacock Blue perhaps) that really sets off the Monk painting.
