...and it's looking great! One thing that I have to give you props for is your ability to stay within a reasonable latitude of your original budget, especially when you enter uncharted territory. It's one thing to have the creativity, time, patience and tenacity to pull off managing your own house project, but it takes a world of discipline to exercise restraint when watching the bottom line. Of all the things I have had to encounter with my project, adhering to some semblance of a budget has been easily the most difficult/impossible task.

Regarding the railing, I am very interested to see how you are going to incorporate glass. I looked into possibly doing simple sandblasted tempered glass panels (no handrail) both inside/outside the house, but the cost was unbelievable- over $200 lf. Steel cable seems like a bargain by comparison.

Also, I can't say that I am a big fan of bright yellow. Considering the rectangular shape of the "box," I think you run the risk of giving off a school bus vibe on that section of the house. I guess I'm more of a fan of brightly colored accents or trim details moreso than brightly colored walls. Call me a traditionalist. Ha!

Good luck with the concrete!

Sara,

Cable is your best choice. I just ripped out my glass because it kills birds, needs constant cleaning fogs and frezzes over.

I just started a new company in Portland OR. www.stainlesscablesolutions.com it is going gangbusters. No one can beat my pricing . I am about 60-70% less than cablerail.com

I just sent a package to Michigan . They are using Trex Posts and rail with my cable rail in fill. A really good maintainence free system.

Check out my site and give me a call 503-830-2123

You will LOVE it everyone does.

Best Regards,

Max

We're still considering cable railing and it's nice to have another site for comparison.

Sara,

Thanks for replying if you want me to send a catalog/samples/ pricing let me know just drop me an email on the web. www.stainlesscablesolutions.com

I am importing the product so there is no middle man . Your costs will be dramaticly lower . I also had all of the fittings manufactured to military specs. All of the material is 316 grade stainless. The best.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Max Kimble

Stainless Cable Solutions LLC

Hey Max!

Didn't you just post a few days ago under a different member name? Today you registered as Solutions...

You have to keep track of your passwords buddy!

Hi,

I truly am very sorry . I did forget my password so I had to re register. I hope I have not caused too many problems. I am getting tangled in regards to passwords. Let me know what I can do to resolve this issue.

Best Regards,

Max

Max,

Don't worry about the double registration. I happens to the best of us.

Marshall

just friendly ribbing Max!

Well, it's easy to stay close to the budget when you don't have more money! ;) As it is, our mortgage payment will bleed us dry for the next couple of years.

We found that we wisely chose to hire people where we knew we couldn't do the job. For instance, David tied in the supply plumbing and ran the water main to the house, Copper pipes, soldering and all!. However, he stopped with the waste lines since that requires an experienced plumber for sanitation reasons and there is a high risk of flooding when the system is tested (if you don't know what you're doing). We hired someone to do the carport piers since they go 6' below grade and required steel a 6 yards of concrete. We also hired people to install the evaporative cooler, build our porch, put up most of our siding and hook up our in-floor heating. These were all jobs that we just didn't have the knowledge to do and I think that the cost was unavoidable. The other costs, which were fixed, were extra permitting fees, insurance costs, set crew, craning and most of all, the extra factory transport costs which amounted to $7,000. We also put one month's payment on the loan.

I should mention that the back module is not very visible from the street and that there is a lot of general privacy anyway. I want to save the house from being too gray. Gray seems like a modernist version of beige and I think it's wise to inject some kind of color. Maybe yellow just doesn't work? It feels quite different in real-life than from the renderings and I think the yellow is too buttery. Actually, I wanted to paint the back module with a reactive iron paint that naturally oxidizes but David wasn't sure about that. Well, paint can be easily changed...

You may be past this point, but you might want to think about all three colors at once instead of just focusing on the yellow. There are four different strategies for color schemes involving three colors. All involve starting with a 12 part color wheel: three primary colors (or hues), the three complimentary colors and then the tertiary colors that fit in between those six.

The analogous scheme uses three hues next to each other on the wheel (e.g. yellow-green, yellow, yellow-orange).

Triads consist of using three hues equadistant from each other on the wheel (e.g. red, blue, yellow or green-yellow, orange-red, blue-purple).

Split-complimentary uses a color and the two hues on either side of its complimentary color (e.g. red-orange, green and blue or orange, green-blue, blue-purple).

Monochromatic uses different values and saturation of the same hue.

In each of these, each hue can use varying amounts of saturation and value (that is, the amount of color pigment and the amount of black, white or grey pigment).

So, in a split complimentary scheme, you could pair a strong yellow with a deep eggplant (as the blue-purple) and a light grey with a touch of purple-red in it.

For an analogous scheme, you could pair a deep dark yellow-orange (almost brown) with a strong yellow and a grey with just a bit of yellow-green in it.

Ok, I know you have the siding on the house, but I was just thinking your house would look great with one module a deep blue-purple, another a toned down yellow-orange and the third in galvalume.

Sara, just how tall are you? It's funny that as soon as I saw your picture I thought, "Aha! Now I can get an idea of how "big" the house is."

I like the Photoshopped yellow much better than what you currently have. It reminds me of the yellow that seems to be popular in Oslo. Have you already bought all the paint? Anyway, is this picture after the paint dried or during a fresh application? As far as a metal-reactive paint, I think it would look a little cheesy... those kind of color treatments are just one step away from sponge painting in my book.

An alternative color scheme that would be interesting is a blue with a deep red door. I think it would look great with the other colors you have already chosen. Even a grey with a red door would look great. What are the colors of your garden going to be?

Alternatively you could have some off white and then a bleached white for the two front modules. How does the "natural" color look?

I wonder how much more galvalume siding would be on the left hand module... Vertical galvalume would look awesome with the horizontal hardiboard.

At any rate, the house already looks beautiful. Please keep on with this blog.

Haha...I'm 5'7", pretty average female height so I guess my height is perfect for perspective.

Regarding the cheesy faux painting: David was so opposed to the reactive paint because both brands of metal paint had a picture of a ceramic cherub on their bottles. That immediately turned David off to the idea.

Thanks for the great ideas. I thought the second yellow color was more of a traditional Swedish color as well. The yellow just may need to be changed to a different hue. I also love red but I think it would compete with the landscaping which will be comprised of native Southern California plants (think chapparal) and wildflowers. Yellow seemed natural to me. We will have a large trellis of native grapes on that side of the house which will add green and purple in the summer and turn to red and gold in the fall/winter. There is also a White Mulberry Tree on the same side that has some really nice fall colors, but of lime and yellow. Then there are four eucalyptus trees in the back whose leaves are grayish-sage. Then again, I think red could work if it was real iron-oxide red paint...

the set up for the porch pour looked very good. I like the railing post anchors they used. Are you thinking about letting the straps and bolts all hang out?

As far as the yellow, I don't think it will look like a school bus. Well at least if you keep it away from being too too saturated. The original color swatch was a touch towards yellow from brown mustard. I think that is the zone you want to be in - where you are very close to a muddy or earthy color, but just a step towards color saturation that it looks like it could not possibly be a "natural" color.

I agree with what you're saying about the yellow. I think schoolbus yellow is actually closer to a working shade than what is on the house. I know yellow will work well with the landscaping; it's a very functional color for our location.

I was looking through earth pigments yesterday and found a couple of shades that could work, like this one:

http://www.bioshieldpaint.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_36&products_id=155

Boy i hear ya on the yellows! I've been trying to use gold and mustardy colors on a couple remodels and I've repainted several times. It becomes so much more garrish on a big scale! I painted an exterior a mustard-olive color recently and I can so much crap for it I couldn;t believe it. Once the trim color and accent was up, it woked great, but it's a tough pallette to work in!

I do think Yellows are difficult as well, which is why I personally think it is easier if you stick with a more primary yellow.

See the image below for what I mean. (you'll need to do a cut and paste) http://www.livemodern.com/Members/eamesdaedelus/image.2004-06-18.7162093275

That is great as a stand alone and very eames like, but I'm afraid as a module in a group of 3 its going to walk all over the other tones. The muted tone talks better to the other pieces, and as Adam said it still comes across as strong when on a large surface.

i'm just a real stickler for earth tones and at least on my monitor, I really like Greg's original goldish yellow. It's so hard to get right. i painted the master bedroom on my last house a nice gold color and it ended up looking exactly like French's mustard.

I forgot to mention that the yellow shade was taken from Behr's website then pasted to photoshop and sent to Greg to render. I then purchased the yellow paint from which I sampled the color.

At least on my monitor the actual paint swatch and the rendering are a very close match and somewhere the shade mutated through the steps. I've tried a few more colors on the siding since my last message post and nothing seems to work. Now that the carport and porch are up, the house feels much different anyway and I am thinking about painting the back module bright white and changing the color of the front door to red, green, blue or even yellow.

Honestly, choosing exterior colors is really difficult!

Yes, that's right. Sara emailed me the color swatches which I am able to sample in my 3d software. I can then apply that color directly to the 3d model. After outputting the views I cut and pasted her swatch image into the exported views. Its pretty cool that we can do that.

One of my MCM's is painted yellow. It was diffcult finding the perfect color, but when I did....YIPEEE! The neighbors all loved it and gave me lots of compliments. Now there are several house in the area painted in a similar shade. For some reason yellow on a house makes it seem happy.

The shade I used is very similar, to the that in the photo posted by eamesdaedelus. Maybe a tad lighter.

Sara, I have been following your progress and you have done a wonderful job.

I wanted to say that in that picture it looks as though I should be saying, "Arrgh, I built this house..." I think it's the boots that make it look a little obnoxious, but the truth is that you cannot walk anywhere on the property without ruining your shoes. Now that the porch is poured we'll have an easier time navigating outdoors. Also, grading will take place tomorrow or Sunday and we can work a little on the landscaping afterwards.

The porch was poured today and it looks absolutely terrific! However, we have to exit through the bedroom windows for the next two days. Both of our doors exit the wrap-around porch. Our poor dog, Lucy, is having the hardest time; she really has to go potty and she just doesn't want to use the ramp that we made for her outside of Walter's window. Everyday's an adventure!

Sara,

Eucalyptus trees are a definite plus. The Israelis used them to drain the malaria infested swamplands and tranform the coastline into buildable land. If you are having drainage problems, they'll suck up excess water like a sponge. In addition, the silver, grey, and beige bark is beautiful. It looks like a modernist painting in itself. The garden sounds exciting and low maintenance. I'd really love to see the results when everything is staked out.

I think we're also all ready for a family portrait when the porch has cured and dried. This blog really satisfies my modernist housebuilding voyeurism...

No family portrait would be complete without the hold Sage clan in knee high boots. Be sure to hold up a pirate flag, while you're at it...

that it's "Talk Like a Pirate Week?" At least I heard that somewhere.

I am going to take your color suggestions into consideration and look through some paint swatches today at Home Depot.

Sara, check out this site if you are thinking of going traditional stain,I have used this with good results, additionally (hope it's ok to mention) I have quantity of the Brownstone anbd Fieldstone color +cleand+etcher+clear coat left from other job at well below retail. if interested you can email direct (I'm in the Torrance area so could possibly deliver) SITE ADDRESS http://www.superdeck.com/

keith_reeves@ahm.honda.com

WE are really happy for you. The design is so efficient (we love Greg's work) and your concept is just plain smart.

Keep the updates coming. As you know, my wife and I want to work with Greg on a Washington State beachhouse, potentially also of modular construction, so I am particularly interested in the things that worked out with Irontown and the things that required fixes.

For example, it's interesting to learn that siding on site might not have been a great idea after all given the damage to the housewrap and the work you guys had to do to fix it. The roofing problems and the hydronic heating system issues also.

On the other hand, it's very cool that Irontown's engineer was able to resolve the roof support and do so without the beams (not that they weren't cool but the end result is super clean!).

As for us, we remain unsure of any modular factories that would be willing to work with us on a one-off of our design. We appear to out of Irontown's service area and shipping would be a $$$ bear.

Instead, I am considering working with a Washington company that builds houses by panels assembled in their factory and then raised at the site. Since they do all of GC work, we could relax and let them take over the project and they still project out to less than $ 90 a sq ft.

Look forward to your continued updates!

David

You may be past this point, but you might want to think about all three colors at once instead of just focusing on the yellow. There are four different strategies for color schemes involving three colors. All involve starting with a 12 part color wheel: three primary colors (or hues), the three complimentary colors and then the tertiary colors that fit in between those six.

The analogous scheme uses three hues next to each other on the wheel (e.g. yellow-green, yellow, yellow-orange).

Triads consist of using three hues equadistant from each other on the wheel (e.g. red, blue, yellow or green-yellow, orange-red, blue-purple).

Split-complimentary uses a color and the two hues on either side of its complimentary color (e.g. red-orange, green and blue or orange, green-blue, blue-purple).

Monochromatic uses different values and saturation of the same hue. In each of these, each hue can use varying amounts of saturation and value (that is, the amount of color pigment and the amount of black, white or grey pigment).

So, in a split complimentary scheme, you could pair a strong yellow with a deep eggplant (as the blue-purple) and a light gray with a touch of purple-red in it. For an analogous scheme, you could pair a deep dark yellow-orange (almost brown) with a strong yellow and a gray with just a bit of yellow-green in it.

Ok, I know you have the siding on the house, but I was just thinking your house would look great with one module a deep dark blue-purple, another a toned down yellow-orange and the third in galvalume.