I'd love to hear your advice on modern interior details and really anything else

So we are nearly finished designing a 2500 sq ft modern lake (stick built) house in the Sierra foothills in No CA.  Have a decision or two on some exterior materials (corten maybe) but mainly concentrating on interior decisions. Spent most of yesterday reading a lot of posts on this site. Very helpful, thanks all.  But I still would like to hear advice/suggestions/warnings on really just about anything.  Planning a 2 level, floating stairs (just learned this term yesterday) stained concrete floor on bottom floor.  Let's see here are some unresolved issues:

 

1) Will go and look at Ikea, Kraftmaid Venecia cabinets (again learned about this yesterday on the site)

2) We have a wall of windows facing E toward the lake but still don't know which manufacturer (or commerical or residential to look at) what affordable quality (who doesn't?) I learned the word fenstration yesterday but will probably not use it too much.

3) Not sure about floors on top story (bedrooms and library), cork, bamboo, tile, MDF??? Want attractive but durable and easy to take care of.

4) Lighting?  Need a modern lighting 101, really

5) will go with tankless water heater

6)Will go with cable system for stairs and other places where this is needed (best value manufacturer?)

7) wanted 9 ft doors on the interior but designer said these were very expensive, thoughts?

9) Have a wood burning fireplace but found a post about a really neat metal surround solution

 

What else should I be thinkng about?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

 

Hey William - I have a couple of thoughts: 1) When I went to price out doors, I found that, of course, the cheapest size is a standard 6'8" size. But I wanted 7' doors. Those turned out to be VERY expensive, as your 9' doors would be. It turns out that an 8' door is a reasonably priced alternative to a standard size door. Consider 8' doors. 2) We have cork floors (Natural Cork; Douro) in the bulk of our house and MDF in the kid's rooms: both get oohs and aahs from visitors equally. If your looking for a good value/design factor, I would look at MDF for your floors. If your budget allows, cork is a very nice floor with many nice properties including anti-microbial, quiet and soft.... 3) I used Ikea cabinets and was really impressed with them. A great site for further reading is www.ikeafans.com. Lots of good info there. We used a door called Arlig Medium Brown, which is not in display in most Ikea stores - in fact, most of their employees don't even know about it. It is probably their cheapest door, but it looks really nice, quite convincing for a foil finish door. And for me, I like not having to worry about the kids destroying them....... 4) Regarding tankless water heaters; make sure you have it located centrally in your house. Or, if your house has a good distance between rooms needing water, I strongly recommend splitting the hot water chores between two or more units. Tankless' only turn on after a set amount of time has elapsed AND a certain amount of water flow has been reached. After that, the cold water has to be cleared from the pipe and only then do you start to get actual hot water. My experience is that if you install only one tankless to service a house of the size you are building, you will have unhappy people in the far flung areas waiting for hot water. Take a minute with your designer and plumber to find a way to make the runs to each room as short as possible. I installed two TWH's in my house, one big one to service most of the house, and a small one to service the kid's bath, which is more removed. It's working out great, with water delivery as good or better as a standard water heater. Additionally, I also had the plumber install an additional line between the two water heaters so if one failed I could still limp along with hot water for the whole house using only the one heater still working. Hope this helps! -R.

I am at a similar place in the design process.  I am just starting to make decisions on interior materials for my home.

For my exterior we considered corten steel.  I love the look but decided not to use it as it can rust through and fail within ten years and you have to do considerable planning to accommodate the staining on surrounding surfaces.  We have decided to use a gray Oklahoma sandstone in a dry stacked thin random ashlar pattern, small square corrugated galvalume (this shape minimizes oil-canning), and flint colored Cembonit applied as a rain screen.

For interior suggestions:

1)       I am going to have custom cabinetry made to my specs.  The pricing should be similar to Kraftmaid with better quality.  They will feature flush doors, plywood boxes, hardwood doors, door frames and end panels.  Lowers cabinets to be predominately large drawers.  Uppers will utilize generous height in room and may feature random sizes and Mondrian pattern.

2)       For windows we will probably use Gerkin Rhino anodized thermally broken aluminum.  They have the storefront look as you can get multi mulled units, but they have the residential price.  I also have a bid out to Fleetwood in CA, still waiting on their price.

3)       I have two big dogs so I can’t use wood floors.  If the budget allows travertine and granite are my floors of choice.  Will probably end up doing sealed concrete on the first floor.

4)       My lighting will mostly be insulated can lights with fluorescent bulbs.  A few modern task lighting fixtures.  Lumens.com is a great place to start.  I love the Cirque ceiling fans by Minka Aire.  They are really atomic 50’s, but I don’t care.

5)       Definitely tankless.  You should consider a minisplit HVAC system from Daikin as well.

6)       I am using horizontal custom fabricated steel railings on my stairs.  Not sure what design.

7)       You should be able to get 96" interior doors for around $200 for solid core stain grade poplar.  I will probably order some five flat panel doors from the following link.  My architect insists that only slab doors are modern, but I grew up in an awful 70’s house with all slab doors and I cannot bring myself to install them in my new modern home.  http://www.door.cc/Craftsman_Doors_Veneer.html

8)       I was thinking about having a horizontal firebox fabricated from heavy steel plate.  Totally custom size without the need of an expensive full masonry chimney.  Just an idea.

 

If you have any great sources for interior design elements please share them with me.  Thanks!

Thanks, both of these replies are very helpful.  I'll update as we find out information and make decisions.

Have you considered Forbo?  We installed this fabulous flooring in 2 different houses and I swear by it.  I have had stained concrete, bamboo, polished concrete, carpet, tile as well as the Forbo.  My favorites are the polished concrete and the Forbo.  It wears like iron and the color goes all the way through.  And speaking of colors.........hundreds of choices.  My husband is a commerical architect and we also have a home building company.  Forbo goes into hospitals and other commercial areas.  It makes a great option for the home.  It comes in sheets, tiles, and a new product called "click" which is sort of like the laminate strips.

My son loved it in his bedroom because he could do homework on the floor and play with his legos.  It also stood up to the popsicles and science projects.  I loved it in the kitchen because it doesn't show dirt and always looks awesome. 

Good luck!

i'm finally nearing completion of my new house and i see that we have made similar decisions.

 

1.  i went with the Kraftmaid Venecia - higher quality than ikea, not too much more $.

 

2.  Loewen windows are not inexpensive but a good value considering windows of similar quality.  Most windows at this price are pine, Loewen uses CVG Douglas Fir (if you're into the wood interior thing).  your dealer can order these with a more modern look than their catalog shows.

 

3. i went with bamboo for my upstairs.  do your research here; there are alot of horror stories about bamboo.

 

4. i like the recessed can lights.  there are many trims available for these.

 

5. i put in 1 large tankless water heater.  I was worried about the long run times to get hot water to the far reaches of the house also.  My solution was to install a recirculating pump that is activated by motion sensors in the bathrooms.  It sounds a little complicated but its pretty simple:  when someone walks into the bathroom the sensor tells the pump to circulate water in the system;  the heater senses the flow and activates.   by the time you turn on the hot tap, the pump has circulated the now hot water to the faucet-"instant" hot water too!  this cost less than $100.  I also have solar panels that supply 70%-80% of my hot water energy (radiant floor too).

 

6. i was shocked at how expensive cable railings were!   i recieved several bids to do this work: the online fabricators were $15,000 and $20,000.  most of the local fabricators were a little less.  however, hard work really paid off for me here.  I finally found a fabricator that built my entire staircase and rail frames for less than $10,000.  i bought the cable and hardware online and will install it soon.

 

7.  I agree that 8' doors will be cheaper and easier to find.  I still had problems finding 8' that i liked.

 

i used Corten on my exterior also.  after alot of consideration, i found that it was easier to make the Corten look good by contrasting it with other materials (stucco and CVG Douglas Fir here).  Don't underestimate the cost of the flashings that will have to be fabricated.  the flashing material and fabrication added more than 30% to the job (which was not cheap to start with).