We got the first perspective drawings today, and they’re looking great, we think! We like them so much; this design is pretty much final. These drawings also show much better the interplay in colors and surface structures between the white concrete and the brown wood.

I laughed so hard when I saw the BMW parked in front of the house in this sketch; I guess the artist was hoping we’d have some serious budget to spend. Hopefully our grey Toyota will look just as nice in the driveway. I do like the way the wood frames the windows nicely on the second floor, and the way it hides the downstairs bathroom window. The wood paneling above the main entrance also helps to make the house seem less imposing. We’ll have to come up with a better design for the fence, though; we don’t like the one proposed here.

The rear also came out pretty well, except that we’d like to redo the fence here also, and use a different kind of stone for the exterior basement wall (something darker and in mixed sizes). The many windows come out better here than in the initial design, and this design looks like it might actually work. We’ll have to work through the details of the windows to determine cost – the fixed glass windows that don’t open should come out much cheaper. We also like the wooden “grills” below the windows in the Master’s bedroom, which hide sliding vents that open up to increase air circulation. The house is located quite high up, and we expect to not need to use air conditioning on most nights of the year.