house-to-be - looking for suggestions for spiffing up

[brad]

Hi,

I've got this house under contract, and am looking for suggestions on how to spiff up the outside. The inside is very nice and contemporary, but the outside just needs something.

The picture attached shows a fake front entrance bump-out thing in the middle of the front. You walk through this, then through an actual exterior door, then you're in the kitchen. We want this bump-out thing gone, as well as the exterior door inside. Once this inside door is gone we'll want to put at least 1 window there, as this is a south facing wall and the kitchen in there is a bit dark.

If you look on the far left of the house front, you'll see the actual front door. Inside of this door is a coat closet, and it just makes sense to me to keep the front door. The problem is, that guests will have to make their way to this door somehow. There's a fair elevation to overcome from the concrete pad to this door. We don't like the look of the deck now, and would like to change the landscaping and probably clear out the deck.

What do you all think about this? We also don't like the mismatching windows. We've got the very contemporary wall of windows near the funny balcony that don't match these other windows very well. We might be able to make the other windows match by removing the fake shutters.

We also plan on eventually replacing the el-cheapo blue siding with something nicer.

I'm open to suggestions ... any ideas?

Thanks for your time!

[Cole]

Do you have any more pics?

[brad]

Thanks for looking. That's the only exterior one I have, but the two below show a little more:

In the first shot, you can see the door at the far end of this room, which is show on the far left in the exterior shot. This might give you a better idea of the layout of the house. The room this one was taken from runs the full depth of the house on the left side.

The second one I just attached looks out the large set of windows in the great room. You can see from the first shot where this room sits. It's got vaulted ceilings, and is the big reason we went for this house :) The ceilings are another story, since I don't know how we're going to reach all the way up there to scrape off the popcorn, or change out the ceiling fans eventually.

[giddonah]

a red, white and blue living room. how patriotic.

that balcony looks funny for the shape of the house. everything is so boxy, is there a way to break up some of those lines?

[giddonah]

That door on the front where the stairs go, what is that, a mud room? It looks like the house needs a room there, or a big enclosed porch. It would break up the "big box" vibe I'm getting.

[brad]

Yeah - the balcony was a bad idea. We've already decided that it's a goner. It's not even usable - it's got maybe two feet of decking out from the house. We plan to replace that with a window soon. It seems to be more dangerous than anything.

The door on the front, just up from the stairs, leads into an unheated vestibule-type room. My thought is that someone put it there as a way of creating a front door closer to the driveway. As I said before, the proper front door is on the far left of the house.

We've discussed tearing that vestibule out and replacing it with a window as well. The vestibule isn't insulated, isn't heated, and once you make in that first door, you've still got a true exterior door to pass through. I think the vestibule only emphasizes the boxiness

We're open to removing the vestibule, putting a window in there, tearing the front deck down, and doing something to emphasize the true front door. The only problem is getting the visitor from the drive to the front door. It's a decent height distance to overcome there.

I agree, it is quite boxy, but the inside floor plan is so nice. That's what sold us on it. I think they ran out of money once the inside was done, and went cheap outside.


It's a 2400sf house already, so we don't need more space. We're hoping to figure out what we can do do de-boxify it without doing any major, major work.


Keep the opinions, ideas, whatever coming! I appreciate it!

[Thumper]

... I'm open to suggestions ... any ideas? ...


Hows about adding a couple windows to balance things a bit or perhaps a feature bump-out over the wide garage to formalize or give scale to that side...

something like this:

http://www.srvsup.com/netstuff/image1.jpg
http://www.srvsup.com/netstuff/image2.jpg
http://www.srvsup.com/netstuff/image3.jpg

[brad]

Wow! I really like that. Thanks.

The bump-outs really add something - but I'm pretty sure that part of that something is a fair amount of cost...

I do see where you're going with the windows. The window selection seemed sort of haphazard. If we balanced out the front with better window spacing and windows that are more consistent with the big ones on the side, I can see how that will really help.

I like your idea for the front deck and the overhang. I'm sure that would really draw attention away from side. Your illustration really helps take my mind off the blue...

Can you think of any alternatives to the bump-outs and roofline changes that would be lower cost?

The space right above the widest garage door is the kitchen, and right above that is a bedroom. The only vaulted part of the ceiling is in the corner of the house over the human-size garage door. Those big windows look great, but just wouldn't work right there. In the kitchen we've got cabinets to deal with also.

I really love those ideas.

[VALENT]

wow Thumper thats pretty impressive.

[Cole]

Thumper, it looks like chief architect?

Am i right?

[VALENT]

Cole you still want to do some renderings for me?

[Cole]

sure, of what?

[Thumper]

Thumper, it looks like chief architect?

Am i right?

Naw, that's just a quick commercial-off-the-shelf product called Punch Platinum Pro ($99 CDN) I've just recently upgraded to the newer Archetictural 4000 Series ($120 CDN) version but haven't had time to play with it much yet. They're nice programs for just the fun of 2d-3d quickie renderings, fly-bys and materials take-off lists and such. a great tool when trying to show the draftsperson your conceptual ideas before he's goes into autocad.

I had a quick 15 or 20 minutes to play around during the afternoons febar teleconference (Fiscalyear End Budget Allocations Review) which are always "fubar", I've already spent my 3 mil gove'y dollars for the year so it was either play or sleep on the desk... again, & my office assistant snikers at me when she catches me snoozing too much on tax-payers time :oops:

[VALENT]

cole, of my house in the showoffs index

[Cole]

Pm me with you want?

I will work out something.