#traditional front yard with stone landscaping in the summer. landscape lighting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

handymanremodeling8151 · 3 years

Link

Best Block Wall Contractor Services and Cost in Albuquerque NM | Best Albuquerque Handyman & Remodeling

More information is at: https://handymanalbuquerque.org/block-wall-contractor-near-me/

Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM: Looking for Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM? Best Albuquerque Handyman & Remodeling, we also can offer homeowners a variety of choices when it comes to the construction of your retaining wall. We’re able to offer these options because we’ve built hundreds of retaining walls over the years constructed of a variety of materials on a vast array of landscapes. Cost? Free estimates! Send us a message or call us today. Best block wall contractor Services around Albuquerque NM. Albuquerque NM Block Wall Contractor specialized we can show you multiple options to choose from during our free in-home retaining wall installation estimate. We serve Albuquerque NM and other areas. Get a Free Quote Now!

BLOCK WALL CONTRACTOR SERVICES ALBUQUERQUE NM ALBUQUERQUE NM BLOCK WALL CONTRACTOR

EXPERIENCED RETAINING WALL CONTRACTOR Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM: At Best Albuquerque Handyman & Remodeling, the walls we build range from 100% functional to 100% aesthetics and everything in between. Retaining walls are one of the unique components of landscape installation that have both practical and aesthetic purposes. In addition to being a very attractive way to spruce up your landscape, they also can allow for more usable space, provide more area for plantings and solve drainage issues on your property. Having a retaining wall professionally installed can also add value to your home or business as they increase curb appeal and offer aesthetic appeal that home buyers are looking for in an outdoor space. If you have your wall installed with the right materials and proper methods, your retaining wall will stand up to the test of time and weather regardless of whether you reside in Binghamton or if your retaining wall will be enduring the harsh lake weather in Albuquerque NM.

Retaining Walls Add Value to Your Home There are many improvements you can make to your home that will increase your home’s value and installing a retaining wall is no exception. In fact, adding a retaining wall to your home is one of the most affordable and impactful ways you can accomplish this goal. By adding tiers to your landscape you’re giving yourself more value in your outdoor space by making more outdoor living space for a stone patio, outdoor kitchen area to extend the season in your Binghamton home or an outdoor fire pit to enjoy your lake views in Ithaca. With the long winters we experience in the north east, adding a retaining wall is a great way to take advantage of the beautiful spring, summer and fall weather.

A Best Albuquerque Handyman & Remodeling and Landscaping Offers a Variety of Choices Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM: Along with offering a variety of natural and fabricated building materials to choose from, we also can offer homeowners a variety of choices when it comes to the construction of your retaining wall. We’re able to offer these options because we’ve built hundreds of retaining walls over the years constructed of a variety of materials on a vast array of landscapes. You can choose form a gabion wall which is a stone-filled mesh we can shape to fit your landscape, a dry stack wall built from tight fitting stones with no mortar, or a traditional interlocking block wall made from environmentally friendly materials. We can show you multiple options to choose from during our free in-home retaining wall installation estimate.

Our Retaining Walls are Durable and Low Maintenance When installed correctly, retaining walls are extremely low maintenance and worry free. Once constructed, there’s not much more to do than enjoy the extra space you have in your landscape and choose some plantings to accent your yard. Retaining walls built from durable materials such as concrete block or natural stone are designed to stand up to the harsh weather conditions Albuquerque NM are well known for. Our installation experts can also guide you on drainage issues and take appropriate drainage measures to ensure your retaining wall won’t buckle as the earth behind it settles. Because you won’t have to spend any extra time or money on replacing or repairing your wall, it makes a great, long-term investment for your home.

Retaining Walls are a Very Highly Functional Element in Your Landscape Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM: A properly installed retaining wall can handle several tons of weight behind it for decades without any issues or maintenance. This fact is why many homeowners choose to build retaining walls on slopes that can vary from 50 to 70 degrees. If you have a steep hill in your yard then imagine the possibilities you would have by cutting the slope back by 10-15 feet through the installation of a retaining wall. You’ll be able to create an eye-catching, space saving living area in your backyard that will allow for endless hours of summer relaxation. In the front yard of your home you can cut your yard back to provide for more driveway space, more parking area, and a flatter, more appealing yard that is easier to mow and adds curb appeal to your home.

What You Need to Know About Retaining Walls When it comes to building a retaining wall on your Albuquerque NM property, it’s imperative that you hire the right retaining wall contractor to do the job for you. Lots of homeowners can attest to poor workmanship and the expense involved repairing poorly built retaining walls. You want your new wall to not only protect your landscape from soil erosion, but also to make a statement of beauty. And you want to blend it in with your overall landscape’s theme to make a statement. Here are seven ways that retaining wall contractors can design and build a retaining wall for you that is both appealing and practical:

Hire the right retaining wall contractor. Yes, we recommend our services at Best Albuquerque Handyman & Remodeling, but it’s important to hire professional retaining wall contractors who are able to help you design, prepare (both the area where your wall will be constructed, as well as the building permits needed to construct your new wall). You want your new retaining wall to be sturdy and long-lasting. Make sure that you have the right design that meshes with your overall landscape design. We use a variety of masonry to build your retaining wall including: ● Natural stone ● Cultured stone ● Block ● Brick ● Concrete And in today’s world of stone, brick, block and concrete, you have a wide variety of choices in color, design, and texture. Avoid building a boring retaining wall. You can add the following to your retaining wall design: ● A fountain or a water feature ● An outdoor fireplace ● Lighting features ● A built in bench ● Steps ● Wall caps for a completed look.

Cost of Concrete Block Wall Block Wall Contractor services near Albuquerque NM: Don’t let your remodeling budget go overboard by hidden surprises understand what the average installed costs for Concrete Block Wall is in your zip code by using our handy calculator. If you’re looking for breakdown for Cost of Concrete Block Wall materials and what installation cost might be, you’ve come to the right place. As an experienced licensed home improvement contractor, I know firsthand what it should cost for various levels from Basic, Better, and of course the best. This Concrete Block Wall estimator will provide you with up to date pricing for your area. Simply enter your zip code and the square footage, next click update and you will see a breakdown on what it should cost to have Concrete Block Wall installed onto your home A 10 x 10 area = 100 square feet. ● Cost can add up quickly, especially if you’re a novice and have never attempted a Concrete Block Wall installation before. I would strongly recommend you hire a licensed and Insured Concrete Block Wall contractor to perform the installation for you. ● Be sure to have a copy of the Concrete Block Wall Manufacturer’s recommended installation requirements before starting, to make sure your project doesn’t end up costing you more money in the long-run. Concrete Block Wall – Pricing and Installation Cost Checklist ● Get at least 3-5 estimates before hiring a Concrete Block Wall contractor — estimates are typically free, unless it’s a service call for a repair. ● Expect the Concrete Block Wall prices to fluctuate between various companies – each and every company have different operating expenses and overhead. ● Try to get prices in late fall, early winter – you should expect aggressive pricing discounts by waiting for a contractor’s down season. ● Try to budget and additional 7-15% more on top of what our calculator gives out for Concrete Block Wall costs. ● Visit every supply house that sell your particular brand of Concrete Block Wall and try to negotiate a better price with each supplier – I save on average 20%. ● Remember, there are multiple styled homes in the Albuquerque NM. So keep that in mind and try to budget a little more, before starting your Concrete Block Wall project. Cost to Install a Concrete Block Wall - Notes and General Information These estimates are for BASIC work performed in serviceable conditions by qualified trade professionals using MID GRADE materials. Work not mentioned on this page and/or work using master craftsman, premium materials and project supervision will result in HIGHER COSTS! These estimates are NOT substitutes for written quotes from trade professionals. Home Wyse strongly recommends that you contact reputable professionals for accurate assessments of work required and costs for your project - before making any decisions or commitments. The cost estimate includes: ● Costs for local material / equipment delivery to and service provider transportation to and from the job site. ● Costs to prepare the worksite for Concrete Block Wall Installation, including costs to protect existing structure(s), finishes, materials and components. ● Labor setup time, mobilization time and minimum hourly charges that are commonly included for small Concrete Block Wall Installation jobs. The cost estimate does NOT include: ● Costs for removing, relocating, repairing, or modifying existing framing, surfacing, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems - or bringing those systems into compliance with current building codes. ● Costs for testing and remediation of hazardous materials (asbestos, lead, etc.). ● General contractor overhead and markup for organizing and supervising the Concrete Block Wall Installation. Add 13% to 22% to the total cost above if a general contractor will supervise this project. ● Sales tax on materials and supplies. ● Permit or inspection fees (or portion thereof) required by your local building department for your overall project.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Q: Will a retaining wall block my view? A: This will depend on where your wall will be built. Since many residential retaining walls are used to reinforce the foundation near exposed basements, it’s likely the view from the basement windows will be blocked by a new wall.

Q: What are retaining walls? A: Retaining walls are brick or stone block walls made to prevent damage from erosion or surface runoff on angled or elevated property. They may be used on residential or commercial property to prevent water and soil from shifting and changing the landscape.

Q: What are the benefits of a retaining wall for my home? A: Residential retaining walls are most often used to protect exposed basements from the effects of erosion. With enough time and rain, soil can block basement doors and windows if not restrained by a retaining wall. Houses on top or below high hills also benefit from retaining walls. For homes on top of hills, retaining walls keep the foundation from shifting. For homes at the bottom of a hill, a retaining wall will keep loose soil from building up around the house. Different placement of a wall will provide different results for your home and yard.

Q: What are the benefits of a retaining wall for my business property? A: Commercial retaining walls provide functional support and aesthetic appeal to business properties. When constructing a new building, retaining walls help keep the area level by controlling the grading.

Q: What are retaining walls made from? A: Most retaining walls are created by interlocking blocks made from brick or stone, though some are made from poured concrete or even wood.

Q: How many different looks are available for retaining walls? A: There are countless possibilities for your commercial or residential retaining walls. Blocks are available in different sizes, a variety of colors, and from different materials. The walls themselves may be anywhere from a single foot tall to several feet tall. Ask our Arbor Earth & Stone contractors for details about custom retaining wall designs for your property.

Q: What are decorative retaining walls? A: Decorative retaining walls add to the appearance of your property while providing protection from erosion or surface runoff. Different bricks, patterns, and colors will give you a customized wall to match your home and other landscaping features.

Q: What are segmental retaining walls? A: Brick or stone blocks are stacked in an interlocking pattern to create segments along your wall. This is different from some retaining walls which are a single piece of poured concrete or made from slatted wood. The blocks have to be specifically placed to ensure the fit is right and the final wall will be strong.

Q: How are retaining walls different from seawalls? A: Seawalls are made for shoreline protection. Though they act in the same manner as retaining walls by preventing erosion, they are only located along the banks of a body of water. Building a stone or brick retaining wall too close to the water can cause the wall to fail. If you own a waterfront property, ask our team how retaining walls and seawalls will protect your land.

Q: How high can a retaining wall be? A: Several factors will determine how high your retaining wall will be. Some walls may only need to be 2 feet high while others on commercial land might exceed 40 feet. It will depend on your property and how much protection you need the wall to provide. Our experts will determine the right size for your retaining walls.

CALL US FOR: ● Block Wall Contractors Near Albuquerque NM ● Block Wall Repair Contractors ● Block Wall Contractors ● Concrete Block Repair Contractors ● Block Wall Repair Near Albuquerque NM ● Concrete Wall Contractors ● Block Retaining Wall Contractors ● Block Contractors ● Block Wall Cost Calculator Albuquerque NM ● How Much Is A Block Wall Per Square Foot? ● Stone Wall Cost Calculator ● Brick Wall Cost Calculator ● Block Laying Rate ● Concrete Retaining Wall Cost ● Cost 50 Foot Retaining Wall ● Keystone Retaining Wall Cost Albuquerque NM

BEST BLOCK WALL CONTRACTOR SERVICES IN ALBUQUERQUE NM BEST ALBUQUERQUE HANDYMAN & REMODELING REQUEST MORE INFORMATION. CONTACT US NOW!

0 notes

architectnews · 3 years

Text

Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica, Slovenia

Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica, Slovenia Commercial Architecture, Competition Winners, Images

Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Slovenia

Updated 18 Dec 2020 + 30 July 2020

Maestoso Hotel & Spa

Design: Enota

Location: Lipica, Slovenia

Construction of Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica has begun!

Added images:

30 July 2020

The stud farm was founded in 1580 when a decision was made at the Habsburg court to raise horses, a key strategic commodity of the time, in their own territory. The Andalusian horse proved to be ideal – the Karst, where the stud farm is located, is very similar to Spain in its soil and climate, likely leading Charles II, Archduke of Austria to use the abandoned summer mansion belonging to the archbishop of Trieste for the court stud farm. Two hundred years of intensive breeding and selecting for desirable traits ultimately produced the renowned Lipizzaner breed.

The area of cultivated karst landscape of Stud Farm Lipica comprises laid out pastures and meadow areas featuring protective fences, oak groves, and tree lanes. Lipica’s cultural landscape is a self-contained and redeveloped natural environment whose development has been rooted in the centuries-long tradition of raising purebred horses.

As required by the horse-breeding, people have ameliorated and cultivated the barren karst landscape into surfaces suitable for grazing and haying. Lipica thus gained its present-day congruous appearance before 1817, as evidenced by a contemporary land survey depiction. Even before this time, the entire estate had been homogenously fenced off by a typical karstic dry stone wall 8 km in length.

Such extensive undertaking did not merely fulfil the functional aspect but also held symbolic significance for the comprehensiveness and exceptionality of Lipica’s cultural landscape. In the historical sense, the land use has always been committed to uninterrupted raising of the singular breed of horses. The spatial congruity of the original stud farm producing one of the oldest breeds of horses gives Lipica’s cultural landscape the mark of exceptionality and makes it peerless on a global scale.

The historic built core of Lipica, designed around the Renaissance mansion, gained the appearance of a congruous whole in the early decades of the 17th century. Through the ages, it had continued to develop until large tourist accommodation buildings were built in the 1970s, as the exceptionality of Stud Farm Lipica piqued the interest of visitors from across the world.

Maestoso Hotel & Spa is the largest of all accommodation buildings in Lipica. Together with the casino, it is the visitors’ primary contact with the stud farm environment. Its relatively aggressive appearance – due to the use of architectural elements of a certain period – poses a strong, even distracting contrast with the smoothness of the access paths used by the visitors to access the complex as a whole.

The distinctive line of white fences which undulate among the green tree lanes and the rest of the upkept natural landscape with the grazing herds of the celebrated white horses terminates rather ungraciously at the car park with the overbearing presence of the existing hotel building.

The fundamental guideline in designing the renovation and expansion of the hotel was to find a way to tone down the building’s presence in the space. Instead of the customary pursuit of the most appropriate appearance, the main consideration became the attempt at dematerialising the built masses.

The proposed intervention proposes purging the hotel’s facade of all added architectural elements and unifying the structure’s expression by establishing a new, light load-bearing structure of the balconies, which have so far only featured on parts of the buildings. The new structural membrane enveloping the entire hotel and swimming pool area establishes a sort of an intermediate space between the buildings and the landscape.

The interplay of light and shade breaks down the monolithic built masses and, together with the envisaged greening of the existing volume with climbing plants, dematerialises the building to the greatest extent possible and endows it with a distinctive and recognisable character. The swimming pool building, which doesn’t feature balconies and where the large glass surfaces represent the key element of the existing facade, sees the timber-structure enclosure augmented with reflective glazing, which further dematerialises the volume.

Special attention was devoted to the planned expansion of accommodation capacity, which would contribute to the already substantial built mass. Crucially, all the existing service- and other un(der)used facilities are repurposed as new accommodation; in this way, the increase in capacity is found primarily on the inside rather than on the outside. The only additions to the original volume are a reduced deck floor, which replaces the currently unused gable roof, and a short courtside wing of the hotel. The latter does double duty of also blocking the views from the existing rooms onto the service yard, another insensitive formerly intervention into this delicate space.

For the building to be better connected with the cultural landscape, the renovation intervention also envisages the elimination of the car park immediately in front of the building, transforming it into a park so as to gain the room for the expansion of the covered exterior programme terraces.

All the eaves are also designed as a latticed structure of white timber glue-laminated beams, which provides an additional upgrade to the new, distinctly recognisable expression of the complex. The exterior paving is predominantly executed in compressed bonded sand, which softly links the function surfaces of the hotel with the laid out natural landscape of the stud farm.

The interiors of the renovated hotel and pool section are designed as a modern interpretation of the horse-stable interior spaces. As such, the public programme is designed as a particularly flexible space, which may be adapted depending on a given need using the folding partition walls.

The existing buildings are stripped to the raw concrete structure, which remains visible and acts as a suitable frame for the minimal additional interventions ensuring a warm expression of the interior space. Combining the use of materials which the visitors associate with the materials used in the stables with the visible installations network without needless concealment mentally connects the interiors of all the stud farm’s buildings into a inseparable whole.

The raw iron, timber boards, hay, the concrete floors in the rooms and the floors made of cut wooden dowels in the public programme combined with carefully designed lighting and small, movable pieces of furniture and decoration form a warm space, which becomes a logical enhancement to the complex’s unique programme and location.

Maestoso Hotel & Spa, Slovenia – Building Information

Design: Enota Type: open anonymus competition, first prize Year: 2018 Status: in progress

Size: 11.380 sqm Site: 20.650 sqm Footprint: 6.600 sqm

Client: Holding Kobilarna Lipica Location: Lipica, Slovenia Coordinates: 45°40’07.1″N 13°52’57.1″E

Project Team: Dean Lah, Milan Tomac, Polona Ruparčič, Eva Tomac, Carlos Cuenca Solana, Urška Malič, Sara Mežik, Nuša Završnik Šilec, Peter Sovinc, Jakob Kajzer, Jurij Ličen, Peter Karba, Sara Ambruš, Goran Djokić

Landscape Architecture: Bruto

Images: Collaborators Spacer

Enota

Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica, Slovenia images / information from Enota

Location: Lipica, Sežana, Littoral region, Slovenia

Architecture in Slovenia

Slovenian Architecture Designs – chronological list

Slovenian Architecture News

Selected buildings by enota on e-architect:

Wellness Plesnik, Solčava, Slovenia photo : Miran Kambič Wellness Plesnik

Qicun Hot Spring Healthness Resort, Qicun, Xinzhou, Shanxi, China image courtesy of architects Qicun Hot Spring Healthness Resort

Koper Central Park, Koper image courtesy of architects Koper Central Park

Wellness Orhidelia Wellness Orhidelia

Slovenian Architecture – Selection

Celje Market Design: Arhitektura Krušec Celje Market

Izola Housing Design: Ofis Arhitekti Izola Housing

Slovenian Architects

Comments / photos for the Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica, Slovenia page welcome

The post Maestoso Hotel & Spa in Lipica, Slovenia appeared first on e-architect.

#e-architect

0 notes

dawnjeman · 6 years

Text

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Santa Barbara

The Beautiful Homes of Instagram series is open to any homeowner that I feel that can inspire others. It truly goes beyond the interiors of their home as it’s also about their story, their talent and the positive that their presence can bring to us. When I invited Elizabeth D Burns from @edbdesigns and EDB Designs, I knew she would inspire many of you, but I have to admit that I also feel moved by her approach to design because it’s not only about how the home looks but also how it makes you feel.

As you look at this Santa Barbara home, you can actually feel Elizabeth’s beautiful personality shine through the pictures and I think this is an example we should all pay close attention to. We should create a home that defines who we are. We should bring into our “world” what we truly love, what truly makes us happy – the colors we love, the materials, the textures. Lets make our home become an extension of our energy. We will live better this way. It’s not a trend, it’s not a style, it’s not a label – your home needs to be you and that’s all.

Here, the homeowner shares more about her home:

“On a family vacation to California 14 years ago, I fell in love with the Golden State and the outdoor lifestyle it afforded. Four years later, I spent 9 months house hunting in Santa Barbara. My husband and I owned a 1920’s traditional stone and stucco cottage in Connecticut at the time. If anyone had told me that I would be living in a mid-century modern ranch home, I would have never believed them!

When I first stepped through the door, I knew I was home. Unassuming and hidden from the street, I was surprised by high ceilings and the abundance of natural light. It was a warm day in March and all of the French doors were open to the outdoors with the 12 foot curtains billowing in the breeze. At 1900 square feet with mountain and distant ocean views, I fell hard. The house had only been on the market for one day! I called my husband in CT and we put in a bid that day. Thank goodness he trusted my instincts! A few months later, the house was ours.

The previous owners, with the help of San Francisco architect Nick Noyes, had done a masterful job of converting a closed dark 50’s ranch house into a bright and airy jewel. However, there were definite changes my husband and I wanted to make. He wanted more usable outdoor space with all the California bells and whistles…redwood hot tub, gas fire pit, and outdoor shower. By pushing the yard out another 15 feet, we had room for all of that and a small kitchen garden. Jeffrey Gordon Smith, of JGS Landscape Design, helped to make it happen!

I turned my attention to the inside. I embraced the California life style and used organic touches to bring the outside in. I added to my collection of ocean themed art to create a gallery wall. Light engineered oak floors replaced the yellow toned older floors and wall to wall carpeting. We added a skylight in the kitchen and bathroom and another window in the office. While I loved the tiny green mosaic tiles in the bath, I wanted a brighter space and that became another project. And of course there was paint…a whole lot of white paint. Benjamin Moore White Dove has been my go to white for many years. I used it on walls, trim, and the wood plank ceiling. It became the perfect canvas for art.

With the large number of commercial aluminum windows and French doors, AND our ever- growing collection of sea glass, it seemed only natural to name our home The Little Glass House. I’ve completely succumbed to the California lifestyle and this house has launched my career as a stylist and also garnered a feature in Coastal Living magazine. It’s tag line when we bought it was “step into the light.” We certainly have!”

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: Santa Barbara

A gate brings some privacy to the front courtyard.

Nature

The moment you step in you’re embraced by the calm feeling this home provides.

Privacy

The home is surrounded by trees and beautiful plants, which brings some extra sense of privacy and seclusion.

Front Door

An aluminum and glass front door opens to a long hall leading to the main rooms with direct view to the lush backyard.

Foyer

Bench in entry hall is from Terrain.

Similar Coat Rack: Here & Here.

Living Room

Elizabeth’s home feels open, airy and it’s filled with natural light.

Adding Love

I love creating vignettes indoors and outdoors. I am constantly rearranging things in our home and change pillows and throws with the seasons…. Winter and Christmas is all white, sea glass colors and green in spring and I’ve started using blues a bit in summer (I’ve never been a blue person but I won a beautiful blue pillow and it got me started!) Most of the pillows on the sofa are from Indiebungalow – similar here.

Sofa

Living room sofa is the Cloud from RH in sand Belgian Linen – similar here, here, here, here, here.

Small white stump table is from Farmhouse Pottery – similar here.

Coffee Table

The coffee table is from Kathy Kuo Home – similar here, here, here & here.

Leather Chair

The Leather chair is from Wisteria.

The vintage stool next to leather chair is from Porch – Beautiful wood stool: here.

Accessories

Many of the accessories are from local shops Porch, Mate Gallery, Botanik, Scout, and the Blue Door.

Paint Color

Paint color is Benjamin Moore White Dove on walls, ceiling and trim.

Wool Wrap Natural Pouf: CB2.

Color Scheme

This color scheme feels beachy without being overly coastal. Some of the coastal painting are from One Kings Lane.

Rug

The round jute rug is from Ballard Designs – similar here, here, here & here (in white).

Barn Door

A white barn door conceals a practical built-in desk with built-in bookshelves that serves as the main home office.

Doors

Drapes in living room were here when we purchased the house. The French doors are almost 12′ high and the owner purchased simple white drapes and then sewed a piece of linen to the bottom to make them fit the tall ceilings. I was thrilled she left them. I’m usually not one for window treatments but on the occasional day that we get some hot weather, it’s nice to be able to close the drapes to keep it cooler. I will be forever grateful to my husband who insisted we put in central air. We don’t use it often but it’s nice when it’s needed!

Shop the Look:

(Always check dimensions before ordering 🙂 )

JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.

Dining Room

Dining table and chairs are from RH, the patina of wine and water marks are all us! 🙂

Flooring

Floors throughout are 7.5″ wide engineered oak. The install was a bit of a nightmare in that so many of the pieces were defective with huge knots that we had to pick through every piece and order more. Needless to say, the local company we bought the flooring from is no longer using that vendor! But we are happy with the end result!

Beautiful 7.5″ Wide Engineered Oak Floors: here, here, here & here.

Kitchen

I’m not sure what kind of wood the cabinets are but they had turned a rather orangey color and so I had them painted white. The kitchen tile was existing and I love it! The counters are Caesarstone and the island is 3′ x 6′. The faucet is Grohe, the stove is Viking and the fridge is GE profile. The kitchen is about 18 years old, but with new paint, floors, and a large skylight, it has held up rather well. We used the existing hardware to cut costs.

Kettle: Smeg.

Bread Box: Here (in white).

Durable Cabinet Paint Color

I used Fine Paints of Europe mixed to match the Benjamin Moore White Dove. It is the most durable paint I’ve found but pricey.

Toaster: Smeg.

Counterstools

Counterstools are from Wisteria.

Connection

The kitchen is connected to a cozy and inviting family room with brick fireplace.

Chairs

The two chairs by the fireplace are from Porch – similar here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

Similar Vintage Foot Stool: Here.

Cowhide rug is from World Market.

The black table is from ClubCu – similar here, here & here.

Pillows

The pillows on the fireplace chairs are from Beth Dana Design – similar here, here, here, here & here.

Lighting

The lighting was here when we bought the house. Small halogen fixtures on the ceiling in the main living and dining area and a very cool fixture over the kitchen island also halogen bulbs.

Brick Fireplace

The brick fireplace is painted in Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17.

Elephant table is from Mate Gallery. Baskets are from Porch and Botanik – similar here, here, here & here.

Vintage Console Table

A vintage console table is beautifully decorated with fresh flowers, artwork, vintage finds and books.

Beautiful Console Tables: here, here & here.

Guest Bedroom

Metal bed is from RH with rug from Pottery Barn.

Similar Nightstand: here.

Bench is from Diani Living.

Master Bedroom

Master bedroom bed is from Crate and Barrel. Stools are from Urban Outfitters (similar here) and metal end tables are from Wisteria.

Bench

Bench is from Wisteria – similar here.

View

The master bedroom opens to patio.

Similar Black and White Chevron Bone Inlaid Dresser – here, here, here, here & here.

Bathroom

For the bathroom reno we used RH vanity, lighting and medicine cabinet.

Bathroom Faucet: here.

Similar Sink: here.

Paint Color

Paint is Benjamin Moore White Dove in satin finish on the wood walls.

Shower Tile

The shower tiles are a marble mosaic tile.

Bathroom Garden Stool: here.

Textures

Similar Stool: here, here & here (vintage).

Outdoors

Surfboard is from Mate Gallery and potting table is vintage.

Patio Furniture

Outdoor furniture around the fire pit is the Belvedere Collection from RH with Perennials fabric in Sand. Notice the firepit on the left.

Beautiful Colors

EDB Designs.

Doors & Windows

The windows and doors are commercial aluminum from LA Window Corp. They never need painting!

Cement Table

I love this outdoor vignette. Cement table is from Porch.

Exterior Paint Color

Exterior paint is Benjamin Moore Brilliant White.

Lounge chairs on side patio are from Teak Warehouse.

Roses

EDB Designs.

Vegetable Garden

Imagine having a vegetable garden with a view like that!

Chairs

The small wicker chairs in the garden are from Serena and Lily.

Garden Sculptures and Fountain Inspiration

EDB Designs.

Rosé

Elizabeth, you can invite me over to enjoy a rosé with you anytime!!! 🙂

Zen-Like

An ofuro (Japanese-style hot tub) brings this deck to the next level.

Outdoor Pillows

Pillow: Serena & Lily.

Floor Plan

I am including a diagram of the footprint of the house as seen in the book The Barefoot Home. It was before we purchased the home but except for the yard, that is the floor plan. 🙂

Make sure to follow Elizabeth on Instagram and visit her website for more inspiration.

This Month Best Deals!

Wayfair: Up to 70% OFF – Huge Sales on Decor, Furniture & Rugs!!

Pottery Barn: Flash Sale: Up to 70% Off!

Serena & Lily: Enjoy 20% off. Use Code: SUMMERDAYS

West Elm: Mega Sale – BUY MORE SAVE MORE. Use Code: SAVEMORE

Anthropologie: Extra 40% Off Sale Plus 20% Off Furniture + Decor.

Horchow: Flash Sale: Up to 55% Off!!!

One Kings Lane: Save Up to 70% OFF! Free Standard Shipping on Orders over $99!

Williams & Sonoma: Spring Clearance: Up to 75% OFF!.

Nordstrom: Up to 40% OFF!

JCPenny: Final Hours of Huge Sale. Use Code: 16DEALS

Neiman Marcus: Designer Sale: Up to 40% OFF.

Pier 1: Biggest Memorial Day Sale: Up to 50% Off!

Joss & Main: Memorial Day Steals: Take an Extra 20% OFF with Code: STRIPES!

Posts of the Week:

Interior Design Ideas: Colorful Interiors.

Georgian-Style Manor with Traditional Interiors.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram.

Modern Farmhouse Renovation.

Beautiful Homes of Instagram: California Beach House.

Corner Lot New-Construction Home Ideas.

Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina Home Design.

Grey Kitchen Paint Colors.

New-Construction Family Home Design.

Board & Batten Modern Farmhouse.

Small Modern Farmhouse with Front Porch.

Texas Acreage Modern Farmhouse.

Newest Interior Design Ideas.

Kitchen and Dining Room Renovation.

Interior Design Ideas.

You can follow my pins here: Pinterest/HomeBunch

See more Inspiring Interior Design Ideas in my Archives.

Popular Paint Color Posts: The Best Benjamin Moore Paint Colors

2016 Paint Color Ideas for your Home

Interior Paint Color and Color Palette Pictures

Interior Paint Color and Color Palette Ideas

Inspiring Interior Paint Color Ideas

Interior Paint Color and Color Palette

New 2015 Paint Color Ideas

Interior Paint Color Ideas

Interior Design Ideas: Paint Color

Interior Ideas: Paint Color

More Paint Color Ideas

“Dear God,

If I am wrong, right me. If I am lost, guide me. If I start to give-up, keep me going.

Lead me in Light and Love”.

Have a wonderful day, my friends and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

with Love,

Luciane from HomeBunch.com

Interior Design Services within Your Budget

Come Follow me on

Get Home Bunch Posts Via Email

Contact Luciane

“For your shopping convenience, this post might contain links to retailers where you can purchase the products (or similar) featured. I make a small commission if you use these links to make your purchase so thank you for your support!”

from Home http://www.homebunch.com/beautiful-homes-of-instagram-santa-barbara/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

cathrynstreich · 4 years

Text

Your Best Strategy for Curb Appeal? Your Yard

Obviously, when buyers are searching for a home, the house itself is top priority. But when it comes to choosing among similar houses, your yard can help make your home stand out over others. Here are some tips for creating a yard that boosts curb appeal and lets your home shine.

Take your house into consideration. Create gardens based on the style and architecture of your home. Have a contemporary home? Go with a minimalist landscape or a Japanese garden design. Have a farmhouse? Choose a cottage garden with an informal design, and traditional and dense plantings.

Keep things in proportion. If your home is large, small, dainty flowers won’t showcase it properly. Instead, use plants in a repetitive fashion, such as rows of shrubs. Conversely, if you have a smaller home, make sure it’s not overwhelmed by large shrubs and overgrown plantings. Make sure your garden complements the shape and size of the house. Pay attention to hardscaping. While your lawn and plantings understandably take center stage in your landscape, your hardscaping can make all the difference. Take the time to clean or update walkways, front steps, gravel paths, slate patios, garden borders, etc. Then consider adding elements like a bird bath, garden bench or stone fire pit. Attention to detail when it comes to your yard’s hard surfaces can make or break your lawn, trees and garden beds.

Make your front door the star. Nothing says curb appeal better than a welcoming, attractive passage to your front door. Make the path natural and intuitive so guests easily know how to get to your front door. Accentuate the door or key points along the path with plantings and lighting.

Don’t forget about the seasons. Your landscaping may look great in summer, but how does it fare in winter? Make sure your yard is adorned with trees, shrubs and evergreen selections that add structural interest and a healthy dose of green even on the dreariest winter day.

The post Your Best Strategy for Curb Appeal? Your Yard appeared first on RISMedia.

Your Best Strategy for Curb Appeal? Your Yard published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

0 notes

mastcomm · 4 years

Text

For Valentine’s Day, Nine Stories About Flowers

In addition to being obvious testaments to beauty, flowers are often bound up in human ritual. We give blooms to note a birth, a death and many occasions in between, including the, well, blossoming, of romantic love. At a certain point, though, we long for something more surprising and complex than the single stems of roses and carnations that we might have given to middle school crushes. Here are nine stories that show how else one might think about or use flowers (or even weeds), from turning them into sculptural headdresses to incorporating them into a home-cooked meal — on Valentine’s Day or otherwise.

How to Cook a Meal (Almost) Entirely Out of Flowers

How do you create a flower-centric restaurant that doesn’t feel like a bridal shower? If you’re Alessandra and Mario De Benedetti, you ask your good friend, the artist and writer Leanne Shapton, to paint your walls with a geometric watercolor mural, and you ask Elizabeth Roberts, the architect known for her light-filled, thoughtfully reworked Brooklyn brownstones, to design the rest. The result is a high-ceilinged oasis on 26th Street in Manhattan, a stone’s throw from the flower district, bedecked in pale wood and Patricia Urquiola chairs imported from Italy. The space, Il Fiorista, doesn’t so much look like a bouquet of flowers — rather, it offers the calming, rapturous effect of smelling one. The restaurant’s team shared advice (and recipes) on how to bring floral notes into your next dinner party — without overwhelming your guests. Read more.

Japan in Bloom

What has remained consistent throughout the last 150 years of Japan’s history is its love for cherry blossoms, or sakura, as they are commonly called. Anyone who has even a passing interest in Japan knows this, has seen the photographs of black-suited salarymen having picnic lunches in an incongruously pink landscape, like something out of a child’s fantasy bedroom. When cherry blossom season nears — typically the first and second week of April, though that is changing — news programs and papers start airing and printing cherry blossom reports, sakura zensen, alongside the weather forecasts, noting where and when in the country the trees are or will be in peak bloom. Equivalent environmental reports are made about snow in Colorado or waves in Hawaii or maple leaves in Vermont, but when the West covers the Japanese interest in cherry blossoms, it is often with a faint, patronizing smirk, as if there’s something essentially silly and feminine about being so fascinated by the color pink. Read more.

A Designer Who Makes Impossibly Lifelike Flowers From Everyday Materials

In the designer Sourabh Gupta’s studio, in a nondescript apartment building in East Harlem, flowers bloom on nearly every surface. Towers of hollyhock animate one corner with their showy hot-pink-and-white blossoms. On a nearby bookshelf, pale lady’s slippers, Carolina roses and strawberry buds spring from earthenware pots. Gupta moves about gently tending to his nursery — not with pruning shears and trowels, but with tweezers and a magnifying glass. Only up close is it clear that these perennials are all made of paper, stunningly lifelike down to each delicate pistil and stamen. Read more.

How to Arrange Flowers for an Unexpected, Wild-Looking Table

“I’ve always loved gardening and plants,” says the Brooklyn-based artist Joshua Werber, who is best known for his fantastical floral headpieces. “I’ve been gardening since I was in high school.” Despite his early green thumb, Werber only transitioned from working in ceramic sculpture to floral design in the last decade, initially producing arrangements for settings and events. As part of our series on Summer Entertaining, T asked Werber to create three decorative arrangements for the table using fruits and vegetables, herbs and weeds as each of the separate main components. Read more.

The Power of Wearing Flowers

Long before makeup or millinery or jewelry, our first adornments were plants and flowers, and our love for them was — and is — universal. Perhaps we have never known better. But how and why we wear them has shifted over the years, from the laurel wreaths of the ancient world, bestowed on victors (and deemed so necessary to the functioning of a martial culture that Darius III of Persia, in the fourth century B.C., kept 46 men employed just to weave them), to the floral crowns donned by animists in medieval Europe to dance around maypoles and welcome spring. Read more.

The Studio Delivering Exotic, Color-Coded Flowers

To simply call Buunch a flower delivery service would be something of an understatement. The offshoot of the floral events studio L’Atelier Rouge does, in fact, offer a streamlined selection of color-coordinated arrangements for delivery throughout New York City. But Buunch’s imaginative, effervescent bouquets — which pair unconventional flower selections with shapely, colorful vases — offer an artistic, of-the-moment rejoinder to the usual floral-shop deliveries and the recent wave of digital-first florists. Clients order from a menu on the Buunch website that categorizes current selections by hue: choose “yellow/orange” for a composition made up entirely of fiery gloriosa, perhaps; click “purple/black” for an inky, arachnid-like spray of black millet, lady’s slipper orchids and heuchera leaves; or select “rainbow” for a scattering of dyed baby’s breath and dianthus. Read more.

How the Common Weed Has Grown on Florists (and Chefs)

A weed is unwanted: That is its definition. It is a plant that we have deemed to have no value because it contributes nothing to our life, neither nourishment nor beauty. But now, weeds are not only welcome but guests of honor, proliferating with our blessing across front yards and formal gardens, shacking up with more “respectable” flowers in grand floral arrangements and shaggy bouquets and bringing a whiff of forest and meadow to 10-course tasting menus. This isn’t entirely new: The mid-20th-century English florist Constance Spry, a railway clerk’s daughter, was famed for heaping sprays of cow parsley at high-society weddings and debutante balls, and the revered English gardener Beth Chatto was nearly disqualified from one of her first horticultural shows for entering native flora that one judge ridiculed as weeds. But the current obsession with these unruly plants speaks to a larger cultural moment. Read more.

Guerrilla Flower Installations That Don’t Last Long at All

Even the most ephemeral street art is not usually this fleeting: Minutes after the work is finished in the metallic glint of dawn, passers-by stop, stare — then carry bits of it away, until the whole thing collapses. The act of creation has been briefer than a spring shower; destruction comes even more swiftly. Soon, all that is left is a scattering of petals and twisted stems, curled on the ground like punctuation marks. Photos of the piece survive on social media, of course, as most things now do — a cascade of orchids and echinacea, nature sculpted into a gloriously unnatural state — but even the images are haunted by the specter of wilt; it’s built in. Guerrilla flower “flashes” are taking the most evanescent of the decorative arts into places it has rarely gone. Read more.

The Barren Charms of a Winter Garden

Steven Edney, the English plantsman and horticulturalist, has been challenging the established thinking that values spring and summer blooms above all (sometimes to the detriment of a garden’s biodiversity) and to investigate the possibilities of fall and winter. He has questioned the incessant demand for tidiness and “perfection” in a garden, which leads many to pinch off shriveled flowers before seed heads can form. The traditional argument for this grooming procedure, a routine part of gardening called deadheading, is that it can encourage another bloom. To Edney’s mind, that’s a limited view; a plant’s worth shouldn’t be confined to the brief moment of its most overt and brazen appeal. For a seed head is no drab aftermath. Read more.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/for-valentines-day-nine-stories-about-flowers/

#Life style

0 notes

endlessarchite · 5 years

Text

Painting Our Brick House White!

The weather hasn’t been perfect for photos and our landscaping isn’t looking it’s finest at the moment, but I couldn’t give two flying squirrels because I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED ABOUT OUR PAINTED BRICK HOUSE THAT I LITERALLY CANNOT EVEN. I am unable to even. And I’m a 36 year old suburban mom, so that’s saying something.

Our house is so heartbreakingly beautiful I literally would not be surprised if it started glimmering in the sun like Edward the vampire from Twilight. GO WITH ME HERE, THIS POST IS GONNA HAVE A LOT OF CAPS LOCK. You have been warned.

Today we’re gonna break it all down – what type of paint we used, why we chose it, how the process went, how much it cost, all that good stuff. And I’ll try to go easy on the exclamation points. No promises, though!!!!!!!!!!

Why Paint Our Brick?

The short answer is that we wanted to. This is our third brick house and I’ve daydreamed about painting ALL of them at some point, so this is basically a 12+ year fantasy that has finally been realized. John has been interested in the idea, but he is so dang practical. So his concerns about maintenance or it showing green mildew and stuff like that have always convinced him that it was a bad idea. But after discussing it on our podcast this summer, a lot of our listeners soothed our fears (we heard from dozens of people who have lived in a painted brick house for 10+ years with zero brick maintenance) and then we found a product that gave us the confidence to go full steam ahead. More on that in a minute.

This house, of all of our brick houses, felt like it was the perfect candidate for a painted exterior. We’ve always loved how stately it feels from the curb, and the way it’s situated at the end of the street and framed by large trees just felt like it was poised for greatness. It was also built in the early 80’s, so it wasn’t lovely historic brick that we’d be painting over… just maroon-ish craggy brick with beige uneven mortar. So we had a lot fewer qualms about painting that – as long as it wouldn’t end up being this super annoying thing we had to maintain. Here’s a more detailed shot of our brick so you can see what I mean about the craggy texture and the maroon coloring.

See how the white painted test swatch immediately feels less ragged looking and all of that uneven beige mortar is neutralized? As soon as we saw that test swatch we were like: YES. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN.

And the good news is that we are not town pariahs for this choice. Ha! Richmond actually has TONS of painted brick houses that are 100+ years old, especially in the more historic areas closer to downtown (like The Fan and The Museum District in Richmond City). So it’s not like all of the “real” gracious and historic homes here are unpainted brick. It’s actually a super normal thing to have painted brick, even in the protected historic areas.

Our neighborhood also has some of these newer 70’s/80’s brick houses that have been painted – but none of them are on our street. In fact, 5 of the 6 houses closest to ours are all unpainted brick (the 6th is siding)… so that also made us feel like painting ours was a great way to break up all the dark brick that’s clustered on this end of the street and add some nice variety.

That photo above is the most recent “before” that we have. John took it back in September, but A LOT has happened over the last five years to get us to that point. The photo below is what the house looked like when we first laid eyes on it. Well, “squinted at it through the shadows” is a more accurate description:

In addition to clearing some trees in the front (both for aesthetic reasons and to solve/prevent some of the moisture & rot issues the house had when we bought it) we also got a new roof, had the exterior trim & siding painted, painted the front door and garage doors, graded & seeded the entire yard, replaced the windows, added landscape lighting, and took various stabs at landscaping. And that’s just what we did to the front!

So as dramatic as the painting transformation was last week – it took a while to get to the point where painting our brick would pay off like it did thanks to all of that stuff that also came before it.

And even though our backyard is still in progress, the difference back there is almost more shocking in some ways.

In addition to new roof, new windows, and fresh paint – we also removed the rotting deck (ugh it was so much maintenance, and it blocked us off from the yard in an annoying way) and added the gravel patio, which is just temporary (we’d love a stone patio down the line) . We also opened up the musty carpeted sunroom to make it a covered porch with a nice cross-breeze and two fans overhead. This “in progress” photo from last year as the deck was coming down is the best photo we could find from the same angle:

And now it looks like this! I could SQUEAL WITH GLEE FOR HOURS about how the white paint helped to unify all of the different surfaces (like the big section of siding above the garage, the large meter box on the back, and even the various stove vents and dryer vents). I never realized how choppy and busy the back of the house looked before – so this photo is like a breath of fresh air. I still have so many plans for back here, but this one big paint update feels like we’ve come such a long way! Future plans: along with longing for a stone patio where the pea gravel is eventually – we’d love big window boxes under the windows above that area to unify them since that one has super chunky molding where we raised the window during our kitchen remodel. I’m also going to paint the two doors along the back of the house the same color as the new front door I think. The list goes on…

What Color & Product We Used

I could look at before & afters all day (there are more of those at the end!) but we wanted to answer your burning questions. First and foremost, the paint we used is a product called BioDomus by a company called Romabio and we can’t recommend it highly enough. None of this post is sponsored or anything (we paid for the paint, the labor, all of it!) so I’m just gonna say that up front because I’m about to rave about this paint and it might just sound like an infomercial. It is THAT GOOD. So here we go.

My research (and a lot of you) kept pointing me in the direction of BioDomus and we can totally see why. The main thing is that it’s a MINERAL paint that’s made specifically for brick, stone, stucco, etc – and not a traditional LATEX paint. Latex paints seal brick which can trap moisture and cause damage, but this mineral paint lets the brick breath like it needs to. It’s essentially more like a stain (hooray for durability and better performance!) but it has an opaque painted looking finish, which is the look we wanted.

It has a ton of other cool things that make it amazing for this type of application and these factors all helped give us (aka: John The Skeptic) the confidence to move forward with the project:

The high pH in BioDomus makes it alkaline, which makes it naturally mold-resistant, meaning we should get LESS of that green haze have little to no mold and mildew issues that John has been pressure-washing off of the house each year.

It CAN be pressure-washed, although the painter advised us to use low pressure – just like you would on any other painted surface

It has a 20-year warranty, meaning we shouldn’t have to repaint for at least a couple of decades (!!) – word on the street is that it often lasts for 30+ years which amazes us to no end

The reason it has such an insanely long warranty (and is guaranteed to never chip or peel) is because it’s just as breathable as brick. Our painter said “it’s literally like painting brick with brick.” Isn’t that crazy and so cool?!

All of their products are sold concentrated & are completely non-toxic (by contrast, traditional acrylic paints have water already in them, but to increase their shelf life, they have to add more chemicals to stabilize them).

And – here’s my new favorite feature – it has a FLAT FINISH, which is SO RIDICULOUSLY LUXE LOOKING. I’m about to start calling my house Chateau Sherry or Villa Blanca like a freaking housewife you guys. THAT IS MY LIFE NOW.

I didn’t really appreciate that last feature until it started to go up, but I think the fact that it’s super matte (instead of glossy/shiny) is what helps give it that historic looking high-end feel, like something straight outta Europe. Do I live in France now? Should I create a two story bookcase a la Belle in Beauty & The Beast? Should John start a beret collection? Maybe. The funny thing is that we worried that painting our house would make it look newer and less historic and classic, but I’m telling you this flat soft white paint makes it feel SO MUCH MORE HISTORIC AND CLASSIC to us! It’s kind of insane.

BioDomus does come in a small set of existing colors, but they can also color match it to any color you want by Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams – which is what we did. Just like any color-matching that happens across paint brands, it’s not 100% exact, so you DEFINITELY want to order some test pots before committing to an entire house. We knew we wanted something that read as a pure but soft white (not too beige or gray – and not too blinding and stark or cool) and we also wanted it to work with our existing white trim since all of our new windows have vinyl wrapped sills that wouldn’t be getting repainted.

After Googling / Pinteresting a bunch of white exterior colors and consulting with some friends with white houses, we got little BioDomus test pots that were color-matched to these four colors: Sherwin William’s Moderne White (top right), Benjamin Moore’s Swiss Coffee (middle right), Sherwin William’s Alabaster (bottom right) and Benjamin Moore’s Stonington Gray (that’s that left swatch). Our winner ended up being right at the top: Moderne White by Sherwin Williams.

It’s a bit warmer/muddier than a stark white, so we knew it’d look great and not be too blinding – and we tested it in a few other spots right next to the window trim to make sure they looked good together. I had the goal not to settle until I found something that truly felt like a soft warm white color, and it’s such a great one. Couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. This photo is probably the most accurate to the true color in person:

Or maybe this one:

How To Paint Your Brick House

As you know, we hired out this project but that does not mean you can’t DIY yours – especially if you live in a one story house! The paint itself is pretty straightforward to apply, but our challenge was the size of our house – specifically the height. We have a two story home with a full third floor attic and a chimney that extends almost another full story beyond that, so it took a 45′ lift to reach a lot of the brick. We also thought it would be prudent to have a pro apply ours so we could study exactly how it was done and tell all of you guys the right way to do it so you’d have long-lasting results and nobody would have a peeling or bubbling house after all that work (can you imagine?!). And the good news is that it isn’t even that complicated. YOU CAN TOTALLY DIY THIS – especially if you’ve got a less-tall home or are doing a smaller brick project. Completely doable.

As for how we found our pro painter if you’re looking to hire it out, when we bought our BioDomus paint (you can buy it directly from one of their retail locations or call 678-905-3700 to buy it from them), we asked who they thought would be a good person to hire to apply it, and they tossed out a guy named Lance with experience with the product who is based in Kentucky just as a suggestion. Even though they said any local painter should be able to follow directions and apply the product correctly without much issue, when we heard about this painting specialist who had experience with BioDomus already, we thought it sounded like a good idea to learn from him and make sure our paint went on correctly so we have that awesome warranty to lean on and we don’t worry about teaching you guys the wrong way to apply it or some other NIGHTMARE like that. Cut to us all waking up after two weeks and our houses are all purple or something. And Lance was great! Here he is below, just doing his thang and making all of my dreams come true (you can follow him on IG here).

Lance was so sweet to travel to do our painting job since the folks who sell BioDomus recommended him, but he mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see those finishes and more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out. Oh and he’s working on a video about how to D.I.Y the same BioDomus process that he used on our house – just for anyone who wants to see it in more detail. Isn’t that nice?! So we’ll update this post with that once it’s complete. But in the meantime, we’ll break down the basic steps for applying the BioDomus product:

1. Prep Your House

Like any paint job, you’ll make your life easier if you take time to prep first. For our project it included steps like:

Moving outdoor furniture and decor out of the way

Removing shutters and shutter hardware

Taping and covering all of the windows, lights, etc.

Pressure washing any grimy areas

Note on that last part that you don’t need to pressure wash every inch of your brick before painting it. Lance recommended going over any areas that seemed to have dirt or mildew build-up, but other than that you can apply the paint directly without further prep. Aka, no primer either!

They also did not tape off or cover surround areas like landscaping or roofing. They just tossed down canvas drop cloths as they went and held up small pieces of cardboard to act as spray shields whenever they got close to an area that needed protecting as they went.

2. Mix, Spray, and Backroll Your First Coat

I say “mix” first because BioDomus needs to be diluted slightly with water (remember, they send it concentrated so it’s less expensive to ship and completely non-toxic). You can read the exact dilution measurement on the package, but roughly speaking it comes in a 4-gallon bucket and you dilute it to become a standard 5 gallons.

The product can be applied with a roller, but Lance recommends spraying it – especially if your brick is craggy. It would take more work to get full coverage into every nook and cranny with a roller, but as long as you’ve got a high-nap roller (like 1 1/4″) it can be done. But again, spraying is MUCH faster. I mean, for reference, it took a crew of three people two full days to spray the first coat on our house. Just imagine if they had been rolling it all. It could have easily taken three times longer. NOTE: They wet down the brick before spraying or rolling – it just helps the product penetrate and soak in – remember it’s more like a stain than a paint. So you’ll want to get all of your brick wet before applying it as you work your way around the house.

It’s also helpful to backroll your first coat, which means going over the first coat that you have sprayed on with a roller full of more paint, to really smush that extra paint in and even out the coverage. Lance said it’s not necessary, but it makes the second coat much faster to be this thorough from the start. Note: if you aren’t spraying, just rolling two coats on should do the trick.

In the photo below you can see the guy in the lift (Jeremy) spraying and the guy on the ground (Josh) rolling an area that has already been sprayed.

And this photo below of Josh backrolling the garage really shows the difference between just the first spray coat (far right) and how that backrolled area looks a lot more solid and filled in.

3. Caulk Gaps

After the first coat dried, the crew went around and filled any large crags in the brick with caulk. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but even when we painted our brick fireplace inside several years ago we found that it helped to eliminate any deep shadows or dark spots with some caulk. They just used regular indoor/outdoor paintable caulk, so it’s not hard to do – just a little tedious.

4. Spray Your Second Coat

Since they were so thorough on their first coat, and since BioDomus has pretty great coverage, the second coat was able to be sprayed in a single day without any backrolling. That still would’ve taken us like ten days, so it was pretty great to have pros on the job.

5. Paint Any Non-Brick Areas

In addition to the little bit of siding that we have on one side of our house and around the back, we also had random things like our metal electrical meter, the wood door to our crawlspace, and a half dozen other non-brick areas around our house. BioDomus is meant for masonry (it works on brick, stone, natural stucco with no primer, but can also be applied to other surfaces like hardie board with BioGrip Micro primer), so be sure to prep and paint those other materials with the proper paint. Lance recommended Benjamin Moore’s Low-Lustre finish for our hardboard siding so it’d match the matte look of the bricks and it worked out really nicely.

They were able to get great coverage in one coat of spraying our siding (without priming) but we did prime some other elements – like our meter box and dryer vents – with this all-purpose spray primer.

6. Clean Up and Put Things Back

John The Fact-Checker Of This Post always likes to point out cleanup in any project because it’s so easy to forget that it takes time and energy. You know, removing tape and tarps, putting furniture back, and rehanging shutters if you want to have those back up. Speaking of which – we are NOT planning to rehang our shutters. We were surprised by how much we liked the look of the house without them, and a ton of the painted historic homes that we love most downtown don’t have them either (along with about 1/3 of our own neighborhood) so it just feels good to let the painted brick breathe. We had originally planned to buy new operable shutters like the duplex – but we’re happy to save ourselves the expense and the labor of doing that since we like this look so much.

That’s pretty much it when it comes to the DIY steps for an undertaking like this! Lance made a quick video that shows the process very briefly but he’s planning to create a much more detailed one soon, so we’ll link that how-to video once it’s ready so you can see it in action (in case you want to DIY it – or even just to show your pro if you decide to hire it out). And if you have any questions about the paint, the folks who sell BioDomus are really responsive and helpful. The guy who created it is named Michael and he is SUPER PASSIONATE about it. He and his wife Leslie run the company, and you know we like a husband and wife team ;)

How Long Did It Take?

Every project and house is different, but I thought it’d be helpful to give you a sense of how long it took for this to happen at our house. It all occurred over the course of five days, but really it was four when you exclude travel.

Day 1: Travel and prep (shutters down, windows taped, start of pressure-washing)

Day 2: Brick on front & chimney side of house get first coat

Day 3: Brick on the back & garage side of house get first coat (also portico demo/rebuilding, but more on that later)

Day 4: Brick on the whole house gets a second coat

Day 5: Siding painted, clean-up, and travel

And again, this was with a professional crew of three painters working from about 8am to 6pm straight every day (except travel days). Lance said typically they’d use scaffolding instead of a lift, but the lift was easier to rent and made them faster. So if your crew uses scaffolding it might add extra time.

How Much Did It Cost?

We haven’t received final invoices yet, but Lance said he typically prices a house of our size around $4,500 – $5,000 in labor. Our labor line item in his estimate was exactly $4,500 (and there might be a travel fee associated with someone coming a long way to do your work – but obviously that changes based on how far they’re coming, where they’re staying, how many people they bring, etc). We paid for the paint separately, and our job took 7 four-gallon buckets of BioDomus to complete (although he said our brick was especially thirsty so yours might not need as much, even if it’s the same size!) which cost around $1,700 in materials. And when we add in about $200 in siding paint that we purchased ourselves and provided for Lance, our material cost was around $1,900. So the painting portion of this makeover, again by our best guess without invoices being here yet, is about $6,400 total.

Obviously, every project is different and there are lots of factors and circumstances that can affect cost. There are definitely regional price differences too (we asked two of our friends who painted brick houses on the west coast that were smaller than ours and both of them said it was around 10K, which was a lot more than our cost for this project). So just note that this price might be higher or lower than yours, depending on where you live. We went into it fearing it would be closer to 10K, so we were pleasantly surprised, although $6,400 isn’t exactly pennies.

Update: all of the invoices are now in, and the final total was $7,500. If it’s helpful, Lance said clients should expect to pay $1.50-$2.50 per square foot (depending on your area) to have their brick painted with BioDomus by a good pro painter (who will apply it the right way so it’s warrantied & so it lasts). Labor & materials are included in that per-square-foot price, so you wouldn’t have to buy the paint like we did. Lance also noted that BioDomus technically requires less labor & materials compared to traditional latex & acrylic coating since covers with only 2 coat process (remember how well it covered in one coat?) verses a possible 3 coat process with traditional latex or acrylic paint. That means the price difference between using BioDomus and brands like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore is usually pretty negligible.

I said “the painting portion of this makeover was $6,400” because thanks to a spontaneous porch makeover we also had a few hours of work from our electrician and about a half a day of work from Sean the Contractor, but we’re still waiting on those invoices. And speaking of the porch makeover…

What’s Next?

We plan to get into this story in more detail on next week’s podcast since it’s quite the rollercoaster (and this post is already long enough) but if you followed along on Instagram last week, you know that in the midst of the painting madness we decided to tackle the porch makeover AT THE SAME TIME. I can’t stress enough that this was NOT the plan going into the week, but I woke up with a wild hair on Tuesday morning and just couldn’t shake the feeling that we should rip the portico off right. that. second.

A few frantic calls to Sean later, and I had somehow convinced him to come to Richmond that afternoon, spend the night at his girlfriend’s house (it helps that she lives in Richmond), and come over bright and early the next day and help us remove the portico (J and I debated doing that ourselves but it was extremely heavy and we worried we’d crack the brick steps or shatter some facade bricks if we tried to muscle it down without help). So less than 24 hours later, by 8:30 am on Wednesday morning, the portico was down, and we were hard at work rebuilding the new surround with Sean…

…which led to a frantic call to our electricians who came and helped us wire up two big 22″ lanterns (that we bought right off the shelves that morning) to cover the two holes in the brick that had been revealed when we removed the portico. You might remember that Halloween was last Wednesday, so it was some sort of Trick Or Treating miracle to have working porch lights and a fully reconstructed door frame that we completed literally minutes before the first little costumed kid ran up our walkway.

Like, this was Tuesday evening:

… and this was 24 hours later:

Our original plan was to rebuild the portico with new chunkier columns, but we’re both really loving the look without a portico – and the door surround that we threw together in about four hours is actually pretty darn good (still needs to be painted white – it’s just primed and caulked but the weather isn’t cooperating). So we’re planning to leave it like this for the time being. The new door color helped a lot too. It’s Benjamin Moore’s Tranquility in a super high gloss finish. They have a new-ish paint line called Grand Entrances, and it’s made especially for front doors that you want to have a mirror-like shine. Tip: sand the heck outta your door so it’s smooth before applying this, because it’ll super amplify any flaw. If you do that, it looks like a million bucks! We love how ours came out!

A bunch of houses in our neighborhood have front stoops without an overhang, and packages get left in plastic bags so they don’t get wet, and we enter and exit exclusively through the garage, so I’m not sure we’ll even miss the portico. There was also a pretty amazing bonus to our foyer from taking down that huge overhang: so much more light shines in through our sidelights now! We keep thinking someone left the light on in there! It has definitely come a long way since we first bought the house:

Oh but one more “gotta do that” on our ever expanding to-do list (if you give a mouse a cookie… or if you paint your house white…) is to redo the porch floor with some pretty outdoor-friendly tile, much like we did on the back porch. At first we debated leaving the steps unpainted but the dark beige mortar clashed so badly with the brick house, so we knew we needed a new plan. BioDomus isn’t a porch & floor paint, so it’s not really meant to be walked on and we agreed with Lance’s recommendation to go ahead and paint it so the house didn’t have a big clashing brick tongue in the front, but none of us expect it to hold up longterm.

Our plan is to tile it with something similar to our back porch or maybe even add slate. This photo of Reese Witherspoon showed up in my Instagram feed over the weekend and, well, GOALS. See her painted brick house with those awesome stone steps? Also goals: that dog.

And of course my head is spinning with all sorts of thoughts about our landscaping. The white has really made all of our bushes “pop” and I spent a good hour on Friday trimming and shaving them to try to make the best of what we have, but I feel like I need taller plants on the porch, something big to anchor the left side of the house, and – I dunno – I know our boxwoods are very “English garden” but they’ve never been my favorite because they remind me of those big cement balls in front of Target…

I’m also somewhat obsessed with the idea of replacing that window over the front door (that’s our son’s room) with a larger window so the house feels more balanced and doesn’t have those two blank spaces on either side. This house’s middle window is what I’m thinking about – and it would fit in our son’s room and let in more light, so that might be something we do down the line too.

Oh, and we killed around 75% of our yard (intentionally) after it got overrun with crabgrass this summer, which is why it’s all brown. So hopefully we can reseed and reclaim some green in the spring. At least the fall colors are helping it blend in! Same goes for the back – the grass needs to grow back in, we need to finish that patio (maybe slate like the front steps?), John has to rehang our garden lights, and at some point we need to paint the back doors Tranquility too… and the shed Moderne White to match. The list is long.

But again, we’re trying to just enjoy the amazing progress we’ve had and not get overwhelmed by the tasks that this one very exciting update has added to our to-do list. But wait, have I mentioned that I dream about adding a window to the top left side of our house for balance and to let more light into our master bath/closet? Always scheming… ha!

In summary: I really can’t emphasize enough how happy we are with this change. I caught John outside gazing at the house like a goon the other day and I FREAKING TEARED UP WHEN I PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY. I know. It sounds crazy. But the house is just so beautiful it’s what I imagine it feels like if you get the final rose on the Bachelor and actually love that person and they actually love you back and your relationship actually works and you both feel understood and fulfilled. My house has undergone a pretty extreme makeover, and I love it for all the right reasons. AND CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE HOW GOOD IT’S GOING TO LOOK WITH SNOW ALL OVER IT THIS WINTER?! AGHHHHHHHHH.

We talked about some of our nerves on this week’s podcast and John has been anxious about making such a permanent decision for months, so it’s that much more of a GIANT RELIEF to both be so over the moon with the result. Our neighbors love it. Our family loves it. Even a teacher in the preschool carpool line last week said “I saw your house all painted and I’m in LOVE.”

Me too, carpool line friend, me too.

P.S. Have you seen our furniture line sneak peek? You can preview every single piece in our upcoming collection (soon to be sold on Wayfair.com and Wayfair.ca) and read all the measurements, etc (here’s everything from the bedroom section, the dining section, and the living section). WE ARE SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO SEE IT ALL! And you can get on the email list over there to be notified the second it releases on Wayfair ;)

The post Painting Our Brick House White! appeared first on Young House Love.

Painting Our Brick House White! published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

0 notes

truereviewpage · 5 years

Text

Painting Our Brick House White!

Why Paint Our Brick?

And even though our backyard is still in progress, the difference back there is almost more shocking in some ways.

What Color & Product We Used

It has a ton of other cool things that make it amazing for this type of application and these factors all helped give us (aka: John The Skeptic) the confidence to move forward with the project:

It CAN be pressure-washed, although the painter advised us to use low pressure – just like you would on any other painted surface

It has a 20-year warranty, meaning we shouldn’t have to repaint for at least a couple of decades (!!) – word on the street is that it often lasts for 30+ years which amazes us to no end

Or maybe this one:

How To Paint Your Brick House

1. Prep Your House

Like any paint job, you’ll make your life easier if you take time to prep first. For our project it included steps like:

Moving outdoor furniture and decor out of the way

Removing shutters and shutter hardware

Taping and covering all of the windows, lights, etc.

Pressure washing any grimy areas

2. Mix, Spray, and Backroll Your First Coat

In the photo below you can see the guy in the lift (Jeremy) spraying and the guy on the ground (Josh) rolling an area that has already been sprayed.

And this photo below of Josh backrolling the garage really shows the difference between just the first spray coat (far right) and how that backrolled area looks a lot more solid and filled in.

3. Caulk Gaps

4. Spray Your Second Coat

5. Paint Any Non-Brick Areas

6. Clean Up and Put Things Back

How Long Did It Take?

Day 1: Travel and prep (shutters down, windows taped, start of pressure-washing)

Day 2: Brick on front & chimney side of house get first coat

Day 3: Brick on the back & garage side of house get first coat (also portico demo/rebuilding, but more on that later)

Day 4: Brick on the whole house gets a second coat

Day 5: Siding painted, clean-up, and travel

How Much Did It Cost?

Update: all of the invoices are now in, and the final total was $7,500. If it’s helpful, Lance said clients should expect to pay $1.50-$2.00 per square foot to have their brick painted with Biodomus by a good pro painter (who will apply it the right way so it’s warrantied & so it lasts). Labor & materials are included in that per-square-foot price, so you wouldn’t have to buy the paint like we did. Lance also noted that Biodomus technically requires less labor & materials compared to traditional latex & acrylic coating since covers with only 2 coat process (remember how well it covered in one coat?) verses a possible 3 coat process with traditional latex or acrylic paint. That means the price difference between using Biodomus and brands like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore is usually pretty negligible.

What’s Next?

Like, this was Tuesday evening:

… and this was 24 hours later:

Oh but one more “gotta do that�� on our ever expanding to-do list (if you give a mouse a cookie… or if you paint your house white…) is to redo the porch floor with some pretty outdoor-friendly tile, much like we did on the back porch. At first we debated leaving the steps unpainted but the dark beige mortar clashed so badly with the brick house, so we knew we needed a new plan. BioDomus isn’t a porch & floor paint, so it’s not really meant to be walked on and we agreed with Lance’s recommendation to go ahead and paint it so the house didn’t have a big clashing brick tongue in the front, but none of us expect it to hold up longterm.

Me too, carpool line friend, me too.

The post Painting Our Brick House White! appeared first on Young House Love.

Painting Our Brick House White! published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

0 notes