Front of house view. Grading and drainage is now done on the front. They'll start doing the concrete forms and rebar work next week for the driveway and front sidewalk. The entryway will eventually be laid out in slate - same type used in the guest bathroom but a raw version versus the honed product we used inside. 

Back patio concrete forms and rebar layed out and ready for the concrete pour. They'll do all the back of house stuff first and then tackle the front driveway next week. 

Garage doors installed. Aluminum frames with frosted tempered glass panels. This type of door is more commonly seen at firehouses or mechanics garages but is now making its way into residential projects like Rancho Duderosa. 

When it's all done, the floor looks like this. 

Here's a close up shot of a section of the great room floor where you can already see how the darker dye has interacted with the stain. More to come tomorrow after the floors are swept, washed, and another light coat of stain is applied..... 

Later in the afternoon - here's the great room floor almost dry. This will sit overnight to completely dry out and then the powder will be swept up and all the floors will be washed. 

Here's a picture of the great room immediately after spraying. Notice the lines in the floor. The original plan for the house was to stain the concrete instead of doing a wood or tile floor. Alan designed these cut lines to create an interesting floor pattern.  

That small section of hallway looks like this immediately after the dye application and spraying. And in case you're wondering, the muriatic acid in the stain gives off a fair amount of gas so there's a strong and not so pleasant smell that goes along with the process. 

Kip sprays the stain over the powdered dye that has already been sprinkled onto the floor. 

Here's the dye itself after loading it from the gallon jugs into hudson sprayers. 

Kip - the stainmaster - preps the powdered dye prior to starting the job. 

Here's the winning swatch and how it was done. It starts with a single color of acid stain with a darker color powdered dye sprinkled on to the floor like parmesan cheese on a plate of pasta. As the stain - which is concentrated with muriatic acid to aid in penetration - reacts with the powder, it releases the powdered dye into the floor giving it that reddish flowing tint you see in the image. Once this first step is completed, the floor is swept up, washed with water, and as soon as everything is dried, a second light coating of dye is applied again to the floor to further set the color. Finally, the polyurethane goes on. Voila! 

First, you turn a corner of the garage into a testing area and experiment with various stains, powdered dyes, and sealers. Seen here are 8 different swatches. Each one followed a specific recipe which is written in blue tape below each rectangle. We tried single colors of stain, layered colors, colors plus powdered dye, and various concentrations of stains to give them lighter or darker tones. 

To something that looks more like this? 

How do you go from this gray concrete? 

Metal shroud added to the top of the chimney to obscure the view of the flying saucer shaped spark arresters that are on the top of each chimney pipe and return the roofline to its intended angular look. This is galvanized metal and will be painted to match the roof color. 

Perspective view of the garage and roofline with lights installed along the front. 

Angled view of the lights hung on the exterior of the garage. 

More lights! Close up view of the exterior lighting fixture. 

Let there be lights! Exterior sconce fixtures were installed in all but two locations around the house today. 

Comet dives headlong into her brand new inflatable pool to fetch out a toy. 

Doors - all stained and ready to be re-hung. 

Corner jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom. 

Sealed indian multicolor slate in the master bathroom. Grouting is still left to do plus at least one or maybe two more coats of sealer. 

Great room left column and fireplace. 

Completed great room interior columns shot taken from the kitchen. 

The image is a little dark but here are the two interior columns in the great room. Picture was taken from the foyer. 

Angled view of the column on the front entryway. 

Finished column masonry for the front entryway. 

Library fireplace with adjoining stone bench. 

Great room fireplace with completed masonry. You can also see the exterior chimney masonry through the window. 

Lighting is not particularly good but these are the two interior columns in the great room. They're wrapped right now and as the room will be painted in the next couple of days. 

Kitchen slate tile making its way down the stairs. 

Masonry work begins on the exterior entry column. This is a side view - front door would be to the right. 

Master bath shower. Slate flooring and the band under the seat is Indian Multicolor Slate. Gray tile is a Dal Tile porcelain called Aqua. Bench seat and tub counter is a red marble. 

Bedroom and loft wing of the house with completed roof. Column in front of the master bedroom will receive the same masonry treatment as the rest of the exterior.

House from Kit's driveway.

perspectives on the roof - bedroom wing with master bedroom chimney.

Perspective on the roof - garage and great room.

Kitchen floor in progress. Tile is a green slate from Vermont.

Finished exterior column masonry.

Finished chimney masonry - two images sewn together for complete vertical perspective.

Kali emerges from the deep in the bush...

Great Room Interior - First day of masonry work on one of the columns.

Guest Bathroom - Shower area tile is now in place. The 12" tile is a porcelain called Aqua. The 6" band at the top is a slate called Autumn Mist. The slate will be sealed to further enhance the colors that you see now. The bathroom floor will be done with a 12" version of Autumn Mist slate as well.

Roofing - this is the extrusion machine. Metal is coming off the roll in the rear of the photo and into the machine. The machine is programmed to process the desired length of panel and then it cuts it automatically.

Roofing - the crew is doing the metal panel extrusion on-site. This panel is 40ft long. Panels are fastened together with clips and then a sleeve is run down the entire length of the panel to cover the seam.

A new view of the house taken from the mountain trail above us by Kit recently. The house and green roof structure in the foreground belong to my neighbors Mike & Allison. All the other structures you see are mine - red shed on the right, the compound in the right center portion of the pic - and then the house in the back. This shot was taken before any of the masonry had been done on the chimney stack. 

End of the first day of masonry work. Shot taken from the driveway in front of the house. 

End of the first day of masonry work. Shot taken from the rear of the house. 

Mason at work. Kurt working on the big chimney. In the larger view of the image, you can see how nicely the rock blends with the yellow color of the loft tower. You can also see the lighter grays in the stone that should blend equally well with the gray/blue color on the rest of the house. The stone being used is actually cast concrete made by the El Dorado Stone Company. Colors chosen are a combination of Sierra Mountain Ledge and Shasta Mountain Ledge. They're both very similar styles but provided us with a slightly wider spectrum of browns/tans and light grays. 

A first sign that civilization is approaching Rancho Duderosa - the range hood has been installed in the kitchen. It's not wired yet but the dream of a meal cooked in an honest to god kitchen just got a little closer to reality this morning. Brand is Dacor for anyone who is wondering. The ductwork above the cabinetry will be masked in soon by masonry. 

Say hello to one of the doors...this one happens to be the coat closet in the foyer. They are big - 9ft high - and heavy - made out of slightly knotty alder. These will be stained soon - probably in a similar color to the cabinetry throughout the house. 

Master bath countertop (partial view). 

Guest bathroom countertop. 

Kitchen counter - funky granite, eh? 

Loft and bedroom wing perspective taken from Kit's driveway. 

SKY & SUN - IN DEFENSE OF COLOR

Alright everyone - the questions and comments are starting to come in from many of you regarding the house colors. Some like it and some are - shall we say - not so crazy about it. Comments range from - Really cool! - to - Can I get my Starbucks card punched here?- to my favorite so far, -Hey Chris, put up an arch and sell burgers! (Thank you Scott G for this honest declaration after his third Mai Tai of the night this past Friday). We actually put a serious amount of thought into the color choices and so I want to explain it to everyone so that they can put the decisions into context. Note that this doesn't mean you have to like it - and it should be known that this is an ongoing experiment for us as well - and one that we're continuing to evaluate on a daily basis as construction continues.

Anyway, permit me to climb on my blogging soapbox and wax architectural for a moment.

We spent a lot of time reviewing colors and trying to tie the house into palettes that are seen around the valley. We had a number of choices. Browns, tans, and grays abound in both the rocks above the house and in the brush that turns tan/brown during the course of each summer. During the winter and spring, we see interesting greens ranging from light sages to deeper forests. And finally, we have abundant sunlight and blue skies that offer a nearly endless spectrum of blues, gray-blues, and golds depending on cloud cover, time of day, etc.

The safe choice was to go in the tan/brown/gray direction. Just about every house in the valley has chosen something from that palette - and ultimately we did as well - but I wanted something extra and different. Lighter sage greens combined with some tans were also seriously considered - the nearby Winterton house used a very light sage/almost tan color for example. But the colors that made the greatest statements were primarily in the -sky and sun- palettes. So we took a deep breath, decided not to play it safe and chose to move down that path. As noted above, we will still be using lots of gray/brown colors found in the extensive masonry on the exterior and the roof which will remain a galvanized silver color and hopefully help tie the blue/gray house color in with the masonry. That's the theory anyway.

Finally, if you take a look at the above set of images, you will see how various shades of sky and sun are seen in nature and on actual houses. Variations of sunlight in the form of a montage of sunset photos (upper left) , a picture of the local terrain taken recently on a Rhino trek with Kit (lower left), and another application of blue and yellow used on a house up in the Seattle area. I'm not crazy about the house itself but use it as an example of color.

The house in the lower right corner has been a major inspiration. This house is built out of cinderblock, has a metal roof, and the tower you see in the image is made of a stained wood. Furthermore, it's located in an area with similar topography to here as you can see from the mountain peaks in the distance and abundant dried up brush in the foreground. We chose to avoid any type of exposed wood on the exterior due to the potential for fires but we liked how this gray and yellow fit in with the overall terrain - rising above it without overwhelming it.

As to the specific colors we chose, the bluish gray has an amazingly wide variation of shading depending on how the sunlight hits it. I was playing around with the Photoshop color sampling tool the other day and grabbed about a dozen different variations on the color of the house from the photographs I've shot so far - depending on the location, amount of sun hitting the surface of the building, cloud cover, and time of day. I'll admit that it takes some getting used to but it's interesting how the colors on the house can change dramatically from minute to minute.

The gold/yellow color also has quite a bit of variation in it depending on the amount of sunlight hitting the surface of the house but has been a fairly comfortable choice so far. I like the warmth and brightness of this color and it effectively accomplishes that "sun" connection that we set out to make.

Will it all work in the end? I like to think so but we shall see.

Hello from Comet... 

The line between the yellow loft color and the eventual masonry of the chimney stack. 

A look along the master bath/bedroom wall. 

Yelllow meets gray along the edge of the master bathroom. 

Bedroom wing with loft tower in the background. Chimney and column on the left will be rocked in by the mason. 

Bedroom wing of the house. 

Rear house view taken from Kit's driveway. The bedroom wing on the right had not received color treatment yet. 

Wider angle view of the rear of the house.