MARCH 27, 2024

We’ve got a lot to unpack today.

I met with my Project Manager (Drexel calls them QBs) today for the first time. *Hi, Holden*

I have a virtual design meeting set up for next week. I found out it’s super helpful for them to know specific products I’m thinking about because they can then use those exact ones in the renderings. So I started looking at the millwork and door catalogs online last week.

Catalogs are horrid, and I will die on that hill. There were numbers and SKUs and things that I had no idea what to do with. It was incredibly confusing and in my opinion, the homeowner should never lay eyes on them. It’s already an overwhelming process and looking at a digital catalog made it even less pleasant. I reached out to Holden to go through everything with me before my virtual design consultation and I am SO GLAD THAT I DID. He took notes and then sent them directly to the Virtual Design team with their lumber yard jargon so they knew exactly what I was thinking.

I’m going to break down the Exterior and put Interior in another post because nobody wants to scroll that much.

SIDING

I was dead set on white board and batten. One of my best friends is also building a house, and we went driving around looking at houses this last weekend. There was a white, WHITE house I saw that was a similar style to mine and it was not great looking. Like a block over was another house that was almost an ivory- off white that looked classy, fun, and timeless. We took pictures of it because #creepers and I showed it to Holden during our meeting. It was similar to Herringbone (below). It looks real tan next to the white, but when you put it next to a brown tone, it looks white. If that makes sense? We’re still thinking board and batten on the front.

*Peep the white Nikes. I got them in there on purpose.*

ROOF

I think we’re going with an asphalt roof vs steele. There were two colors I liked. One was black and the other was almost a mix of black and brown (Landmark Dritft). I’ll get to compare using virtual design. We also might do steel on the front shed-ish part, but that’s undecided until I can see it in the rendering. I also learned what soffit* and fascia* are. Those will both be white.

DOORS

Drexel does not sell garage doors so I started looking at Lowe’s and Home Depot just to get a concept of what I like. I’m thinking black garage doors with a black front door. They had some exterior doors in the show room. I’m still trying to ball on a budget, so I went with little windows in the front door. 3 panel, flat heritgate with clear glass. As soon as you get into the privacy glass stuff, it gets pricey. So just don’t go peaking in my front door please.

Because I don’t believe in catalogs, here’s kind of the door style.

I’ll also need a service door on the side of the garage. That one will not have glass, but will have 3 panels. Without the glass, it’ll be about $200-$300 less. The more glass, the more moolah.

POSTS

For the posts on my cute little porch, I told Holden I was going to go with brown. He thought cedar would be a good option. Cedar would be on the posts and also on the windows as an accent. The windows themselves are likely white, but wrapped in cedar. I would have to maintain them though and probably stain them every so often.

These are not my final selections. This is just preliminary decisions I made for virtual design to show me what it could look like. I really don’t know how people build a house without a virtual rendering first.

soffitt: underside part of a building, underside of an arch

fascia: board that runs on lower edge of roof