More Inspiration

We met Jerry today to look at this other house he wanted us to see. It was beautiful and on a beautiful lot. Miles out of our price range for sure, but the idea was to see how some of the ideas we've had look when implemented.

In our design we had begun to mull over what the staircase should look like. We've already looked at many catalogs of railing styles, step features, etc. This house had one of the few I've seen that was implemented in a way that I'd be happy with. Having noted that, we're probably going to have to end up going with a much more basic stairway design to get to our price point.

There were many other cool features to this one. The outer wall of the master suite was circular, so you basically navigate around a circular walkway to get into it. Very cool, and very much like my original vision I had for our house. That vision never materialized in our plans, and now that we know we can't afford to do stuff like this it doesn't matter, but it sure is cool.

Finally, this house had the pocket doors between the great room and the kitchen area as we have been wanting from the very beginning. It was good to see them in action and confirm that it looks nice. Hard to say how effective it is for blocking noise though. I'm sure it helps a little.

Another feature of this one is that the walk out basement is below ground level. So there is a little courtyard there, and then some steps to get up to ground level. It looked nice and didn't feel weird at all. This means we probably don't have to settle for a daylight basement even if it is below ground level.

As nice as all this is we're still a ways from getting the coolness of these great houses distilled down into something affordable.