Exterior Remodel: 5 Years (now 7) in the Making!

Five years ago, I designed a whole new facade for our house as well as a new siding layout and roofline.  I spent the last five years trying to find a contractor brave enough to take on the project.  I finally found one!  Shane Chunning, owner of SC Built in Cedar City, has been working on wrapping up all my unfinished projects that I haven't found the time to finish myself and has begun our Exterior Remodel that I designed all those years ago.  He has been wonderful to work with (albeit too expensive), shares my attention to detail and works well with women (having all daughters himself), which is super helpful since, although I have 6 sons and only one daughter, I myself come from a family of 7 sisters.  

The house originally was in very bad shape, figuratively and literally.  The condition was bad, with the entire front porch rotting out, holes all over the cheap vinyl siding, and no house- or window-wrap anywhere to be found.  But the "shape" of the house was also very poor:  the scale was all off, with puny little dormer windows, too shallow roof pitches, no architectural interest or detail with casings or mouldings or eyelines, terrible attention to light and how to bring more into the house, and just a generally ugly aesthetic overall:

When we bought the house....a VERY basic rapid-build early 1990's house

....The progress we've made so far. 

Front Elevation BEFORE

Adding plants helps but only goes so far.  The house was just ugly.

Back Elevation BEFORE

Side Elevations BEFORE

There were significant design challenges with this house:  while it appears as if it is symmetrical, it isn't actually symmetrical and making it appear symmetrical and balanced took some very tricky fandagling with measurements and layout.  But, I think I managed with my design while adding significant architectural interest to the design and giving the house a much more welcoming personality:

These are my drawings for the remodel plan. Changes I made include replacing the puny dormers with large gables, adding a swoop to the roof line of the new gables, adding gable arches and drop finial details to the gables, adding a gable and barrel porch ceiling over the entrance, removing the railing from the low porch, replacing and relocating the skinny turned '90s porch posts with double posts and decorative brackets set on tapered brick bases, painting the brick wall white to add verticality, adding a second chimney as well as an additional brick crown detail to both chimneys, removing the shutters, adding window boxes, replacing the front door and garage door, adding awnings over the windows and garage, adding exposed "rafter tails," adding decorative brackets below the new gable eaves, and replacing the skinny and cheap vinyl siding with board and batten over a larger, more scale-appropriate lap siding.

Shane, my contractor, and Rulon Barlow, his immensely talented framer, knocked this out in a couple days while we were on vacation for Spring break (see pictures before).  You can imagine the excitement as we drove up to our house a couple days ago and saw the significant change that took place while we were away.  They made difficult decisions on layout choices to give the house a more symmetrical appearance, despite the difficulties I mentioned above without even interrupting my vacation.  While their solutions differed from mine, I feel like they did an excellent job problem-solving the design problems.  They are awesome!

I am super excited to see it finished.  I am now working with the siding guy while Shane prepares for the brickwork that will be done.  We will replace the front door with a 3/4 lite door, but even with the existing door, vaulting the elliptical arch ceiling over the doorway already brings significantly more light into the entryway inside.

Shane extended the depth of the porch gable to better match my design plans this week.  Much better!

Siding is finally going on.  The gables were framed a bit differently than I drew them which presented a few problems.  First, the left gable was framed nearly a foot wider than the right.  Second, both gables were framed in such a way that the windows aren't centered.  These are significant problems considering that the siding plan for the gables is board and batten, which emphasizes both the significant difference between the widths of the two gables and the fact that the windows are off center.  That means I needed to spend a couple days doing some fancy math to create illusions that the gables are the same size and the windows are centered.  This was NOT easy, but I think I managed pretty well.

I am now designing a new front door to commission a millworker to build. These are the designs I'm working on. (FYI, I ended up choosing the final one in case I ever want to add a door knocker.)

Coming along VERY slowly. 

Progress is still incredibly slow. It has been over a year since we started the exterior remodel. We had a guy start forming some retaining walls for the front and side yards but he hasn't been back for weeks. 😞 We really haven't made any progress over the last several months but spring at least has things looking a bit more like home. 

We've started staining, painting, and adding details. Still have alot more to do, but we are making progress again....I had my front door built and installed, we are in the process of undertaking the awnings over the windows and garage door, the new garage door should be here soon, and we are getting some of the detail work installed. 

For whatever reason, I can't upload these photos in the right order. Here's the door before we oiled and installed it. 

Testing out a template for the gable bracket detail

Installing the garage awning

Window awnings going up

Post bracket details and window awnings installed

Putting up garage awning

Post bracket details under porch gable

Post bracket details on the double posts

Millwork details going on porch gable and post bracket details are on. Gorgeous front door (solid walnut) installed and oiled (built by Atkins Moulding from my designs). 

Tongue and groove eves and porch ceiling stained (everything is stained darker than I wanted but I'm hoping it will lighten up a little in the sun over time)

Front door installed

Our awesome finish carpenter, Kelsom, came up with some rigging and harnesses to keep everyone safe as they work on installing the gable arches. 

We finally got the brick filled in over the front door. It was very tricky because the barrel arch didn't get centered properly over the door so we have to try and camouflage the offset. It will be less noticeable once it is painted. Don't mind the Halloween decorations. 

The wood details are starting to go in on the porch gable. My nephew, Kolby, who is an excellent wood turner, is currently making the ball finials for all the wood details on both the twin gables and the porch gable. Once he finishes those, they will get installed

Window boxes and ball finials are made and ready to get stained and installed. Kelsom (finish carpenter) and Kolby (wood turner) are both beautiful craftsmen. 

The white gable bracket details are installed.

I don't have the skill or program to do a real rendering, but here is my amateur attempt at getting an idea of what the new garage door will look like on the house. I can't wait for the garage door to come! 

We are in the process of installing the false beam ends. We still need to install them on the front twin gables, but my finish carpenter had an urgent personal matter that has called him away, so we are waiting on him. He put the weather vane up though, which is exciting. It is still such shiny copper and brass that it looks cheap and artificial, but once it ages to the degree of tarnish I want, I will clear coat it with lacquer.

The lower half of the house is painted! But, I'm still agonizing over the color of white. Sherwin Williams apparently doesn't have any exterior paint with the color of base I need to get the right color white. 😡  We decided to live with it for a bit while we shop around for the better tone of white

I added the house numbers over the front door. 

We are trying to decide what to do now with the hideous old concrete floor. 🤔 🤦‍♀️

I added some insulation and trim above the windows.

The brick post bases are finally getting built! They will have gorgeous basalt caps.

Side steps and planters

Revised site plans after retaining wall was built wrong

Grass and brick entrance from sidewalk

Bracket detail for below fireplace bumpout

I had to make some adjustments to the site plan and side walkway/steps and details, so I drew these out for the crew. 

The brick retaining walls and steps are going in! The wall cap and treads will all be the same gorgeous basalt. The landings will all be grass. 

I believe they plan to add the brick to the chimneys today. The chimneys will also have basalt caps. I drew this detail out for the Hispanic mason that doesn't speak English. 

The lighting is bad in this picture but the brackets below the fireplace bump out are in. 

Brickwork on the chimneys, post bases, and retaining real is done! 

Drop finials and beam ends (rafter tails) are installed! 

We are getting very close! 

The new garage door is finally in!  

We added some planters along the side steps against the house with the leftover brick. I can't wait to get the basalt capstone and treads in!

Finally got the basalt capstones installed. The wind here is insane sometimes so everything is filthy right now. 

Apparently dormant sod can still be installed so we have grass finally! We are trying a new underground watering system. Fingers crossed that it works better than traditional sprinklers.  You can't spot the sprinkler box because we had a custom lid made that allows the grass to grow on top! 

I had them remove the concrete curbing from the planter and line it and the walkway with brick. It looks amazing and really elevates the old, ugly concrete walkway. 

Got the grass in just in time for a good winter watering. 

I see it has been quite a while since I sent updates (alot has happened though we aren't quite done yet):

FINALLY got the copper on the awnings over the windows and garage! There are so many problems with the installation but we haven't been able to get the installer to come back and fix them. Nevertheless, we are so relieved to have the third material and color on the house. It looks so good. 

I built self-watering reservoirs for the window boxes and filled them with soil to be planted.

Landscaping is finally going in at the front. Still working on plans for the side. 

Furnished the front porch and planted the window boxes. 

Now we are having new fencing made to replace our broken up vinyl fencing. I've designed a more set back fencing system for the front that functions as either a walk-through or drive through gate, but looks like a stationary fence. 

I designed a harvest moon entrance gate for the back fence as the backyard garden entrance, accessed by the grass stairs that run along the soon-to-be Japanese garden. 

Shopping for a ball finial of appropriate proportion has been next to impossible, but this is what I've settled on. 

It will all be powder coated black. Should look gorgeous with the rest of the exterior design and the Japanese garden. 

Working on the layout for the side yard landscaping, which will include a shallow splash pond, a trickling spring, and a Japanese garden for my husband to tinker with (his hobby). We are still putting in the landscaping and anxious for it to fill in. The stepping stones lead across the pond and over to a Zen contemplation area, which will eventually have a stone bench instead of a park bench. All stones throughout the water feature are local natural basalt to tie into the basalt capstones on the retaining wall and house. The stepping stones also take you to the far side of the pond, down some stone steps and into the Japanese garden. 

Before adding the copper gutters

Copper gutters are in! And they look gorgeous. I let them age slightly and then I polished up the copper on the awnings, risking life and limb, and sealed them all. I hope that means it will all stay right at the degree of gentle aging I love. 

This photo shows the grass stairs now that the grass is finally greening up. 👍🏻Love them!

People keep asking me what style my house is. I have designed it simply according to my taste and the physical and financial limitations of the original house. However, after extensive research, I feel it most closely falls into an Edwardian Farmhouse style. What do you think? 

Now we await the winter until we can finish up the landscaping and add animals to the pond....