Progress: Second Floor and (Apparently Uncommon) Splayed Windows

The 2nd story ICFs are almost complete:

The great room stair window dilemma has been decided upon - I'm interested to see how it turns out because it is a very large, very splayed window where the "splay" portion at the lowest left corner of the stairs will be very close to the baseboard of the step, but everyone agrees it will look really cool and that it's not a concern.   I'm not sure I'm convinced, but I'm going with the majority on this.

Speaking of splayed windows, apparently this is a new endeavor for both my builder and the ICF guys.   With having such an immensely-high ceiling in the great room, I was worried that the square windows at the top would be "lost" tucked back into the thick ICF wall.   I had asked my architect to splay the window, and she has done so in a fashion that will expose the windows more, and more importantly play on the light coming in with the angles.  Our great room upper ceiling is like this:

and the windows should be splayed in a similar fashion as these upper ones depicted here:

Traditional Living Room design by San Francisco Photographer Bernardo Grijalva Photography

As to doing a splayed window in an ICF wall - apparently that gets to be tricky.  They are going to widen the rough openings to allow for the splayed angle portion, then the angles will be created with wood and then spray-foamed.  My architect's instructions are below, but we'll see how it plays out in the field...   

 

Progress: Upstairs, and Window Drama Yet Again

Ironically, after looking at the great room stairs picture I uploaded in the previous post, it just seemed like the window (or lack thereof) was wrong.  If I compare this mock-up that our architect did for us long ago:

to the picture of the great room stairs now:

...  it's way off.  I'm all for privacy from the street in the great room, but this is a little much!  Thankfully, yesterday my builder had noticed that the ICF guys had not filled this area all the way to the top with concrete during the first pour, in anticipation of placing a window.  Sigh of relief!  We are now working on getting that edited, needless to say.

In other more progressive news, the upstairs has begun.   Once again, I feel the house is too big which would not have been my preference: 

That's the hole to the foyer below, which has a double ceiling.  Another area of contention was that the contractors were freaking out that some of the windows in the back are not the same head height.  My architect and I realized this wasn't the norm, but I've always said "business in the front, party in the back".  It was funny - as much trouble we were having with the language barrier, as soon as I said that, the contractors understood and started laughing.  Carry on!

Fireplace Wall Design - The Big Looming Decision

This decision needs to be made this week due to the 2nd story ICFs going up.  To be sure, the Main Living Area is absolutely the most important decision to make in a house.  This is no exception for mine.  Below is the main living area recap on the house, with the red box indicating the "most important wall decision in the house".  The house is going for a very open floorplan in the main living area, starting with the library (see minor library edits previous post), breakfast, living and study all centering around the openness of the kitchen: 

and how the furniture layout is anticipated to be:

Now here's a look from the breakfast vicinity looking out into the great room, with the newly-built stairs:

 

and the view standing from the study (which is really a den) into the great room and kitchen beyond: 

those red lines are up for debate and the only thing that is certain so far:  1) it will have a 2-way fireplace and 2) the TV goes here.  A local design instructor friend may come over at some point to help me map out exactly what to do with this priority wall, because I'm just uncertain (a rarity).  Up for debate:

1.  should the wall be closed on one side of fireplace?
2.  or left open on both sides of the fireplace for a total open feel?
3.  or do a "partial" as it is now, with a sliding wood panel "interior window" of sorts and maybe a drop-down from the ceiling line since the room is 20' tall? ...  ...  

Somehow, Someway:  A Cohesive Clash of Styles...

Then there is the issue of schematics and material of the actual fireplace wall.  Material choices aside, the below pictures are all appealing for different reasons:

Contemporary Living Room design by Austin Architect Cornerstone Architects

Modern Living Room design by Los Angeles Architect MAGDALENA GLEN-SCHIENEMAN, AIA

Modern Living Room design by Houston Architect C O N T E N T Architecture
 

Contemporary Living Room design by San Francisco Media And Blogs California Home + Design

...  I want to meld the above more "urban" style with the soft and clean palette of the style of my house. It needs to be unexpected but still conform to the aesthetics of the house.  So, I found a picture of a room similar to the great room in look/scale:

Mediterranean Family Room design by Phoenix Architect Carson Poetzl, Inc.

Then, I copied & pasted various features until I could get a more realistic look of what my room might look like.  These ended up being my two favorites (forgive the "stairs" - this is a very rudimentary attempt on the old school Paint program): 

I've sent it to the architect to see what she comes up with.  We shall see. 
 

Progress: Garage and It's Fantastic Dual Purpose

The garage is up.  I must say it seems rather "wimpy" because unlike the rest of the house, it is made of traditional wood construction. We did this per our ICF contractor's recommendation, but if the big bad wolf comes that thing would be toast ;-)    Just looking at it compared to the ICF shell makes you really appreciate the true efficiency of an ICF wall.  We do plan on doing spray-foam insulation in the garage.  So here's the garage, which completes the footprint of the house:

The house looks deceivingly large because it is a long, boomerang-shaped house, and the garage only amplifies that effect!  Half of it is only one-room deep, but from the front it seems massive. However, the shape really works now that it's totally complete.   As mentioned in my first posts regarding the lot, the beauty of the garage location is that it transforms what would have been a "subdivision-like" yard into a very private oasis, like so:

in looking above, you can see that no matter where you are in the house, the ENTIRE back yard is private (there is only a treeline on the other side).  Perfectly private.  One would never know there was another house beyond the garage, and incorporating a more "courtyard" patio system in the back, now that the walls are up, seems like a natural progression in the future. 

What Would You Do?  That Looming, Big Garage Wall 

That being said,  it's important to be thoughtful as to how that brick wall appears once the bricks are applied.  Since that wall almost functions as a "feature" wall when anyone is out back, it might be good to add some design elements to "warm" that space up.  For instance, here's a picture of a newer home that did a similar thing on their back wall.  Personally, I'm under the impression that they wanted it to look "old" by making it look like these were old door openings that were bricked in:

...  now, I'm not sure that particular look is for our home, but the concept is the same.  Perhaps some decorative brick detailing design to amplify that wall as more of a courtyard space when the possibility arises to add a patio over in that area would be nice.  Even if it's just a few simple rectangles of slightly raised brick with a herringbone pattern inside, to deviate from the large flat expanse of brick on that wall:

What do you think?

What You Never Want To See - But It's Fixed, Period.

When building an ICF house, here's what you don't want to see, haha.   In response to the door dilemma mentioned in the earlier post, my builder and I are splitting the cost (very fair in my opinion) and they have sawed through that huge mass of concrete that is our exterior wall.   If you ever want to see what the inside of an ICF wall looks like after they've sawed and drilled away for hours at attempting a new front door to fix an architect mistake, this is what it looks like:

I will say it gives one a very solid feeling about the type of house they are constructing!  After seeing the next pic, I am extremely pleased that my builder encouraged  - well... almost insisted - that the mistake be fixed instead of accepted.  Looking at the change now, my front door would have looked humorously small now that I see the new and much-wider opening:

 

Sigh of relief and kudos to our builder on encouraging that decision.  Yes, we have to pay a change order but in the scheme of things I suppose it is minimal.  Onward and upward.