Something “Old , Is Something “New”
I spent a good part of my day this Saturday covering some open house hours and client meetings for one of my sales staffers. This staffer was out to attend a funeral and I am happy to pitch-in. I went to Milwaukee and met with a few extremely nice groups of clients and visitors.
The home I was at was located at was on 91st street and Good Hope, in the Oak Hill subdivision. This is a newer development quite close to Menomonee Falls and has a community full of police officers, teachers, and fire fighters(mostly). Anyway, we are building one of our Dream 2000 two story homes and it is now in drywall AND the drywallers were plastering their “mud” today while I showed the home.
In a previous post, I mentioned how I love to attend the big International Home Builder’s Show each year to see what new ideas or products I can discover. This year, I found a great drywall product that makes it appear like the effect of a very old or classic home. I used many new drywall effects throughout the home but my favorite is the front room’s effect. This room is located off the foyer so it could be used as a Den. This room is equally convenient to the back located kitchen , so this room could also be a nice formal dining room if you prefer. In today’s “generation Y” design trend style, this multi-purpose room (it could also be a parlor or tot’s play room) is a hot button for allowing folks to use it as they wish. The 11 by 14 foot size is perfect for so many uses AND it is located directly accross from a bathroom so it could also be used as a guest bedroom if desired. All of this IS NOT the new idea. I am , slowly getting to that.
I had fun showing the new idea to the visitors today and they seemed to really like it. The effect is that of having an old fashined room with inset panels on every wall and ceiling too. To accomplish this, I first dry-walled the entire room in a single (normal) layer of drywall. Then, if you can imagine, I had 6 inch wide and very long, strips of drywall cut and these were put around the room to form picture frames around the newly created rectangular inset “panels” . I tryed something like this on our Parade 2009 master bedroom(see the home page photo galery of this home’s master to see it) but the difference here is the new edge shape I had applied to the raw drywall edges that formed these panels were a fancy chair rail colonial shape. The effect is truly stunning and would normally be found only in homes costing much much more. Until now, this effect would have needed to be done using fine carpentry. We also did this to the cieling and it looks fantastic even in this early state. I knew I was going to try this, so I decided to really take the design up a notch by building an 6 foot wide by 6.5 feet high alcove into the predominant 14 foot long wall. I could do this because the other side of this wall was against the garage. This meant,(you won’t see it on our Dream 2000 floor plan) I could cantilever this alcove protrusion into the garage and not need to have a foundation under it. I gave an arched top to this alcove so we can put a dining hutch or perhaps a bereau(if used as a den) inside this alcove. THEN on either side of this alcove, I made two floor- to- cieling rectangular inset panels AND added two ornate wall light sconces(with mini lamp shades) to finish the old world effect.
In the great room, I added crown moulding but NOT of wood, but rather of a new hollow plastic drywall moulding! What fun to do something so simple that adds so much charm and warmth and not spend an arm and a leg in doing it. I also used a new drywall corner that is neither square nor round but BOTH round AND square at the same time! I will try to explain this in my next blog.
I met the folks who have actually purchased this home and loved showing them around. I feel like a proud Father. The problem was we had our showing cut a little short because another super couple (and her Dad) showed up and we had a wonderful time dreaming about building a bigger 2-story a few miles away. I sure love my job! Lastly, I had a lovely time showing some folks the home and taking an “imagination tour” of our new upcoming “Hybrid Ranch” which I have discussed here on my very first blog entry. I had the Hybrid Ranch design with me in my truck so we took a very brief look. I have a new radical wild idea I am going to introduce in this new design and I can’t wait to share that idea (soon) with all of you. It is so novel an idea that once I thought of the concept, I honestly can not look at any kitchen cabinet layout without visually seeing a ton of wasted space.
As always, thanks for imaginating with me. If you want to see the drywall ideas I am talking about AND MORE drywall ideas I have not even mentioned (as well as a nifty finshed basement that is sooo simple yet sooo roomy) , stop by the Oak Hill house , 1 to 4 this weekend. I gaurantee, you will see things you can not see anywhere else I know of!
Blessings and thanks.
Tom Hignite
