Ideas for the house

Big ideas, limited budget.  Having lived in California for 11 years, we had big dreams of walls of windows, winding wings enclosing various courtyards, and bringing the outside in and vice-versa.  Only takes one cold winter and one hot, humid summer in Virginia to see that it doesn't translate well.

Jenny has travelled France and Italy extensively and loves the countryside there.  For something unique and better suited for the Mid-Atlantic climate, we developed our "French country villa" theme.  From Matt, we had the approximate house base dimensions and his initial idea.  We found the following photo and worked from that, liking how the steep roof cut the upper floor, providing outside view interest and inside, sloping ceilings for a cottage feel:

Working from Matt's plans, I put together this 3D CAD model to help visualize the whole house as it might appear after Phase I, from the front, screened porch on the right:

One of the key elements of the "French country villa" look is stucco.  Stucco has a bad rep on the East Coast where the humidity can accelerate structural wood rot if the stucco is not applied correctly.  To apply it correctly is very expensive, as Matt found out, and as we were afraid was probably the answer.  So, other options?  The best siding at an median price is fiber-cement lap board siding...very American, not very "French country villa".  We had no choice but resign to it.  So taking on Matt's suggestion of using a small lap reveal (5") which I thought was more American colonial, and looking for a french country color, we endeavored to make the best of it.

Then...(prepare for the divine intervention, guardian angel tap, mamaw's whisper moment) I was driving home on a Sunday from Luray, in the Shenandoah Mountains where I was assisting Jenny on a triathlon photo shoot, when I passed Grey Ghost Winery.  I had passed it 20 times before without ever stopping, but had always admired the "French country villa" stucco building you could see from the road.  This time, something said "go back".  So after turning around and pulling in, through some great vineyard rows with impressively thick vines, i parked next to the building.

BAM!  It wasn't stucco, it was James Hardy fiber-cement vertical siding, which are 4'x8' panels with an imitation stucco finish.  Butted edge to edge vertically, from 10 ft away it looks like real stucco, but with the siding advantages of fiber-cement.  I don't remember much of the remaining drive home as my mind raced with excitement and possibilities, freedom from the hum-drum lap siding!  As it turns out, Matt has used the vertical siding before at Lake Anna and jumped right in on the idea.

Next, "let's move some dirt"...








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