Come on in!

Thank you for stopping by for a visit!

Come on in, I'm so glad you are here!

Let's grab a snack!

How about a cool beverage?  Dappled Lavender Lemonade...mmm!

Now that we are replenished, let's take a tour of the Henn Haus!

Pardon the "under construction" atmosphere!

Here is a look at the great room ~ Window treatments coming soon!

Black Trim, Concrete Floors

The living room has been through about 3 couches.  We've settled on the favorite...a white Italian leather sectional from Macy's.  It's so easy to keep clean and the shape was made for this room!

Red Velvet Cake Couch :)

Out with Red Velvet (it got moved to the media room) and in with the Creamy White Leather

One thing that is consistent is the White Moose Head that adorns the fireplace.  Love love love!

The great room flows right into the dining area.  I love a nice open floor plan!

Here is a look @ the balcony over the great room with black wrought iron railing.

I love the way the railing runs through the Newel Post.  So classy!

Between the great room & the kitchen is a "bar".  This was our  best last minute change!  In the plans, this was going to be a solid wall, but it would have closed the kitchen completely off from the rest of the house.  We didn't put any windows in the kitchen because just off the kitchen are two 8-foot windows with french doors off the dining. 

In the great room there are four 5x6 windows and two 3x6 windows which allow plenty of light for the kitchen.

The dining room is situated directly between the kitchen and the hall leading to the South wing of the house.

Sitting at the table, we get a front row seat to my very favorite place to gather with family and friends!

This kitchen is phenomenal, and is definitely the heart of our home!

This took some serious time to design and it was so worth the time and energy spent! 

Still need to have the handles installed, but I have them picked out!  It didn't take days, it's taken months of dilerberation, but all cabinet knobs & drawer pulls have been chosen.  One other thing to complete are the corbels under the range hood.

Look at that mirror finish on the Polished Black Pearl Granite!  I think the fridge & faucet reflection looks so awesome.

We placed a 48" TV in a cabinet above the refridgerator, but we actually need to get a slightly larger one to fit it.  I still can't believe how much room is up there.

This kitchen was all planned around the  Kenmore Pro side by side fridge/freezer.  During construction they actually had to add 3 feet out along the wall with the tv and add another foot out on the wall where the stove sits.  We went ahead and took the addition up to the second story as well, so it gave the house some shape on the exterior wall.  It was originally just going to be a straight flat wall.  By adding this footage, the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs gained some space.  Another thing this did was add an area that we will plant a tall narrow evergreen this fall.  It all turned out for the best.  All because of my husband's desire to have this fridge/freezer set!

On another note, I agreed to this fridge, but was sad it didn't dispense water.  We went ahead and added a bar sink with instant hot & cold filtered water.  Next to that is an ice maker.  It makes the pellet ice.  It is a huge hit in the house.

The left side of the kitchen in this picture is all about serving at the bar, it is a beverage and snack side.  The right side of the kitchen is made for the "chef".  It worked out great and there is plenty of storage for every gadget and set of plates/bowls/tupperware or whatever else finds it's way in here.  We have so much stuff, but it's well organized and never a disaster on the countertop.  I really like that a lot.

I really love the black and white cabinets with the chrome. 

The stainless steel appliances look so beautiful in this kitchen.  I couldn't have asked for much better than this layout. 

The island is one HUGE solid piece of granite.  We had to hunt for one big enough to top the cabinets.

The corbels on the end of the island are one of my favorite touches.  This island is like a huge piece of furniture.  It is so perfect!  Plenty of storage and a super smart design are much appreciated now that we are busy working in the kitchen daily.

Here's an in process photo that shows the extra seating at the island.

We chose many different drawer and door fronts. 

In this shot alone, we have v-groove, raised panel & recessed.  Also you can see that the drawers are solid with just some routing on the edges. 

The wood is knotty alder painted white & distressed in a dark brown.  The black cabinets are solid black with no distress.

Here are some of the knobs I've chosen.

From the kitchen and dining area we have the hallway.  This hallway is about 7 feet wide and leads to the powder room, salon, laundry room and master suite.

Here is my salon room.  It has a door that leads to the garage that is not wood, I however did stick with the v-groove arched panelling like throughout the downstairs.   We quickly found out that solid Wood Fire Proof doors are super EXPENSIVE! 

This actually worked out just great because I wanted the room to be black and white.  So we painted this door solid black and it looks so amazing! 

I love this room!

Across the hall, we have the powder room.

Hi!

I put the mirror on the wall when you enter the powder room instead of over the sink and I am very happy with that choice.

Here is a shot from the hallway to the master suite. 

We've arranged this room many times and changed the decor with the seasons. 
I find complete joy in doing that!  Changing curtains, changing bedspreads and duvets, piling up all kinds of pillows and just being fun with it.


Arrangement 1 - Jan-Feb

Black curtains, black sleigh bed and Valentine bedding. 

I love silver!

Layout for Spring

White 4 post bed, cream sofa, and cotton duvet with natural fiber rub. 

Feels like fresh air!

The chrome pendant lights are great for our evening reading time.  The kids always love to come in our room and watch TV, so the sofa works out great in here.



This bed set is so comfortable to snuggle in!  There is nothing like cotton.  Vintage cotton is my favorite, but this shabby chic collection from Target is pretty comfy too!!!

The hallway to the Master Bath area has His & Hers closets.

The "Hers" Closet is done in complete white, while "His" is done in Black.

We both chose to have cubes, shoe shelves and chrome rods.

I love using the vintage locker baskets in my cubes!  I scored at a local Estate sale that had these in a greasy shop for the last 40 years.  I got about 30 baskets (and a whole wall of the lockers they fit in) for 35.00!  Unbelievable!!!!!

And here's a peak at "His" closet.  I need to get some updated pictures, but here's during the design and construct phase.

Suspended cubes are very cool.  I love the way he has extra room under them for baskets!  I wish I would have thought of that for my closet.  Mine was designed and constructed while we planned his out.  We learned a lot from just the first closet being completed!

He loves to Iron.  Yeah, he stole my heart!

I have a hook in his closet that is for my "ironing/steaming requests".  He's so perfect!

At the end of the hallway is a HUGE window right by the sunk in bath tub.  This is a wonderful place to unwind at the end of my busy day!

This picture was taken just as I started decorating during construction, just for fun.



Now it's my favorite place to take my before and after pictures of my 90 day challenge.  I have become an independent distributor of the Visalus 90 day challenge & not only am I changing physically, but my family is getting healthier!

Here's my latest picture (2 months on the challenge!)

And here's my day 1, day 21 and day 40 progress!

Right next to the tub is our shower.  The floor of this shower turned out fantastic!  I was so concerned about the way it would turn out because I had someone tell me that we would see the tile effect of the 12" squares we used.  Once the grout was put in, you couldn't see the lines at all.  It turned out fantastic!

The theme of our house was carried out here.

Stone, marble, and chrome.  The wood is next to this doorway on the linen closet.

We used this natural stone tile in 3 different sizes throughout the house (kitchen, master bath, and master fireplace).  We also used the marble tile on the wall of the bar in the great room and around the fireplace in the great room.

Well, that's pretty much the whole downstairs, minus the laundry room. 

I'll get that on the next post with the upstairs!

Have a wonderful day & happy home design and construction!

xoxo ~ Kristy, co-founder of the Henn Haus :)

Exterior - Not quite what I thought it would be.

So, what we had drawn up in the beginning was a farm house.  One that I envisioned would have hardy board siding with a nice big porch along the back and a fairly roomy front porch that would comfortably hold 2 rocking chairs and a table.  The porches were going to be made of reclaimed cedar beams with shingled gables.  I was thinking bright colors, maybe a yellow with a cream trim and black doors with shiny chrome handles. 

We did a lot of the work ourselves on the house, which meant we were there from the time we got off from working M-F and hit the ground running to see the progress of the day crew and put our nightly work in.  There were days I fell asleep in a snow suit in a rocking chair on the front porch while Tim installed tongue & groove pine ceiling boards.  I tried to hang in there most nights, but he always outlasted me!  We have a horse trailer with a camper up front, many times the kids would fall asleep in there.  A lot of dynamics were in play during the construction of this house.  Our last home sold before this house was finished, so all 5 of us lived in a 2 bedroom house in the next town over.  With 3 kids, a 2 bedroom can get pretty cramped REAL quick!  What we did find is that we grew closer.  Enjoyed dinner in the living room when it wasn't on the run out the door.  We ate outside a lot at the construction site, so it was like a picnic daily!  We found fun in the little things and looking back, in some ways, I miss the small quarters.  (then I snap back to reality). :)

Fast forward....

With being at the construction site daily, we met a lot of people.  People from the neighborhood walking would stop and introduce themselves and they would ask to take a tour. Other people we met were construction guys looking for work.  When the fall & winter comes around these guys get slow and are always looking to get some more work.  This is where our project took a quick turn!

We were approached by a crew that did stucco.  I have always loved stucco homes, but knew that was way out of our budget, or so I thought.  The crew that stopped by one day was from a town about an hour away looking to get on a job in Tri-Cities.  They gave us a bid and it came in way under what the lap siding would be.  Wooo hoo...stucco it is!

Stucco farm house?  Hmmmm...Interesting.  Stucco and cedar?  Not so sure.

Here we go.....Let's get in the car, don't forget to grab the laptop & camera....mission: find stucco homes with cedar.  I found out quickly that the cedar doesn't hold up too well in our climate, especially when facing the west.  Sunsets of over 100 degrees are not uncommon.  We found homes worth much more than ours that seemed to look dated or sadly aged when it came to natural wood doors and beams.  I started to really re-think the rustic farm house look.  I am sure we would care for the wood upfront.  Make sure it is sealed and treated yearly, but what about when we get older?  Is that something we will want to do, or pay to have done?  I'm not so sure.  I would also be so sad if we sold the home & I drove by one day many years down the road only to see the unloved beams that I hand chose and loved so much.  I think I better stick to a cedar gazebo!

Stonework

I spent some time using Paint and drew some rock on the house.  I like being able to quickly see the results of the different placement right away.  I chose Option 5.  In the opinions of others, it was too much rock.  I say....NEVER too much rock!  I love it!




Option 1: Do we do rock on 3rd stall only and half way up on the double bay? 
Do we put rock up top on the entrance?




Option 2: Do we do rock only half way up all bays & pillars with rock over entrance?




Option 3:  How about no rock up top at all?




Option 4: Really save $$$ and just have some stone on pillars & entrance?




Option 5: Lots of stone, a little more money but a huge improvement on curb appeal?

 Color of Stucco

Picking out stucco colors is so much more difficult that I could have ever imagined.  There are so many different colors and the little samples they give you...they are quite different once on the walls!  I am so thankful our guys did a "sample" mixture of the color I had chose, and the put it on a 2x2 section of a wall so I could see it in the shade & then later in the day...in the sun & sun set.  Very thoughtful & saved an ocean of tears!  Had I went with the color I thought was "tan"...I would have had a giant peach house.  It was terrible! 

So here we go again....next mission: drive around until we find THE COLOR scheme we want! *YAY*  Once you have accomplished the task of finding "the one"...what next?  How do you find out what color it is that they used?  We went to the assessors page, found the name of the person owned the property & looked them up in the white pages.  They were very happy to share the information with us.  They actually had just completed construction & had not moved yet.  We had tried going by a couple times and no one was ever around.  We even brought our samples and compared them to their wall.  It's crazy, about 5 different colors were "close" but not "perfect".  They actually ordered their color from the same company we were getting ours from, so we were able to get the exact color mix from the same company.  The paint store looked up their address and it had their mixes right there for us!  We live miles and miles away from the house we found, so having the exact same color scheme wasn't a big deal.  We decided on the main color to be brown & the trim around the house & windows to be dark brown...almost black.  The trim on the wood fascia does not quite match, but the paint store was willing to give us another color for free since it didn't exactly match the stucco trim.  Great store, great guarantee that they honor!  Local small businesses rock!  The exterior doors would remain white and sport chrome handles.  The front would be covered in stonework.  I wanted the stone to be placed randomly and not be framed in.  I like the look of natural stone and love it even more when it looks like patchwork on a quilt.  The guys did an absolutely amazing job.

I'm extremely happy with the way it turned out!



The two front windows were not completely framed in with the trim so that I can have wrought iron shutters installed.  The window above the door will also have wrought iron work.  To tie it all together, each side of the house will have a stucco wall with iron gates.  It truly is a castle on the farm...The Henn Haus.



Windows and Exterior Doors

Windows

We decided to go with the Milgard window.  I love how easily they glide open and close.  Brand of window was super easy.  The style of window, not easy one bit!  We drove around for days before we could decide whether or not we liked grid...I didn't like it...but I needed to drive around and make sure.  So, no grid.  But maybe I like the bow-tie!  Let's drive around some more!  Ok, well, I like the bow-tie, but not with this color of house, or with this type of front entry.  Is there ANYTHING simple when choosing the most obvious adornment of the house? 

Windows to your home are so very important and deserve to shine all on their own.  They require people walking or driving by to try and look in, to see what beauty the inside of the home might reveal...even if it's just a peek.

We ended up really going out on a limb, we got vinyl windows with clear glass...after all that driving around, we decided on no grid at all.  Why interrupt the view with a bunch of lines?  The framing around the windows will be the next big decision.  Until then, it's clear glass with white vinyl.  Decision made.  Happy us. :)

Exterior Doors

All exterior doors from the house are Anderson.  We chose french doors for the front and back porches and a single from our bathroom.  They are 8' and ginormous!  They are very heavy and close up tight. 

One problem with using and in-swing Anderson door is the installation.  They have a very large tread at the bottom to step over.  We will have to have a transition piece.  I guess the installation should have been done differently looking back.  With our slab on grade being the finished floor, the rise of the threshold is probably just slightly higher than if we had some tile or carpet installed over the concrete.  The out-swing doors on the back patios are fine, the threshold is made slightly different and they sit practically flush with the concrete slabs.



Garage Doors

The garage doors were fun to look for.  The style and color took a very long time to get in.  I finally figured out (after weeks of calling everyone in the Wayne Dalton garage door company)...that they wait until so many of a certain color are ordered.  Then a certain style.  So, they sit there on these custom orders until they have enough work to keep costs down and run a certain color all at one time.  Of course here at the Henn Haus we don't choose anything that's main stream or typical!  So we pay for that with "a lot of patience"!  These doors were worth the wait!  They are extra tall and a little wider so that we can fit all of my furniture refinishing and repurposing projects our Ford F350 in there.  :)

The rock finish on the front is looking AMAZING!  I love it.  My little castle.  *sigh*