Drafted a first pass at a "quieter" surround; fewer tiles did the trick.  Hubby is okay with this now.

The 1924 Batchelder fireplace also had much smaller wood elements, putting a greater emphasis on the tiles since Batchelder was a ceramist who specialized in tiles.  That's not the case in my house; my spouse is a freak about wood, loves woodwork and therefore would prefer more wood over other materials.

Speaking of wood, I've been driving hubby and the project manager crazy over the duration of construction.  I've cut costs to the bone, cut corners all over the place, made a lot of sacrifices in personal preference to get this house built.

But I'm not giving in on maple.

It's all maple, all the time.  Natural - no stain.  Clear finish.  Floors, trim, cabinetry, all of it maple.

Granted, the great room will look a bit like a basketball court until the furniture is moved in, but the clean, clear simplicity of maple sounds so appealing to me.

Maple is more expensive than oak, also a bit harder to find than oak -- at least around these parts.  It's surprising, given the amount of maple that is consumed in commercial flooring and other applications, that there isn't more maple in the pipeline.

We've offset this problem by supplying our own maple for the trim, harvested from my in-laws' wooded property.  They have quite a bit of acreage that they manage as a wood lot, harvesting part of it over a rotation; the recently harvested portion of the property provides a variety of habitat that is appreciated by animals when adjoining mature woods.  Much of the wood my in-laws cut this year was oak -- but a couple of good-sized maples came down, too.  One was 24"+ in diameter and will yield the newel posts for the foyer staircase once the wood has been sawn, kiln-dried, planed and cut to nominal size.

The woodwork for the fireplace will also come from the same log.

As for the overall design: I'm shooting for a hybrid of styles, something simple like Arts and Crafts/Mission, early Modern, maybe a touch of Euro/Asian elements.  We are expecting to live in this house for 3 to 5 years, with the intent to build our "dream home" after that time.  (Boy, am I glad I built this house before the dream home; think we'll have all the bugs worked out before we spend BIG money...)  The design of this house must be fairly clean and neutral that will have a broad appeal to the marketplace when we put it up on the market.  If I get too personal with the design elements, the house won't move and I'll be stuck with a white elephant that might cost me a lot of money and keep me from moving to the dream home.  At the same time we have a motley assortment of furniture we've accumulated that will have to work together; having an overly tight design will make everything look out of place.  I really don't want to run out and buy a mess of new furniture, particularly since much of what we have is inherited or has provenance with which we don't want to part.  Let alone the budget will be tight for some time; if I was working full-time it wouldn't be as big a deal, but there it is.

But back to the fireplace...imagine the field of tiles being a soft, tumbled tile in a neutral, off-white.  The smaller tiles are a mellow yellow that coordinates with the maple, the corner accent tiles a glazed scultural item that mimics pressed steel.  This will coordinate with the stainless steel and the gray stone-like counter surfacing in the kitchen.  I would like to use something a bit more in line with Arts and Crafts for the tile -- there are many folks out there who make lovely products -- but this has to be fairly neutral and harmonious, and I'm already bucking the local trend here by deviating from neo-classic and Victorian style.

Ugh.  Victorian.  Makes me want to heave.  My project manager is fixated on the stuff, wants me to have fluted oak wood trim with rosettes in each corner.  He's having a real problem understanding what I'm looking for, what Mission looks like.  I've printed a few photos of different wood trim in the Arts and Crafts style in the hopes that he'll clue in soon. 

Or hubby and I are going to have to do the finish work by ourselves.

No problem, except for the investment of time.  We might save ourselves $5000 in labor if the project manager doesn't clue in soon.

Now...off to the house to do take some more measurements.  There may be another wrinkle in the design process.  I think the electrical outlets on either side of the fireplace might be too close to permit this version of the fireplace surround.

3:14:03 PM    comment []

Hope you've been watching C-SPAN or catching video/audio streaming.

Every registered voter's right to vote in these United States under our Constitution deserves protection of that right.

Watch to see who defends those rights.

2:12:31 PM    comment []