Custom Home

The back porch was designed as a screen porch. We settled on doing it in cedar, even though it isn’t the most low-maintenance choice. The bottom three feet or so of the walls are closed off, to keep kids/dogs/other stray critters from running through the screen. But there’s still a wide open view to the south. I had the carpenter use butt-jointed 1×8s to close off the bottom, and he did a nice job of hiding the nails that hold it all together. This porch really adds to the look of the house, as well as the function. French doors open out of the dining room onto this porch, so in nice weather we have a useful outdoor room. I even have a ceiling fan for the porch. It’s a Hunter rated for exterior use (obtained on clearance, of course).
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Okay, I was happy about the ceramic tile, but I’m completely thrilled about the marble around the fireplace. This is one of those things that came out looking better than I planned it. We took a lot of time working out the fireplace surround dimensions, because I knew I wanted to use polished marble tile around the opening. And I wanted the look to be whole tiles as much as possible. So we told the builder this early on in the project, and the trim carpenters really came through for us–this looks as good as any of the high-end homes we’ve been in. The tile looked somewhat darker in the showroom, but I’m still thrilled with the look of this. The polished marble gives a real elegance to the fireplace surround.
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We wanted more tile than we got, but we love the tile that we put in. The kitchen has a tile backsplash made of a tile that is several different coordinating colors. The master bath is all tile floor, plus a tile tub deck and backsplash and a custom tile shower. The kids bath and guest bath got tile tub surrounds in basic, 6×6 white. The installers did a great job and this all looks terrific. Ceramic tile is one of the most cost-effective floor covering options when you consider the life of the house. Properly installed, not many other flooring choices are as durable.
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Interior painting took place over a couple weeks actually. But I’ve condensed all the craziness down into these two posts. Seeing the colors go on the wall was the thing that more than anything made this start to feel like a home. So we got three paint colors as part of the “standard” deal. We wanted the kids to have rooms that suited their personalities, though, so we picked out nice pink and blue. We figured it would be a nominal upcharge to add a color. Wow, were we ever wrong.
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I can see in my logs someone from Estonia today has read every single article, starting at the beginning. I’d just like to say hi, thanks for reading. Did you like it?

The painters have started with the interior wall colors now. The main color is called “macadamia,” and it is in the master bedroom, second floor hallway, kids’ bathroom, office, entry hall, guest bedroom, music room, utility room, and mud room. That leaves the kitchen, dining room, and guest bath which we painted a sage green, and the family room, which is a darker green.
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We used paint-grade trim throughout the house. This saved us some pretty significant expense, and allowed a lot more trim to go in the house, ultimately making it look better in my opinion. We have some stained hardwood accents, such as the newel posts and handrails on the staircase. But with the hardwood floors and the kitchen cabinets, there’s no shortage of natural wood in view. So the painted trim gave us more flexibility. The painters have finished now, and the process they used was impressive. Two coats of alkyd primer were spray applied, and then they sanded everything smooth and made one more pass filling gaps before shooting the enamel. The results look fantastic, I’m really impressed by the attention to detail of these painters. My cove molding has a large, smooth curve to it, and the surface just looks beautiful thanks to all that prep. These painters are absolutely some of the most skilled professionals out there.
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Seeing my custom kitchen cabinets finished was one of the most exciting developments in this whole process of building a custom home. It’s sort of the first detail to get finished. And it exceeded my expectations completely. We agonized over the decision to do a natural finish, but it looks so incredibly impressive on these kitchen cabinets. But why am I rambling on, lets get to the pictures.
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These installers are terrific. They finished quickly and there’s a lot of pride in their work evident. Today they placed the trim on the cabinets, finished attaching all the doors, and applied the laminate countertops. Other than fine-tuning (a couple pull-out drawers are missing) and finishing (which will be done by the painters), the cabinet installation is complete. And it looks great too, I’m very happy.
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Oh I’ve been waiting for this. The custom kitchen cabinets, utility room cabinets, and vanities got delivered a couple weeks ago and have been sitting in the garage. To protect the finish they stacked them with the cabinet doors facing in, so I haven’t even got much of a look at them. So I’m unbelievably excited to see my kitchen cabinets come in out of the garage. These are custom cabinets, made by Shamrock Cabinets here in the Kansas City area. They did a terrific job from working with us on the design to executing and installing the cabinets. Particularly the construction of thes cabinets, even the utility ones are really well-made cabinetry.

We did a “kitchen design” with the people in the Home Depot and at Lowe’s and got a bid on thir mid-grade, semi-custom cabinets. The custom cabinets from Shamrock were more cost-effective and definitely better constructed in my opinion. Plus they were installed by Shamrock, not a third-party contractor. I’m very high on craftsmanship, and I have to say from that perspective, I’m really pleased with our cabinets from Shamrock.
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