will them toe kicks accommodate my cowboy boots?

Been fretting about toe kicks this weekend (yes, this is what it has come to...). Toe kicks are those cantilevered indents at the bottom of your cabinets. These ergonomic attributes are there to keep you from stubbing yer toes when you approach and work at your base cabinets. Many people take them for granted. Be glad that they are there, because your toes certainly are.

"Borrowed" from About.com

Standard dimensions for toe kicks are 3 inches deep and 3.5 inches tall. As the wee blurb at About.com states, you can go deeper and taller, but you really shouldn't go shallower and shorter.

Here in the land of cowboys and cowgirls wearing cowboy boots and cowgirl boots, (hopefully) respectfully, I wonder if them toe kicks needs to be deeper and taller, especially if those cowboots are pointy.

The bride's cowgirl boots. Mine are lost in storage...

And folks around these parts seem to have large, clown-like feet (the bride excluded). What's a dude concerned about toe kicks to do? Make 'em Texas sized!

The "public" kitchen area of our apartment building sports some Texas-sized toe kicks. They are 6 inches tall and a whopping 7 inches deep. You'd have to be a hell of cowboy to kick those toe kicks (and I would't want to see you in a pair of Speedos)!

As a side bonus [cough, cough], Texas-sized toe kicks work well aesthetically. If the toe kick is matched to the floor color (in this case stainless steel that approaches the color of concrete), light colored cabinets appear to float above the floor. Man, I bet that's relaxing to see after herding cattle (or cats) all day!

There's some architectural support for Texas-sized toe kicks: Robert Rasbach thinks toe kicks need to be 6 inches deep. And yes, he was a Texan.

cabinet shake up?

Given that we are asking for/hoping for some special things to happen cabinet wise (deep toes, under cab lights and plugs, shelves), I'm getting concerned that IKEA may not fit the bill. Further eroding IKEA's support is that the desk I blog on and bought a mere six months ago is disintegrating before my eyes: Delaminating, warping, discoloring. Yuck.

Whilst on the Modern Home Tour this spring, we visited a house that used KitchenCraft cabinets, and they were pretty swank (in an affordable kinda way). Further research suggests that they are, indeed, affordable and semi-customizable with the local dealer (mere blocks from our lot) designing, customizing, and installing the units. We stopped by the local dealer today to check 'em out, and their cabinets are, indeed, nice. Even better, they could also do the shelves and drawers in the living room.

"Hmmmm," he hmmmmed.

elevated interest: part 4 (the end!)

One last thing to show elevations for: The garage!

You can see that it is now Hardie, the slope of the roof is toward the south (to later accommodate solar panels). It also now has a few windows, two to the north and one to the south. Wondered about that window to the south (would it be better to have it to the east?), but aesthetically it works better there (breaks up the wall a bit).

There you have it! According to the little box on the right of the paperwork, we are 25 percent through construction documents.

elevated interest: part 3

What else got elevated?

The shelves just inside the front door:

Looking good. Weren't expecting drawers at the bottom, but drawers at the bottom are a good idea.

The half bath (just showing one):

This shows the size and height of the window. We reckon that's gonna be frosted of something, otherwise the UPS man will see us poop.

The laundry room:

Yep. Thinking that we should elevate the washer and dryer (we're getting old, you know). If we do that, we prolly should move the W and the D to one side or the other (prolly the other) and have more counter space to the side.

What else... Oh yeah: the master bath!

Floaty cabs! Can see window placement and the architects' ideas about size and placement of tile. Wondering where the lights go (through the mirror?). Again, looks cool.

And finally, here's the guest bath upstairs:

Looks good (but missing a mirror!).

elevated interest: part 2

The architects also provided us with elevations of the selected parts of the interior, namely the kitchen, bathrooms, living room, and laundry. So let's gawk and gander at the kitchen!

First off, here's the floor plan for reference:

East is toward the top and north is toward the left.

Looking east:

Looking south:

Looking west:

Looking north:

and a couple 3-D images looking generally toward the south:

We're digging it and would say that it's about 85 percent there!

No issues with the southern elevation except that we're thinking the shelves should run across the window:

On second thought, maybe that doesn't work so well aesthetically. Will have to think about it... Maybe at the very least the top shelf connects. hmmm....  Note that the architects moved the windows to up high. Nice.

Looking west: The architects show a slide-in range-oven; however, we plan on just having a range here with the oven on the eastern wall (a friend at work said "You need two ovens!" but with the New Mexican bread oven in the yard, we'll be fine). This'll create more under-counter storage.

We asked for open shelves instead of upper cabs for part of the kitchen but weren't expecting nearly all the uppers to be open shelves. But we really like how the architects "curved" the shelf around the corner between the southern and western walls. Perhaps the open shelf to the right of the range should have a door.

We'll need to chat with the architects about the range we want:

(same friend at work: She: "A word of advice: You need six burners." Me: You're not going to like the range we picked. She: "Why? How many burners are you planning on?" Me: Three. She: "Three?!?!?!?")

Furthermore, I think we found the range hood we want:

Can you say "Minimal."? It's rather perfect, really, mimicking the shape of the range and being minimal and white. As an added bonus, it costs about 40 percent less than the others we were flirting with. So the kitchen will need to accommodate these items.

Looking north, we may want the cabinets to accommodate pull out trash/recycling areas. Not sure where the trash goes in this here chuckwagon!

We're also intrigued by having wider counter spaces on the southern and western sides. The standard width is 25.5 inches; however, several folks suggest deeper depths. Counters are considered deep at 30 inches. Robert Rasbach suggests 36 inches.

Counter height is something else to consider. Standard height is 36 inches. Robert Rasbach suggests a wee bit higher at 37 inches.

Having a wee bit of debate on the length of the toe kick. Robert Rasbach suggests a minimum of 6 inches, but three seems to work. We just saw the counters in the public area of our apartment building, and they have what appears to be 6 inches with the kick plate the same color as the concrete floor. It is sweet. May need to go with 6-inchers.

elevated interest: part 1

Got the latest-greatest from the architects on Friday: updated floor plans, updated elevations and, for the  first time, interior elevations as well as a 3-D mockup of the kitchen. It's like Christmas morning: Where oh where to begin!

Let's start with the floor plans. Not much has changed except that the washer and dryer are now on the opposite wall in the laundry room and the kitchen is a wee bit more refined:

The new plans show ceiling heights, and the master is at 9 feet (we were thinking it was 10). We're thinking about that... Given that that's about all we have to say about the floor plan, it's pretty much done!

The elevations are much more refined than the previous ones:

Looking east:

Looking north:

Looking west:

Looking south:

We think it's looking pretty good, and many of our comments on the previous versions have been considered. Check out the windows for the living room:

Hot dang, that's cool! The ones with the dashed V's on 'em are the ones that open (with the window opening in the direction of the open side of the V.

Not much to say about the elevations, again an indication that the darn things are nearly done. However, one thing that's bothered me a bit is the angled roof line for the overhang over the master bedroom door:

Call it mental illness (the aforeblogmentioned "horizontals"), but I get the jeebies when I see it. Maybe they could block the end off so it look something like this:

But I don't know. Maybe that looks goofy (and maybe it's not structurally possible). We shall ask.

Next up: Interior elevations!

landscaping, take 1

Lots to blog about this weekend, so get ready...

First up is the landscaping. We got the initial concept of the design from the designer, and here it is:

In short, minimal and lots of natives. The landscape architect said his plant palette was purposefully limited to those plants that he knew were hardy for our climate as well as low maintenance (hardiness [heat, drought, and the occasional hard freeze] and low-maintenance tend to go hand in hand). Since a water-wise/low-maintenance landscape is high on our list, we are happy to oblige. Note that many of the plants have "Texas" and "Mexican" in their names. That's good. "Vermont Wiregrass" or "Brazilian Sycamore" probably wouldn't do well here (and I loves me some Mexican Wire [Feather] Grass).

High on the landscape architect's priority list was not competing with the architecture, which may be why he didn't pick up on my (gentle) suggestion of a couple de Stijl walls in the front [  :-(  ]. We'll have to think about that one... And notice the absence of chickens. We've vacillated on the pollo (are chickens compatible with a low-maintenance lifestyle? ummm: no.). The landscape architect wasn't too keen on them (whole lotta, whole lotta scratching on the landscape going on....). And fryers can take up a lot of room. If we change our minds, we can always add chickens (and bees?) over in the garden area. And after seeing how much real estate gets eaten up by this plan, it's hard to envision where chickens and bees would go.

To deal with the back of the property, we ultimately decided on clumping bamboo. That fig tree back yonder is already there. We're in love with it (and it ably survived the worst one-year drought in Texas history last year).

Things we like:

- the simplicity
- all the natives
- the courtyard
- that there's some lawn but not a lot
- the use of the outdoor oven as a focal point in the distance ('cause it is a "What the hell is that?" kinda deal)
- the large pavers
- the Texas Mountain Laurel outside the kitchen window
- the Texas Redbud in the patio area
- the vision of a bistro table in the courtyard
- the stage! (and the grass before it for adoring fans [and tomatoes nearby in the garden in case a performance goes south...])
- the almost ironic juxtaposition of the hot tub and Texas Sabal Palm

Things that (may) need to get changed:

- losing one of the rainwater tanks off the garage (the landscape architect hadn't seen the roof design, so didn't know that one of them wouldn't work).
- Boxwood Hedge in the entry area. Not sure we want a hedge blocking the view of the front of the house. We're in love with that part of the design. The architects, however, were fine with them hedges. We'll need to ask how high these suckers are envisioned at before signing off on 'em. They may be low to simply define the entry and not block the building.
- The position of the driveway gate off the back of the house. We're concerned it might distract from the cantilevered carport and that it might be nice to have a door to access the back yard from there. The architects, however, are fine with it.
- adding a rainwater tank over by the master bedroom.
- more privacy/shielding of the hot tub (hedge? fence?)
- need a place for the trash/recycling containers (large enough to accommodate a future third one for compostables (will Austin or won't Austin?)
- what's the plan for the border areas?
- lowish fence (or hedge?) on the property line where the carport is? The neighbors have a bedroom there. Might be nice (for them) to have some sort of visual (and sound) barrier there...

The architects envisioned the tub just outside the door from the master, but we think it needs to be out back. We don't want to see the darn thing from the living room. The architects would also like to see the courtyard and master bedroom area more developed and defined with vertical elements. We need to also cross check these plants with Austin's list. If we want a five star green rating, each and every plant needs to also be on Austin's approved list.

So we'll ponder the plan this weekend and send comments over to the landscape architect late Sunday.

Thoughts appreciated!

Mexican sycamore:

Texas Mountain Laurel:

Mexican Wire (Feather) Grass:

Boxwood Hedge:

Texas Redbud:

Texas Sabal Palm:

Clumping Bamboo:

Creeping Fig: