contemplativeSomehow this morphed into a Bourne-like contest between myself and two others to be the first to take on a character and do a song and dance in the spotlight that would take the power away from the dictator that was hosting the party, sort of a musical version of V for Vendetta mixed with a reality show.
Aside from overtones of my jealousy of Crist (which isn't really true, it's more that I'm feeling angsty about where I should be success-wise), I think it's speaking to my lack of control over my life.
Wrapped up some estimates on materials for the porch, and as I feared, it's gonna mean another loan. Pricing out the windows was a good idea, as special-ordering the windows is not as expensive as I thought, and the price difference is not worth reframing. It's still gonna be something like $3600 just for the windows (that's ten windows if you're counting), plus the remaining insulation, sheathing, siding, and the like pushes it into the $8000 category. That's just not money that I'm gonna have available in the normal sense. If I push it to $10k, I can probably get the insulation done as well, but that means I'm gonna be doing a boatload of siding work this fall in addition to finishing the porch.
Silly thing: I still need to decide on a style for the front of the house. I'm pretty convinced on the faux-stone bottom, but the upper part above the porch has yet to be decided.
This is a CAD drawing of what the original plan was. It's still pretty close, but the doorway is a little different.
Rendering of one idea.
I hate the white.
This is a combination of stucco and stone. I dislike the color, and the style doesn't really fit, but I'm more looking at the visual texture of the combination.
So here's a mockup of one idea that I kinda like. The color is a little more brownish than I had planned, but I was using existing palettes. The more geometric lines fit the style of the house better, I think.
It's not perfect; the colors are off, the trim has different colors, and the windows/doors aren't exactly the right size, but the style is more what I'm looking for.
In the picture, purely by accident it looks like the base is a bit larger. I hadn't planned that, but looking at it, I kinda like it, and I may have to make that bit of change.