Project Description
Tioga Residence
An exterior design review of a mountain home creates a cohesive cladding strategy and material palette that simplifies, modernizes, and harmonizes the design with its surroundings.
This Design Review created a modern aesthetic for a traditional mountain home by defining the cladding strategy and colors for the exterior. The house was already under construction so any suggestions had to account for the current construction schedule.
Embracing the natural environment, the material palette consists of natural colors: grays found in the local granite outcroppings on the property and reddish-browns of nearby trees.
The house’s massing informed the usage of materials. Lap siding wraps around the main house volume while the recessed entry is clad in an untreated T&G vertical cedar siding which will weather to gray over time and provide textured interest for the entry. A stained cedar accent band breaks up the solid lap siding along the front and side of the house for visual interest.
Small detailing changes like using smooth lap siding in lieu of textured, reducing the width of the siding planks, and eliminating window trim were also suggested to modernize the exterior.
Project Data
Location
North Carolina
Status
Built
Scope
Design Review, Elevation Study
We’re building a house in the mountains but have been really struggling with our very traditional contractor who wanted very much to build a fine home for us but who wanted to give it plenty of “mountain accents,” which would have made it look like every other home in our area. Trying to define our own style, a modern, minimalist design with a hint of the Blue Ridge in it, we continued to get pushback from our contractor and were, frankly, losing confidence that we were headed in the right direction.
Reading blog after blog and scouring websites to try and find someone who understood our desire to merge two (and a half) design styles, we discovered Yvonne. And she understood exactly what we were attempting.
After talking to her and exchanging several emails, our blueprints, photos of our site, pictures of the homes that inspired us and exchanging the “whys” about our dream home, Yvonne made multiple tweaks to our drawings – and a pretty substantial suggestion on materials – and delivered a design that immediately landed with both of us.
A couple of emails and a quick phone conversation later and we had a plan that we could get behind 100%. The home is almost finished, it’s coming out exactly as we had hoped and we expect to move to the mountains before the end of summer.
Describing your dream home can be tough – sometimes because it’s there – on the edge of your vision – but not really defined enough to truly verbalize it. What Yvonne really did was gradually tease out what we hadn’t been able to do by ourselves. She added color and a much sharper focus to the vision we had and we are, frankly, stunned.
If we have any regrets, it’s that we didn’t start working with her at the very beginning of the process… I suspect we’d have had a lot fewer discussions with our contractor and a much smoother plan to follow. Thanks, Yvonne, for helping us realize our dream!
Design Review Comments
