3.5
Bathrooms
3
Bedrooms
5,624
Square Feet
A Craftsman home is all about the porches. They are the primary design feature of the home. When designing a porch, it's not just about the porch - it's about the rooms connected to the porch and how they interact together. We wanted to make the house appear to blend in with its natural surroundings, as if it was growing out of the ground. So, we started with a natural stacked stone skirt around the entire building. The stone colors look like the surrounding earth and mountains, and the stacked lay gives it a very natural, organic feel.
Craftsman Style | Hand-Worked Details
large Prominent Porches - Craftsman Columns on Masonry Base
House Highlights
Gable Roofs - Low Pitched Roof Lines
Open Floor Plan - Vaulted Ceilings
Exterior Stone, Brick, Siding Combination - Interior Natural Wood Beams & Ceilings
Exterior
A Craftsman style home is all about porch design and if you have something beautiful to look at from them, like the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s even better. We have a sunrise porch in the front and a sunset deck in the rear. The mountains and nature can influence the exterior materials and color choice. We put a layer of brick on top of the stone and Hardie shakes in the gables for accents that we painted a green to pop and relate to nature.
Porches are great at blocking rain and weather but they also block light. We had to consider how to still get light into a space and have a great porch. The example above shows a cross section through the living room and the porches on the front and back of the home. We had great porches and huge windows, but the porch blocks a lot of the natural light. One way to still let light in beyond the porch is to add dormers above in a vaulted ceiling. Bringing natural light into spaces in creative ways really is wonderful to look at and will add lasting value to your home.
Natural Wood Milled On Site
We needed to clear the land to create a view of the mountains, and for our septic fields. We decided to take the trees we cut down, mill them on site and use them in the ceilings both inside and out, like a true craftsman! You can also work with a logging company to take your trees to the sawmill and they will offer to split the money they get for selling it. Costs to clear land usually ranges from $10,000 to $20,000 per acre to clear it, depending on the trees, rocks and topography.
The wood cleared was Poplar which dries quickly and is great for trim, as it is easy to work with. It has natural lights and darks that are highlighted when stained. There is even some rainbow poplar we found that is multicolored with purple in it, that we used on the mantels. Rainbow poplar is not a different species, but has been mineral stained while growing. It can go from light to dark purple in the same board. Custom details like this are what sets our homes apart!
Merry Dirksen
“Pillar and Perch was excellent! They listened to who we were and what we wanted and helped us reach that vision. They kept things moving in both the planning and building process and were attentive to us before, during and after the move in!”
Testimonial