From the category archives:

Architecture

Tiny and Small Houses

There’s a small house to be had in Sebastopol. Well, small might be too grand a term for a house less than 200 square feet, but the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company is drawing national attention for their tiny houses and house plans ranging from 65 to an expansive 837 square feet.
Jay Shafer, the driving [...]

Stairs make single story design inaccessible

When Single Story Isn’t Accessible

I met some new clients to look at a home that we thought might offer good access for potential wheel chair use. We ended up looking at a “single-story” house that happened to feature:

stairs up to the house
elevated entry foyer
a step down all around from the foyer
a sunken living room
steps up from the garage
steps down [...]

Houses, Slopes, and Water

Today my clients looked at a house sited downslope from the road with clearly insufficient drainage. Clearly because you could simply look at the driveway and follow the path of least resistance for the water right under the garage door into the garage…which showed clear water damage including a big crack in the floor. There [...]

Green Luxury at the h2hotel in Healdsburg

The h2hotel in Healdsburg has to rank among the greenest and most upbeat hotels in the world. I toured the hotel today in advance of their fully b0oked July 4 weekend and was impressed with the deep attention to detail and brilliant design that squeezed this spacious feeling hotel into an underutilized downtown space. The [...]

Chalk Hill Gates

Chalk Hill Road from Healdsburg to Windsor is great to explore when you are looking for a little adventure and some great back road scenery. Today the horses were variously running, sleeping, or rolling in the dust. If your timing is lucky, you are likely to see wild pigs, wild turkeys, and flocks of other [...]

Luxury Details – A Perfect Corner

I’ve been a builder and know the satisfaction that comes from doing a job as close to perfectly as I can. Not every carpenter or other tradesperson cares about the little touches that separate perfect from good enough, but craft still matters to many in the building trades. Those few perfectionists would prefer clients that [...]

Home Depot is not a four letter word

Badly done home remodels aren’t the fault of Home Depot. Too many homeowners watching “Flip this House” or “Trading Places” got themselves focused on the wrong aspects of home repair. The fundamentals of construction techniques that have evolved over centuries were ignored in favor of flashy fixtures and false ideas about quality and materials. Well [...]

Roblar Road

Serendipidy can be your friend. In my case, a maps.google.com search for the fastest route to Dillon Beach told me part of my drive should be on Roblar Road. It’s been a while since I drove that stretch of Sonoma County between Petaluma and Sebastopol, so this morning I went for a drive.
Man, it was [...]

Faught Road

Not too far from the energy of the Airport Business Park and Shiloh’s Wal Mart and Home Depot is Faught Road. It’s only a couple of miles long, but it’s miles away in space and time from the urbanizing 101 corridor. This classic farm house on six acres is architecturally pleasing on many levels. The [...]

Details, details, details

I had a chance to visit a terrific ten acre property on Eastside Road near Forestville today. You’re never quite sure what you’re going to find on a place you can’t see from the road, but I have been driving past this secluded driveway for years and have never had a chance to see the [...]

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