I just love, love, love your house too! It's turning out so beautiful! That is our dream to build in Hawaii some day. You are one lucky duck!

Lindy

Just stunning, really! What an incredible view, and gorgeous house. Congratulations on your progress.

Amy

WOW!
Coming along girl! I know you've said before but which island are you on? Absolutely beautiful.
FYI...I "LOVE" your porch. To me porches are a very necessary part of the home. They're so inviting! When we started our design DH had his "needs" and I had my "NEED", which was a porch the goes the full length of the back of our house.

Congratulations on your progress!

Lindy and Amy, thank you so much!

kats, I'm on Kauai. And I agree, the porch (we call them lanais here) was VERY important. I did the floor plan and the layout for the deck, and gave all that to the architect. So he had to design the roof to fit the deck. :) It's 8 ft wide in front of the living room, 6 ft wide in front of my bedroom, and wraps around three sides of the house. It's ipe wood, and my GC is talking about just letting it go gray, but it's so gorgeous I'm thinking about trying to keep it up (per John Hiatt's instructions in the deck forum!).

I'd appreciate feedback on painting the deck railing and house. I've got one color and a trim color. The painter is recommending only the pillars get painted the trim color, and the rest of the railings be painted the same as the house. I don't like that idea, and think that at least the top of the handrail should be painted the trim color (which is an off white, the house will be a sagey green). I know the red dirt here is going to be a challenge, but I don't think it will look right if the entire railing is painted the same color as the body of the house.

What does anybody else think about that????

Looks Great

Wow! Your house is absolutely amazing. Truly an island paradise!
We're considering using ipe as well for our decking. It IS a beautiful wood. I definitely want to keep the coloring of it.

Do you think I can grow a mango tree in MT? :)

It's coming right along! I love the outside. It's nice to see a style of home being built - not one on the mainland - since they are so different. When do you expect to move?

So, the pics on your photobucket are showing that your house is not painted yet right? Cause actually it looks kind of cool like it is. But, doing a house sage and the trim white is also very earthy and should look nice, though you might be cussing that red dirt after awhile. As for doing the pillars white and the railings the sage color, I'm with you... tell the painter no.

Hi kats, yes, you're right, it's not painted yet. My neighborhood imposes constraints on the colors, I had to pick something that was "earth" toned (which seemed to me to be a fairly broad definition). Funny you mention it, but I don't think I've ever seen a board and batten house here that is NOT painted.

Allison, the board and batten style is the predominant building style of home here. The house across the street from me was on the market for $2.9 million, and it's board and batten. Considering the termite population we have here, it's curious that wood is the predominant building material. There actually are no places making bricks as you know them on the mainland. If I had wanted to go with brick (which I thought about, but the budget wouldn't take it), I would have had to use cinder blocks that were molded to look like brick on one side.

Hoping to move in sometime in July!

Summer

Our house was originally designed to be stained board and batten, but we didn't want to fight the carpenter bees. What I meant was the Hawaiian style home - not sure if there is another name - is different; from the covering underneath the porch, the roof slope, just the shape in general - if that makes sense.

It's what they call a "Dickey" roof, based on the Honolulu architect who popularized it. I'll put a link to a little article on it at the bottom of this. You find it on a lot of older houses, and when the Hyatt was built here in 1990 with one, all of the upper end houses started using them again. It's actually very practical given our weather.

Here is a link that might be useful: About Hawaiian style architecture

What a beautiful house, but house is not the word that comes to mind when I first looked at it, motor lodge or hotel came to mind. If I'm not being too nosey, how big is that house? Of course I love those porches. Just beautiful. Can't wait to see the entire thing finished.