You are asking us to comment without seeing floor plans and elevations. If you are looking to save costs, seeing those is the first step, not a house already built where you are telling us what your house is like

You should build what you really like. Greene & Greene designed houses for the super rich and the aesthetic was in dramatic resistance to the rapid cultural and industrial changes of the era. IMO a more user friendly and flexible style with equal charm is the Shinge Style.

Sorry I was writing it in the middle of the night with my cellphone. I will work on adding the docs today.

http://www.seddoncc.com/portfolio/craftsman.html

http://www.kathybestdesign.com/projects/hawthorne-craftsman/

Stunning house. Is this your builder? Your architect?

This would be $2-$3 million to build in my part of Colorado. I'll bet that had to be in the $5 million plus neighborhood in Los Altos Hills.

It's great to see a more faithful effort at building a craftsman house. All I see are pathetic craftsman-lite efforts. I think you should "go big or go home". JDS's suggestion for shingle style would be a better direction for you to take if you want to paint things white.

This is not my builder nor architect, but I love their interior and exterior. The issue is that their exterior is somewhat Greene & Greene, though the gables don't exactly look like G&G, the sleeping porches are strongly G&G, the interiors don't look like G&G at all.

I've looked at all the Pasadena G&G, and I identified problems with our design and with us vs. G&G:

1) We have no sleeping porches, which is the signature of G&G (we cannot do the roof, because of our light situation, it blocks lights into the house).

2) We don't like G&G interiors, both style and colors, even if we can afford it (cannot afford the Gamble house super ornate interior!). Too dark, too ornate, too stuffy. Our home is on a narrow lot, and will be a narrower house than the Seddon house linked in my previous post, so I need lighter colors to make it feel roomier. It will be a narrow and long house.

3) Risk management. G&G design feels too specific with the requirements, and I want some flexibility in the interior design, staining vs painting (what if all stained cabinets and floor feels boring/monotonous and we want accent colors on kitchen island, or painted cabinets, etc), too much restrictions to get the correct look.

4) Our exterior design feels busy for me. We have many things going on, railing design with curves, bump-out on one side, two wraparound balconies/porches, gables/eaves on all sides, roof line with multiple pitches, corbels all over on all sides, clerestory windows, art glasses. They look "ok" in my naive eyes as 2D drawing (I am not a designer!) but I really do worry about having too many details and possibly not liking a visual clutter once I see the final product. I want to do easy simplifications like simplifying rail designs, removing/simplifying most corbels, etc. And we really do think that G&G might not be for us.

5) Given some inconsistencies above in what we may want and the design we currently have, I don't want to embark into a grand costly mistake of implementing a mismatched concept. Our quote is way over the CO estimate you mentioned, and we will want to spend money on something that feels right, and making smart choices (including trimming costs where it doesn't matter to us, like excessive interior details/complexity and excessive outdoor trims). If we cannot save it, we might bail from this project and buy a house in Los Altos Hills instead, but we want to be educated on what style save is reasonable so we can continue and resubmit without much delay.

My husband thinks we might need permission from our designer to post the elevations on this forum, since he owns the design, so we will ask first.

JDS, I am searching about shingle style now. Coincidentally, our siding is shingle. Our exterior looks a lot like the Seddon house I linked, except for the porch + columns, but we have more complex roof lines (multiple gables), bump out on one side and other stuff I mentioned, and our house will be narrow and long. The city requires our home to be either California Bungalow or Craftsman. I guess we can do Craftsman in Shingle? Any suggestion on Craftsman style to focus on that uses shingles? I looked at my neighbor's new craftsman construction, and the exterior trim placements are similar to our plan. We want to do resubmittal with minor changes that doesn't affect the structural design, because we want to start digging soon. We think we have the craftsman roof slope, the exterior beam placements and window/door trims are similar to regular craftsman, the corbel placements also. So I feel it might just boil down to changing the beam/corbel styles, changing the materials of wainscotting (currently clinker bricks at bottom, then shingles), balcony/porch railing styles, and removing the curves and bricks + river rocks from the fake chimney. Once the style is changed, there will be more flexibility in reducing the trim amount and complexity and choosing the finishes.

Thanks to all the architects contributing in this forum, I am humbly learning from you all.

JDS's suggestion for shingle style would be a better direction for you to take if you want to paint things white.

Actually there were craftsman houses that did have the woodwork painted white, although it wasn't as common.

Cawebbie, I'm also building a craftsman style home. Ours is in Fl so we have our own restrictions. For example, because of wind load and insurance costs, we were strongly advised to do a hipped roof. Also because we're in FL, painted woodwork was more common even back in the 20's. We are doing mostly painted wood with the fireplace wall in quarter sawn dark oak.

Another concession is back then when you specified a 1 x 6, you got a board that was 1" x 6". Now when you specify a 1 x 6, you get a board that is 3/4" x 5 1/2". So if you want to be more authentic, it drives the cost up.

2) We don't like G&G interiors, both style and colors, even if we can afford it (cannot afford the Gamble house super ornate interior!). Too dark, too ornate, too stuffy. Our home is on a narrow lot, and will be a narrower house than the Seddon house linked in my previous post, so I need lighter colors to make it feel roomier. It will be a narrow and long house.

Get the scale of the woodwork correct and you can paint it or use a lighter wood. What about a douglas fir or a maple? What woods are common in your part of the country?

3) Risk management. G&G design feels too specific with the requirements, and I want some flexibility in the interior design, staining vs painting (what if all stained cabinets and floor feels boring/monotonous and we want accent colors on kitchen island, or painted cabinets, etc), do we have to stain all room finishes, to get the correct look.

I'm not understanding why you feel the need to create a reproduction house versus a house that will work for how you and your family live?

4) Our exterior design feels too busy for me. We have too many things going on, railing design with curves, bump-out on one side, two wraparound balconies/porches, gables/eaves on all sides, roof line with multiple pitches, corbels all over on all sides, clerestory windows, art glasses. They look "ok" in my naive eyes as 2D drawing (I am not a designer!) but I really do worry about having too many details and possibly not liking a visual clutter once I see the final product. I want to do easy simplifications like simplifying rail designs, removing/simplifying most corbels, etc. And we really do think that G&G is not for us.

Craftsman homes were not full of visual clutter. The beauty of them was their simplicity.

There are a lot of good articles that discuss craftsman. Plus lots of books with photos, etc.

Thanks cpartist for the great questions and education on the possibilities. The original intent was a space to fit our lifestyle, somehow we drifted away from it. We never wanted to create a historical replica, we are actually worried about getting pushed into it if staying with G&G. I think our designer is passionate about being correct to the style, we'll bring these points up.

cawebbie can you message me?

Greene & Greene are one of my favorite architects. Years ago I had a client related to the Blackers, who the Greenes designed a home for in Pasadena. Randell Makinson* and Tom Heinz* were in Manistee, Michigan (where the Blackers were from) doing research for a book on the Blacker House and I had the honor of having dinner with them at my client's cottage. It was a lot of fun.

If you want a Greene & Greene house, seek your guidance from actual houses the brothers designed, then adjust your design to meet your needs. Make sure your architect is intimately familiar with the Greene's work and philosophy.

The right architect can design a home for you with the precise level of Greene & Greene influence you desire. It may not be mistaken for a Greene & Greene home, but it will have the character you want.

*Randell & Tom are both architects. Tom is author of several books on Frank Lloyd Wright. Randell was Director of the Gamble House and authored several books on Greene & Greene, and expert on the works of Greene & Greene. Randell passed away in 2013.

So - learning something new every day!

Looked at Greene & Greene pics on the google. Yes - they are fancy Craftsman homes - but I didn't think that they often had that much detail - so it sounds like you are being pushed down a path that isn't going to work for you both in style and in budget by someone else's vision / rules.

It's your money - make this work for you. ;-)

Greene & Greene was not in my idea books AT ALL, it came from our designer. We don't have love/hate relationship with that style, just neutral (we like it, but we also like more modest craftsman homes), but the price tag currently is just not a wise investment. We are really rethinking this project, whether to simplify A LOT or sell the lots and spend our money somewhere more appropriate. Otherwise we'll end up with a property that is 2-3x the median price in our neighborhood with lower resale value. There are some regrets on my part right now, like roof line that is jogged way too much - likely to cost a lot - and is probably too late to correct right now because we want to either start building in reasonable time or scrap the project, so that is not in the revision scope. I wish our designer was more aware of design/cost tradeoffs, at least for the big ticket items, and led us to better decisions. He focuses too much on "details" and craftsmanship; we mostly want the space for kids. The drawing is beautiful, but it is just not realistic with that kind of details you might find in billionaire's homes. Our drawing is more complicated than that Seddon house, and most likely would cost more.

If the city requires either a California Bungalow or a Craftsman style house then it owes an explanation of what that style consist of and show you many examples. Will the city review your design before it is given a building permit.

I have designed in communities with strict historic preservation rules but I have never heard of a required design style. As if it wasn't hard enough to design a house.

Rather than waste a clients money by playing games with the local style dictators I would probably walk around the city and photograph nice houses and then choose one and copy it.

A lot of great advice about toning down the wood work amount and design, looking at more available wood species, getting into more conventional solutions (such as working with today's common plank sizes), and working towards what we need. We are going back to drawing board with the example of Darling house, thanks for posting that one here! It is a more realistic view. You all have been amazing me with your smart and generosity.

JDS, I totally agree with your approach.

I just glanced at your idea books. It seems you like tudor style. Why not do a tudor style house which could work with the craftsman idea.

We did Tudor, and the city rejected it, asking for craftsman. We actually asked our designer to turn the tudor to craftsman earlier because we wanted to reduce cost, it seemed to us that craftsman had more off the shelf products we could use than Tudor (doors, etc). But it lead us into a very expensive craftsman so far! There was a lot of talk about the specificity of the G&G style and the high level of craftsmanship and special builder needed, which honestly made me nervous of doing G&G. I think now after learning from this thread, we need to emphasize more on the character (the big picture) rather than the the details and period correctness.

We need the style to be approved for building permit to be issued. We already have the building permit, but we'd like to go through one more iteration to get rid of excessive cosmetic detailing.

I checked the Seddon house and the Darling house vs. ours, and ours has a lot more expensive unneeded details. We'd like those to be removed.

I messaged you back. :)

Just wanted to share this website of Ingleside Terraces which is a neighborhood in San Francisco comprised of many turn of the century craftsman homes. Click on the street names at the bottom of the page to see then and now photos.

http://www.sfog.us/homes/

Thank you, cpartist!! Btw, I looked at the 3D rendering (skechup) of our plan yesterday, OMG, the inside is full of labor intensive beams - not very apparent to me in 2D, curves everywhere, curvy corbels everywhere, layered beams (beams with precise decorative wood pieces stacked around them, large beam that penetrates another large beam at the joint, most likely doubling or tripling the labor of everything), multiple large curvy beams. I won't be surprised if our interior trim would cost 1M - our interior staircase railing alone was quoted at over 150K! I think the exterior is just the tip of the iceberg, the interior is a bigger problem, but we need to simplify the exterior first for permitting, before we attack the interior. The good news is that I think there is a lot of room to cut cost while still keeping a lot of charm, but it needs complete redesign of the trims.

I grew up next door to a backyard woodworker and saw them doing custom work every day through our window, I know what kind of work goes into those.

And so my panic attacks continue..

I love this one: https://www.houzz.com/photos/island-residence-traditional-exterior-seattle-phvw-vp~1221269

Except for the kitchen ceiling, I love everything else. Maybe we can convert it into this.