Grand Rapids Magazine Design Home 2013: The Adventure Heats Up in the Master Suite

"Complete with its own sitting room, outdoor deck with pictorial view, an ensuite His and Hers bath (that's an understatement!) and plenty of closet space, the spacious-yet-intimate area will provide many an "Ahhh" moment of relaxation away from the worries of the world"

Sound like a fantasy?  It's going to be the real deal Master Suite in this year's Grand Rapids Magazine Design Home, the Heartsworth.  Read on for more tantalizing details on the beautiful selections for this home's master retreat...

Missed reading the previous chapters of this home designing adventure?  No worries!  Catch up on your reading and check out everything published so far on this beautiful home here...
The Adventure Begins: January 2013
Wow! What a Design!: February 2013
This Adventure Takes a Village: March 2013
First a House Then a Home: April 2013

Stay tuned with us as the home comes together over the next few months!

For ease of reading, click here to view the full article on our website.

The Wall Street Journal: Go To Your Room!

To keep teens and tweens occupied at home, more parents are trying luxe, amenity-packed 'kid zones,' according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.  The article features photos of great spaces like a secret passageway inspired by 'Harry Potter,' a fully tricked-out videogame arcade and a DJ mixing station in a sleepover room from a familiar project of ours, the Stafford.  You can see more photos of the teen spaces in the Stafford in the photo gallery of the WSJ online and in this video they put together...

Check out the printed article here...

Thank you for including our design in this great feature, WSJ!  We are honored to be represented amongst the caliber of designers you publish in this prestigious publication.

For ease of reading, you may view the full article on our website.

Stafford Project Team:

Builder - Scott Christopher Homes

Interior Designer - Rick Whallon Design

Landscaping - Stout Creek Landscapes

A Rockin' Runway to Benefit Kids

One last plug for our event Runway for Charity with A.K. Rikk's and Design 1 this week Saturday, May 11 -- have you gotten your ticket and raffle ticket(s) yet?  As you learned from our post two weeks ago, it is going to be a great, fun, entertaining, over-the-top event raising money for Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.  Check out eightWest's feature on the event from last week - it is going to be amazing, you won't want to miss it!  Please contact Angela in our office for tickets (angela@visbeen.biz or 616-481-0424).

A rockin' runway to benefit kids

Roofing Wizard

Is your home in need of a new roof?  Are you unsure of where to start when it comes to shopping for shingles?  Our friends over at GAF Roofing have a great new resource called the GAF Roofing Wizard that can help!  It allows a homeowner to both educate themselves on the GAF Lifetime Roofing System and explore the shingle designs and color options that are available.  It also walks you through the process of selecting different roofing and warranty option to fit your style and budget. 

The Roofing Wizard can be used on their website -- click here -- or is also available as a free app for the iPhone or iPad through iTunes.  Here is a little glimpse of what the wizard can do...

The startup screen allows you two paths to choose:  1) Help me choose a shingle, or 2) I know the shingle I want.

Once you put in your zip code to know what is available in your area, you can explore browsing by shingle color family, exterior home color palette, or by home style.

 If you search by home style, you may or may not recognize some of the images. (hint, hint!)

Once you select a shingle, it will walk you through the warrantees available and accessories offered for that particular shingle.

Voila!  Roofing selections made simple.

Sadie's Ice Cream Parlor at the Grand Hotel

via

via

We had the pleasure of developing the concepts for the new addition of Sadie's Ice Cream Parlor to the historic Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island with our partners at GMB Architecture + Engineering.  The 126 year old resort hotel boasts the longest front porch in the world, at roughly 660 feet, and has housed five U.S. Presidents, inventor Thomas Edison as well as author Mark Twain, among others.

Located just outside the east entrance to the Grand Hotel, the ice cream shop will be traditional in decor, with white houndstooth awnings, cafe tables with white marble tops accompanied by cafe chairs of twisted iron.  The shop is named after the 2010 Westminster "Best in Show" Scottish Terrier belonging to the Grand Hotel's owners.  The shop will be serving delicious Hudsonville Ice Cream and will open it's doors to the public tomorrow, May 3.

We were honored to be a part of such a historic addition to the iconic hotel near and dear to the hearts of us Michiganders.

Here are a few progress shots of the parlor throughout the construction progress (courtesy of the Grand Hotel's blog) as well as our design renderings and 3D imagery.

Cheers to a successful summer season on the island!

For more information on the hotel and Sadie's Ice Cream Parlor, please visit the hotel's website.

Style Guide: Cottage

A term that originated from the Middle Ages, a "cottage" referred to the dwellings of agricultural workers, or cotters, and their friends a family.  Cottages were smaller peasant units, usually on the property of larger plantations or estates.  Today, cottages most often refer to buildings used as second homes or weekend getaways for city dwellers.  The architectural style aspects of cottages were inspired by medieval styles of the English countryside and became popular with American architects in the 1920s and 1930s.

Although not required characteristics, the common features of a cottage style home may include...

• Steep roof pitches, often gable or gambrel with cross gables
• Arched doors
• Casement windows with small panes
• Brick, stone, stucco, or natural shake siding

The look of a cottage can vary greatly, since a variety of styles can fit into the "cottage" category.  The local vernacular often determines which materials and style features are emphasized, so location can have a look of it's own:

1.  Nantucket: Rustic meets elegant in Nantucket style cottages.  Utilizing mostly natural architectural elements on their exterior, their natural colors of greys, whites and blues make a striking statement against the bright blue sky, lush green landscape and white-capped waters of the surrounding ocean.

via

via

via

via


2.  The South:  The image that the words "Southern cottage" calls to mind is one of a wrap-around or double stacked porch.  Often called Low-country, a major influence on this this style is the hot and humid weather of the Carolinas and deep South.  These cottages often have a raised first floor to accommodate floodwaters and to allow breezes to circulate throughout the home.  Architectural elements like louvered shutters and metal roofs are also indicative of this style.

Our low country cottage design, the Laurel

via

via

3.  Michigan:  For us Michiganders, a cottage usually is a summer residence up north near or on a lake.    This is a style for which we here at Visbeen are very familiar, since it is a good portion of our custom residential business.  We combine a variety of styles to create our Michigan cottages, from Shingle and Victorian, to Arts and Crafts and Bungalow.

Here are a few products that we often use in cottage-style residences...

Roofing:  GAF Roofing has a great product called Camelot II Lifetime Designer Shingles, which add a luxury look to a cottage style residence for only pennies-a-day more than standard architectural shingles.

Retractable Screens:  Nothing ruins a summer night like mesquites here in Michigan.  We would all love to sit on open porches overlooking a sunset on the water, but sometimes that is not possible.  And then there are some evening that are perfect for it.  Great solution for this debacle? Retractable screens.  They turn an open porch into an enclosed screened porch in moments.  Companies like Phantom Screens make the top of the line in retractable screen products.

Kearney Hill has a great example of Phantom Screens in use.


Movable glass doors:  On that same note, movable glass doors are another great way of turning a cottage into an open air oasis.  A company called Solar Innovations makes high-quality folding glass walls at a fraction of the cost of some of the other big name companies making similar products.

Sources:
http://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/exteriors/curb-appeal/house-styles/#page=8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottage
http://www.ehow.com/about_6371669_cottage-style-architecture_.html

Runway for Charity

A.K. Rikk's, Design 1 Salon Spa, Aura Cosmetics, The Matthew Agency and our firm, Visbeen Architects, are bringing Grand Rapids the must see fashion show of the summer, called Runway for Charity.  

All proceeds from the event benefit the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.  The last event in 2011 (formerly known as the Design 1 Fashion Event), had over 500 attendees and raised upwards of $25,000 for Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.  But they have upped the ante this year.  The goal is to raise $100,000, so the event is going to be bigger and better than all the previous years combined!  It will be held on Saturday, May 11 7:00pm - 10:30pm at A.K. Rikk's beautiful new location (6303 28th Street SE, Grand Rapids).  To purchase tickets to the event, please visit Helen DeVos Children's Hospital website.

And one of the best parts of this event?  An AMAZING "LIFE IS SWEET" raffle where ONE winner will take home a prize package valued at over $100,000!  What fantastic prizes are a part of this prize package?  Glad you asked...

• Case of Barons wine
• Watercolor of your home from Visbeen Architects
• Two watches from Juhas & Sullivan Jewelry
• Scott Group Custom Carpet rug
• Embellished mirror from award-winning interior designer Jeffery Roberts
• One-week stay in the Bahamas at a private residence (designed by Visbeen Architects, of course!)
• Rare Howard Miller clock
• A one-year Thousand Oaks golf membership as well as dinner & golf for a party of 8
• $2800 Bengtson Center for Aesthetics and Plastic Surgery Beauty Package: can be used toward Ultherapy, Cool Sculpting, Laser and Skin Case treatments
• Bekins leather theatre chair
• Two-year car lease from Todd Wenzel Automotive
• Broadway of Grand Rapids package
• Ruth's Chris dinner for eight
• Brioni men's wear jacket
• Founder's private beer tasting event with tour for 30 people
• Hudsonville Ice Cream party for 100 and 2 scrounds per person (what is a scround?  It is a container of ice cream that sort of round, sort of square.  Thus, scround :)
• Salvatore Ferragamo leather bag
• Two pairs of glasses (one prescription, one sunglasses) and an eye exam from Sight Optical
• Two Belstaff leather jackets
• Landscape Maintenance from GreenMeadow Group
• Haworth Furniture
• One-week stay in a villa in the Turks & Caicos
• An estate queen-sized mattress from Spring Air, Grand Rapids Bedding Co.
• $20,000 CASH
• Gift Certificates...
   - $5,000 to A.K. Rikk's
   - $2,500 to Design 1 Salon Spa
   - $2,500 to 4GR8 Food restaurants (The Omlette Shoppe, Sundance Grille, The Bagel Beanery, & more)
   - $2,500 to ShoreMate for a docking system
   - $2,500 to Accent Hardwood Flooring for hardwood floor restoration

Do we have your attention now??  The raffle tickets are $100 per ticket with only 1,500 tickets available.  You do not have to be present on May 11 to win and tickets are already on sale, so please contact Angela in our office as soon as possible if you are interested in purchasing one or more (616-481-0424 or angela@visbeen.biz).  They are going fast!

Remember, the $100 per ticket is tax deductible as a donation to Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, so please help us make this a successful event in raising $100,000 for such a worthy organization!!

For more information on this event, please visit Runway for Charity's website or facebook page.  We will also be posting information to our facebook page, so stay tuned!