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Last week we had a tour of a French country farmhouse.  This week we are going on a tour of a modern French country house!  This was another one of the houses at the Portland Street of Dreams.

When you walk into the house you are greeted with this fabulous floating stairwell!

 This is the living room! The views are spectacular… I didn’t include a picture but you can see Mt. Hood!

I liked the X’s in the built in cabinets here.

A tour of the kitchen, again I like the X’s!

Ship lap is so hot right now. Shiplapped cabinets here. I like the herringbone marble backsplash!

Ah-ha! I spy the sink and sink faucet I am going to have in my house!

 The sliding barn door in the pantry!

I really liked this pantry! LOVE.

At the street of dreams the builders are there in the house and are there to answer questions. I had the pleasure of talking to the builder and he said the wood beams here were washed with baking soda to give it this cool look!

Cute little butler’s pantry.

Breakfast nook!

 The master bedroom, excuse the blurriness.

 I liked this master shower.

 Master bathroom.

 This powder room was cool. The chevron shiplap was neat!

 

 I liked the sink faucets here.

These folding down drying racks are so clever! I am going to have to do this in my house!

I liked the idea of having the washer and dryer raised up, I know it is not a new concept but I still like it!

 The hallway/mudroom from the garage was shiplapped too!

This may be my favorite part of the house… a little built in doggy bed. To the right of the doggie bed you could pull out the food bowl (you can see the food bowls inside the cabinet if you look hard enough!)

 Another bathroom!

The very nice outdoor living space.

 

These bubblers on the cabo deck in the pool are exactly what I want to do!

A look at the house exterior. This photo is not mine.

picture – bobgreenspan instagram

This house is called Maison de Reve and was built by Westlake Development group. Interior design from Jenny Baines Interiors. 

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GUESS WHAT. I toured a French Farmhouse at the Portland Street of Dreams just recently and I LOVED it.

I knew you all would too… so the very next day that I came home I started writing this blog post!

I am so excited to show this house with you all!

It is like… Chip and Joanna (Fixer Upper) meets some French Country.

Don’t you all love this??? I knew I would love this house when the first thing I saw was a cow painting.  I am very certain the sconces on the fireplace are these.

You may notice in the corner the Darlana pendant that I wrote a whole blog post about!

Love the dining room table, chairs, and chandelier! I am certain the chandelier is this one from Aidan Gray. Edit – correction, was informed the chandelier is from RH, so I suspect it is likely this one. I actually own the dining table – it is this one.

Blue velvet is a “thing” now.  Notice it is incorporated on the couch as pillows.

LOVE the wall sconces. They are the Darlana sconce pendant.

A different view of the dining room…

How CUTE is this pantry? Love the shiplap and the barn door!

I liked this pantry – the color palette is really pretty. I like the little drink fridge and the open shelves!

Moving our way into the family room and the kitchen!

Fixer Upper lovers will adore this! Isn’t super on trend???

What I thought was interesting was the use of mixed metals – the sink faucet is brushed nickel whereas the cabinet hardware is an aged/antiqued brass.

I love the grey cabinet on the right. The paint color on that cabinet hutch is Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray 7017.

Don’t you love the Lacanche Range??

 

I love this little vignette below! Notice the back splash – it looks like painted brick but I think it is actually tile that looks like brick. I really like it and like how it is a little different than the subway tile that we see everywhere.

I thought the fireplace surround with the chevron marble was pretty.

Here is a picture from the interior designer looking at the family room from the other direction – it was roped off so we couldn’t go over there.

Now, how lovely is this hallway??  It is the mudroom – with the garage on the right, exit on the left, and the sliding barn door is the powder room.

Here is the powder room… thought it was kinda cute with the subway tile going up the wall.

This flooring material was interesting. It is from Ann Sacks. As for the laundry room, I like the white cabinets with the grey counters. I think I’m going to do that!

Now walking into the master suite… isn’t the ceiling cute?

 

 

 

The master bathroom looks like a nice place to relax…

The sink faucet is from Kohler.

Oh look, a view from above!

 

There was a cute fire pit and BBQ in the backyard!

Oh, and a pool of course!

 

A little tour of the guest house…

Wood was used as the counter top material. While I think it looks neat I know that it would warp and show rings from glasses.

Oh, forgot to mention that the floors in the house are French pine from Fp Bois.

Now, the outside of the house is not very French farmhouse. It is more like a house you would find in the Hamptons.

Oh, I forgot to include this from the laundry room.

 

The Street of Dreams this year included 5 houses surrounded by a vineyard. Below is the club house -made to look like a darling barn!

 

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Well, we are still plodding along with designing the house. We are actually done (I think!) with the design and it is going to structural engineering now!

 

So, now that we are pretty much done with the design, now I am tasked with actually picking out the windows and shutters I want to use as it is one of the first things to go up and there is a long lead time for these item

 

So, for about half the windows in the house we will be having working shutters on the windows. Yes, they have to be working! That is key!  In France, the shutters are actually called volets and they actually open and close – unlike most shutters in the USA that are there for looks alone.

So, why have a working shutter?

 

Security – they provide excellent security as if you are away you can just close up the house and a robber can’t just break in.

 

Insulation – here in the hot hot California valley it is nice to be able to close up South facing side of the house to keep the heat out. Oh, then there’s the part where the bedrooms can be pitch black for sleeping – important to someone who works nights!

 

The sizing is always right – it drives me *nuts* when I see houses with shutters that are disproportionate… a 1 foot shutter next to a 4 foot window? If that shutter were to close it would leave 3 feet of the window exposed! I know it’s for looks but volets would never work like that! I know it is super nit picky and sorry if your house has that (soooo many houses do, including my childhood house!), but I just don’t understand why builders can’t build faux shutters that are least the appropriate size. (rant ended).

 

This website (in French, but I have it translated to English) talks about the proper volet.  There are several different types, rolling ones, swing shutters, folding flap shutters.

I’m interested in swing shutters only.

 

Below are rolling shutters…

Below are folding flap shutters…

 The different types of swinging shutters….

We were debating about what type of panel to go with.  We are leaning to the B-n-B (Board and Batten).  The Board ad Batten seems to be more French country and less formal than the other types.

So, I thought I’d turn to photos of houses in France.

Below, is board and batten.

Two different types of shutters… ground floor is raised panel and upper floor is board and batten.

Panel…

Panel…

Horizontal ones…

Board and Batten…

Board and batten up on the windows and the horizontal ones on the door

Louvered…

Mixture…

We found this company, Timberlane, who makes what seems to be pretty nice working shutters. They have several types of Board and Batten and we were debating between the “closed vertical groove”…

 …and the “open”.  We were leaning towards the open one because we think it looks more authentic. What do YOU think??

The other company we are looking at is Southern Shutter.  Have you heard of anything of either Timberlane or Southern Shutter? Are there other companies you know of that are quality and we should consider?

See, here is an open board and batten (in like the cutest little window EVER)

The OTHER question for you is… what about the hardware?

We really like the cutesy hinge hardware on the shutters below.

Here, someone did the same hardware BUT they put it above and below the horizontal board and I do not like it that way. It has to be on the horizontal board.

See, like below, they put the hardware on the horizontal board.

 Or, do we leave them plain, like so…

 Or here…

What do you all think??
Open board and batten vs closed vertical groove?
Fancy shutter hardware vs plain shutters?