Purposeful Spaces – Majestic Meadows

We’ve been dreaming about living in Northwest Montana for 17 years, so getting this close feels amazing. Designing and building our home has been exciting and our build partners, J Martin Builders have made it fun and easy. The cost is scary, but a well-built home with finishes we love will be worth it. When we walked through the house during our last visit, it allowed us to visualize the space and the final finishes, including tile, countertops, furnishings, and window treatments.

We created floorplans and 3d renderings using SketchUp to design beautiful and functional spaces just for us. Our inspiration comes from Mid-Century Modern design, so we are choosing natural materials, such as wood floors, quartzite, walnut cabinets and paneling. But don’t get distracted by the beauty, these are functional spaces purposefully designed to help with everyday tasks like entering and exiting, laundry, storage, groceries, utilities, and more. My hubby, Jim and I prefer an uncluttered look, which means we have about 80% of our things behind closed doors and the other 20% on shelves or out in the open. In today’s post, I’ll share helpful tips for living in beautiful and organized spaces. If you stick around, I also share an interior design and build update on our new house.

Garage

We are excited to have a garage for the first time in our lives, especially during the NW Montana winter and spring seasons. In addition to parking two vehicles, we’ll also set up a storage area for bins. The black metal garage doors are modern, and the opaque windows provide privacy while still letting light into the space. The garage is fully insulated and will have a wall-mounted heater, making the space usable during the colder months. The large gravel parking pad in front of the garage and entry provides plenty of space to turn around or park extra cars. Finally, once parked inside the garage, we’ll have easy access to our mudroom and kitchen.

Mudroom and Laundry

The 12′ x 8′ mudroom also functions as a laundry room. We’ve packed a lot of function into this space, which will include a bench, shoe storage, stylish hooks for coats and hats. We’ll also keep our dog, Hanna’s water and food bowls in this space. The other side of this room is dedicated to laundry, which includes walnut cabinets by DeWils Cabinetry, large shelves, a Dry-away cabinet, washer, dryer, and sink. As you can see, we also have an east facing window in this space. The cabinets offer lots of closed storage and we’ll use the shelves for laundry baskets and decorative baskets to organize and hold other stuff. Our design team, Joni Stoll Design found affordable and beautiful porcelain tiles for this space, as well as our guest bathroom and utility room. The I Ciolotti porcelain 24 x 48″ tiles in Grigio (Beige) provide great texture and will compliment our walnut cabinetry.

I’ll talk more about our front entry in a future post, but you’ll find a lot of helpful tips for creating functional and attractive entry spaces in my post below:

First Impressions – Entry Spaces

Walk-in Pantry

The walk-in pantry provides us an opportunity to save some money with a do-it-yourself project. Other DIY savings will include, designing, purchasing and installing all our closets, as well as installing the walnut accent walls in our great room, primary bedroom and guest bedroom. Finally, we’ll be adding a walnut built-in bench and shelving unit in the other guest bedroom. For the pantry, we are considering RTA painted cabinets, walnut butcher block counters and shelves, as well as a gorgeous wallpaper. When the door is open, this space is visible from the great room, so we’ll use both closed and open storage. We’ll place the microwave on the counter, but most of our small appliances will be hidden away behind cabinet doors. We’ll use pull-out drawers for easy access to everything below eye level. I’ll use decorative containers for cereal, sugar, flour, tea, snacks and other food staples stored in the pantry. You’ll find helpful pantry links and how we designed our dream kitchen in my post below:

Dream Kitchen Layout

Organize

My hubby, Jim said once, “If I wasn’t a private banker manager, I could have been an excellent efficiency expert.” An efficiency expert is a professional who works within organizations to improve operational efficiency and productivity. Being efficient simple means to produce the desired outcome with little to no waste of time or resources. We all have our own ways of doing things around the house and garden, so I’m not saying there is a right or wrong way to do things. What I’ve found is a system that works for us.

Did you know that clutter causes cortisone levels to increase? I knew it because I can tell you that clutter and messy spaces stress me out. I’ve always been pretty neat, including things like making my bed, putting away shoes, paperwork, or other clutter. Author, Shira Gill’s book Minimalista helped me perfect my routine for keeping our space neat and organized. You should definitely pick it up at the library or your local bookshop, but today I’ll share some of her tips to give you the idea.

Gill provides a five-step process to ensure you succeed and keep your spaces organized and tidy: Clarify, Edit, Organize, Elevate, and Maintain. I’m not going to go over every step, but more than likely you’re going to need to get rid of some stuff. Her book will help you organize the things you love that you decide to keep. She also gives you concrete tips to help you maintain all the progress you and your family have made in your home. Gill shares that “minimalism doesn’t refer to the lack or absence of something, it’s about having the prefect amount.”

Interior Design Update

Our builder’s preferred cabinet line, DeWils Fine Cabinetry will use larger pieces of walnut, so the grain flows between all corresponding doors and drawers. Our custom cabinets will be gorgeous, and they offer fantastic quality for a reasonable price. The low sheen, clear finished vertical grain-match Trifid (flat panel) door style will be everywhere, except the upper cabinet doors. Those doors will have reeded glass and a hand-finished ebony stain. We found simple solid brass hardware, which will be used for all the cabinetry.

If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you’ll know we are still trying to find the perfect choice(s) for our kitchen countertops and fireplace surround. Right now, we are loving Fantasy Brown quartzite for the island countertop and fireplace surround. We fear it will be a bit too busy for the rest of the kitchen, so we’re looking for Calacatta Bianco Raphael quartzite or something similar for the kitchen backsplash and counters around the perimeter. I’d like to stick with natural materials like granite or quartzite, so we’ve asked our design team to make some recommendations that will work for our kitchen and fireplace.

Build Update

Gypsum Wallboard

We’re one step closer with the gypsum wallboard wall hung throughout the home. Once power is hooked up and portable heaters are running, the subcontractor will tape and mud the drywall. In our latest build update, I noticed gypsum was used in our shower and tub areas. I asked our build manager, John about it and this is his response:

“Our tile subcontractor may use various systems for waterproofing. Many use a Schluter system which includes a Kerdi Membrane which can be used over gypsum wallboard. Some use hydro ban panels or Kerdi board panels. All of these options would be sealed with a hydro ban/red guard joint sealer at the joints and other penetrations.

If we select an installer that uses something other than a Kerdi membrane, we’ll remove the wall board, and they’ll install their desired substrate. It is rare for the installers to use cement-based panels with the fiber foam panels now available through Schluter and Laticrete which tie into the pan and drain system.” We are confident that these waterproofing techniques will work great for our home.

Septic System

The property came with an approved septic site. We had an approved perk test, which is used to determine the suitability of a site for a septic system. It measures the soil’s ability to absorb water or other liquids. The test evaluates how quickly water can seep into the soil, which is crucial for designing the appropriate drain field. The subcontractor dug trenches using gravel both below and above the septic field pipes. We’re using a pump system to get the water waste from the house into the septic tank, which will then drain into the septic field.

Fire Blocking

One of the items we checked for during our recent site visit was fireblocking. Jim and John identified several areas that needed fireblocking in the existing framing. Although it is now code, sometimes builders neglect it because it’s behind the walls. In modern conventional platform framing vertical wall studs are nailed between horizontal wall plates that cap the studs at both ends. Both the wall plates and the studs are forms of fireblocking—the plates stop or slow flames from moving vertically; the studs prevent or slow lateral spread. In very simple homes, platform framing alone could satisfy most of the code’s fireblocking requirements. But as you add features like stairs, utility chases, and other things that complicate the house’s framing, the pathways that flame and gases can pass through multiply. That’s where additional fireblocking measures come in. Below is a helpful article on the subject:

https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/framing/7-common-fireblocking-locations

Moving On

The build is going really well, so we’ve decided to list our coastal modern home in Jupiter, Florida with a local realtor, Dylan Snyder. Dylan is the founding principal of The Synder Group with Compass. He is professional, experienced and a powerhouse in the local real estate market. The house is just a half mile walk to one of Jupiter’s finest beaches. This beautifully updated home offers the perfect blend of coastal charm and modern comfort. We love our beach house, but the beach just can’t compare to the mountains, rivers and lakes of NW Montana! Contact Dylan Snyder of The Snyder Group at 561-951-9301 to find your own beach house! I’ve included a link to his site below:

https://www.compass.com/listing/605-ocean-dunes-circle-jupiter-fl-33477/1776991393018955985/

In my next post, I’ll share updates on the build and interior design for our new build in NW Montana. Hopefully, I’ll have an update on the sale of the beach house too.