Wrapped up in details

Herrs juggle arrival of little one with big siding decision

By Jay Dedrick, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 5, 2005 at 4:43 p.m.

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Photo by Ellen Jaskol © The Rocky

Workers hold up a sheet of wood fiber and cement siding as contractor James Casanova affixes it to the house with screws. The painted and stained sample will help Tina and Christopher Herr decide if they want to use the siding on the house north of Boulder.

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If you're building a custom house, the list of decisions you face is long, and the choices you make, well, you have to live with them.

For starters, how much space do you want? How do you want it arranged? What will it look like? What will fill it? What's the style? Colors? Textures? Where do you want the TV?

Architect Christopher Herr and his wife, Tina Galgon-Herr, worked closely with Brad Tomecek conceptualizing their custom home. Back when they began the process, Christopher was just a draftsman; he's since earned his architect's license. Brad, a licensed architect and Christopher's business partner, married Christa Offenhauser. She's beginning to help with the bookkeeping side of Studio H:T. And Tina and Christopher have welcomed their first child - Talia Aspen Herr - into the fold.

"We named her the night she was born, after we met her, and family and friends had left for the night," Tina says. Her first name (pronounced Tuh-LEE-uh) was taken from a book. "It had a beautiful sound." As for her middle name, "Christopher and I love the outdoors and the beautiful aspen trees."

With life changing as quickly as autumn leaves in the high country, the big-picture questions about Christopher and Tina's home are long settled. Most of them, anyway.

In early January, with construction five months along in the foothills north of Boulder, Christopher is grappling with the toughest choice he's had to make:

What skin will his creation slip into?

"I didn't expect this, but the siding decision has been the hardest one," he says.

It'll take 5,200 square feet of material to side the house, a modern, industrial-style creation with a skeleton of concrete, steel and wood. Christopher's first choice is to side the home's box-like formation in corrugated steel, material that would start out silvery but quickly take on a coating of rust, an earth tone that would blend with the hillside's rich, red soil. Known as Core 10 steel, it rusts on the surface only, and its natural look demands very little maintenance.

His second choice is cementitious siding, a pressed board of cement, sand and wood fiber. When painted or stained, the fire-resistant panels resemble wood siding.

Cost, of course, will play a big role in the decision. And Christopher and Brad decide a field trip will help them learn whether the cementitious siding will give the house they designed an appropriately fabulous face.

As Tina says, "Sure, the siding is important. It's an architect's house - it's going to have to look cool."

Sampling the siding

At Rocky Mountain Pre-Stain in Denver, Christopher and Brad are taking a personal tour. The company specializes in staining the James Hardie siding, sending it to construction sites with woody hues already applied. Christopher and Brad run their hands over the panels, then squint as they consider the color samples, eyeing browns and greens that will blend into the land.

A few weeks later, builders place a sample of the brown-stained siding on the house, and Christopher, Tina and Brad like what they see. The color works, though Christopher still favors the look of the steel siding. Soon, though, he's seeing red - namely, the $21,000 budget overrun on construction of the home. It's a number he has to consider while reviewing the cost options of the siding.

The steely look Christopher prefers would come at a great cost: as high as $13,000, and at least $8,500, depending on the grade of steel. Cementitious would run no more than $7,000, and as little as $5,000.

"Financially, it becomes a fairly easy decision to make," Christopher says. "The last 10 years, Core 10 steel has become much more popular in avant garde architecture. It's trendy."

Brad says the cementitious siding "has more of a modern edge. And aluminum extrusions will give the building texture." Plans call for the silvery edges to outline the rectangular siding panels, defying the conventional goal of a seamless look.

The architects also are defying conventions at the staining factory. While the panels are designed to show either a woodgrain texture or smoothness on the exterior, Christopher and Brad want to flip the panels over and expose the rough, unfinished, fibrous side.

"I have a feeling we're shaking their world a little bit," Christopher says. "One of our big things is truthfulness in the materials. Cement is about taking on the form of whatever it has touched. By using the back of the panel to do something animated, we're bringing something out of it. The stain gets a watercolor look."

"Truth in materials" is the opposite of theme-park artificiality, Christopher says. It's not about wood-grain laminate. It's about the skin honestly representing what's underneath, not camouflaging or disguising.

"People typically respond to buildings that have historical character. There's something appealing about a 1920s Craftsman house or a Tuscan hill town where things have evolved over hundreds of years," Christopher says. "They didn't have the capability to fake things back then. We respond to that: How do we create things that are going to have an element of timelessness to them? That timelessness is not solely controlled by materials, but materiality is certainly a way to contribute to it."

A heavy-metal theme

Uncommon choices in materials for the home abound. Outside, the window frames will be gleaming aluminum; inside, wood. Flooring could be wood or bamboo, if the budget allows; if not, they'll go with the uncovered concrete floor, which will house the radiant heating system. Baseboards will be aluminum.

The heavy-metal theme also leads Christopher and Brad to Adams City Steel in Commerce City, where they comb through bundles of recycled and surplus steel rails, which they plan to use as railings on the outdoor patio, indoor staircase and a catwalk-style bridge that will connect the upstairs master bedroom to the master bath.

On the walls of the house, Christopher wants to avoid a conventional textured - or orange-peel - finish. Too common. Instead, he wants the painted walls to have a completely smooth finish. Builder James Casanova might try to talk him out of it. Smooth finish can generate headaches for contractors, who find the surface much more difficult to work with when hiding flaws and patches.

It's all to serve the minimalist vision Christopher and Brad share for the house. Brad says he and Christopher are honoring modernism of the '50s and '60s. "A lot of it looked cool," he says, "but it was cold and untouchable. We want to add warmth."

Baby brings adjustment, joy

Inside the house, much of the warmth will be generated by Tina's decorating. While Christopher's at work, Tina continues her maternity leave at home, a small Boulder condo where the kitchen counter has taken on a second purpose: baby-changing station. Talia is 5 weeks old this January day.

"I'm anxious to have more space, just for me to walk around with Talia," Tina says. "It's been so cold outside and you get cabin fever in this place."

Becoming parents brought with it "a roller coaster of adjustment and joy," Tina says. Difficulty breast-feeding led to a bout of insecurity. She and Christopher get their sleep in two- and four-hour blocks.

"The real challenge has been not knowing what's wrong with Talia when she's crying. That's psychologically tough," Christopher says. "It's been hard, but it's filled with these glorious moments."

Talia's presence has brought her parents closer together, says Tina, who hopes to be moving her family into the new house in May. Excitement builds as she and Christopher surf the Web and thumb through design magazines to browse appliances and fixtures.

"I have strong thoughts about the interior," Tina says. "I have a vision of an Asian flair in our bedroom. I want to have some cool, comfortable furniture."

Christopher, meanwhile, is drawing up plans for cabinetry throughout the home. He's toying with the idea of installing inexpensive particle-board cabinets with wood veneers - a definite aberration from his philosophy of truth in materials.

"Truth in materials is good," Christopher says with a smile, "as long as I can afford it."

To get what he wants, though, at the best price, he'll have to go far: Phoenix. With the help of a jet airplane, a moving truck and an old buddy, Christopher doesn't expect any common shopping trip.

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