End Grain
New Lyptus certified lumber shows its green side.
At first glance, the trim work in the Ultimate Family Home could have been made from run-of-the-mill lumber from any yard. All moldings and baseboards, however, are made from environmentally responsible Lyptus hardwood from Weyerhaeuser.
Lyptus is a high-grade lumber made from two eucalyptus hybrids grown on certified plantations in the warm tropical forests of Brazil. It is an attractive choice for builders who care about the environment because it reaches maturity in as little as 15 years. And plantations are able to produce more wood in a shorter time while using less natural resources.
With 6 percent to 8 percent moisture content, Lyptus is harder than hard rock maple and northern and southern red oak. Cherry-toned in color, the wood has a dense, fine grade that allows it to accept virtually any stain and is ideal for custom applications such as the mill work in the house.
It is available in plywood sheets, veneers, or solid lumber in two grades: standard with no defects or striped with a combination of sapwoods. The lumber, which is available in various thicknesses, can be used to make crown molding or baseboard. The house features applications of stained crown moldings and baseboards and a white-painted version in the girl’s bedroom. www.weyerhaeuser.com/lyptus.
Again and again, the families involved in Marketscape’s focus groups talked about life at home being “frantic,” “chaotic,” and “wild.” They wished for more storage, a way to keep computers and media centralized, and a place to spread out and do homework or big projects. With those concerns in mind, Pardee and Bassenian/Lagoni set out to make the kitchen/nook/management center/family room wing as functional as possible. Here, Timberlake’s Rushmore Maple Mocha cabinets do more than just keep pots and pans organized; they’re key to the working guts of the whole space, especially when it comes to housing the various media components. “Any time you’re doing an entertainment center, boy, oh boy, do you have to worry about components and specs,” says Connie Edwards, director of design for Timberlake. “If you ever have to change the wiring or service, you need to have access to it.” In the family room, the media components on either side of the big-screen TV pull out for easy access.
High-Wired Act
Best Buy’s Networked Home Solutions has the tech bases covered.
Any new house worth its high price tag needs to provide state-of-the-art amenities for living in the 21st century. Said house would need the best security, an integrated home theater/music system, and perhaps a whole-house connection for the gamers therein. The Ultimate Family Home has all of these and more, thanks to structured wiring by Best Buy’s Networked Home Solutions and a wealth of the latest technology.
As the company explains it, the networked home solutions package, simply put, is a plan for having the house wired for any conceivable technology that homeowners desire before the walls go up. This puts messy wires behind the walls and home buyers won’t need a degree from MIT to set up their system. The structured wiring serves as the foundation for the whole-house network system and includes a long list of components that include gaming, music, movies, and security.
At the front door, a Web-enabled touchscreen keypad controls lights, garage doors, and security.
The screen allows each member of a household to have a separate profile and pin number.
In the family room, pull-out components flanking the flat-screen television feature two sets of systems: one dedicated to the family room, the other for whole-house control. The secondary kitchen features a new countertop iCEBOX all-in-one entertainment center with TV, Internet, DVD/CD, radio, and home monitoring capabilities. A flipscreen iCEBOX is installed in the main kitchen. And lastly, the house has 16 new Sonance volume controls with built-in amplifiers, which remove the need for space-eating source equipment.
You can never future-proof a house, but Best Buy says its wiring package will handle all of today’s technologies and have capacity for many of tomorrow’s. www.networkedhomesolutions.com.
“The real effort in landscaping is to create your own world to the exclusion of things you don’t want to see,” says Don Brinkerhoff, CEO and founder of Lifescapes International, the landscaping firm that helped Pardee create the home’s recreational wonderland. “This house was specifically designed for families, so the landscape incorporates ingredients that appeal to all ages. In a sense, it’s like a casino where you can get lost safely.” Little kids will be fascinated by the pop-jet fountain in the courtyard; bigger kids can roam over the faux rock formations, explore the treehouse, and slide into the pool. The loggia, with its three TV screens, is meant for more adult pursuits.
