Inside an Amazing Modern Rustic Home: Full Tour

Today we're touring a modern rustic home built by Golden Eagle Log and Timber Homes. It's really a masterpiece that blends sophistication with that authentic rustic style. To give you some insight on how they engineered this unique aesthetic, I'll be joined by Justin Jankowski of Golden Eagle. So the exterior of this home is really impressive. Can you break down the individual elements that are actually creating that wow factor? Yeah there's a lot to talk about just on this front elevation. Up in the gables you're going to see hand split cedar shakes and then anchoring and framing out this garage door are 12 by 12 hand hewn timbers with stone pillars. Overhead is going to be our handcrafted mortise and tenon timber trusses. Another nice little touch is a double fascia. So instead of a single fascia board, what we did is added another board that gives an extra shadow line, gives it some depth and dimension to give it some more architectural appeal on the outside. I also noticed that you blend the cedar shakes with the timber and I think that that adds another level of texture that I really love. Absolutely, that's awesome. So as we're walking in the home, I don't want to overlook these precision cut dovetail corners. In a traditional dovetail corner that you see in maybe furniture construction, the corners would send water back into the home. So we've engineered these corners to shed water away from the home. Okay and I'm sure that also helps with maintenance as well. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about how you thought about light placement? Yeah we knew this was going to be the front door for the homeowner and guess we're going to have to walk around the garage and we didn't want it to be left in the dark. So every detail was thought about, even right down to the lighting. Wow, these views are amazing and I'm not sure if we can capture this on video but it really just invites you outside and connects you with the exterior. I'd love to go talk about how you've designed this feature wall because I notice in a lot of homes you might have these great views and they'll have a feature wall but the windows are essentially inserted in between. Whereas here the windows pretty much are the feature wall. Can you talk about how you sort of engineer that? Yeah I mean this client wanted an unobstructed view of the beautiful lake right here. So we made the windows as large as possible. We put engineered wood in between those windows and then capped them with our 12 inch hand-hewn timbers to give you a seamless view to the exterior from the interior. And are these custom windows? Yes these large windows are going to be custom sized windows built specifically to our design and engineering requirements. Yeah now that I turn around over here I see that you've done the exact same window style over here which lets a ton of natural light through. Which is really nice for creating contrast because I think especially with this darker stain it can get a little too dark so that natural light really brightens it up. But one thing I am a little concerned about when you have windows like this is if it's really bright at times is there any way that you can reduce that? Yeah certainly. Well one thing might be a covered porch but still with the south facing glass windows like this it does bring in a lot of natural light and in the summertime it could get very hot. So there are some opportunities that we've taken to incorporate some motorized blinds but something you definitely want to consider and think about when you're designing the home because electrical has to be run to these areas. And if you recall our Pete and Well Home video that we just came out with that actually featured shades up in the triangular windows in the gable end so that's something new that we haven't seen yet. Oh that's really nice and I love how these are still see-through you can still see the views but it does at least reduce the light here. Another thing I'm realizing is when I first walked in here the views are completely unobstructed so for example this couch has a much lower profile. Is there anything else you do when designing a home to make sure that those views are unobstructed? Yeah when you're perched up on a hill like this and your view is maybe down below one feature we like to design for is dropping the deck. So now your view isn't obstructed by the deck flooring or the railing you can see right through. I also noticed that you have the mantle here and then these lights to illuminate the mantle so if you have decorations or something they're illuminated. And speaking of lighting do you have any other like lighting tips for a home? Yes lighting while it's functional it can also help highlight some of architectural appeal of the home. So you can see up in the ceiling that it really brings out the depth and the contrast of the hand hewing. So talking about lighting in the design phase is definitely a must. Yeah it really sets the mood for this makes it very warm and inviting. So there's a lot going on in the kitchen here and it's not the typical aesthetic that you'd imagine when thinking of like a timber home. Can you break down how you're creating this aesthetic? So the dark stain on the timber trusses against the white cabinetry gives us the contrast that most clients are looking for in a modern rustic home. One way to add warmth to the kitchen is adding lighting. So you can see here the under cabinet lighting the in cabinet lighting and then the accent lighting that actually shoots up and again shows us the contrast in the timber trusses. This is beautiful and it also provides some really great contrast to all the white cabinetry here. Yes did you see the detail work with the furniture corner here and then also the glazing? So glazing is applied to the entire door front it's wiped off and then the glazing gets caught and all these fine details and really accentuates all the lines and intricacy in that door front. So this kitchen was clearly designed for hosting and I noticed you have this huge prep island and then a serving island over here but what are some other things that you think about when designing a kitchen specifically for hosting? Yeah you definitely want to think about traffic flow so that's why we strategically designed the refrigerator and the coffee bar on the perimeter of the kitchen so that when someone needed to grab something from that area they didn't need to go into the inner workings of the kitchen. Another thing that I think was really smart you guys did was putting enough outlets in here whether somebody needs to charge their phone or if you have like a line of crock pots here you can never have enough outlets. Now I have to confess I am a coffee fanatic so this would definitely have to be the design of my new home. Yeah this was really a big topic of discussion I think the location is perfect it's kind of tucked around the corner but still in the kitchen and then you don't have the coffee pot on your main kitchen counter and then just the location in the rest of the house it's very strategically located next to the exterior door so you can walk outside and enjoy your morning coffee. Wow these views are amazing and I think if you have views like this you obviously want to have outdoor living but one thing a lot of people are concerned about is how do you actually minimize maintenance costs. Do you have any design tips around that? Yeah a great one is a covered porch that's going to protect the home and the exterior facade against the sun's rays it's really going to extend the life of that exterior stain. Another maintenance tip is maybe selecting a maintenance free railing system this is powder coat painted aluminum so it's never going to need to be painted or stained. I think also standing here you get a sense for the scale of this home like just the sheer size of these timber posts the way it ties in with the timber trusses here it's just epic. I also noticed the lighting up here above and I imagine that at night those illuminate the timber trusses and that's probably an amazing look. It's pretty spectacular. The client had a very unique design vision for the master bedroom they wanted it completely different from the rest of the house they wanted almost like a spa experience when you walk into the master suite. Wow yeah this is not what I was expecting in a timber frame home. So to keep it the rustic theme of the home they opted to go with timber trusses but decided to go smooth texture and then paint them white. And then to keep with the spa feel in the master suite check out the wall texture it's a mica and crystal faux finish and blends well with the rest of the aesthetics of this bath area. Yeah it really gives it that spa feel. I think it turned out really well it has a spectacular view. That's really peaceful. Despite the grand scale of this home it still feels very livable and cozy and I think keeping these bedrooms smaller gives it that warmth. An item that might add to that is the vaulted ceilings and the timber work in here. So being that this is a single-story home it lends itself to a lot of flexibility with the roof design and here you can see we've created two different vaults and a beautiful valley system here to custom fit this area and frame out the bed beautifully. I really love that. In here again you have that vaulted ceiling but instead of opting for the timber trusses you have this really nice chandelier. Yeah we felt that the timber trusses might be a little bit heavy in this size of room. We did intentionally create soffits on the edge which allowed for the directional lighting which highlights the hand hewing on the band board. Wow so coming down here this is a lot more rustic than what we saw above. I love that contrast. A couple ways we did that is by bringing in the natural cut stone from the exterior to the interior the hand hewn timber trim work again and then also the ceilings are wood ceiling but then framed out with our hand hewn 10x10s and then in between the 10x10s we went 8x8 just to create some contrast in another shadow line. I also noticed that above you have that stone mantle whereas here you opted for the timber beam to tie in with that timber theme. Yeah the mantle is hand hewn and it also has the unique edging or the banding which echoes the design of the acorns and the timber trusses on the first floor. Another thing we did to invite as much natural light as possible is we placed windows flanking each side the gable end and that same theme is carried through on the first floor in the great room gable end. This bar is incredible. Can you give me some tips on how to design a bar that's really spectacular? Well let's start overhead. I mean these timber accent roofs add a ton of aesthetic appeal. They're hand hewn on all surfaces. They sort of engineer this aspect of imperfection which I think is really classic in rustic homes. This is a really unique design. Can you explain what this is? Yeah this is actually the lake that this home sits on. So it was custom engraved, epoxy filled, and the colors contrast each other very nicely. So where is this house located on this map? We are located right here. I think that's a great conversation starter and another conversation starter I noticed was all of these collectibles here. Yeah the led backlighting accentuates the memorabilia in each shelf. Oh this is a really smart design to place the water closet here so it's accessible to those that are just visiting hanging out on the lake and then it's also accessible to this bedroom. And I also love how we didn't talk about this earlier the height of these doors. How big are these? Yeah these are eight foot tall doors so being that we do have 10 foot ceilings that allows us the height to put eight foot tall doors and then also our massive eight inch top head casing on there. Yeah and it really matches the scale of the home overall. It certainly does. This is also great that each room has kind of its own vibe. We really went the extra mile to make sure each room had a very unique aesthetic. So a local artist spent many hours applying layers of paint and plaster and different textures to create this patinaed steel look. Almost reminds me of the Super Mario Brothers blocks. Now in this room we're going to see again an accent wall but with this accent wall we brought the exterior facade to the interior and let me show you what we did in the next room. Okay oh wow I've never seen this before. No this again is another type of faux finish. Again the same local artist spent many hours making this wall one of a kind. We have a lot of clients that enjoy a lot of outdoor activities whether it be snowmobiling, UTVing, hunting or fishing. This client needs a lot of extra storage space. The lot didn't accommodate the extra space for a secondary garage so we had to design the home to create a garage beneath the grade level garage. There's actually a lower garage in this home. Right now there's a car and a truck above us right? That's pretty crazy. So how do you build something to support that? So we excavate underneath your first story garage put the precast concrete forms on top of that. Now we just basically doubled your garage and your storage space. This custom home was truly one of a kind from its functional design to the luxury finishes it was really a pleasure to tour. Thank you so much to Golden Eagle for sponsoring this video and to Justin for sharing his insight on what went into building this dream home. For more videos like this be sure to subscribe.