Exterior walls have been finished, thank goodness for the unseasonal, warm Santa Fe weather!

It was a race to beat the cold weather, and mother nature decided to cooperate with us. This gallery shows the grey coat on the exterior walls, and then finished up with the final color coat. We had beautiful sunny weather in November, with temperatures reaching into the 60′s while we were plastering. Not even a week later, the mountains received a heavy snow. Talk about fortunate timing. You just never know what the weather is going to bring in the land of enchantment. Snow one day, driving with with the sunroof open the very next.

The exterior color of the walls turned out fantastic. We used the color “suede” by Sto, the synthetic stucco system. The contrast between the green-tea leaf colored window trim, and the acorn stained wood turned out even better then I imagined.

Click any of the images below to start the slideshow.

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View portal is almost complete!

One of the features I love most on Santa Fe homes are its outdoor living spaces. It is not uncommon for living spaces to extend outside and into your covered portal. These areas are often decorated similar to your indoor spaces complete with rugs, furniture and art.

This luxury home is no exception, and we made as much use of the outdoor space as possible. When you have a unique building site like this one in Monte Sereno, it would be tragic not to take advantage of the views.

What we did was build a view portal that wraps around the entire back side of the home, and installed the biggest windows we could get our hands on to maximize the view lines. And to put the finishing touches, we added the sculpted kiva fireplace to enjoy the warmth on a cold winter evening. Now where did I put my eggnog?

Luxury Home in Santa Fe – Roofing is complete, ceiling treatments are finished!

There is nothing quite like watching a home in Santa Fe come together. This luxury home in Santa Fe has been roofed and is all covered up. Its a good thing too. The winter weather is already starting to roll in! In this picture set, I took a picture of the views from the top of the lot, you can see the clouds breaking up showing the snow in the mountains. The interior ceilings turned out amazing. We have huge vigas, with tongue and groove wood planks in the kitchen, dining room, great room, and master bedroom. The entry way has a mix between smaller vigas bundled together, and latillas.

Progress is moving very quickly now!

Vigas & latillas, the ceilings are being built! – Homes in Santa Fe

So what is a viga and what is a latilla?

Vigas are huge trees chopped down and cut to size. They serve as support in both ceilings and can be stood upright and used as columns.

Latillas are smaller versions of vigas, they are the branches, hand peeled, and usually are cris-crossed on top of vigas for decorative purposes.

Because these beams are so massive and are extremely heavy, a crane had to be rented to pick up each viga and set it in place. Its a long tedious process and requires the framers to pay really close attention to what they are doing. Dunno about you, but I would hate to have one of those dropped on my foot!

Oh yeah! Its all coming together!

Stem walls & retaining walls. – Home in Monte Sereno, Santa Fe, NM

Moving right along. Here are pictures of the stem walls, and the huge retaining wall we had to build. The house is starting to take shape! And we managed to save one of the nicest trees on the lot!

Dirt work – Santa Fe home under construction

Here are pictures of the dirt work process. Because the lots in Monte Sereno are all situated on sloping terrain, it made the excavation difficult. We had to cut down into the mountain almost 10 feet because of the covenants has strict height restrictions.

Its always exciting to break ground, I couldn’t keep my kids of the piles of dirt, they had a great time.