Our House - The Pedernales Palace
As you may or may not know, in 1998, we began work on our dream house, a straw bale 2 story, designed by Annie with many green features and lots of unique details. When we moved in here for real in 2000, we shut down our 2,600 square foot studio in town and moved our business into a very efficiently packed home office. AiM Productions now operates out of this space and we're happy and productive as can be, living and working overlooking the beautiful Pedernales River in the Texas Hill Country.

So here is the domicile and work space that we have built, to a large extent with our own hands. If you want to see a larger version of a picture, just click on it. Hope you like our house. We're pretty proud of it.
Aerial of House and River by Andrew McCalla
Our hoyse - NE corner
Front of house from path
Hard to get a big picture of the front - too many trees in the way. Here's an oblique angle. From our front path, the front entrance comes into view. The columns came from San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. The chair came from our local HEB supermarket.
Annie hammered symbols from a variety of cultures into the copper on the front porch roof gable end. Among them are "marital bliss", "safety from lightening", etc. This is one of two nichos we cut into the exterior straw before stuccoing. Annie did the tile and mirror art work.
Front door close
FrontDoorWithScreen
Here's the front door, made by our brilliant friend Wolf Sittler-Bell. The red wood is mesquite that we had to clear from the house site. The other wood is native pecan. And here's that same door, many years later. with a screen door made by another brilliant friend (and neighbor) Jueri Svjagintsev.
Back of house wide
Annie made this mosaic turtle up high on the front of the house. Well, actually, she made it down on the ground then glued it up before the last coat of stucco. Now we're around back. Note the cistern in the background and hot tub in the foreground.
Closeron back porch PatioAndPond
Closer on the back of the house,looking from the west. And here's the backyard from the east side in July, 2013. Note that the flowers are loving the recent rain.
Lantana Persimmon
Let's have a close look at those lovely lantana in that eastern bed.. And here's a closer look at the native persimmon which are all over the property and prolific as can be this year. When ripe, they'll turn black and delicious.
Patio Plus Pond PondLilies
In July of 2013, we finished this patio around the frog pond. And here's a closer look at the frog pond (sorry, no frogs in sight but there are water lilies).
Deck wide Side yard from deck
Turn away from the back porch and stroll down to the deck overlooking the river. Take a glance back and there's the side yard.
Annie also made mosaics of some of the critters with whom we share the land - heron & deer, snakes,
various lizards and of course the armadillo.
   
   
Living room from stove corner
Looking totard stairs
Now we're inside. From the corner of the living room with the wood stove, here's what you see. Here's a view from the southwest corner.
LivingroomFromBackDoor
Then, if you go to the back doors and look into the living room, this is the view. Look to your right and there are the dining room and breakfast bar.
DiningRoomCeiling
KitchenEast
Here's the view from the kitchen into the dining room and living room. The ceilings are long leaf pine bead board, salvaged from a one-room schoolhouse in Milano, Texas that was built in 1873. Turning around, here's the kitchen. The cabinet doors and drawer fronts were made by woodworking genius Wolf, granite counters and tile splashes by Annie.
Piano MusicRm
Looking into the music room, we see Annie's mom's piano, which we inherited, and my drums, which I've had since 1957. From the piano's point of view, here's the other side of the music room.
Stairs ClosetPainting
Across from the music room are the stairs, stairwell adorned with Annie's paintings (the one of me was done by my sister, Faith). Here's another painting by Annie, this one of a door, on the coat closet's door. The view through the door's window is southern Spain.
DownstairsBathroom
Shower
Here's the downstairs bathroom. The beautiful medicine cabinet was made for us by Jeuri. Here's the downstairs bathroom shower. Gorgeous tilework by Annie, natch.
Here's the guest bedroom, looking west. And here's the same room looking east.
Now we're upstairs, at the top of the stairs. Turn around and there's the ancestor wall...
which is next to our bedroom. That's Annie on the phone. From the bedroom, you can go out on the upstairs porch.
Cisterns
Step out on said porch and look to the east. There are cisterns and a shed. Here's the rest of the upstairs porch with more of those Mexican columns and balisters of juniper staves, many of which we cut from the land.
Back in the house, we're in the upstairs bathroom. Again, all the tilework is Annie's. Here are our double vanities - very handy when we're in a hurry, which is often.
Here's the catwalk and crow's nest, overlooking the living room. All the spectacular steel and copper railings were made by our friend Donna West. She may only weigh 90 pounds but she's no weakling. Looking back from the catwalk, here's the loft. The floors are also long leaf pine, from that afore-mentioned schoolhouse.
Into the office. Here, we're looking northwest. Same office, looking northeast .
River from deck
Solar
Back out on the deck for a peep at the river and a bit of beach. Here's the installation of our solar panels just being finished up.
CarportFront
CarportClose
Here is our carport from the front door. And here is a closer view of that carport with our dual Priuses safely protected.
Path to river
From our backyard, you can take this path down through the woods to the river.
StudioExterior
Studio couch
Part way down the path is Annie's painting studio. She and I built it, including carrying down all the materials. And here is one view of the interior of that studio (picture taken before it got used).
Annie in studio
Annie painting
Here is the studio in use. And more of the same.
River at magic hour
River with fall color
Here is what you might see if you happen to go all the way down that path to the river at magic hour in the fall. And here is that river looking across from our side.
Nana and Lucy in River 2013
Zac on rope swing
Here is the river being put to good use by Nana Annie and grand daughter Lucy. More good use - grandson Zac jumping in from the rope swing.
Zac atHammetts 2012
Family on beach 2010
Here's Zac relaxing on the bridge. And here is the family on beach - Lucy, Annie, Ric, Zac, Son Reed and Daughter in Law Lisa (pic taken in 2010).
 
Thanks for taking the tour. We hope you are very impressed with our first (and last) home building efforts.

Now, if you'd like to see more pictures and other websites I've built, you can access them on this index of web pages: www.aimproductions.com/siteindex.html