Meet Amy Slaughter

We have a wonderful team of professionals helping me on this project including Cary Kipp of Kipp Flores Architectural Design Services, Slaughter House Design Services, Jim Donaldson, Superviser of Construction and ME, General Contractor...image that! Amy of Slaughter House Design is a blessing to me because a project of this size needs many eyes, ears, hands and feet. I couldn't possibly be in Fredericksburg night and day for 2 years while this home was being built, so Amy is my designer on the ground! She works with Cary, Jim and all the sub-contractors to be sure the overall design of the house completes my vision. She is one of the few ASID Interior Designers living in Fredericksburg so when Jim needs a question answered quickly, he calls Amy.

Now let me explain how wonderful this relationship is: she thinks like I do! We will be looking at soapstone, for instance, and after looking at many pieces of stone, we will both agree on the one we like best. In fact, it has become a game of sorts. I will not tell her my first choice until she tells me and it's ALWAYS the same...kinda spooky!...Naturally I think her taste is impeccable! Smiling...

The other wonderful gift of Amy is her sketches. She prefers to draw every detail herself. Cary did many basic sketches but Amy did all the interior wood cabinets, fireplaces, shelving, bath and kitchen design and even the iron work and door schedules. We worked together on lighting design, plumbing fixtures, hardware, placement of art and furniture, floor transitions and appliances. Unless you have built a home, it is hard to believe all that goes into this project and more importantly, the coordination of all that is selected so it indeed looks like the home I have invisioned.

So what is that "look" we are trying to achieve? I want a home that reflects all members of our family: warm, inviting, open, comfortable, casual and loving. ( that is, the family ideal, right?) The style is Hill Country Hacienda with a " dirt kicking", beer drinking, "boots on the coffee table" attitude. and DOGS ARE WELCOME!

...so this is what we have started inorder to make this Hacienda look like an old, warm structure with loving bones: We searched high and low and all over Canada and the USA for antique Pendleton blankets. Each casita has at least one we used to pull colors and develop a theme for the space. Remember we are trying to keep the naive American influence of this region in mind so the symbols, style and colors reflect this. We collected old gates from El Paso, Mexico and the Southwest for the privacy doors on the toilets. All the interior doors come from a source in El Paso who has helped us find antique wooden doors from all over the world. This will be our biggest challenge! Our poor trim carpender will have an individual door schedule for each interior door because they are all different! We also started collecting antique rugs from all over the world. These will be mixed with skins and hides for a colorful Hill Country look.

The Stone

Jose' Ramirez is our stone mason who has years of experience and a crew of jolly Mexicans. Today they were working on the west side of the house with their native music blasting and singing and swaying as they lay each piece of stone. Most do not speak English but smile with a twinkle in their eyes when you say "Gracias". Their clothes are soiled from the mortar and they have little to eat in their lunch boxes but they are as happy as can be! There is much to learn from these giving men. So many thoughts come to my mind when I peer into their sparkling eyes: something about freedom to work, pride in their work, humble attitudes, joyfilled hearts and their spirit of sacrifice for their families.

Jose' works his crews on some of the most beautiful homes in Texas. His crew are artisans who work long hours in the heat, cold and wind. They are building the container, the vessel of love by which everything else fits. I watch each of them work as they study each stone, chip it into the size and shape they want to use, turn it to get just the right color , stand back and see how this stone will look next to the one they just placed and continue to play in the rocks. God blessed their hands and their creative hearts.

This type of stone, the color, the lay, color of mortar and type of stone lay all contribute to the style of stone I wanted for this home. We spent hours driving around old Fredericksburg looking at the original structures to get ideas for this type of stone. I wanted a color that had more texture with greys, beige, brown, rust and white. I didn't want it to be dark as the stone used at Boot Ranch and also because we were using tobacco colored old wood as a contrast. With this in mind, Jose' created many sample boards for me to look at with various stone sizes, different mortar color and even the way the mortar is smeared between the stone makes a difference in its appearance. This lay is called "rumble" and is considered the old lay used by the pioneers. They found whatever stone was available on their property and "threw it up" quickly so they would have a place for their families to live. There is an art to the way it is laid and these men got it perfectly beautiful.