MDD Homes

When the weather turns chilly, we often think about trying to get warm!  Now is a perfect time to talk about furnaces!  You may think that furnaces are boring, but I beg to differ.  Prior to 1885, homes used brick fireplaces or cast iron stoves to heat a home.  Cast iron radiators used a coal fired boiler in the basement which delivered hot water or steam to radiators in every room. In 1885 the first riveted-steel furnaces were introduced.  These coal furnaces used natural convection (hot air rising) through ducts from the basement furnace to heat the rooms above.  Finally in 1935 the first forced air furnace (FAU) used the power of an electric fan to distribute heated air through the ductwork.  The coal version FAU was shortly replaced by the gas and oil fired versions that are the basis of what we use today.  Furnaces have only gotten more efficient and reliable through the years.  Cutting-edge technology continues to improve furnaces, helping to deliver heated air efficientl

A couple of years ago we posted about how fun it is to custom build a home as attested by the many unique features in the powder room alone!  Since that post we have had numerous amazing clients with their own style and taste.  Take a look at how fantastic some of their powder rooms turned out!    Here we have a glass bowl sink with a wall faucet surrounded by a mirror and glass tile backsplash that stretch up to the ceiling for a unique look.   Add elegance and class to the powder room with a texturized tile backsplash and gilded side lights and mirror.  Note also the extra space in this powder is taken up with bench seating. This powder room incorporates a metallic bowl sink and dark metallic tile mosaics up the wall to accentuate the rich character of the quartzite slab countertop.  Ornate features adorn this powder room from antique oil rubbed bronze faucets, embellished mirror frame and lights to faux finish walls and painted ceilings.  When it comes to get

Custom building a home can be such an exciting process.  With so many options at your fingertips, you want to make sure your designer/builder is paying attention to the details.  Here at MDD quality craftsmanship is found in every detail.  Let's take a look at just a few of the wood details in our homes!  Since we are a custom builder, you can pick and choose from stain grade or paint grade woods, but in every home, windows come standard with stool and apron trim along the bottom of the window sills.   Stool and apron is a unique, custom touch at every window that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but provides a durable place for the window coverings to stop and land.   Wainscot paneling is another custom feature that adds a unique look and rich feel to a home.   Dating back centuries to the classic homes of old America, tongue and groove wood panels topped by a chair rail were originally used to insulate a room from the cold.   Here the decorative paneling provides

Building a custom home can be one of the most fun and rewarding experiences you could possibly have.  Think about how magnificent it would be to ensure that your home fits your needs!  How many home designs out there lack storage space, have kitchen cabinets and drawers that are too shallow or too narrow to be functional, or have wasted space?  In my experience, garages can be a sketchy area of the home.  Many are unfinished with raw wood and rafters exposed, have cold concrete flooring, and are hard to keep clean.      But when you customize a home you can easily improve the look and functionality of a garage!  All of our garages come with insulated, smooth, painted walls.  When customizing, many people choose to finish the garage with an epoxy finish!  This is a perfect way to strengthen the durability of the concrete flooring while making it easy to clean to boot!   Epoxy is a high strength surface that provides excellent wear resistance, sanitation, and chemica

McCullough opens super model home By Pat Setter | 6 a.m.   Sept. 12, 2015   Monty McCullough enters the room with bounding energy and enthusiasm. There’s no wonder about the impetus for his excitement. McCullough and his company are currently busy building and customizing homes for a unique niche in the market, and the response has been quite positive. “The difference between us and any other homebuilder today is we give homebuyers the space they want, the way they want it,” Monty McCullough, president of McCullough Design Development (MDD), said. “They have a vision of how they want to live and by building a custom home with us, we help them complete that vision.” McCullough Design Development has been building custom homes in San Diego for more than 20 years, producing a legacy of fine homes throughout the area. Their goal is to continuously set the benchmark for excellence through meticulous supervision and efficient management with a balance of

Custom designing and building your own home starts with the land.  As land in San Diego becomes increasingly scarce, the McCullough Design team researches lot options carefully.   We choose property for value, neighborhood, convenience, privacy, views, and much more.  Setting us apart from other custom builders is our ability to take much of the guess work out of buying land and delivering a cohesive land/design/build package from start to finish to our clients.   Buyers know they are getting top value for dollar spent when buying an MDD lot. Currently we have several carefully selected lots for sale as part of our custom design-build program.    This includes two of the last lots at Rancho Santa Fe Farms conveniently located near the west end of Carmel Valley.  Lot 6 sits just outside of the gates having mountain and canyon views, while Lot 78 sits on the ninth fairway of the Farms Golf Course with golf course and lake views.  Each lot has a predesigned floorplan engineered spe

Here at McCullough Design Development, we are making family life a little easier by incorporating an old fashioned mud room into many of our homes.      Although we don't live in a climate where muddy boots and rain coats need to be stowed, this organized storage area located between the garage and the rest of the home, is filled with closets, drawers, bins, cubby holes, and hooks.   It is a perfect drop area to leave jackets, shoes, cell phones, and backpacks, keeping the rest of the home uncluttered while keeping the family organized.       The c abinetry is furniture grade with soft-close doors and drawers.  We can customize your mud room in the configuration that works best for you.        For more information on building a custom home with us, visit our website at www.mddhomes.com  

  Outdoor living is a must in San Diego, with its pleasant year-round weather.  The best way to create the open feeling of the great outdoors while inside, is with sets of multiple sliding French doors that create a large opening.   Most remarkable is the seamless look of the Flush Track system of these Vista Pointe doors, allowing a continuous flow from the interior to exterior with only a thin, 1/8” stainless steel rail separating the two.   Here, the rectified porcelain flooring mimicking wood planks runs from the dining room to the outdoor veranda. Seamless panoramic views will have you second guessing if you are indoors or out, with only a light touch necessary to operate these 150 pound panels that smoothly glide open on heavy-duty stainless steel, ball bearing rollers.   Doors are fabricated using aluminum clad door panels with solid wood interior, engineered for maximum strength and warp free performance.   This is just one of the options available when you

The BIG DAY is almost here!  The long anticipated Grand Opening of our Brand New Super Model Showcase home is this weekend, July 11 & 12, 2015!   On the edge of the Del Sur valley, surrounded by water-wise drought-tolerant plants and trees sits this grand 10,610 square-foot (under roof) urban estate combining many of the newest, innovative, and most requested features available in today's market.     The interior is open and inviting, filled with a variety of modern and bold textures and finishes from the natural stone tiled walls of the entryway to the brick accented ceiling in the television cavern.   Uniquely designed ceilings in major rooms and exposed steel I-beams that provide an urban loft feel.   The rectified porcelain flooring with large tiles and minimal grout, stunning solid surface countertops of granite, quartzite, and marble , and the uniquely designed checkerboard epoxy garage finish are just some examples of the durable, easy to clean transitiona

Hopefully your calendars are marked by now for our new "Super" Model Grand Opening!  It is set for July 11th and 12th and it is really going to impress!  We are doing some unique things with this model home.  It is more urban and transitional in design than many of our past homes.  The exterior stone is modern in size, shape, and texture and is dark in color which makes the lighter acrylic stucco pop.  Also unique to the exterior are the gables accented with aluminum metal amongst the flat concrete roof tiles.    This home is considered our "Super" Model because it showcases innovative design features and a variety of options that you can touch and feel, from flooring material to unique ceiling design.  Set up like a museum or learning center, there will be informative, easy to read displays describing the quality craftsmanship of the home and amenities found therein.  Examine the quality, texture, and wear, of structures and conveniences exhibited, like exp

McCullough Design Development has been busy creating their brand new “Super Model” home of the future.   Opening in Del Sur July 11 th and 12 th , this home is vastly different than their homes of the past.   MDD is introducing unique, modern elements both inside and out.   The home has a more urban and bold look with dark stone and brick textures interspersed with smooth acrylic stucco on the outside.   The interior is open and inviting, filled with more modern, varying textures seen in the brick accented walls and ceiling and the use of exposed steel I-beams.   Transitional finishes are durable and easy to clean as displayed by the quartzite countertops, rectified porcelain flooring, and epoxy garage finish.   MDD’s classic great room is the central focus of the home, opening up through sets of flush track panoramic French doors to the outdoor veranda room.   Nearly seamless transitions lead to the full outdoor kitchen with stainless steel cabinets and the outdoor spa-spool.   

Photovoltaic Systems (Solar Panels) are becoming the norm, and for good reason! This clean and renewable power source can save you thousands of dollars a year on electricity bills.     How does it work?  A photovoltaic system is designed to supply your home with usable power from the sun while reducing the energy your home takes from the utility grid.   During daylight hours, solar energy (sun light) is converted into direct current (DC) electricity using semiconducting materials.   The DC electricity flows to an inverter which converts it into alternating current (AC), which is required for household use.   The converted solar electricity is delivered directly to your home’s main electrical service panel.   An electric meter measures the net electricity usage, showing the difference between your home consumption and your photovoltaic system’s energy production.   Any additional electricity your home needs will be supplied by the utility company and any extra electricity pr

 Coming this July to a San Diego Neighborhood near you...McCullough Design Development's Brand New Showcase Home!     "This is gonna be big!"      New design, new features, new finishes.    We can't wait to show you what we can build for you!  Stay tuned for more information... 

There are a lot of aspects to a house that are important, but that are often overlooked.  Stucco is one such item.   Who thinks about stucco?  We do!   Lately we have been using a lot of Acrylic Stucco.  Acrylic Stucco is  vastly different than the traditional (cement, sand, and lime) stucco that has been used on homes for the last century.   LaHabra's Perma-Flex acrylic stucco by Parex USA is made from acrylic resins or polymers, sand, and crushed quartz and has an inherent elasticity and ability to stretch and thus resists hairline and minor cracking.  This will keep the home looking like new even longer.   The stucco is low maintenance.  It is made with Dirt Pick-Up Resistance (DPR), which means that the non-tacky surface of acrylic stucco provides high resistance to accumulation of dirt, mold, and pollutants.   The finish hardens and does not soften again under heat.  The finish is integrally colored with fade-resistant pigments (long lasting) that remain consist

For the last few months our office and model home have resided in Encinitas at our Seascape development!  Our model is now for sale and I know first hand that it has been a fantastic place to spend our days!  Local eateries have been a delight, not to mention shopping at the Forum a couple of miles to the East and the beach is just a few miles down the road to the West!  Seascape is located just east of I-5, but is situated up on a ridge to allow the most gorgeous ocean views from the great room, which, in itself, is pretty great!    Let's take a closer look at the Great Room:   Our kitchen is fully stocked with Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, plenty of storage cabinets and a pantry large enough for a secondary refrigerator if needed!    The kitchen over looks the family room and café dining room which both open to the back yard patio and lawn area.  Our informal dining rooms abut the kitchen for easy access, but are always so full of light!  A set of tall windows