A Little Granola

Current House Plan

che1sea — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:16:35 +0000

Here are some pics of our current house plans and some renderings. We will build and live in “Phase 1″ while we build the rest of the house. There is a sleeping loft upstairs. The empty room behind the kitchen is pantry/storage. I also don’t have the closets in the plans yet but I do plan on having some.
Picture the walls in stone and the roof with grass and such growing on it. Maybe even some wild strawberries. Also on the south side there will be a walk out basement that extends 8-10 feet farther south than the south wall of the house, I wasn’t sure how to get my program to show that. So you will be able to step out of the house on the south on to a patio and then it will drop off for the walkout basement. The main entrance/mud room will be part of phase one with parking planned to the north of phase 1 and the main road to the west.

Phase 1:

Phase 2:

South:

North:

East:

West:

Building site

che1sea — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:28:24 +0000

Just thought I would share a couple of pictures of where we will be building our house. We will most likely own 80 acres but the house will go down hill from the barn, just in front of the younger pine trees. So there is a nice gentle slope where the house will be and then the rest of the land will be in various types of timber. Right now we are thinking maybe a walkout basement/workshop.

A Pattern Language

che1sea — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:25:50 +0000

I recently checked out A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander from our library and I have to highly recommend it. It is a classic reference and a valuable resource for providing insight into what makes a house a livable pleasant home. It doesn’t talk much about size or square footage, materials or colors but rather focuses on the more important details like flow patterns, light sources and the need to balance privacy and togetherness. I have included a few highlights from the book that I especially liked but I would suggest that you check it out from your library or buy it yourself. One passage really hit home in our current economic troubles:

“Indeed, it is very clear that all those processes which encourage speculation in land, for the sake of profit, are unhealthy and destructive, because they invite people to treat homes as commodities, to build things for ”resale,” and not in such a way as to fit their own needs.”

One aspect of building I had not thought much on was how to best enjoy a view, A Pattern Language offers this unconventional advice:

”If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look onto the view at places of transition- along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms.”

And on the subject of siting:

“On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite.”

Slipform Stone Masonry

che1sea — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:39:46 +0000

Right now we are working on researching slipform stone masonry as a possible building method for our house. We are attracted by its relative ease but even more by its permanency. A stone house lasts, and lasts, and lasts. You don’t have to paint it, carpenter ants won’t be interested and various critters have a tough time tunneling in your walls. It is also nicely fireproof and the material for building is just lying around. One downside is that it is fairly concrete intensive, however it should last centuries, which may partially make up for that. We still really like straw bale but I think we have decided that in our climate it may not be worth the risks.

Right now I am a bit hung up on the floor plan. A small house that lives big is not an easy thing to design, and it doesn’t help that I am not any architect, I don’t even have a very good spacial sense. How do we fit everything we want into a relatively small square footage and keep the form compact and inexpensive to build?

Remiss

che1sea — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:17:31 +0000

I have been a bit remiss in not keeping up with this site, if nothing else it keeps me thinking about it and helps keep us on track. Since my last post we have started debating whether we might rather build a slipform stone house with a living roof rather than a straw bale. We love everything about straw bale, except it’s moisture sensitivity. In our micro climate with driving rains and long periods with out sun to dry things out we have some concerns. We know it is possible to do a good straw bale in those sorts of conditions but we are not sure if we are up to it or not. One natural resource that our site has in plenty is rocks. Right now I am reading through a book of my sister’s “The Big Book of Small House Designs”. All of the designs in this book are 1,200 sq ft or less, making it the perfect resource. My sister is in the planning stages of her own, super small house on wheels. Seeing her plans can’t help but make a person rethink how big is big enough, and how small is too small?

Our plans also need some work because we decided that, although it is not the most efficient way, we need to keep everything on one level. My knees are poorly designed and already hurt from time to time, it will only get worse as time goes on. The plus side is we won’t be hoisting beams as high in the air and with no living space on the second floor we can consider a low pitch living roof.

Revised floor plan

che1sea — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:04:02 +0000

I have made some changes to the first floor plan. The interior walls that look extra thick will have built in bookshelves/storage.
Click to enlarge.

Here is a floor plan for the second floor of the house. 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and space for crafts/toys/whatever. Any thoughts?

There will also be a small loft/storage area above the second floor rather than having 15 ft ceilings at the peak.

I also just realized that I have to look at the location of the woodstove and make sure the chimney isn’t a problem.

Most current floor plan

che1sea — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:53:10 +0000

Here is our most current floor plan. Except I think the kitchen will be widened by a couple of feet. (click to get a bigger picture)

And here are the criteria we are trying to fill:

Passive solar design
Quick, less expensive and easy to build ourselves: so simple foundation, simple roof line, simple floor plan.
Small but not cramped, around 1500-1700 sq ft
3 bedrooms: One big enough for a king size bed downstairs, 2 more smaller bedrooms for kids
2 bathrooms: a full accessible bath downstairs with laundry
Space for office/computer and space for sewing/crafts
kitchen big enough for food preservation/processing with at least one good space for food prep.
pantry
layout so that large pieces of furniture can easily be negotiated into all rooms
designed to make use of natural light.
Sufficient storage (a nice vague requirement)
Space for kids to play but be out of the way
Wood stove for back up heat

Some other fun ideas we have had that are more optional:

Pot filling faucet above range
window seat
brick oven in surround around wood stove
shelves/cabinets build into sides of stairs

Probably not round…

che1sea — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:55:09 +0000

We really like the round idea but I don’t think we are going to go with it. After messing around with floor plans we were able to come up with some we liked but then we started talking about building time lines and materials and realized that while it would be fun it would also take significantly longer to build. Time we don’t really want to waste.

A round house idea

che1sea — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:07:59 +0000

Here is the current round house concept.