I met with Kevin and Bob on Monday, March 14, 2011. We spent much of the time looking over the contract and a little time on the drawings. I am trying to figure out how to convert the drawings to a JPG format that works with blogger.
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| Floor Plan |
This is the current floor plan before we adjusted the front door. I can't wait to see how the front door works. We added a bit of room to the left of the front door so it looks a bit more uniformly inset. That gives us a more generous front bathroom and closet and makes the front porch more symmetric. We might still need to consider the roof in this area. We added interior stairs to get to the basement. This took a bit of space out of the den. It looks like we will have a full basement with two outside entrances and one inside entrance. the building is generally laid out so north is to the right of the page. The basement will have a daylight entrance to the south, under the bedroom porch (which does not show up on this plan).
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| The timber frame over the floor plan |
The timber frame has been adjusted to that none of the timbers cross the envelope of the building. We did spend some time discussing materials. We are currently looking at kiln dried yellow pine (KDYP). I really like the lighter colors available in the pines. We have been looking at an unfinished sample and on Monday Bob gave us an oiled sample with a light bevel on the edges. This looks great!
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| Oblique View of Front Porch |
We did some adjusting in this area so this is one view that will change somewhat. The wall will come out some on the left side to mirror the right side and make the entrance a little more focused.
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| Profile of the Front Entrance |
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We really have not spent as much time on this view. We are still adjusting the entrance itself. The bedroom wing sticks out into the page and so does the front door area. The hall is a bit recessed. In three dimensions this should give the building more depth, but it does not read in this profile. Also the basement is not showing. Two basement windows will be showing under the bedrooms on the left side of the drawing. The site slopes to the left of the page (south). We will have wheel chair access to the mudroom porch on the right (north), probably four or five steps to get onto the porch center and a daylight basement to below the bedroom porch on the left. The front porch framing will be supported by stone columns to match the fireplace. The crawl space will be completely enclosed with concrete footings or ICFs. We are looking at a stucco finish on foundation walls.
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| Oblique View of Bedroom Porch and Front Entrance |
It's much easier to see the depth of the front walls in an oblique view. I keep looking at the chimney sticking out of the roof. I know it probably needs to basically be a block chimney with a facade. I understand the facade does not extend thru the SIPs. The question is do we put a facade on the chimney to match the interior or not. The fireplace/chimney is a fantastic opportunity to do something really really cool.
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| Back Profile |
It's interesting how the software handles the shading on the back profile. Since some of the walls come in at different angles the software gives it a bit of shadow that it does not give walls at different depths from the viewer so the back profile looks like there is more going on. Since we are looking at the house from the back the mudroom porch is now to the left (north) and the bedroom porch is on the right (south). I expect the back porch to be our primary outdoor living area. It faces the view, generally to the west.
We have not actually located the house on the site plan. But when we do we will orient it to maximize the view from this area.
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| Oblique View of Back Porch |
The funny hexagonal room in the front right of this drawing is the master bedroom. Everyone seems to think we should have a great master bedroom. Imagine the sliding doors on the master bedroom lead to a patio that connects to the back porch.
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| Oblique View of Mudroom and Back Porches |
We really have considered this area of the house in some detail. The mudroom porch is probably a slab on grade for wheelchair entrance. There might be a couple of steps to get to the outside basement utility entrance. The back porch will be raised a bit above grade.
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| Roof Plan View |
This view of the roof is oriented so the front entrance is to the bottom of the screen, the mudroom porch to the right and the bedroom porch to the left. I'm not entirely sure why the porch roofs are not shown.
I really should be working on the contract. I have comments fro Pat Fincham I need to share with Dreaming Creek and I need to read all the detail boiler plate etc. Procrastination.....
