Two people I know, one of them my sister, asked me to take a look at this house design they like and may want to build. Done probably fifteen years ago, designed by Blue Hill, ME architect Robert Knight, the house was built somewhere on Maine’s Penobscot Peninsula. It later got a two bed and one bath addition boomed out on the R side of the before-addition view shown here.
The house with its addition was written up in an article in Fine Homebuilding a while back. The version we are considering right now is the un-expanded original.
What I am looking for is the complexities that add cost, and to see how it gets put together. The plans for the house are available directly through Knight, or through a web-based seller he has a deal with. Plans will be purchased if the houses get built, but for now, I’ll use the photos and little views of plans and elevations gleaned from the various websites that display the house. With a reasonable copy of the thing modeled in Sketchup, I can rough up costs.
Here are a couple photos taken inside. You can get a feel for how exposed posts and beams are done, to give the place a timbered frame look. While exterior walls and the roof are all stick framed with ordinary sawn framing lumber, key elements of the inside loadbearing sticks are exposed.
The upstairs is accessed by a cool little staircase with a winder quarter turn halfway, and a sort of half-winder two way landing at the top. All the rooms upstairs are fully vaulted to the 12-pitch roof, and combinations of windows and skylights, plus roof glazing, make for quite a show. Both the proposed homesites have spectacular 180 degree views to the south, mountains popping all over.
Here is what the stairs look like to upstairs, or at least look like in my imagination. There are no photos, and the website pics of plans are confusing. While this house has a full depth foundation and basement, the space is accessed via an outside attached doghouse with a hatch-covered staircase.
This view taken in the upper gallery, and the following pic in the bedroom, show how the exposed timbers, trim and built-ins, and windows, skylights, and roof glass, add up to a lot of drama in a small space.
As best as I can tell from the pics and the little views of plans shown at the websites, the frame for this thing is based on a 33×33 plan divided into nine clustered 11×11 quads, with posts at the third-point corners. The roof shape begins as a hipped 4-side duncecap, with a two-way gable and part-gable both oriented along the same axis. With our roof snow loads here, we can frame the roof with 2×12 #2 SPF at 24″ centers, since the spans are only 10’6″ max.
With part of the main floor having exposed beam-and-plank ceilings, some of the upper floor deck frame will be done with timbers, and the rest will be done with 2x10s on 16″ centers. Advantech on the sawn, and 2×6 T&G (appearance grade on the v-groove bottom faces) where the timbered joists and beams go. Here is a view of the deck, and you can see what goes where.
More to follow in another post.
A few remarks about the house. First, it’s small and tight, but that is OK, because in the cases I have here, each is for a couple only. No kids. Furthermore, each has a barn/shop structure already on site with guest quarters and garage space. Second, the prototype was built in a locale where summers are cool enough to negate any need for A/C, and that is our case here. Finally, heating. It will be done by LP-fired water and hot water radiators, with the centrally located wood stove augmenting things for those deep freeze times in Jan and Feb.
Replies
why wouldn't someone just buy the plans?
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
So here it is, as far as I am going with it for now. The model took me three after-dinner Sketchup sessions to build. Knight's dimensions were kind of a squeeze, so I blew it up a tiny bit.
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In a fifteen minute session with the file, I took off material quantities for roofing, flooring, wall and ceiling finishes and substrates, did a window schedule (used Marvin Integrity standard sizes), all framing and sheet goods, foundation, roof glass and stick surround footage, insulation, exterior siding and running trim, exterior doors, interior doors, flatwork, figured out most of the trim and cabinetry schemes, and did a rough-up for electrical openings and a fixture count.
To answer Jeff's q about why not just buy the plans, the answer is obvious to anyone who has followed any of my threads. I'm retired and this is fun. Jeff, I'll bet you knew that, but you just wanted to throw me a stinger ;-).
The two challenges in this little jewel box are the post and beam stuff, and the roof glazing. I cannot figure the cost of the timber work without getting a file over to Steve, our local and very excellent timber framer (http://www.amstutztimberframes.com), and the roof glazing work will require some research on the right products to use from ConservationTechnologies (http://www.conservationtechnology.com). Here is a pic of one of their profile sections, the one you would use for the between-panels-up-slope.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Gene,
I built myself a very small home/cabin with a lot of glass in it, many years, on a hillside in the Mid-Hudson area where the winters are mild compared to yours. Had a nice little woodstove and a propane furnace.
I assumed that the small size would make heating it fairly cheap and easy. Not true. But it taught me what I need to know now, as I work on the design for my new home. I'll still use lots of glass but I'll be more selective about it.
I seriously doubt that anyone, no matter how wealthy, will be happy with that design in a really cold climate like the Daks, as oil and gas prices rise in the years ahead. The overhead glass is a beautiful feature, out in the woods, but it's also very impractical. Same for the glazed walls.
Not criticising the design as such, cause I'd love it as a summer place but....just speaking from experience.
For one of the couples considering it, the house would not be used in winter.
The other has it in mind for a year-round house, but has some ideas about geothermal heating.
I agree that it is an energy-waster to heat, but if you have the funds, what is the money for, if not to live in and enjoy art?
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
but if you have the funds, what is the money for, if not to live in and enjoy art?
LOL. Spoken like a true artisan.
Nice place, but I sure noticed that it seems to have an awful lot of glazing.
Spendy and tough to heat with that much unless you have good clear winter days.