*
I ended up doing trusses, I-joists, and beams on this house. I’d have to say it’s the most difficult house I’ve ever done. It was done from a horrible plan from “design basics” that had so many errors it was almost useless. I saw this thing in my sleep for about a month.
Anybody else have pictures of their best/worst work to share ?
Add a strap for easy carrying and pouring when working with 5-gal. buckets.
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial NowGet instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
*
I guess ugly is in the eye of the beholder. Iy is not the most attractive but could have looked better with more wood work, in my opinion. The worst one we have done yet was a job that the blueprints came from a place called "the design store". The homeowner wanted a mirror image, and that is what he got, right down to the letters and numbers being backwords.Even asfter getting al of the numbers switched for the inspectors, demensions were wrong, things were under code. We would have had a easier time with a napkin sketch.
*Ron,When you say "ugly", are you talking about the house, or about the plans and the process of building the house? From that view, I would have difficulty calling that house ugly. I wonder though, is there vinyl siding just around the corner? Then, yes, it is ugly.Simplify the design and get brick all the way around and it is a much better house.In my book anyway...Rich Beckman
*Ron, get in your car and drive. That same house or it's cousin is going up from Texas to California to North Dakota to Michigan. Might be some different looks here and there, but more or less the same thing. Joe H
*Ron:It looks like they were trying to build the house of 7 gables... and 14 hips. On the other hand, it's not that bad - definately not my style, maybe more the "McMansions" style? I wonder how that style of house will be looked at in, say, 50 years? Actually I kinda like that style of cornice return. Sounds like your opinion may be a bit tainted by the pain in the @ss it was to design that roof. Bet is was "fun" for the framer to figure out the jigsaw puzzle you designed too.How many roof trusses did it end up being? Is some of the roof stick framed?
*I especially like the two-tone brick, lack of window trim and the ugly-ass entry with those windows above the door. Yeesh. Oh and the vinyl siding on the side.At least the cornice returns were right thoughDan
*Rich - I guess I tend to look more at things from a structural perspective. When it comes to the "architectural look" of houses, I'd have to confess I don't have a lot of feel for that. I don't like this house because:1. It was way too expensive for the square footage they got.2. The blueprints were lousy, and had a bunch of errors. (Not that "Design Basics" gives a damn about that - once the plan is out the door, they've got their money)3. It was incredibly difficult to figure out - Multiple wall heights, multiple pitches, things planed from the 1st floor up through the 2nd., Too many beams. (about $8,000 worth of LVLs and Glulams, as I recall)And yes, there is vinyl siding on the sides and back of the house.
*Ron, Ditto what Joe said about building this house everywhere. I looking at a plan for one now, two main hips, five reverse hips, and eight reverse gables. I here people all the time say, "we want lots of roof lines", you know, like its a style or something. I always say there will be a term coined in the future for the schlock being built now, and it won't be flattering! I think today's consumers fail to recognize that there is elegance in simplicity. If this type of house graced the pages of my favorite builing magazine, I'd cancel my subscription.Tom
*Some of those things are so garish, I wonder if they have "Las Vegas Casino Carpet" inside? If you've ever been in any casino, you know what I mean. Anything you drop disappears, throw up on it, no problem. Nothing shows, guaranteed ugly. Saw a whole neighborhood of them in Lafayette Louisiana, each one butt-uglier than the one next door. An incredible display of much money and no taste. Joe H
*Ahhh Design Basics...been there..ONCE...a couple brought me the plans and wanted it in reverse, but only got the velums, so I had to copy in reverse then try to read it. This is how it finally came out, they love it and I got paid well, but it was a challenge, lots of LVL's, trayed ceilings, 2 story great rooms and all that BS. When they say Design Basics, what you get is a pretty picture of what they think it should look like, but as far as working drawings, well you are on your own I guess. And if I could figure out how to post the pics like Ron did, I would. A little help please Rn.
*Keith,Follow this link. I gave instructions there for posting pictures. There are also other posts which give instructions, I just didn't want to search for them. LOL dixie "I really hope I can get this posted - here goes" 7/1/00 8:38pm
*Keith, just save the pictures as .jpg in your photo software. After you've typed your post for breaktime click the browse button below the text field and it'll allow you to browse your computer for your enclosure (photo). But you can upload other things too. Here's an animated gif file I made a couple of years ago. Dan
*Keith, I'm with you on Design Basics plans.I've built several homes from their plans and it was usually a real challenge to make it work.Different wall heighths, unequal pitches, etc.are typical of a "Basics" plan. They like to drawhip roofs with an 8/12 pitch in the front and backand a 10/12 on the sides. I would always talk thehomeowner in to going with one pitch on all sides.I'm beginning to think I won the bids on these projects because no one else wanted to do it.
*Ok, after much help, (thanks Joe) here was my first Design Basic headache.
*Ok, we'll try this again.
*Oh man, now there's an ugly house.
*At least it's little and ugly. Couple bushes, few trees and a couple years will help. Or a fire. Joe H
*i Or a fireOMG! lol!
*Yea, it was ugly, color selection was horrid, roof lines were so cut up I was confused for 2 weeks framing it. Then last summer they had me back to put on a 1600 Sq/ft deck off the back of those 13' french doors. 43 post holes later(not a square corner on the entire thing)3 levels, and they had an ugly deck to go with the ugly house. But the checks all cleared the bank, and I can't see it from my house. Keith c
*looks like one of the uglies going up around here too. Seems the big trend now is to have a big house with lots of angles and steep roofs and place it on a yard so small you can be sitting down and ask your neighbor for toilet paper. All so they can say , wow look at my big house and (I love this), "it is custom too". The sad thing is in a few years a lot of them go on the market because of problems. We were in a house the other day looking at a kitchen remodel and a floor problem. 5 year old house, 4600 sq feet, would be in this posts ugly picture collection. House was leaning almost an inch in 10 feet, floor was out of level and bounced like a trampoline, not one square corner in the kitchen. Another probelm we have around here right now is we have little land around here to develop and most of it was bought up by megga builders from out of town who just blow in with unskilled labor, slam them together and their gone. So of course the other comments we hear are " and we got such a good deal"
*.. i think u guys are too tough on yur selfs or are tryin fer a lefthanded compliment..niether of the examples really qualifies fer UGLY..plain.. utilitarian.. big box... yeh, but not ugly..ugly is.. well.. u no it wen u see it..another thot...if they were all gems , where wud that leave the rest of us ?b but hey, whadda i no ?
*We get 'Framin Raymond' The Omish guy & his crew to do it in about 6 days for 7 bucks a sq. foot..
*Looks like one of the outlet stores at Woodbury Common. Are you sure they don't plan to sell Levi's there?
*Did something similar up in north GA mountain subdivision. Talk about standing out like s..t on a white rabbit! Same deal with plans, reversed meant reversed. Roof cut up worse than a lather's apprentice on first day on job. Multiple plate heights, owner wanted open basement so mega LVL's, etc. Your cornice returns are nicer, though.One good thing: house is far enough off road I don't have to look at it when I drive by.Hard to turn down that money, ain't it?
*Sure am glad the boss lady's design basics plan book got "lost" before she could fall in love with any of 'em. If it was that much of a pain for you, I would have wound up a blithering idiot.But I gotta give credit where it is due. It sure is big.
*Keith, does that house really have fake bay windows in front, or is that an illusion?
*I'd do a few things different like add a bay in the middle to break up the monotony of all that brick but I don't think it's ugly. What's really ugly is that they didn't spend more than three dollars for landscaping! I took a trip to the midwest recently and noticed this was normal there; a few cheap silver maples and the landscaping is thought of as "complete". Yikes!
*Yup. Typical plug ugly piece of neo-Georgian crap,......or something. The roof surely has more angles than a con-artist, but no doubt tricky to do. Long term maintenance- of the roof, might be fun. I am particularly enamoured with the wee green dog kennel and handy grey tree substitute dog p*ssing posts at the front. Concrete and Plastic Mockabethan and Concrete Clad Cotswold Cottage Mansion are also getting big down here. Sliante.
*Don't sugarcoat it! Tell us how you really feel!
*It's the "neo" all right -- or "knock-off" if you prefer. I can even picture the people who live there. They try to build houses that look like something they're not, and do a bad job of it.And all those gables battling each other! Busy, busy, busy.But it's standing up, Ron, I guess you did your job. Keith, is your mini-monstrosity that far out of level? :)
*Oh, all right then Mr. Dog. I wouldn't expect even rats to to board it, so there'd be no chance of them ever deserting it. Sliante.
*They are actual bays in the dining room and living room, they continue into the second story in the 2 front bedrooms. They are just cantilevered off the first floor. Hideous huh? Keith C
*I think it was me that was out of level,everytime I look at that house my head gets that rapid swelling feeling that makes you want to shake and puke. It was built on 3'wide by 2' thick footers, loaded with rebar, sitting on 4' of compacted #1 & 2limestone.(see I hit groundwater at 4' down, wanted to fill it in and walk away, but customer wanted to press on)2 sumps run to daylight in back, tuff-n-dri on the foundation and there has never been any dampness at all in the basement. Of course the foundation drains make a steady 1" stream of water since the house was built, winter and summer. Keith C
*you got a job at least. they could have bought it at wallmart. really, really hideous - really, really sad. what are we doing?
*mike - yer 1 of my favorite guys to read. but, hey, THEY ARE UUUUUGGLY!
*where's jack? this is yellow crap.
*Youse guys're all right on the mark. Those houses are butt-ugly.: )
*ok..i stand corrected.. but i still say it makes me look gud..whats bad 'bout dat ? wehn the neighbor ain't mowed his lawn fer 3 weeks and i'm only two weeks ... the pressure is off....i can propbably go play golf...if we were all driving lincoln town cars.... edsels wud look great..
*Y'all need to come to West Michigan. We've had a building boom for the last 8+ years driven primarily by the need to oneup the neighbors. So we have thousands (at least) of these monstrosities just like the two pictured, stuck in "executive communities" which consist of a brick gate that says somthing like "Tiffany Shores", a straight road half a mile long, and 20 quarter-acre lots down each side of the road. The whole thing has been carved out of a cornfield and maintains all of the mystique, terrain, and excitement (i.e. none at all) of the cornfield, only without the wholesomeness (hey, I grew up in central Illinois; tall corn in black dirt brings me comfort). The houses are, as has been said, "custom" 4000 sq ft slap-up jobs with brick fronts and vinyl everything else, no trees, triple garages, and 10' of chemlawn before the next one begins. These things are driving up the cost of everything to the point where we couldn't afford to build a relatively modest 1700 ft. contemporary. Hmm. Didn't realize the whole thing had cheesed me off so much...did
*OK, so we're in a building boom (for how many years now?) and in a boom there's a trend that shows up (probably because average people are, after all, not very imaginative).Compared to the last big boom ('50s - '60s) this one is a veritable golden age for me. Look at some of the boxes built then. The rectangle predominates, slab-inspired styling. All of the trim ("building accessories" in house exterior fashion) is either thin "wrought iron" railings or pre-formed block. The neighborhoods are either regimentally straight or 'fake countryside' winding roads that we see so much these days (when you pave a farm you've got your choice!).yuk, yuk and yech.You guys do have a point, that people these days are going nuts with the variations in roof shapes, but I say thank god for some shape, too!We can all probably agree that anything that is done in large enough quantity becomes 'common' eventually (Big Macs had to be considered pretty good for them to have become so popular, but that does not remove them from the fact that there are much, much better burgers available - and cost can be a perceived factor sometimes more powerfully than an actual one).Thank you, for being the kind of builders who want to do better than much of what we see out there. If I ever wanted to build a home I'd come looking for that in my contractor and architect.But I don't think we should lose too much sleep expecting most of the people to change their ways (by definition, there's more "average" people than any other kind!).Just a thought from someone who likes to walk around in really OLD neighborhoods because they feel nice!Oh, and another thing, I heard this long ago and it is so true: "Buildings, Politicians and Madames (prostitutes) gain credibility with age." The stuff we scoff at today may be revered someday (whatever is still standing then, anyway).