Work stoppage

Circumstances have arisen which require a stoppage of work on the house project for now.  Changes must be made, but I’m hopeful that the circumstances work out and we can proceed in a forward direction very soon.  I will post more about these changes send the plan forward very soon hopefully.

image revisions

Here’s an updated image of the river side of the house and an overhead view of the kitchen.

  There was something that I didn’t like about the window on the left side of the house where my media room will be.  I don’t want that much like in that room and I had plans for bookcases along that wall.  Blaine may have an idea on how to keep that exterior wall from looking so monolithic.  At any rate, this will suit me better.

  Here’s an overview of my kitchen.  It doesn’t look like much here.  There are more images below.

We have all had concerns about how the driveway is going to work.  Some of the passage looks really tight.  Jason did some nice graphical work to help clear that up for me. 

Check out this Adobe document for the details.

There appears to be ample room for everything but the absolute longest vehicles on the road. That will most likely accommodate both the Expedition and GTO.

Revised river views

Jason has been working with a structural engineer on some of the specifics of how the house should be constructed.  Most of it is beyond my pay grade, but the end result is that we probably won’t be able to have a complete wall of windows on the river side.  Some of that will have to be load bearing wall.  That’s fine with me.  I didn’t really want that much window in my media area.  And, I think my folks will be fine with the new configuration.  It still looks really good and will be very open and light in the common area.  Here’s what it looks like.

West side.

Northwest corner.

Southeast corner.

They’ve also cut down the height of the chimney.  It’s much more practical this way. 

kitchen elevations

Late last week Blaine and Jason made a cannonball run to Chicago to go and get some stuff from Ikea and do a little shopping for my project.  I gave them a list of things that I wanted to have in my kitchen and they came back with some ideas and put together some nice looking elevations of what my kitchen might look like.  Here’s what they came up with.

This was their first idea.  I like it very well but they came up with something that may be more accessible for me.  And, my mother seems to like the second rendering better.

I think it looks pretty sharp.  As usual, the stuff that I like is generally toward the top end of the Ikea priceline.  Especially the cabinetry material.  But, cabinetry and appliances and countertops are all going to come in for under $10,000.  I think that’s pretty good.  It’s just too bad that we’ll have to go to Dallas to pick all of it up.  It should be worth it though.

new video

We also took some video of the 3D model that Blaine made for the project.  It’s made to scale, with each layer of cardboard representing 1 foot of elevation.  Here it is, with Blaine narrating.

 

More new images

These are older images revisioned with the new roof line and a few more layers of detail.

View of the west side of the house.  This will be facing the river.  At this point, I’m thinking that the room with all of the windows on the left side of the house will probably be a wall with some sort of window.  Same thing for the room on the far right side of the house.  So, the middle part of the house will be all floor to ceiling windows.  Also, the wedge shaped windows that go from those horizontal beams to the roof will remain.

View from the southwest corner.  We’re probably going to cut the height of the chimney some.

View from the northwest.

Another view from the northwest.  You can see some of the post and beam construction start to be represented here.

View of the entrance to the house.   

new roofline

Due to concerns over how drainage may work on this house’s roof, a rework was done which has added some new dimensions to the roofline and the way that light will translate into the house.

Entrance view.  Notice how instead of the two roof elements meeting in the middle, now the north roof (the one on the right) overlaps the south roof.

Here’s a better view of the mono gutter.  There’s also a good view of windows that will allow light to come into the middle of the house because of the elevation change  north roof.

Close up view.

new sketches

After a relatively long hiatus from this project due to holidays and various other commitments, I was able to go and spend some time with my friend Blaine and the architects who are designing my house.  It was a fruitful meeting and I have a bunch of new stuff to put up.  So, I’ll start with some sketches.

View looking up from the southwest corner.

From the northwest corner. 

From the driveway.

View of the entrance.  Notice the change of the roofline.  I’ll cover that more coming up next.  

New images

The other guys and I have all been kind of scattered lately, so progress has slowed somewhat.  But, some progress has been made.  The images below show some ideas of outside cladding and windows.  The areas in red also show where dirt will have to be moved, either taken out or added, to make the building site work for the house.  It appears there will be much less dirt work needed than I had anticipated.  We may actually have to bring fill dirt in, whereas I was anticipating the opposite would be needed.

View of the west side of the house.  Some dirt will have to be removed from the attendant quarters, at the bottom right of the picture, to allow for an entrance.

View of the south side of the house.

View of the east side of the house.  The red area on the bottom right will require dirt to fill in and make a level area for the driveway and garage.  The area of cedar with the horizontal window is where the kitchen will be.

View of the north side of the house.  Another angle on how much fill dirt will be needed.

View from above.  Again, the red areas will require dirt to be moved.  The area shaded in gray is the proposed driveway.

Blaine and Jason are supposed to be getting together today to work on some studio space where they will put together a three dimensional model of the topography and the house itself.  Once that’s complete I’ll post some photos.  I think Blaine may come down to show it to me in person.  I’m looking forward to it.  

Exterior material study #1

A quick update before sharing a view of what the exterior of the house may look like.  I met with my friend in Conway and consulted on how I might proceed with my utilities at the building site.  I didn’t really learn anything new, but I did come away with a renewed sense of confidence and a plausible strategy on how to proceed.  I won’t go into the specifics here, but I can tell you that I won’t be moving to drill a well anytime soon.  I’m hoping that everything just works itself out as time goes on.

On another note, I received some ideas on exterior finishes for the house.  (PDF, opens in new window).

Check them out here

I think everything looks beautiful.  The scheme suits me very well.  However, I’m very apprehensive about using cedar on the exterior.  I’ve seen some wonderful examples of cedar used in modern construction.  I’ve also seen cedar used in construction that turns gray and ugly after two or three years.  Being disabled puts me at a disadvantage for being able to maintain something like that.  So, I’m stuck.  I’m open to comments.  There are some nice examples of cedar accenting modern construction at this web site.  I’m sure there are many others.  Tell me what you think.