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Designing a house. It doesn’t sound that hard, right? I don’t mean like the heavy duty architecture.
Just a simple floor plan. For example. How many rooms? How many floors? And most importantly (to me anyway) How many bathrooms?
Simple questions one and all. That is until you have two people with different requirements answering them. I tend
to the unusual I guess. The Mrs. Views things more practically.
Some great ideas of mine that got vetoed:
- In the bathroom, a separate little closet like room that has the commode in it. My thinking was that no matter what kind
of awful smells and noises someone might be making in there. It wouldn’t disturb anyone who might just need to come
in and brush their teeth or wash their hands. The reason it was shot down was that it was pointless because we really needed
two bathrooms. So I could just go make those disgusting noises and smells in my own bathroom, thank you very much. Besides,
“If we ever find ourselves wheelchair bound. It would be too difficult to navigate into the little room”.
- Having the living areas downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs. I figure it’s cheaper to build up than out. It’s
also cheaper to heat and plumb. Reason for denial; “We aren’t getting any younger and when we’re infirm
we wont be able to get up the stairs .” . Result: Single floor. “Deal with it.”.
- Having a great big stone oven in one corner of the kitchen. Ok to be fair this one didn’t really get voted down.
It really just got designed out. In the end there just wasn’t room. But I think someone in the house was secretly glad.
- Back in the bathroom (hers). A skylight over the tub. So when shes relaxing in the bath she can look up and watch the
sky and birds. I think over the tub is the perfect place for a skylight. If it ever leaks. Where will the water go. That’s
right. In the tub. Which luckily is designed to hold then remove water. Plus you can get a tan while you bathe. This one is
still being argued over.
- A big glass enclosed, ventilated room that I can smoke in. Ok I knew that this wasn’t going to fly when I suggested
it. But I threw it in the mix so that I could use it to help take up space in a compromise later.
That’s only a few examples to help establish what we’re up against. Usually My ideas get shot down on the “When
we’re old” angle. Apparently I’m going to be in real pitiful condition. And quite the handful. I guess I
can understand her reasoning. She deals with broken down derelicts that were once spry young folks every day. And she sees
more of how much trouble they have navigating their houses. But I prefer to live for today. Or in this case. Design for today.
I normally try to give in to her desires on this house for the simple reason. I figure building it is going to kill me.
So she’s the one who will have to live there not me.
But here’s a couple things I refused to budge on.:
- Every room in the house having a window facing the creek. Which is her favorite feature on the property.
- Reason I refused: This is not possible unless you live in a tube. In which case I don’t have to build a house. She
can buy a trailer.
- Cordwood house. Which is a method of construction that has you stack 10 to 18 inch wood like firewood in rows to make
your walls. At first I kind of liked this idea. It means inexpensive construction. We also have no shortage of usable trees
on the homestead. It also is kind of attractive. It looks more like rock than firewood.
- Reason I refused: I did some research and found that you can expect every 1 foot square section of wall to take approximately
10 man hours. We would be 90 years old before I could get it built.
Ultimately I turned to my trusty computer. I bought a design program “Better homes and Gardens. Chief Architect”.
I could whip out a floor plan in a couple head scratching torturous sessions. Plus it would show where every stud would be
(on a framed house). And if you had a price list for your materials it would keep a running cost. You can also Put furniture
in you model and take a walk around the inside to see what it would look like.
I must have designed 100 different floor plans and made 20 variations of them before we finally came up with something
we could both live with.
Then we had to decide what it would be made from. Cordwood, rock, brick, framed, log, earth, cob, straw, sticks? All this
time that we’re going back and forth nothing is being built. There’s wells to be dug. power lines to be run, and
another building season is passing us by.
It was about then I learned that there’s a good chance that I may be a direct descendant of a very famous architect.
I wont mention his name, I wouldn’t want to upset his family by pointing out that they may be related to me. But the
reason I mention it. Is because I received a vision one night in a dream. I woke up and knew how to build the house. Where
every joint ,truss, and nail should go. Maybe it was great grandpa pointing the way.
We would mix ancient and modern construction techniques. We would build a timberframe/studded frame hybrid made of several
modular 12x 12 sections. And required no foundation so that we could start immediately and also use some of the timber from
our property to save some money.
Sharpen up the saw. It’s timber cutting time.
contributed by Brian Jett
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