A(nother) Home in the (different) Woods

[Obed]

Dave,
What is the building that is connected to the house via the breezeway? Is that a guest house?

Also, by the pictures, are we to assume that there is not a garage on the main level? Having a house that large without a main floor garage could make selling it tough if you ever decided to sell. My wife made it mandatory that we have a main floor garage. She wanted it as easy as possible to unload groceries from the car to the kitchen in any weather. I have also found it very convenient to load up our car when it's raining without having to climb down stairs.

I suppose a carport on the circle drive could also work.

Obed

 

[dstig1]

Obed, That would be the shop

There are many things that people looking at this for the first time will see that they feel could be done better. But there are so many decisions and compromises baked into a design (any design), you wouldn't believe it. Everything (well nearly everything...) is there for a very good reason. The lack of a main level garage is one of them. We have a steep lot and there are land restrictions that prohibit building on the steeper sections. That limits the area of the house. We needed to work with the slope of the land. In the end, there was no decent way to keep a main level garage, without getting ridiculous. But the front door by the turnaround is inches from the kitchen. For large grocery loads, the best way will be to drop them off top side and then swing around to park. Other than the garage, everything is set up for one level living. Just no reasonable way around it here. As much as possible I tried to work with the land and not against it.

This isn't intended as a slam or trying to be defensive on my part. I appreciate constructive feedback, and don't expect people looking for the first time at something I have been looking at for years to know the reasons behind these choices without asking. So feel free to shoot holes in it. If there is a reason, I'll explain. That doesn't mean that everyone will agree with all of our reasoning...choices are just that after all.

I should get some better pics up as those are incomplete, but right now I'm hashing through rough openings and the window and door schedules...

 

[KubotainNH]

Neat setup. Just curious, is there a way to get to the shop without going outside like via the lower level? Looking forward to seeing this come to fruition. Floor plans would be "interesting" too.

 

[dstig1]

Mike, no inside path to the shop on the main level. I have thought about potentially enclosing the breezeway down the road, but that's not an issue I want to deal with now. Previous versions had a main level connection inside, and I wanted one, but it made the whole thing look too bulky overall.

Thanks for your comments!

 

[Obed]

Dave, working with the lay of the land is important so I understand about the garage. Something I have seen tastefully done on circle drives is to have a covered unloading area where you can walk from the car to the house's front door without getting wet. I think it might be possible based on your pictures to have a very attractive and impressive covered entrance.
Obed

 

[KubotainNH]

Mike, no inside path to the shop on the main level. I have thought about potentially enclosing the breezeway down the road, but that's not an issue I want to deal with now. Previous versions had a main level connection inside, and I wanted one, but it made the whole thing look too bulky overall.

Thanks for your comments!

Ok. I couldn't tell by the plans if you could get there via the garage level. The foundation looks to touch but maybe not enough there for a hallway between the 2.

 

[mjncad]

Chief is actually a lot cheaper than Autocad is. Chief is pretty much all-inclusive, whereas AC needs a bunch of options to become really useful. I recall AC running $4-5k for a seat (license). We have some really expensive mechanical 3D CAD and surfacing software at work. $10-15k/seat is not uncommon, and the one really specialized one we use goes for something like $20-25k.

I've been using AutoCAD since the mid to late 80's, and although it's a good product; it's long in the tooth and obsolete for all but simple drafting tasks in my opinion. The need to make blocks or buy add-ons is a pain in the butt, as I used to do a lot of LISP programming and block development for the companies I worked for.

I was thinking of Autodesk's Revit products for building design. It's an impressive package and I can see why Autodesk bought the company. The way Autodesk is bundling products these days, one generally gets way more stuff than they can ever use and learn.

It sounds like you're using Pro-E or whatever they call it now for the MCAD design at your work. I've played with SolidWorks and found it buggy compared to Inventor.

Dave, working with the lay of the land is important so I understand about the garage. Something I have seen tastefully done on circle drives is to have a covered unloading area where you can walk from the car to the house's front door without getting wet. I think it might be possible based on your pictures to have a very attractive and impressive covered entrance.
Obed

A portico (a.k.a. porte cochere) is a good idea, and I've always liked the looks of them.

 

[dstig1]

Obed, Yes that is a thought, though the main purpose of the turnaround is for fire truck access required by the town. I fear a portico would have to be huge to pass muster as you need to maintain 14' height clearance and some other fun dimensions...

Mike - Sorry I wasn't clear. There is an inside connection on the lower level. The main level is an open breezeway that is covered but not enclosed. So if the weather is real bad, I can go down and back up and stay inside. To fully enclose the breezeway with walls made the whole thing not look right. You need some openness there or it seems to become "overbearing". I think if the walls were just glass it would be OK looking, but that also becomes a heck of a lot of glass to clean....

mjn - yes, we use Pro/E (I guess Creo now, but we will always call it Pro/E) and some other stuff too. Some SW there too, but it annoys the base Pro/E users as we run into all sorts of problems with model translations between them.

 

[Obed]

A portico (a.k.a. porte cochere) is a good idea, and I've always liked the looks of them.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of. I didn't know what they were called.

Google "drive through portico" and you can see lots of examples. I've attached some. These porticos make sense when a main level attached garage is not a good option and are frequently seen on upscale homes.

 

[dstig1]

Yes, I am familiar with them, though they seem to be a warm climate architectural feature (note the pictures you found...). You almost never see one up here. Not sure why. To do something big enough to clear fire trucks would require some pretty massive redesign