A(nother) Home in the (different) Woods

[Obed]

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....

Personally, I like the looks of the breezeway. Done right, it could put an exclamation point on the visual appeal and character of the property. If I were going to my "shop", I would be dressed in work clothes anyway so a short walk outside under a roof would not be a big deal. In addition, the breezeway will help isolate the house from noise coming from the shop.

Obed

 

[Obed]

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

Obviously the choice is yours to make; feel no need to respond. I don't want to seem pushy; I'm just providing food for thought.

Porticos are very common in Europe also where climates are not so warm. I have seen drive through porticos in our area on modest ranch houses where a fire truck could never drive under them. Your fire truck just needs to be able to turn around; it doesn't have to drive under the portico if you have enough turn around room. I doubt the portico in this picture has more than a 10' clearance.

My wife had to carry groceries to the kitchen in the rain, snow, and ice for the first 20 years of our marriage. When we built our house, fixing that inconvenience was the #1 requirement of our new house project. I would imagine that most women would feel similarly if they could afford the cost. And now that we have a young daughter, loading her into/out of the car on a rainy day is almost fun.

Best regards,
Obed

 

[dstig1]

No, I appreciate the thoughts and the time you spent responding. I have a space problem near the house. The need for a 90' dia turnaround limits options, with the hill we have. I could possibly pull it back a bit and extend the entry cover somewhat so it covers an extended portion of the turnaround. I'd hate to have a UPS truck take it out too. Hmmmm. If it is limited to that sort of a setup, it may not require much in the way of redesign, and could be done by just extending the roofline out. I'll take a peek at it and see if I can come up with something, but I'm knee deep in window schedules and detail drawings for other areas right now.

 

[mjncad]

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

My grandparents had friends with a portico on their house north of New York City.

Yes, you might have trouble incorporating a portico with the circular drive; but if you can include it in the design, I think it would be a nice feature, especially if your front door faces north.

I do like the breezeway between the house and shop building.

 

[KubotainNH]

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....

I wouldn't want to enclose the breezeway either. The lower connection is what I was thinking. I don't know how cold it gets where you are but usually at this time of year I would prefer to not have to go outside to get to a workshop. So when do we see the inside layout...especially the shop?

 

[Obed]

I could possibly pull it back a bit and extend the entry cover somewhat so it covers an extended portion of the turnaround. I'd hate to have a UPS truck take it out too. Hmmmm.

Yes, that is a valid concern. Some of the posts/columns that I've seen are built on top of a masonry platform a couple feet high. That way a vehical would hit the platform instead of the post.
Obed

 

[dstig1]

It's been a while, so I thought I would update this year's progress...

In the spring, I had talked with a couple excavators and got some estimates for flattening out the pad area this year. I just wanted to get some prep work done as there is a large retaining wall that needs to be built, so that sounded like a good project to get done ahead of time. Part of going through the estimates with them included discussion of the septic location. Turned out they both felt that where the original perc was done for the subdivision plat was the best spot. So no need to do another perc. Small victories... The input from them told me that several more trees needed to come down in the septic area, as it is significantly separated down the hill from the house area and was not previously touched. So that was the project for the late spring. We had a very wet spring and this made a total mud pit mess. Plus this was right off the driveway that was put in the fall before, and the driveway got chewed up a bit in the process. Nothing major, but I didn't have a box blade or anything really to fix it, so I lived with it for the summer.

Spent the early part of the summer clearing out the last of the firewood - probably 10 more full cord of oak I pulled out. It never seems to end. Not sure we'll get to selling it off this year - doesn't seem likely at this point, so it will sit at my friends place for the winter.

But we got that done, and made one last giant brush pile to burn in the process. What started as a wet spring turned very dry in summer, so I had to be careful and found a time when burning was allowed (we had another bunch of rain at one point that made it safe...it's been really dry ever since that week). So at that point, we were ready for some dirt work.

But here's some pics from earlier in the year...

Here's the driveway in the spring. If you see that small white oak down the hill (look for the brown leaves), back to the right behind that is where we cleared for the septic. The house pad is still uphill more to the right, off the screen.


By the time I got to getting around to the firewood, the land had already gotten overgrown. No bushhog, and lots of stumps still out there, so I cleared it with my Stihl weed wacker and brush cutter. I switched back and forth as needed. You can see the difference between the areas I had cut and not gotten to yet... I needed to chop this down just to find all the firewood!




Firewood...firewood...Oh! There it is! The pile on the left is oak blocks (unsplit), and the stuff on the right is basswood and poplar that I split last fall. I mostly give the basswood to my MIL and whoever else want some for campfires, etc. The oak, we sell. Or at least did so once...



Well as I was wacking weeds, what did I run across but this nest of turkey eggs. I left the area alone, once I found it. Had no idea if there was a hen still watching it or not. I was surprised as this was so late - end of June.



More to come...

 

[dstig1]

I had wondered if the nest was active. I found the hen on one of my trips to haul wood. She got used to me so much that here she is walking 20' away from me running the chainsaw and loading the truck.



I wasn't sure if the eggs were duds or not. Given how late it was I suspected they were duds. Just a couple days after I finished hauling wood, they apparently hatched (though not 100%):



Good thing too, as the big burn was only a couple days out, and then the excavator was going to start...

So here is the final look before the excavator started. You can see the burn still smoldering over the hill a bit on the right.



That one stump just wouldn't burn, but that isn't surprising...



And with that, a milestone was reached: I had been clearing the land for ~2.5 yrs, but that was now done. Woo Hoo! :jump:

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to seeing some dirt get moved!!!!

Eddie

 

[dstig1]

Thanks, Eddie. Did you say you wanted to see dirt moved? I would hate to disappoint...

Here's the start. Big dozer, last look at the land before they really dug in. You can see a small pile of dirt in the far distance. They started scraping off topsoil a bit, but it was a very short first day.



And 2 days later, here is what we have... Here's an overview from the driveway at the approach


This one shows the cut into the hill. This is where the fun starts. Due to the slope, we needed to cut into the hill somewhat significantly to flatten out the pad area. There will be a large retaining wall in this section. That is the big project for this year. Get that in, so there is a building pad ready to go. It helps sort out the el;evation issues and cuts and fills without the pressure of having to dig a foundation out at the same time.


Yes, I am doing the retaining wall myself. In fact I am doing it this week, while I am writing this. More to come on that as I get time. This post pretty much catches the project up to date, right up to last week when I started the wall.

Here are close ups of the 2-tiered cut for the wall. Keeping it as one wall would have made for a massive wall. It rises to nearly 10' at the center (peak) and trails off towards the edges. This breaks it up a lot more and allows space for plantings on the terrace.





I'll follow up with wall photos as I get time to assemble all that.