Some of you already know, but for those who don't: all of the renderings here were done with Google Sketchup. It's available (free!) from http://sketchup.google.com/download.html. I'm completely in love with this piece of software: easy to use, intuitive, powerfull... and free!
If you download it (and you should, if nothing else it's a fun piece of software), you can download your own copy of any model I've made. Then you can move walls around, try different layouts, experiment...
Any questions about using it, the online tutorials cover most of the basics in about 10 minutes. Or just ask me.
I bring this up because I want to enroll as many people as I can into the design phase of this project... I'm not an architect, or a designer, just the guy who's facilitating the design process. I'm looking for all the suggestions and ideas I can get. Feel free to jump in. Really.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Survey / Lot Occupancy
(reminder: click on any picture to enlarge it)
...
This is the most recent survey we had on file (I'm not sure why blogger turned it into a negative):
I had to shrink the file to upload it, and lost some definition in the process. I hope you can still see the differences between it, and what's actually there right now:
It seems the old owners added on even more illegal decks than we'd realized... The gazebo, the half-round diningroom deck, about half the deck leading to it; the second (square) hot-tub near the bay, and the deck it sits on; the steam-room off the master bathroom deck... all illegal.
Apparently they would take apart all these add-ons, anytime the house was inspected or surveyed, then put them back up afterwards... how crazy is that?
...
Before I continue - some perspective views:
from the north
east
south
and west
...the two different seawalls on the drawings reflect my uncertainty about the lot boundaries. I got something different depending on what I measure from - some of our fencing is definitely not where it ought to be. Just to give you an idea, these are the some of the possibilities:
In one direction, we seem to be encroaching on Frank & Allen's and/or Eric & Tony's. In the other direction, Ariadne and/or Frank & Allen are definitely encroaching on us.
I've asked Mr. Mayer to leave some flagging tape at the lot markers, so I can figure this out when I go check on the houses this winter.
(Side note: no matter which of these is right, the half-round dining room deck definitely extends past the lot boundaries. Not just the fence jog-out: the deck itself. Good thing we're getting rid of it!)
...
Another issue is that, in the years since this house was built, the rules for calculating lot occupancy have changed.
It used to be you could exempt a 6'-wide swath of deck from your gate to the house's front door; and you could pick which door was your "front" door. (On the old survey, you can see where a nice big chunk of pool deck is marked "access".)
Under the new rules, "front door" is narrowly defined as the first locking door you come to; and your "access" exemption stops as soon as your deck is more than 6' wide. In our case, that would mean the gazebo? Or at best, the pool deck.
For now, we're grandfathered under the old rules; but if we do any changes to the decks (and plan to) we'll have to abide by the new rules.
...
The result is that we have about 10,000 ft2 of house & deck (or maybe 12,000; my software has a hard time with all the little walks & complicated layout)... as opposed to the 7, 355 we're legally entitled to.
More importantly, it's a lot more deck than we care to maintain, or need, or really have a use for. (Does anyone else feel it's a long walk to the pool sometimes? And those stairs...)
So. The decks are going to be greatly reduced, and simplified:
As part of this simplification, and to allow for a deeper pool, we'll be bringing the pool deck up to the same level as the house deck. Some perspective views:
from the north
east
south
and west
You may notice that the house itself is slightly different in these renderings. We want to fill in the east corner, like this:
We're also going to be getting rid of the cheesy love-boat-looking spiral staircases, replacing them with regular (U-shaped) stairs - that's why the narrow strip added to the left side on this drawing.
The addition will almost certainly require a variance. Hopefully, being such good citizens about the lot occupancy will count in our favor.
...
Drawings of the inside changes will be posted soon. Really - I promise.
...
This is the most recent survey we had on file (I'm not sure why blogger turned it into a negative):
I had to shrink the file to upload it, and lost some definition in the process. I hope you can still see the differences between it, and what's actually there right now:
It seems the old owners added on even more illegal decks than we'd realized... The gazebo, the half-round diningroom deck, about half the deck leading to it; the second (square) hot-tub near the bay, and the deck it sits on; the steam-room off the master bathroom deck... all illegal.Apparently they would take apart all these add-ons, anytime the house was inspected or surveyed, then put them back up afterwards... how crazy is that?
...
Before I continue - some perspective views:
from the north
east
south
and west
...the two different seawalls on the drawings reflect my uncertainty about the lot boundaries. I got something different depending on what I measure from - some of our fencing is definitely not where it ought to be. Just to give you an idea, these are the some of the possibilities:
In one direction, we seem to be encroaching on Frank & Allen's and/or Eric & Tony's. In the other direction, Ariadne and/or Frank & Allen are definitely encroaching on us.
I've asked Mr. Mayer to leave some flagging tape at the lot markers, so I can figure this out when I go check on the houses this winter.
(Side note: no matter which of these is right, the half-round dining room deck definitely extends past the lot boundaries. Not just the fence jog-out: the deck itself. Good thing we're getting rid of it!)
...
Another issue is that, in the years since this house was built, the rules for calculating lot occupancy have changed.
It used to be you could exempt a 6'-wide swath of deck from your gate to the house's front door; and you could pick which door was your "front" door. (On the old survey, you can see where a nice big chunk of pool deck is marked "access".)
Under the new rules, "front door" is narrowly defined as the first locking door you come to; and your "access" exemption stops as soon as your deck is more than 6' wide. In our case, that would mean the gazebo? Or at best, the pool deck.
For now, we're grandfathered under the old rules; but if we do any changes to the decks (and plan to) we'll have to abide by the new rules.
...
The result is that we have about 10,000 ft2 of house & deck (or maybe 12,000; my software has a hard time with all the little walks & complicated layout)... as opposed to the 7, 355 we're legally entitled to.
More importantly, it's a lot more deck than we care to maintain, or need, or really have a use for. (Does anyone else feel it's a long walk to the pool sometimes? And those stairs...)
So. The decks are going to be greatly reduced, and simplified:
As part of this simplification, and to allow for a deeper pool, we'll be bringing the pool deck up to the same level as the house deck. Some perspective views:from the north
east
south
and west
You may notice that the house itself is slightly different in these renderings. We want to fill in the east corner, like this:
We're also going to be getting rid of the cheesy love-boat-looking spiral staircases, replacing them with regular (U-shaped) stairs - that's why the narrow strip added to the left side on this drawing.The addition will almost certainly require a variance. Hopefully, being such good citizens about the lot occupancy will count in our favor.
...
Drawings of the inside changes will be posted soon. Really - I promise.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Hi, guys
R.E. your last e-mail - how's this?
There are other options; this was just to demonstrate how much room there is in your suite (a bit more than the quick calculation in my e-mail this morning).
The bathroom & office can be swapped around, and that 12' wall between them can be moved at will.
Oops, I forgot to put a door in that wall.... silly. Imagine having to go through the bedroom every time? I don't think so.
Speaking of oops - remember that there may be an extra 9" along the office/stairwell/landing wall (an extra 9 sq feet for the office).
Francois
R.E. your last e-mail - how's this?
There are other options; this was just to demonstrate how much room there is in your suite (a bit more than the quick calculation in my e-mail this morning).
The bathroom & office can be swapped around, and that 12' wall between them can be moved at will.
Oops, I forgot to put a door in that wall.... silly. Imagine having to go through the bedroom every time? I don't think so.
Speaking of oops - remember that there may be an extra 9" along the office/stairwell/landing wall (an extra 9 sq feet for the office).
Francois
Hi, guys - you mean like this?
Floorplan:
From outside, pool deck view...
Before:
After:
problem in the details: the second floor of the wings is 9" wider than the ground floor, like this:
Which, when you move the wall forward, leads to weird cutouts :
Which I kinda fixed, but not really:
Another way would be to double-up the wall below it, build the ground floor 9" wider... but then the sliding doors on the ground floor would be off-center:
As a side-issue, I finally understand why why my vestibule/landing measurements kept giving me grief. And I'll need to revise the floorplan I posted earlier. I'm not sure which storey is off by 9", but one of them is. Either your room is 13 1/2 square feet bigger, or the diningroom/kitchen is 31 square feet smaller, than my drawings.
Back on-topic:
- I assume this ties in with no stairs up to the roof, since it eliminates the little stairs... I still think we should keep 'em, the new stairs would/will be easy to cordon off (and where would we go to watch the sunset in spring & fall?)
- I think bringing those walls forward would make the central courtyard area claustrophobic, right now the 2nd floor set-back opens it up.
- It'd make the front even more of a winter wind catcher than it already is. Issues for the big livingroom, but also for your room. This is the most wind-beaten wall of the house, you can see it in the size of the drifts and depth of the cuts it makes in the snow...
... and I won't put a window on that wall: not in the diningroom, not upstairs. If I did, you'd have me closing it up with solid wall within a year. It'd be worse than the livingroom wall-o-glass.
- If this about where to put the stairs, there are other ways... one would be to add a bit along the back (I was playing with this, for the stairs, last week):
From the garden, it dissapears - like that bit of the livingroom I worried about before, when we were talking about symmetry from the garden side.
It does only gets you 45 sq ft, as opposed to the 88 sq ft your suggestion adds. But with almost 600 square feet already...
For perspective, your current room is about 450, and wastes a lot of that on bad layout. I haven't drawn out the back jacuzzi/steamroom area, but I think your proposed master suite (not counting its decks) is roughly the same size as the current master suite, deck (but not steam room) included.
Final note: Off-topic again, kind of - In the last picture, you can see how off-center the front door is (the two windows), and I need to revise that, as well. Rows 1 and 3 are moveable! We don't need to center on the current hallway, we can make everything perfectly centered: door, windows, the posts... all of it. I'll post updated sketches as soon as I work out the details (and figure out which storey is off so I can fix that, too).
Floorplan:
From outside, pool deck view...
Before:
After:
problem in the details: the second floor of the wings is 9" wider than the ground floor, like this:
Which, when you move the wall forward, leads to weird cutouts :
Which I kinda fixed, but not really:
Another way would be to double-up the wall below it, build the ground floor 9" wider... but then the sliding doors on the ground floor would be off-center:
As a side-issue, I finally understand why why my vestibule/landing measurements kept giving me grief. And I'll need to revise the floorplan I posted earlier. I'm not sure which storey is off by 9", but one of them is. Either your room is 13 1/2 square feet bigger, or the diningroom/kitchen is 31 square feet smaller, than my drawings.
Back on-topic:
- I assume this ties in with no stairs up to the roof, since it eliminates the little stairs... I still think we should keep 'em, the new stairs would/will be easy to cordon off (and where would we go to watch the sunset in spring & fall?)
- I think bringing those walls forward would make the central courtyard area claustrophobic, right now the 2nd floor set-back opens it up.
- It'd make the front even more of a winter wind catcher than it already is. Issues for the big livingroom, but also for your room. This is the most wind-beaten wall of the house, you can see it in the size of the drifts and depth of the cuts it makes in the snow...
... and I won't put a window on that wall: not in the diningroom, not upstairs. If I did, you'd have me closing it up with solid wall within a year. It'd be worse than the livingroom wall-o-glass.
- If this about where to put the stairs, there are other ways... one would be to add a bit along the back (I was playing with this, for the stairs, last week):
From the garden, it dissapears - like that bit of the livingroom I worried about before, when we were talking about symmetry from the garden side.
It does only gets you 45 sq ft, as opposed to the 88 sq ft your suggestion adds. But with almost 600 square feet already...
For perspective, your current room is about 450, and wastes a lot of that on bad layout. I haven't drawn out the back jacuzzi/steamroom area, but I think your proposed master suite (not counting its decks) is roughly the same size as the current master suite, deck (but not steam room) included.
Final note: Off-topic again, kind of - In the last picture, you can see how off-center the front door is (the two windows), and I need to revise that, as well. Rows 1 and 3 are moveable! We don't need to center on the current hallway, we can make everything perfectly centered: door, windows, the posts... all of it. I'll post updated sketches as soon as I work out the details (and figure out which storey is off so I can fix that, too).
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Hi Jon, Tim...
Here ya go - this is the basic shell-of-a-floorplan for your new master suite.
Click to enlarge...
Light grey is the ground floor's outline, dark grey is the 2nd floor.
Once again, we'll need posts or walls where the current exterior wall is, and (I'm 95% certain) where the bedroom's back wall is right now.
As we re-think stairwell locations, we might want to get rid of the little doors off the current landings? Pretty useless, now, and it'd give us more room for redesigning the little outdoor side-deck-to-roof-deck stairs.
Okay, hope this is enough to get ya started...
Later,
Francois
Here ya go - this is the basic shell-of-a-floorplan for your new master suite.
Click to enlarge...
Light grey is the ground floor's outline, dark grey is the 2nd floor.
Once again, we'll need posts or walls where the current exterior wall is, and (I'm 95% certain) where the bedroom's back wall is right now.
As we re-think stairwell locations, we might want to get rid of the little doors off the current landings? Pretty useless, now, and it'd give us more room for redesigning the little outdoor side-deck-to-roof-deck stairs.
Okay, hope this is enough to get ya started...
Later,
Francois
This post is for Jon and Tim
Hi Guys -
I think this may be the easiest way to get drawings to you, at least for now... no attachments to deal with, and I can insert comments more easily
Reminder: click on the picture to enlarge.
This is the basic shell for the new diningrooom/kitchen section:
(garden side)
The dotted lines represent the approximate position of axes that need supporting. It could be evenly spaced posts, as shown here, but it could also be walls or sections of walls, or posts disguised by fireplace as in Ariadne's... whatever. Just so long as there's no gap, along one of those lines, that's longer then 8 feet or so.
The first line from the left could move a bit - it hasn't been built yet - I just placed the same distit where it is for symmetrical to the oppositely from the door, for symmetry.
The 2nd line from the left absolutely has to be where it is (it's the exterior wall right now).
The third-from-the-left doesn't really need to be there at all, but it balances the 2nd line, so things don't look totally lopsided when you walk in the door.
The right-most line is where the bedrooms' back walls are right now, and I'm 98% sure it's load-bearing.
We need to decide where to put the stairs, and how big we want them, etc. Figure about 8' x 8' for stairs that come to a landing & switch back, or 12 x 3' for stairs that just go straight up.
Ideally, I think these stairs should be enclosed, to better control sound travellin upstairs, and to prevent warm/cold air drafts. If we put them in the top-right corner somewhere, then the stairwell can continue down to the lower bedroom (current laundry-room area).
Bear in mind that it's easy to wind up outdoors at the top of the stairs, something we want to avoid... The measurements for that are as follows (Sorry for the clutter, I just pasted the existing floorplan of Rob's room onto the drawing).
(garden)
Now the fun part:
For the sake of comparisions, the existing diningroom is about 20' 6" by 11' 1"; the existing kitchen is 10' 4" by 11' 1"; and the laundry room is 6'8" x 10'1". Total area: about 409 square feet.
The new location is 41'7" by 22'11" ...total area 952 square feet.
Or, to put it more graphically (oh, bad pun):
It's a fair bit bigger than I'd realised, even with 40 to 80 square feet set aside for a staircase... I think we can fit a billiard table.
Slightly off-topic: the last few days, I've been thinking that this wing wants a fireplace as well. Or maybe, with the open-floor design, a freestanding woodstove? There's some pretty slick ones out there...
from wittus design (http://www.wittus.com/) :
The above also comes in a slightly different version - wider platform, looks almost like a coffe-table - I can't download the picture, it's in this PDF: http://www.wittus.com/Specs/shaker%20spec.pdf
... And then therte's these, from Morsoe (http://www.morsoe.com/us/stoves.htm):
And finally, there's SCAN stoves (http://kiconf.krog-iversen.dk/us/), which website I can't download pictures from (flash animation).
Okay, that's it for now. Talk to you later,
Francois
Hi Guys -
I think this may be the easiest way to get drawings to you, at least for now... no attachments to deal with, and I can insert comments more easily
Reminder: click on the picture to enlarge.
This is the basic shell for the new diningrooom/kitchen section:
(livingroom side)
(garden side)The dotted lines represent the approximate position of axes that need supporting. It could be evenly spaced posts, as shown here, but it could also be walls or sections of walls, or posts disguised by fireplace as in Ariadne's... whatever. Just so long as there's no gap, along one of those lines, that's longer then 8 feet or so.
The first line from the left could move a bit - it hasn't been built yet - I just placed the same distit where it is for symmetrical to the oppositely from the door, for symmetry.
The 2nd line from the left absolutely has to be where it is (it's the exterior wall right now).
The third-from-the-left doesn't really need to be there at all, but it balances the 2nd line, so things don't look totally lopsided when you walk in the door.
The right-most line is where the bedrooms' back walls are right now, and I'm 98% sure it's load-bearing.
We need to decide where to put the stairs, and how big we want them, etc. Figure about 8' x 8' for stairs that come to a landing & switch back, or 12 x 3' for stairs that just go straight up.
Ideally, I think these stairs should be enclosed, to better control sound travellin upstairs, and to prevent warm/cold air drafts. If we put them in the top-right corner somewhere, then the stairwell can continue down to the lower bedroom (current laundry-room area).
Bear in mind that it's easy to wind up outdoors at the top of the stairs, something we want to avoid... The measurements for that are as follows (Sorry for the clutter, I just pasted the existing floorplan of Rob's room onto the drawing).
(livingroom)
(garden)Now the fun part:
For the sake of comparisions, the existing diningroom is about 20' 6" by 11' 1"; the existing kitchen is 10' 4" by 11' 1"; and the laundry room is 6'8" x 10'1". Total area: about 409 square feet.
The new location is 41'7" by 22'11" ...total area 952 square feet.
Or, to put it more graphically (oh, bad pun):
It's a fair bit bigger than I'd realised, even with 40 to 80 square feet set aside for a staircase... I think we can fit a billiard table.
Slightly off-topic: the last few days, I've been thinking that this wing wants a fireplace as well. Or maybe, with the open-floor design, a freestanding woodstove? There's some pretty slick ones out there...
from wittus design (http://www.wittus.com/) :
The above also comes in a slightly different version - wider platform, looks almost like a coffe-table - I can't download the picture, it's in this PDF: http://www.wittus.com/Specs/shaker%20spec.pdf
... And then therte's these, from Morsoe (http://www.morsoe.com/us/stoves.htm):
And finally, there's SCAN stoves (http://kiconf.krog-iversen.dk/us/), which website I can't download pictures from (flash animation).
Okay, that's it for now. Talk to you later,
Francois
Testing, testing...
If this goes more easily than last year, I may update & start using it again...
(Got a new computer this spring)
testing...
I want to see how easy or hard these are to post... bear with me, I want to see what happens with a lot of pictures...
I also want to see how easy it is to move them around, and insert comments... This is one of the wings, with the planned added spave on the back.
This is the foundation, which will be getting rebuilt, and extended a bit.
See the cut-in corners at the top of the drawing? Picture them full - the back of the house just one continuous wall for the whole 92'.
this is (part of) what I've been up to lately.
I want to test this because it may be an easy way to get drawings and specs to people. We won't be keeping the house open this winter, so I'll be in Brooklyn for three months. If this blog saves me trips to the mailbox, trips to Long Island, and saves me a ton of money on printer ink cartridges, great.
Okay, let's see how this goes. testing, testing...
If this goes more easily than last year, I may update & start using it again...
(Got a new computer this spring)
testing...
I want to see how easy or hard these are to post... bear with me, I want to see what happens with a lot of pictures...
I also want to see how easy it is to move them around, and insert comments... This is one of the wings, with the planned added spave on the back.
This is the foundation, which will be getting rebuilt, and extended a bit.
See the cut-in corners at the top of the drawing? Picture them full - the back of the house just one continuous wall for the whole 92'.
this is (part of) what I've been up to lately.
I want to test this because it may be an easy way to get drawings and specs to people. We won't be keeping the house open this winter, so I'll be in Brooklyn for three months. If this blog saves me trips to the mailbox, trips to Long Island, and saves me a ton of money on printer ink cartridges, great.
Okay, let's see how this goes. testing, testing...
Monday, March 20, 2006
This is a week old, it somehow fell between the cracks of the system... anyhow, I still haven't succesfully gotten a picture of the ducks.
...
From an e-mail I sent last night:
"We also have two (very shy) ducks who visit the pond on windy days. I'll come round the corner and they rise up suddenly, quacking up a storm - freaked me right out the first few times.
They're not here every day, only when it's windy; but it's been windy all week. This morning I remembered, didn't go out right away; I looked through the window at the end of the hall first. Finally got a good look at them; but they noticed me (almost right away) and took off, suddenly, quacking like mad.
Very high-strung critters, ducks are. Learn something new every day..."
Just thought I should share that.
Tomorrow I'm going to try to get a picture - but no guarantees - they really are high-strung and shy... In the meantime, here's another picture, from christmas day. The only footprints on the beach, other than mine, were these deer tracks all over the place.
Maman - t'as besoin d'appeller sympatico, your e-mail is bouncing again.
...
From an e-mail I sent last night:
"We also have two (very shy) ducks who visit the pond on windy days. I'll come round the corner and they rise up suddenly, quacking up a storm - freaked me right out the first few times.
They're not here every day, only when it's windy; but it's been windy all week. This morning I remembered, didn't go out right away; I looked through the window at the end of the hall first. Finally got a good look at them; but they noticed me (almost right away) and took off, suddenly, quacking like mad.
Very high-strung critters, ducks are. Learn something new every day..."
Just thought I should share that.
Tomorrow I'm going to try to get a picture - but no guarantees - they really are high-strung and shy... In the meantime, here's another picture, from christmas day. The only footprints on the beach, other than mine, were these deer tracks all over the place.
Maman - t'as besoin d'appeller sympatico, your e-mail is bouncing again.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Okay, that's weird.
I just published the big update/catch-up/backstory post I'd been putting together (covering sept, oct, nov & dec), and I couldn't see it when I looked at the page - turns out it's posting below, back-dated from the 9th...
That makes little sense, since I started that post on the 7th, and published it on the 17th. I'm not sure why it's tagged for the 9th. I worked on it that day, but I did on other days, too... Weird computer glitch at the google/blogger end, I guess.
Anyhow, for some clarification about which house I'm working on, and how that came to pass; and some pictures of the kitchen I was doing before this, with that whole saga summarized; and (of course!) another sunset picture, this one from Christmas Day: scroll down, past the seashell pictures below... my newest post is there, instead of here (where it should be).
I just published the big update/catch-up/backstory post I'd been putting together (covering sept, oct, nov & dec), and I couldn't see it when I looked at the page - turns out it's posting below, back-dated from the 9th...
That makes little sense, since I started that post on the 7th, and published it on the 17th. I'm not sure why it's tagged for the 9th. I worked on it that day, but I did on other days, too... Weird computer glitch at the google/blogger end, I guess.
Anyhow, for some clarification about which house I'm working on, and how that came to pass; and some pictures of the kitchen I was doing before this, with that whole saga summarized; and (of course!) another sunset picture, this one from Christmas Day: scroll down, past the seashell pictures below... my newest post is there, instead of here (where it should be).
Sunday, March 12, 2006
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