Intro

And then there were two . . .

Because I’m healing slowly and easily bored . . . I’m playing with designing a house we could build ourselves. This site has all the ideas for those plans. It’s not as well organized as our monolithic barrel vault site. It’s more a stream of conciousness than a rigorously organized plan. The monolithic barrel vault site is important because it has the majority of the stuff that is universal . . . PAHS and the like.

Regardless of who builds our house, the house has to be roomy enough for us to be comfortable. We are currently living in ((12×24)+(8×31)+(8×16))=664 sf. That excludes the outside laundry room/shower (10×12)=120 sf, which isn’t technically “living space” and isn’t connected to our “house”. Currently I don’t have enough room for my house plants (aka “the jungle”), nor do I have enough room for quilting or sewing machine repair. Also, it would be good to have someplace we could put the TV where we could more easily control the amount of external light, so we could watch movies on horrible weather days without having glare on the screen. Wadly would be so happy.

For something we would build, it has to be designed so it can be constructed in stages. I can’t see us having the contiguous time necessary to construct an entire 2400 square foot house in one summer . . . nope, ain’t happenin’. We still work for a living. So, the design has to be something we have some hope of actually being able to construct, the construction design has to be affordable, and it has to be able to be done in pieces. Yeah, yeah, I know . . . not asking much. AND, I’d like to use a reciprocal roof on part of it. Oh yeah, that’s gonna be the deal breaker. (Watch me weeny on this one.) Here’s the link to the actual construction using this roof design.

Before I forget, I had an epiphany when explaining the new house plan to someone. I was in the dentist’s office and they’ve got a wide plank floor that looks aged and awesome. I loved it! My original design calls for a concrete slab floor. In my heart of hearts I know that’s not going to work. It’s going to kill my feet and legs. I pay attention to the floor everywhere I go trying to find a solution. So here’s the epiphany. I won’t pour a concrete slab. I’ll pour concrete for the bathrooms and kitchen so I have floors I can spash water on with impunity. (How many of you would like to go in and pressure wash your bathroom every so often? Me! Me!) Everywhere else I’ll install wide plank flooring. The ground under our home is our indirect heat source (if you’re confused you need to go back and read the bit on PAHS), so I can build a wood floor over the dirt, fill in the spaces between and below the joists with large gravel to give the varmints no place to live and have the same heat performance with a much nicer result on feet and legs.

While I’m on the subject of flooring . . . Wad built me a new desktop out of plywood. I know that doesn’t immediately bring to mind flooring, but bear with me. I absolutely love my new desktop. The shape is wonderful (it wraps around me and supports my arms), it’s more efficient than my old desk and takes up much less space. After he was done cutting and routering, I sanded it down and stained it using ancient left-over dark oak stain. Once the stain had dried, I gave it another light sanding and ironed bees wax into the top and routered edges until the wood wouldn’t take any more wax. It soaked up an amazing amount of wax! I absolutely LOVE the finish. It’s soft, it’s sealed, it washes up easily . . . I don’t know how this finish will hold up as flooring, but I think I’m going to have to try it and see. I may need to add some linseed oil to the bees wax . . . Kitchen counters . . . did I mention how much I like wood counters? I think the finish would be perfect for that as well. As a bonus, it would be easy to recondition. Sand lightly, get out the iron and the bees wax and iron away. Once I can convince Wad we need to redo the kitchen (again) I’ll try it.

And without further ado, here’s the construction plan.

If you comments or questions, email me.

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