Category: House design Influences

Design Philosophy Series: Building a mid-century modern Atomic Ranch – Why?

This is a post that I have been mulling over for quite some time – why did I decide to build a mid-century modern Atomic Ranch house as opposed to some other design style?  What is the thought process behind my house? I think I am going to post this as a new thread/category because … Continue reading “Design Philosophy Series: Building a mid-century modern Atomic Ranch – Why?”

This is a post that I have been mulling over for quite some time – why did I decide to build a mid-century modern Atomic Ranch house as opposed to some other design style?  What is the thought process behind my house?

I think I am going to post this as a new thread/category because I doubt I can pull everything together in one sitting

Recently the Concord Museum started a special exhibit called “Middlesex County Modern” that is exploring the modern architecture in the county where I grew up and now building my house, as well as the impact on the community and design world.  Diane Williams – my project manager at Deck Acorn turned me onto the exhibition and Deck Acorn is one of the prime sponsors.  It was a small but very interesting exhibit with many models of important early mid-century modern houses, photos of the various movers and shakers around the time the Gropius House was built and the influence that MIT and Harvard played in developing new post war design ideas.  If you are around, the exhibit runs to March 20, 2016 and I would recommend it.  The museum itself is also very interesting.

The house I grew up in is one that my parent’s built on 5 acres of land in Carlisle, MA, Middlesex County during the late sixties – so right in the late/middle of the explosion of mid century modern.  It is a CORE house.  Core, along with Tech Built, Acorn, Deck and other companies I am sure, have essentially collapsed into Deck/Acorn/Next   The structure of their house is very bring the outside in with sliding glass doors in almost every room.

My parent's house in Carlisle - note the low slope roof and lots of glass
My parent’s house in Carlisle – note the low slope roof and lots of glass

This house did a lot to shape my thinking around what a house should be like.  Carlisle, while not as rural now as when I was growing up (the population has climbed from 1600 or so to a bit over 5K in a 50 square mile town) – it is still pretty open, so a house can still be built that is very externally oriented.

With this as background and thinking about the raw land I had, I came up with a prioritized list of what was important to me.

 

Bing maps, bird's eye view of my property. Orange dotted lines are an approximation of the lot lines (the lot is a "pork chop" with the required footage on Bedford Road. The old Bates dairy setup with the large barns and outbuildings abuts my property and now belongs to the Kimballs, who have a string of ice cream stands that are very successful
Bing maps, bird’s eye view of my property. Orange dotted lines are an approximation of the lot lines (the lot is a “pork chop” with the required footage on Bedford Road. The old Bates dairy setup with the large barns and outbuildings abuts my property and now belongs to the Kimballs, who have a string of ice cream stands that are very successful
My plot plan, printed out on 8.5' x 11" paper and brought to the my raw land at 1pm in the afternoon on January 26, 2014. We oriented on the property lines and calculated the sun on the horizon and the location of the sunset while standing on what was the approved location for the house (that came with the deed, pre-approved building permits)
My plot plan, printed out on 8.5′ x 11″ paper and brought to the my raw land at 1pm in the afternoon on January 26, 2014. We oriented on the property lines and calculated the sun on the horizon and the location of the sunset while standing on what was the approved location for the house (that came with the deed, pre-approved building permits)
Prioritized items that I wanted to address or include in the house design
Prioritized items that I wanted to address or include in the house design

I needed a builder – Deck / Acorn while Internationally known, is very local and houses like these (as well as my personal experience looking at their houses around town for several decades!) led me to think they could tackle my project

A house on pilings in a difficult location
A house on pilings in a difficult location
bringing the outside in, with walls of glass
bringing the outside in, with walls of glass

In the next post of this series, I will tackle how I transitioned from a wish list of check boxes and a feel for the property into design ideas and how to implement them.

 

Kitchen & Bath design thoughts and other things

My prior post on the electrical, fireplace, kitchen and bath details grew into a monster of a post – so I decided to leave out my thoughts on why and how did we get here? and instead break them out into this post. This photo on Houzz.com early on became one of the design touch … Continue reading “Kitchen & Bath design thoughts and other things”

My prior post on the electrical, fireplace, kitchen and bath details grew into a monster of a post – so I decided to leave out my thoughts on why and how did we get here? and instead break them out into this post.

This photo on Houzz.com early on became one of the design touch points when I was talking about the layout of the house with Deck.  It had the traffic flow layout that I was looking for and it just seemed “right” to me.  The house entry is on the left, the kitchen and casual eating area is in the center, and off to the right, is the traffic flow to the private side of the house.  This is actually how my house is now laid out – it fits the site well in terms of orientation and ground slopes.

Last week, when we were looking at the giant beam over the center of the kitchen, talking about roof penetrations and other things, Paul mentioned down draft ventilation and his personal good experience with it at his house.  That triggered the changes to the layout  described in my prior post.  The main thing was the deletion of the overhead stainless hood/ventilation system.  While talking with Shelby at the design center I realized that, because of the light in the Houzz picture, the hood wasn’t very ‘present’ – so what we are doing comes even closer to what the mind’s eye imagines when looking at the Houzz photo.

We are going to do a white subway tile with an accent color – probably orange or red – not the mix and match in the Houzz photo.  The hanging rectangular light fixture will still be made – Paul is going to construct it from maple wood and hang it from cables.

It is interesting how we are getting closer to the feel that the photo evokes even as we in reality depart from it!

In the bath, I really was not interested in having a tub for my everyday usage – I can’t remember the last time I took a bath and I really, really don’t like how water always leaks around a shower curtain into parts of the bath that are not designed to be water proof.  So the master bath is being designed for showers only and will have a walk in shower structure.  Again in white subway tile but with some sort of accent color.  Both bathrooms are specifically designed to not be large and opulent show spaces – mostly because I don’t spend much time getting ready for the day and this way, on cold winter days, they will heat up easily (plus – as part of my design philosophy of putting all the utilities and mechanicals in the core, they shouldn’t get too cold!).

Finally – ceiling fans.  One thing occurred to me this month – the sprinkler system is going to be pretty high up near the ceiling – and on a series of really hot days, it could get pretty hot up there – which is probably not good long term for the wax in the sprinkler heads.  So I thought about re-circulation.  We have near ceiling make up air for the geothermal heating system but a fan may still be a good idea – hence pre-building a mount point.

If I install one, it probably will be one of these – a 52″ inch Haiku, with polished aluminum blades from Big Ass Fans

Finally – while we were wandering around the site yesterday, the Fields (my neighbors and the good folks who sold me the land) dropped by.  I had never met them so it was very, very nice to finally speak with them.  Their son Chris informed me that he was the one who spoke with Comcast when they quoted $65,000.00 for cable to be dug and run to all the houses on our common drive.  Apparently also, if I had a land line put in, Verizon is no longer selling DSL internet service.  So, in order to get internet service, I either need to spend uber money on a conduit from the street or go with a service that provides structured internet via the cell network – like this one from Verizon.   Essentially they mount a commercial antenna on the outside of your house and you can sign up for 10, 20 or 30GB of data per month.  I am thinking I will go this way – at least for awhile – maybe Verizon will bring FIOS to town at some point in the future.  I would do satellite for TV services.

As the house comes together and there is more to see, I am going to start working on a post about the design process and influences.  More on that in the coming months.