It has been a few weeks since I last posted. I have been travelling a fair bit and lots has gotten done First off and exciting – the Geothermal system is installed and running. With that up and going, Paul was able to bring the house up to full temperature and get the floor and … Continue reading “Big house update”
It has been a few weeks since I last posted. I have been travelling a fair bit and lots has gotten done
First off and exciting – the Geothermal system is installed and running. With that up and going, Paul was able to bring the house up to full temperature and get the floor and trim to all acclimatize and stabilize over a period of a week. The red oak flooring and trim are now installed and look absolutely great! This includes wonderful oak heating/cooling floor vent registers that just cleanly blend in.
Interestingly, with the hardwood floors in, the house feels a light quieter and softer from an acoustic perspective.
We made final decisions on flooring for the entryway and the bathrooms based on the samples Paul got. We are going with the Home Depot Montauk Black slate in 12×24″ size for the full entry, utility room, laundry room and pantry as well as the bathroom floors. The bath tile in the master bath is Ice White Home Depot Daltile (3×6″ subway) in a stacked pattern (no overlap from one course to the next) and an octagon flooring. We are going to have an orange/pumpkin accent color strip running horizontally around the bath at around the inset soap dish level – to break up the pure white look.
Atlantic Industrial Models sent to me the CAD design for the I-Beam machine work and I signed off on it – it looks great and I can’t wait to see the results in person!. They should be cutting metal very soon – which means we can pick it up soon and the kitchen island can progress
My parent’s and I went over to Wolfers Lighting and picked out all the fixed lighting fixtures/product and paid for it all in one fell swoop. It should be really great! I did purchase a couple of special order items from Hubbardton Forge – a local Vermont Blacksmith lighting fixture company. Fantastic craftsmanship and design aesthetic.
I also got LOTS of track lighting for both the house and the shop. It will run along the main beams in the house and some 64′ of track along the full length of the 3 walls in the shop. This should provide a lot of task lighting there.
Finally here are some outdoor shots with new angles
This morning (Sunday), at sunrise, it was a chilly -21 degrees Fahrenheit on our front porch (indicated at -16 but we normally find a 5 degree difference due to heat from the house impacting the thermometer). The temperature at the town center is showing at -11. I think the difference is that we are downhill … Continue reading “Cold, cold, cold Washington’s Birthday holiday in Carlisle”
This morning (Sunday), at sunrise, it was a chilly -21 degrees Fahrenheit on our front porch (indicated at -16 but we normally find a 5 degree difference due to heat from the house impacting the thermometer). The temperature at the town center is showing at -11. I think the difference is that we are downhill in a bit of a hollow and at this temperature, the cold air is pooling. Brrrrr! good thing we have coffee!
I took Friday off to do more house stuff. My Dad and I went up to Essex MA to visit Atlantic Industrial Models. Joe Fossa (the owner) and my Dad go way, way back and I have heard, many, many good stories but have never met him before. Joe and his team, over the years, have done a LOT of prototyping, model making and small production runs for my Dad – both at GTE Sylvania Lighting (think lightbulbs, camera flash – all sorts of lighting products) and various businesses that I my Dad and Mom started after my Dad retired from Sylvania.
I am having Atlantic Industrial Models machine the aluminum I-Beam for the cantilever section that will underlay my counter top on the kitchen island. Despite my ‘not to scale‘ drawings, he got it right away. I get the impression that a lot of what they get is a verbal description and a lot of hand waving – so the fact that I had drawn plans and written things down was a general added bonus. We also got to spend some time shooting the breeze about his Cessna 180 float/ski plane which sounds really neat and looking at some of the photos of some custom automotive work they do. A shop down the street is a super high end historic car restoration shop (they restore cars that are entered – and win – at the Concourse d’Elegance at Pebble Beach). Some of the total one-off machining that Joe’s team did is just out of this world. They also do need it, but can’t get it anywhere else type of work like casting custom rubber pads for the pedals on a pre-WWII Hispano-Suiza or something equally exotic. They are really, really capable folks
Below are the plans that I gave to Joe – hopefully it will help describe what I am doing. The core idea came from “Atomic Ranch Midcentury Interiors” – Modernist Tract House, 1958 on pages 123-145. If you are interested in this stuff, I suggest picking up a copy of this book or subscribing to their quarterly magazine (Atomic Ranch)
In flooring and tile news – the pricing came back on the materials I picked out and the cost was 3x my budget plan. Not good. So I am back to re-thinking things. I am kind of leaning towards doing the floor in Home Depot Montauk Black slate (like this below) – picture from a Houzz article on slate floors
Saturday was beautiful and cold after the snow on Friday (more on the way potentially – a series of Alberta Clippers are on their way – which is normally moisture starved storms from Alberta but they appear to potentially be meeting up with wet low pressure fronts coming up from the Carolinas – but that … Continue reading “Flooring and tile – some decisions have been made”
Saturday was beautiful and cold after the snow on Friday (more on the way potentially – a series of Alberta Clippers are on their way – which is normally moisture starved storms from Alberta but they appear to potentially be meeting up with wet low pressure fronts coming up from the Carolinas – but that is another future day!)
We went to Fitzgerald Tile in Woburn, and while they were large, their selection was all relatively the same, and they only do ceramic tiles. We left feeling a bit underwhelmed. So we tried Upstairs Downstairs in Acton – they are pretty small, but have a very large selection and it is extremely varied. Another thing I liked is that they are not afraid of color! The owner helped us and she was very good. Decisions were made on some fronts – though she insisted that I wait for the kitchen counter top be installed around the sink before I choose the back splash. She thinks it needs to pop – be an art statement just as our house vinyl flooring are which we got done by Glasgow floor specialists around the house in the same pattern. I like this idea on one hand, but I also am leery – since I have a multi-decade history of not bothering to hang up my art work once I move into a place and I am afraid of losing momentum…
But decisions:
Entry way flooring, flooring for the bathrooms is going to be a multi-colored (I think South African) slate in a 12″ x 24″ pattern
Flooring for the walk in shower will be the same stone in a 2″ x 2″ pattern since there is a single center drain – this will assist in layou
Bath wall tiles are a 2″ x 4″ cream color (with a light crazing of the glaze)(I am not entirely sure of the dimensions – but they were smaller than a subway tile). Then we will have a pumpkin colored accent strip. This pumpkin tile is slightly thicker than the other tile, so we specified a border/accent strip in stone.
My original plan was to have the kitchen back splash the same as the bathroom – but both the designer and my parent’s thought that was bad idea – so we are holding off. This could lead to all sorts of mad ideas from me (like I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of a high density LED video wall, with rotating photos, behind a sealed glass cover). More to come here
Below – some google.com grabbed generic pictures of African Slate to give you an idea of what this will look like. We think it will go well with the planned Red Oak floor (a decision we made Friday while talking with Paul)
I took today off to meet with Paul and get the final plan for the aluminum I-Beam cantilever and to go and choose tiles for the entryway floor & bathroom floors, the kitchen back-splash and tile in the bathrooms.
My Dad and I went over and met with Paul (and his son Tim) and they were working away, toasty and warm. We had a good back and forth discussion and came up with the following plan
Counter top will be 39″ by 101″ of quartz – London Fog
The full width of the I-Beam will be used – no cutouts. This will necessitate building up the supporting wall under it from the current 2″ to 4″ wide
we will have Atlantic Industrial Models machine and add a 3/8ths thick aluminum plate that is 55.5″ by 20″ inches and bolts to the top of the I-Beam. The will underlay the counter top on top of the cabinets to the cook top – adding rigidity
the “Aerospace lightening” holes will run the full length of the I-Beam. Paul will add a maple or other wood surface to the back of the cabinets
to secure the I-Beam to the support wall, Atlantic will add holes through the outside, lower part of the I-Beam. Ideally counter sunk so that wood screws can be used and be flush with the surface. These holes will start 36″ from the cantilever end and will be about 12″ apart (Paul requested sizes be sufficient for #10 or #12 wood screws – we need to bring samples to Atlantic)
the full length of the I-Beam will be used – not shortened
My dad suggested we do an angle relief of 60 degrees instead of my planned 45 – which sounds good.
Below is a picture of trial layout and the current drawings
So job #1 complete for the day
Job #2 was to go pick out tile for the entry floor, bathroom floors, kitchen back splash and bathroom walls/shower etc…
Unfortunately, Winter Storm Lexi has other plans. It was only supposed to snow 1-3 inches but it has been snowing a lot more than that and it is very heavy wet snow and very slippery. We had no problems getting over to see Paul at the site, but we saw several cars and trucks slipping and sliding and lot of tree limbs down on the way over. It was even more slippery on the way back – including what was almost a 360 degree spin out of one of the Town of Carlisle snow plows coming out of South Street (by the This Old House feature house on South Street/Bedford Road intersection). Going down South Street we had to stop and clear a tree limb that had fallen entirely across the road – two guys out for a walk got most of it before I had my mittens on but I helped clean up the broken bits and had a chance to talk with them – apparently they heard it come down only a minute or so before. It was about 45′ feet long – so it was completely blocking the street from edge to edge.
We decided that going out onto Route 128 did not sound like a good plan – so we are going tomorrow morning instead
Pictures below!
UPDATE at 2:00pm – just shoveled the front walk, pull cord on the snow blower partially snapped and needs replacement so it was manual tool time! – but is also wrapped up under the cover so we decided not to fall back on the electric starter since we were not sure what was trapped against what. About 8-10″ of very heavy snow on the ground and about ever 15 minutes you can hear tree limbs breaking off in the woods
Quick post – to be elaborated on later – but lighting decisions are in-flight. This post is work in progress – kind of a in-flight storage of stuff Lighting items to review and complete (a) Hallway Sconces 1x entry hall 1x back hall (b) Under Cabinet Kitchen lighting 2x LED light bar. 29″ max length … Continue reading “Getting ready for lighting decisions”
Quick post – to be elaborated on later – but lighting decisions are in-flight. This post is work in progress – kind of a in-flight storage of stuff
Lighting items to review and complete
(a) Hallway Sconces
1x entry hall
1x back hall
(b) Under Cabinet Kitchen lighting
2x LED light bar. 29″ max length (both the same side). White or brushed aluminum
(c) Bathroom vanity lighting – guest
space from wall to shower = 58″ light bar must be smaller
vanity is 30″ in size
(d) Bathroom vanity lighting – master
space from wall to shower = 68″ Light bar must be smaller
vanity is 43″ in size
(e) Track Lighting – house (black color or brushed aluminum)
3x 8′ sections – north side of main beam, great room. Spot and drop pendant spot to get below the beam and face south
1x 8′ section, over kitchen sink
1x 4′ section, computer nook
Deck Acorn has given me permission to post up a photo of the 3D rendering their Design department did for my house – this was still in the pre-visualization stage of things as we were working on finalizing. I was pretty sure that I would not need an outside architect based on what I had seen from their in-house Design team (that is a design step they walk through with you – can their in-house service do what you want or do you need the particular genre style an architect that fits for you?)
– this output locked it in perfectly and we were off to the races!
Rendering of my house from Deck after we settled on the main design principles
NSTAR (aka – national grid or something) came on Friday and installed the electrical power hook. Woo-Hoo!
Paul’s team has been busy roughing in the drywall as well. I think the contrasts between the glass, the mahogany window trim and white walls will work really well
Also – the mason’s are working this weekend – presumably because it is still warm (50’s) and it is easier to work with the mortar this way. The entry to the house is via a ramp up from the carport area leading to the front door and then a patio area. The patio area / ramp will be about 6 feet wide and be flagged in blue stone. There will a low stone wall, capped in blue stone around the edge that will also work as seating in the sunshine.
And a couple of photos relating to the kitchen. As I have noted in other construction and design posts, the center island will be a design feature and the main dining area. The island will be at a normal table height, to allow regular dining room chairs instead of bar stools. To get the under the table knee area, we are going to steal another idea from the Atomic Ranch books and use something I saw there – an aluminum I-Beam to cantilever support the counter top. To help the machinists interpret my poor drawing, I hacked together a wooden model out of some plywood on Saturday. Note, because the only wood I had was a bit warped, things are not very square and they don’t fit together too well – but it gives you the basic idea. See below
A model of the aluminum I-Beam structure for the island. Not to scale, even with itself, as the only material I had easily to hand yesterday was some luan plywood that had been covering up sliding window that got broken last winter when ice rammed through it. The plywood was not very flat. Basically the idea is that the box in the back represents the casework cabinetry from the factory in New Hampshire. The I-Beam will sit on top of a box built onsite and lie flat to the back of the cabinet. The counter top will lie flat across the I-Beam and the cabinets -with the I-Beam projecting several feet in order to provide cantilevered support for the countertop
At this point in my process, I had the land, the permits (thanks to the Fields hard work prior to selling the land to me!), and a builder picked out. I also had a lot of years of thinking about the feelings and features I wanted out of a house and some interesting photos of other projects (see my Idea Book on Houzz.com for Kitchen, Bath, Bath and Bath ideas )
458A SDSB_FF this is the final stamped and approved plot plan
I purchased a copy of Google sketchup – because that is what Deck was using for pre-visualization and that turned out to be unnecessary as I gave them PDFs only – lol. I started planning layout ideas for them to work from.
I had the general idea of layout for passive solar gain – orienting the house for the sun and correct calculation of the eaves for sun in the winter and shade in the summer – but what next? For simplicity, I wanted the utilities to be compact and central within the house, and the amount of wasted space with hallways to be minimized. We put the mechanical room, the wash room, kitchen and bathrooms all back to back in the central core of the house – and with easy access to the outside via a carport. The original thought of a 3 bay garage (two for the wood/metal shop) had gone out the window due to cost.
Centrally locating all the utilities does a couple of things – one, it reduces the run of water (less leak opportunities and cost) and it puts these spaces in well insulated interior areas while leaving views from all the more public areas.
The layout of the house overall – the entryway /main door is to the left. We used this idea as well
The right hand side of the kitchen leads off to a more private area – with a blocking wall. I incorporated this flow by having the bedrooms and bathrooms in that direction – separating the public space from the private
The sink and main appliances are along the back wall with cabinetry flanking the sink. This fit well with my idea of placing all the water flow back to back in the core of the house
The island is a both a cooktop and a table – and is at table height instead of counter or bar height. I experimented and decided that the cook top at the 29″ of a standard table would work for me
There is an overhead, custom lighting drop panel. One thing I realized is that the island would not naturally have overhead lighting since the roof could be quite a bit above you at this point. This is a key design feature
We decided not to follow the design here with a few items
We are not going with the color scheme of the tile! Instead I am planning on white subway tile with an accent color tile stripe
The stainless steel ventilation hood has been removed in favor of a down draft vent through the floor and out under the building
In terms of bathroom design, I never, ever take a sit down bath so my initial thought was to have open air walk in showers (aka – Wetroom) for both baths. Ultimately, I decided that both for flexibility and cost, to put a shower/tub one piece in the guest bath. However for the master bath, I went for the wetroom feel. This ideabook on Houzz.com (I mashed Kitchen and bath together for no particular reason) had several ideas on how to design a walk in, curbless, shower.
Due to self imposed space constraints, I made the bathrooms big enough for use, but not palaces – under the idea that you used them and then left – the limited square footage was better used elsewhere. This I think is going to lead to the wetroom needing a glass partition that will keep the spray organized – just because there is not going to be enough square footage to have a ‘section’ for the rain fall shower that is isolated. That is ok I think.
The vanities in both baths will be floating for easier cleaning.
In terms of bedrooms, again, I kept them purposely small since my habit is not to hang out in the bedroom. My thought is that you sleep there, store your clothes there and change. Otherwise, they are not used. A smaller room is easier to keep warm and doesn’t waste as much space. The layout we came up with managed to keep the hallway run to an absolute minimum
my version 6 room design layout that I gave Deck – this is what they designed the house from
In the next Atomic Ranch post, I will tackle the great room
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
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 successfulMy 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
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 locationbringing 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.
Good morning all NSTAR might be coming in the near future – but I am starting to wonder if Paul will be able to get the Generac placed and running before they get organized and arrive – lol There have been some beautiful fall days here in New England and the weather, on average, has … Continue reading “Insulation is in and the concrete team produce a work of pure artistry”
Good morning all
NSTAR might be coming in the near future – but I am starting to wonder if Paul will be able to get the Generac placed and running before they get organized and arrive – lol
Paul’s Kubota tractor and a warm sun shining. The tractor is for leveling and lowering the grade in the garage in preparation of pouring the concrete floor
There have been some beautiful fall days here in New England and the weather, on average, has been very mild. There has been some frost and some rain, but not very much so far. The picture above gives a good feel for it. Paul and his team have continued to be very productive in this environment
The orange Kubota tractor was onsite to do some site leveling but also mainly to lower the grade of the garage. The original Deck Acorn plans called for a 7′ garage entrance. Paul thought I would like a 7′ 6″ entrance better (and the subsequent lower grade) and he suggested we lower the planned height of the floor. This gives the building less of the planned linear flow horizontally – but we looked at the ground and realized it just felt better in terms of the grade of the overall property, and while 6″ doesn’t sound like much, it means that the interior of the shop is now an 8′ ceiling AND we don’t need a concrete ramp up to the garage once the final grade is done (which we were afraid would crack in the future).
The concrete team did an AMAZING job. I was assuming I would need to put down a layer of epoxy or a product I saw on Jay Leno’s Garage webseries – SwissTrax. My Dad’s shop has a rough concrete floor and it is very difficult to keep swept up and clean. However, my new shop floor is already like a crystal still millpond – it is fantastically smooth and even. They did an phenomenal job on it and on the concrete pad for the Generac generator (which I forgot to take a picture of yesterday).
I really, really like it. I may still put something like SwissTrax or padding down, but for clean up purposes, I think we are good to go!
On other fronts, the insulation is blown in (two stages – a foam sealer and then standard pink fiberglass). This includes the work under the house – though everything, inside and out still needs to be closed up. The ducting and exit of the bathroom fans into the underside of the roof was also completed (so they do not have to pierce the roof itself)
Whoops – I forgot to show you what is behind the pink fiberglass – an hard foam product that blows in and cures very hard. They also put in fire stop on the poke throughs
