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
