The House Takes Shape

Here's the view from the place where people will park.  That's the guest bedroom looming over the entry porch and the library.  Beyond, with bare studs, is our bedroom over the screened porch / living room.  One of our finest hickory trees is in the foreground.  From the early planning / siting stages, we worried about getting too close to this tree, but it gives me faith in the survey that the 4' roof overhang wound up 2 feet away.  And yes, it's a 4' overhang ALL the way around.  Our current tiny cabin has almost no overhang at all, and the rain just runs down the siding.

This is the view from the garden.  The master bedroom is on the second floor, with the screened porch / living room below.  I say that because the walls of the living room will slide (almost) completely open 6 months of the year to become a screened porch.  We're not installing air-conditioning, so the cool night air will cool our house.  Our future pond will be between the garden and the house from this view, so we'll be able to fish from the living room.  How's that for fresh?  The kitchen is to the right, with the narrow band of windows.

We still haven't framed the carport, but the slab is ready to pour.  That's a tight grid of rebar over metal decking, which is supported by 5 steel beams below.  You can see the toe-boards on the roof, and that's really all they are - just enough to catch a toe and hold you on the roof.  There's a 2x10 walk board at the bottom, so hopefully that would break your slide before you hit the ground.  I'm not a hold-the-ladder architect -- I've spent as much time on this roof as anyone.  The first day was a bit shaky, but I'm getting my roof legs.

Here's the back side of the house, with my son's room upstairs and our back porch below.  The small windows on the lower level are in the half bathroom and mudroom.  Those horizontal boards on the gable are just temporary collar-ties, to keep the roof from 'squalling', as my builder buddies would say.  They'll be replaced by 3/4" steel rods, which will do the same thing, but not be so obtrusive.

And this is the front door!  Or at least the front opening.  Here's where all the odd geometry comes together.  That's the guest bedroom upstairs on the right, our bedroom in the distance straight ahead and my son's bedroom upstairs on the left.  Downstairs, it's the library on the right, 32" below the main slab, the living room straight ahead and the kitchen to the left.  I was sitting in the basement below the carport as I took this photo. Now to further complicate the matter, all the walls covered with plywood will receive slate siding.  All the open stud walls will receive clear, insulated polycarbonate, inside and out, so they'll be translucent.  Think of it as a clear north-south gable form, intersecting an opaque northeast-southwest gable form.  That's the organizing principle of this design.

Got it?

Forgot to mention, that's just plastic and wire mesh on the ground, getting ready for the breezeway slab between the house and the carport.