Closing in on a Concept

We got an email with the sketch you see here (click on it so see a larger image) recently and we can now see what our house is going to look like. It’s VERY exciting!

The “covered portal” area occupies the highest point in our building area and is the gathering place, with access from there to the house, guest house, and the large terrace on the south side. Since we have a good 10’ or more of elevation change from the driveway to the house, there will be a ramp to the west and stairs to the east of the juniper tree that’s right in front of the door. We’ll haul groceries in a cart of some type up the ramp.

The guest house is no bigger than about 500sf and will double as a place for Brad’s desk when there are no guests. The space for a bed uses dashed lines because we’re thinking of a Murphy bed that folds down from the wall.

We’ve told Adam we’d like to use the alternative kitchen layout but switch the locations of the range and sink. We like the galley layout, the easy access to the outdoor living space, and the longer view from living room all the way to the outside, through the kitchen.

We like the 5 doors on the south side but it seems a little extravagant. So we propose to change the dining room door to a window – probably another window seat. The little triangle on the north side of the dining room will be where our information console will tell us what our power and water systems are doing, what’s going on with the weather, and be the headquarters of the intercom and home audio systems.

The living room is the focal point. Shaped loosely like a kiva, it has the best views on the site and will have some kind of interesting ceiling, perhaps including light and/or ventilation. We plan to build the TV into the wall and see what kind of “nichos” we can put in the walls, too.

The bedroom suite is admittedly a bit decadent and if budget becomes an issue, there may be cuts we can make there. But it sure looks nice. The whole house is only about 1700sf so we don’t feel we’re being too extravagant.

We began to talk about building systems yesterday – Adam is sure we won’t need cooling (just a whole house fan to exhaust warm air at night) and, although required by law, we may not use our heating system much, either. With double adobe walls (two 10” walls with a 4” space between) and lots of south windows, we can probably get and keep all the heat we need passively.

Next steps are to make the few adjustments listed above then sketch the elevations (figuring out the roof lines). We’re also looking forward to seeing sketches of Denise’s office/studio and the garage and how it all fits on the site. When it comes to building, we’re hoping that maybe we can build the guest house first so we can “live” there, sell the house we’re in, and build the main house with the proceeds. Lots of unanswered questions, however. We’re still in the exciting, creative, phase. We’ll get to the nail biting stage soon enough!