Well, eighteen months later, I moved into my new home. But it was worth every bit of the headache, sore muscles and time spent. Nothing could be more fulfilling than living in a home you helped build with you own hands! Ideally, every day is either sunny or partly cloudy with no chance of rain, and seventy degrees. But that never happens.

Suppliers may ship your entire order when you order it and subcontractors run into delays on other job sites. So, you have to be prepared to handle setbacks and manage chaos. There’s pretty much a set order of how things are done. The primary reason is due to codes and permits that apply across the country.

Another reason is cost; proven methods used to build homes help to produce reliable housing quickly, and at a relatively low cost. While I can’t prevent your own panic attacks about never being finished with your home, I can give some ideas and a guideline of what to expect and when.

Site Preparation and Foundation

The first crew on the site does grading and site preparation. Often, site prep and the foundation will be done by the same contractor.

The most common foundations for building a home include slab-on-grade, basements and perimeter foundations with crawl spaces. This is a major decision to make when working with your architect and will be based on your home’s design, local codes and conventions, and potentially by your home’s building site.

Framing and Roof Trusses

The framing crew will be next up. They start with the floor, unless you are using a slab foundation.

The floor starts with a sill-plate made of pressure-treated lumber in direct contact with the bricks of the crawl space wall. Once the floor framing is complete, it is covered with 1/2-inch or 5/8-inch plywood or OSB (oriented strand board).

Next, the framing crew next starts framing the walls, which are assembled on the floor and then raised into place.

Sheathing is typically put on using either OSB or plywood, giving the walls exceptional rigidity. This negates the need for diagonal reinforcement used in older homes built prior to the availability of these products. Plywood or OSB sheathing is much stronger.

Pre-fabricated trusses are a good way to go for roof framing. These Triangular wood-framed structures support your roof. Another alternative is to build a frame for your roof using 2×8 and 2×10 boards, which is substantially more time consuming.

Trusses are popular and have several main benefits:

• Trusses provide superior strength
• They are also cheaper, since they can be manufactured using short lengths of 2×4 lumber
• Custom ordering trusses allows unique architectural features like cathedral ceilings without breaking your budget
• Trusses are good for long spans, since they transfer all of the weight to exterior walls. This allows greater flexibility for placement of interior walls, since they are not load-bearing
• Trusses are installed very quickly, helping accelerate your project
• As a homeowner, the only real disadvantage is that your home has attic space

Doors and Windows

After the roof trusses come doors and windows, which should be ordered and scheduled to arrive as a single shipment, so that they can all be installed at one time and prior to roofing. This is because adding the weight of roofing materials will cause settling, so you want to install door and window frames first.

Roofing and Siding

Roofing comes next, with tar paper being laid down and your roofing materials. This process varies somewhat, depending on whether you have chosen shakes, composite shingles, tile roofing, metal roofing, etc.

Then comes siding; one good choice is to use vinyl siding, which is less expensive than many alternatives. Cedar is also a common natural material used for siding. Stucco is also popular, especially in the Southwest, where its insulating qualities make it extremely desirable.

Plumbing and Electrical

Next comes rough plumbing, when your plumbing contractor runs water supply and sewer lines. Bathtubs and shower pans are typically installed during rough plumbing since one-piece shower-and-tub units are so large and not easily maneuvered into place later.

Tubs are also notorious for being delivered slightly different than the size ordered, which makes installation very hard later in construction. A full tub is also heavy, so by installing and filling it, you help the frame settle more quickly, preventing wall and tile cracking once the tub is put into use.

Rough plumbing will normally include water supply lines for all fixtures and installation of sewer lines and vents.

Electrical rough in typically follows rough plumbing. Your electrical contractor will also install hardware such as electrical panels, lighting brackets, electrical outlets and junction boxes at this stage, leaving only the “finish” pieces such as cover plates, lighting fixtures and switches until the finishing phase.

Insulation and Drywall

Next is insulation, which can include many types and installation methods. One typical type of insulation for walls is fiberglass rolls that are cut to length and installed between wall studs. You may also use spray-in cellulose insulation. These options should be determined ahead of time during planning so that the correct sequence can be determined.

From the exterior, your house now appears nearly complete! However, inside things are still pretty rough. Next up is drywall and then its time to begin finishing.

Drywall, also called sheetrock, is the most common type of interior wall product used in most homes. Although drywall sheets are only 1/2-inch thick, because they are made from gypsum, backed with paper, they are quite heavy and solid.

You can do drywall yourself if you have a strong back and a hoist! However, it is probably best to hire a professional crew since they can easily do the entire home in a day or two, depending on square footage and the complexity of your interior.

Congratulations! You have now completed rough construction and all that remains is the finishing phase.

Finishing Phase Steps:

• Underlayment – Plywood sub-flooring is laid during initial framing and covered with tar paper or a vapor barrier (4-mil-thick plastic) and 5/8-inch particle board for most areas, or concrete wonderboard in areas like bathrooms where tile will be installed. Complete any remaining underlayment or subfloor work required before finish work begins.
• HVAC – Your HVAC contractor will return to install heating and air conditioning equipment, vents and ductwork. In a home built on a slab foundation or in a two-story home, some of the ductwork needs to be installed between floors and inside walls. In a single-story home with a basement or crawl space, HVAC equipment and ductwork can be installed late in the project since it will be under the home.
• Finish electrical – The electrician will return and install all light fixtures, wall outlets, switches and cover plates.
• Kitchen and bathroom cabinets and counter tops – The cabinet installers must be scheduled to install all cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms. These will be aligned in place on walls and attached to wall studs with screws and then the counter tops screwed on top.
• Finish plumbing – After cabinet installation, schedule your plumbing contractor to do finish work, installing remaining fixtures like sinks, toilets and faucets, as well as your water heater if it wasn’t part of the rough plumbing phase.



• Water and sewer hookups – Your home will need to be connected to municipal water and sewer lines. Usually this is done by your municipality or else your plumbing contractor. If public water and sewage lines are not available, you will need a private well and septic system. In this case you need to hire a well-drilling subcontractor and a septic-tank subcontractor.
• Wall trim – Once the cabinets are in, the interior doors are installed and the molding around the doors, windows and baseboards goes in.
• Paint – Once the molding is on, it is time to paint and wallpaper the interior of the house.
• Carpeting, flooring and tile – Once the paint is done, carpet, wood flooring and tile can be installed. With some flooring products, you will want to install baseboard trim after rather than before the flooring.
• The final punch list – At this point, the builder (in this case you!) inspects the house, noting any problems. All problems are tabulated on a punch list. The various contractors return to fix all of the problems. Be warned; this is typically an iterative process. Also, final inspection by your municipality’s building inspection department needs to be scheduled. Once the punch list is done, it’s time to move in!

Southern living home designs have a natural charm, elegance and historical tie that few other regions can parallel.

These beautiful design elements of southern living home plans often include alluring double porches, verandas, decorative shuttered windows, arched casement windows, and stylish dormers, which lend the southern living home style to a nostalgia and long lasting appeal.

Why Southern Style is So Popular

Southern Living homes are a popular home-style choice along the Louisiana Creole, low country of South Carolina and other Southeastern communities. Southern house plans styles more often feature metal roofs, giving them a distinctive appearance common to their area.

Large plantation and similar southern estate southern home plans can also be found in this category. Southern style homes have remained a popular choice for individuals that live in such beautiful warm southern places.
Similar to a country home, the southern living house derives its appearance from elegant wrap around porches and an outward facade soft in color and beautifully crafted, like a fine piece of furniture.

Another great favorite are Southern Colonial Homes, the kind of homes that you may have seen in historical movies that depicted the south during the civil war era.

Southern Colonial Home Style

Some look like mansions from the days of wealthy plantation owners. In fact, some of these homes are just that, historical architecture left over from the days of the old south. These southern classics are identifiable by a large double porch that frames the entryway of the home and is normally supported by columns.

The front hall was the public face of the typical Southern home in the Antebellum era. Reflecting the social standing of the family, the entryway was designed to make an instant impression. Typically located in the center of the home just behind the front door, it followed the symmetrical design of typical Southern homes of the pre-war period.

Functional Floor Plan in Antebellum Homes

In larger homes Antebellum style homes, the center hall typically spans the length of the house, with doors at the front and the rear, and may have even been used as a parlor. Other public rooms such as the library, dining room, and parlor are located next to the entryway. For families with smaller means, such an expansive layout would not have been possible in the average 19th century home.

A more common layout has a front hall that extends half the length of the floor plan with work rooms, such as the kitchen, scullery, and laundry behind it. Other typical features, depending on the size and proportion of the home, might include fireplaces, grand staircases, and the best furnishings in the home.

Staircases are the crown jewel of the center hall in the majority of Southern living home designs. Curving elliptical and spiral staircases provide instant aesthetic appeal to anyone entering the home. Next to white pillars, a circular staircase was traditionally the most coveted feature of a plantation owner’s home.

Southern Antebellum Style Balconies

Balconies are a common architectural feature of Southern Antebellum homes. Often tied to a specific home style, balconies adorn many types of Southern homes including Georgian, Italianate, and Classic Revival Styles. Balconies are typically supported by decorative corbels or brackets, or by columns that framed a lower covered porch or portico.

The overall design of the home determines the specific look of the balcony, but usually classic details are favored. Railings are constructed of wood and typically incorporate turned balusters.

Most of the balconies in Southern living home designs serve little functional use for members of the household. However, one practical aspect of the balcony is that it allows for greater movement of air inside the upper story of a home, as the doors that append to it are often louvered.

The sweltering heat of the summer months would have made this a welcome feature. Regardless, the primary purpose of a balcony on a Southern Antebellum home is for aesthetic appeal and showmanship.

Porches Play an Important Role in Southern Living

The hot and muggy conditions of the South, especially during the summer months, almost always make the outdoors more comfortable than a home’s interior. Porches provide shade and places from which one might hope to catch a cool breeze. During the other nine months of the year, when the climate is more temperate, porches offer a great place to spend their leisure time either swaying on a swing, reading, or sewing.

Porches may have been used historically to socialize with neighbors, but only on a limited scale. In the pre-war Antebellum years, few cities existed in the South. Small farms and plantations dominated the landscape, so connecting with the larger community was not always possible.

Southern living house architecture offers classic style, comfort and practical features that make this design motif a great choice for any new custom home or if you are looking for a classic home to renovate and restore to its original splendor and southern charm.

Planning Your Screened Porch

It is necessary to plan the porch. You should make sure that your screened porch permits and meets all the side and rear yard setbacks and every other aspect of the zoning code. Be sure you get proper building permits before starting any major building project. An architect can then be called. Make sure the architect is experienced and well versed in the subject. Make sure that the size of the finished room suits your needs. Put all the furniture you want to use in the patio.

Building a screen porch requires an understanding of some basic elements like climate and construction. Evaluate and explore various options. Take into consideration various styles and accordingly plan the basics of the building. Screen porch can be square or rectangular in shape. The flooring can be hard wood or laminated.

Cost Estimation

It is important that you do the costing as it will save further headache. This can be accomplished by doing a material take-off. This is a simple list that shows the type, quality and quantity of material required for the project.

The Foundation

The deck of the porch is very important. The piers of the deck should be properly dug. For this first build the deck outline. After the corners are established you can easily find the centre of your piers. Dig the post holes with the post hole digger down to the frost level.

Pour approximately 8 inch thick layer of concrete in the bottom hole. The next day, insert the treated lumber post that has an attachment for the joists. Around the post fill about 6 inch of gravel and finally 6 inches of concrete. This way it is easy to replace the post should it become necessary.

Decking and Walls

The deck or the floor is important. You can use treated lumber. Do not put any spacing between your decking boards or else they will shrink.
Seal the deck boards before nailing. Get your electrical wires installed and possibly a gas line for your grill. Plan for these things beforehand as to how they reach the porch from the house.

The walls are simply screened panels that fit between the posts that support the roof structure. Put the panels of the walls at the end.
Screening is available in a wide range of materials including rust-proof bronze, copper or aluminum, as well as anodized aluminum with a baked on finish, and even vinyl.

Corner/Support Posts

This is important as the beams rest upon them. The beams span over the posts and are connected with special post and beam galvanized hardware. The lumber used should be untreated as treated ones will twist as they dry out. Use the lower grade as it has tight knots.

Roofing

The roof adds to the overall look of the porch. If your house has a hip roof use the same for the porch. These are very strong and help to lock the walls together. It can be made up of any material including translucent sheeting or solid roofing material,

You can find clear, colored or translucent fiberglass panels for roofing your porch. Fiberglass panels provide shade and protection from the elements. You can have more or less shade depending on which type and how much translucence the panels have.

Light weight fiberglass roof panels are available, which are durable and resist impact well in case of hail, high winds and other inclement weather. The material will not shatter, shrink or expand significantly over time and is easy to install.

Electric Requirements

One should always plan for the electric requirements in advance. You may need outlets for radio, lamps or TV’s, fans etc.

Painting or Finishing

This is very important as it adds to the overall effect. Wooden screened porches require maintenance. This can be minimized by pre-painting or finishing the wood before installing.

This also reduces the damage due to water. Paint the screen panels before installing the screens. You can also paint the roof rafters and underside of the roof plywood before installing them.

The home is always looked upon as a place of refuge where one should feel safe and sound. But did you know that according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 75% of all crimes committed in US are crimes on property?

In 2003 alone, there were roughly 14 million thefts, and in 83% of these thefts, the burglars entered the house or building to steal personal property. Burglary can happen to anyone, whether you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area. You could live within a mile of a police station, and you could still be burgled – there have been similar cases before.

Experiencing a burglary is very upsetting. Not only are you facing the cost of the lost items, you will not be able to feel secure in your house for a time. It’s as if you lose your peace of mind because you’ll always think that your house was robbed once, and it could happen again.

What Are the Chances?

So the question is this;  will you wait for a burglary to happen in your own home before you do something about it?

The problem is that people usually trust too much in their door locks, but these can be picked by skilled people easily. In addition to this, thieves are also increasingly more resourceful and creative in finding ways to enter a house unnoticed. They sometimes do so under the guise of being repair or maintenance crews, or furniture delivery companies, and enter your house in broad daylight when everybody is at work or school.

People sometimes trust too much in neighbor watches as well. However, come to think of it, what neighbor will spend every minute watching your house? The best solution to prevent burglary is installing a home alarm system. The security company you hire can readily install sensors in various areas of your house.

Home Alarm System Remote Monitoring

Once a sensor is triggered, the security company will immediately call to verify whether there is indeed an emergency or an accident triggered the alarm (which happens fairly often). If they can’t get you on the phone, they will immediately alert the proper authorities to request for assistance. 

You may also have surveillance cameras installed as part of your home alarm system. These are very useful to check unsupervised people you hire around the house such as house cleaners and babysitters. If an attempted break-in happens, these are also useful in identifying the potential thieves.

As an added feature for your home alarm system, you may also request the security company to hook up your smoke alarm to the house alarm system. If the smoke alarm goes off, the company will automatically contact the fire department. This is useful especially during the night, or when you leave your pets or children at home alone for a period of time.

Your home alarm system comes with strategically-placed panic buttons. You will appreciate the importance of panic buttons if you are trapped at home during a break-in or when there is a medical emergency.

Home Alarms Can Reduce Insurance Premiums

Besides all these benefits, once you have a home alarm system in place, you can usually get a discount in your house insurance policy (depending on your insurance company of course). This is because they recognize that the risk of having burglary in your house is significantly minimized when you have a home alarm system.

Any home alarm system comes with a very visible lawn sign to announce that your home is being protected by an alarm system. This is a great deterrent as thieves will always choose to break in a house without a home alarm system as opposed to a house that has one.

Now that you have seen the benefits, let’s look at the costs involved in a home alarm system. Getting a home alarm system can usually be afforded by the typical American family. However, you have to remember that aside from purchasing the home alarm system, you also need to pay a fixed monthly fee to your security company to provide you with 24-hour home monitoring.

Do some Internet research and ask around to find the best security company so that you can get the best value for your money. Remember though that the benefits of getting a home alarm system surely outweigh the costs.

Plastic foams, rock wool, cellulose and even cotton insulation are readily available. Insulation materials come in many forms. They are sprayed, stapled, blown, nailed or simply laid in place.

The choices can be difficult to sort through, but cellulose insulation is one of the most energy efficient and green solutions available for insulation.

Cellulose is “green.” It’s made of 80% post-consumer recycled newsprint. The fiber is chemically treated with non-toxic borate compounds (20% by weight) to resist fire, insects and mold.

The Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association (CIMA) claims that insulating a 1500 ft2 house with cellulose will recycle as much newspaper as an individual will consume in 40 years.

If all new homes were insulated with cellulose this would remove 3.2 million tons of newsprint from the nation’s waste stream each year. There’s room to grow. Fewer than 10% of the homes built today use cellulose.

Cellulose earns “green” points because it requires less energy than fiberglass to manufacture. Disciples claim 200 times less petro-energy than fiberglass. More realistically, Environmental Building News reports that fiberglass requires approximately 8 times more energy to make when adjusted to reflect energy cost per installed R-value unit.

Choosing the right insulation material is important. However, the quality of the installation is critical. Efficient insulation systems need thoughtful preparation.

Armed with a trusty caulk gun and spray container of insulating foam, seal all penetrations in the structural envelope prior to insulation.

Seal all gaps in the wall sheathing and framing. Fill narrowly spaced studs and headers. Seal around window, electrical, and plumbing penetrations. Once all leakage points are sealed you are ready to install the cellulose insulation.

Blown Cellulose

Blown cellulose can be installed in new or existing structures. It is popular in retrofit applications because existing wall finishes are not removed to install the insulation. It is favored in attic applications because you can blow unrestricted depths of fiber to achieve deep coverage with very little labor.

Blown cellulose is shredded newsprint that is installed with special equipment. Construction-savvy homeowners should be able to install blown cellulose in open attics; not walls or cathedral roofs, which should be left to serious DIY homeowners or professional insulation specialists.

You can use blowing machines from rental centers and building material dealers that sell cellulose insulation. But in general, this is a job for pros.

On paper the application is simple. Dry cellulose fiber is blown through a hose into open attics or into enclosed wall, floor or cathedral-roof framing cavities.

Two people are required to run the equipment. One person feeds dry fiber into a hopper; breaking up clumps of cellulose as it is passes into the blowing system.

The hopper and blower can be located inside or outside the house. The other person operates a hose that is attached to the blower and extends to the locations where insulation will be deposited.

The ratio of air to fiber is adjustable and with some experimentation the right balance is struck. A 3-inch diameter flexible hose is typically used to blow fiber into open attics.

If an attic floor is already installed, remove some of the boards or drill holes at strategic locations to fill the floor cavities with insulation. If the floor cavities are already filled, blow an additional layer of cellulose directly over the floor sheathing to improve the level of protection. The job is dusty and wearing a mask is required.

Blowing fiber into enclosed wall and cathedral framing cavities is different. Here a smaller 1- or 2-inch diameter fill tube is attached to the end of the larger hose. The fill tube is inserted into enclosed cavities through a series of strategically placed holes.

The general idea is to drill a series of 2-inch holes horizontally across the structural surface so that the holes are centered in each framing cavity. One or more holes per framing bay are required depending on the length of the framing cavity and the applicator’s fill technique.

Filling walls and cathedral roofs from the outside is the typical practice. Pieces of siding or roofing are removed, holes drilled and insulation fill tubes inserted. Air pressure is cranked up for cavity-fill applications to provide a more densely packed injection called dense-pack cellulose.

The narrow fill tube is inserted into the holes and pushed to within a foot of the far end of the enclosed cavity as the blowing begins. When the packed insulation becomes dense enough to stall the blower, the hose is backed out a bit. The blower gears up and filling resumes.

The process is repeated until the framing cavity is filled. Then jump over to the hole(s) in the adjacent cavity. The injected fiber compacts tightly around wires, plumbing, and other penetrations providing an airtight insulating blanket with a slightly elevated R-value approaching R-4 per inch. The holes are plugged and the siding and roof covering is patched or reinstalled when the blowing is completed.

Cellulose can be blown into wall or cathedral roof cavities from the inside as well. Remove interior trim, drill – or simply drill holes through the interior drywall surface – and blow.

Replace trim and patch the holes after the cavities are filled. In new construction, walls must be enclosed with fiber-reinforced plastic sheeting or drywall before cellulose can be blown into the framing. The plastic sheeting doubles as a vapor barrier. Choose whichever strategy makes the most sense for your situation.

If you have a home that was insulated years ago with inadequate levels of insulation, you are not out of luck. Skilled cellulose professionals can snake fill tubes into a wall already filled with fiberglass batting.

The installer fills the cavities with dense-pack cellulose in a way that crushes the existing insulation without balling up the batts, achieving a full uniform application of the new cellulose fiber. The goal on any application is to assure complete coverage that is installed at a density that will not settle over time.

Concrete forms offer the same wind and fire resistance, but also offer an additional built in layers of foam insulation.

Homes built with insulated concrete forms offer homeowners greater energy efficiency and less noise pollution from outside.

An insulated concrete form is basically a form for poured concrete walls that stays in place as a permanent part of the wall assembly.

The forms, made of foam insulation or other insulating material, are either pre-formed interlocking blocks or separate panels connected with plastic or metal ties.

The left-in-place forms not only provide a continuous insulation and sound barrier, but also provides a backing for drywall on the inside, and stucco, lap siding or brick on the outside.

Within these two basic ICF types, individual systems can vary in their design:

• "Flat" systems yield a continuous thickness of concrete, like a conventionally poured wall.
• The wall produced by "grid" systems has a waffle pattern where the concrete is thicker at some points than others.
• "Post and beam" systems have just that – discrete horizontal and vertical columns of concrete that are completely encapsulated in foam insulation.

Whatever their differences, all Insulated concrete form systems are engineer-designed, code-accepted and field-proven.

Energy savings and comfort are built into every ICF system. ICF’s start with a high R-Value. Four inches of ASTM C 578 polystyrene foam insulation, combine with a five inch concrete wall a typical ICF system – are rated above R-17 at 75o mean test temperature. Other insulating form configurations and materials also exhibit high R-values.

The concrete walls of an ICF home have high thermal mass, which buffers the interior of a home from the extremes of outdoor temperature during every 24-hour cycle. This reduces both peak and total heating and cooling loads.

This combination of high R-values and high thermal mass is believed to account for the amazing 25% to 50% energy savings of ICF versus wood or steel-framed homes.

In sound transmission tests, ICF walls allowed less than one-third as much sound to pass through as do ordinary frame walls filled with fiberglass. With double-glazed windows in ICF walls and beefed-up roof insulation, you will rarely hear street noises or airport traffic.

The high-mass walls of an ICF home not only give it a remarkably solid feel, but they also make it safer for the family. And make it a remarkably solid and secure investment, too. Concrete homes have a proven track record of withstanding the ravages of hurricanes, tornadoes and fires, when all the stick-build houses around them are in ruins.

In fire wall tests, ICFs stood exposure to intense flame without structural failure longer than did common frame walls. The polystyrene foam used in most ICF forms is treated so it will not support combustion. Also, tests show that its tendency to transmit an outside flame source is less than that of most wood products.

A Healthier Home & Environment

Building with ICFs is healthier for the environment in a number of ways: by minimizing the number of different building products involved in construction, by reducing the amount of waste generated on the construction site, and by lowering energy requirements for heating and cooling.

ICF homes provide a healthy indoor environment, too. Nothing held within or ordinarily emitted by an ICF wall is toxic. The measurement of the air contents of actual ICF houses shows an almost complete absence of any emissions.

This means that the El Dorado County Building Department is finished with us, and that I should be expecting a tax re-assessment soon.

It does not, however, mean that T.B. is finished. He is still completing the exterior trim, and has a few odds and ends to complete.

The interior is finished, however, I’ve moved in, and I had a housewarming party October 21st to celebrate.

The bump-out for the kitchen windows was designed by T.B. to add some character to the front. It is finished with cedar to match the soffit coverings and entry, and vertical strips of redwood left and right. A stone ledge runs along the bottom.

As you enter the house, you look to the south through the great room, over the back porch, through the willows to the river. A pair of French doors on the left provides access to the porch.

On the right a pair of casement windows surround a picture window. The television is tucked into a corner just to the right of this picture. You may want to refer to the floor plan if you find yourself getting lost.

One change from the floor plan — I decided not to install the wood stove. There were three reasons: money, space, and lack of perceived need. The chimney is in place, however, so that I can add it later if I change my mind.

The window tops are 8 feet from the ground; the ceiling starts at approximately 10 feet on the north and south walls and peaks at around 14 feet. Note the six skylights in the porch roof; in the winter they bring sunlight into the great room almost to the center.

The next two photo shows the great room. The entry door is trimmed in plum; the green trim marks closets and bookcasees. The blue doors in the left photo lead to the guest bedroom (northwest corner of the house) and guest bath.

I had a lot of fun picking trim colors. Originally we were going to use stain-grade trim, but it was just too expensive and we were already over budget. I’d also planned to paint a couple of walls, but was a bit chicken and had trouble coming up with colors.

When T.B. suggested burgundy or hunter green for all the baseboards and door trim, I balked. It seemed way to formal — even boring! So I came up with the idea of painting the various pieces of trim in random colors.

I asked my artist friend Michelle for advice, and she suggested a palette of five colors. I chose green, blue, gold, plum and a salmony color named "chili pepper." The painter pointed out that random color changes added time and expense, so I settled on green for baseboards, closets and the vertical bookshelf.

The bedroom and bath doors are trimmed in blue; the office and utility room door in chili pepper, the entry in plum, and all the kitchen stuff in gold. In some rooms we painted wall sconces to match the trim — $10 each at Home Depot and they look pretty spiffy with the paint!

Continuing to move to the right, you will next see the kitchen and dining areas. I’ll come back to the kitchen later. For now I’ll just point out the wonderful high bookcase above the counter, and the hanging shelf for plates and such — painted in gold and chili pepper.

In the photo below, you can see the full ceiling height at the ridge. This gable window faces east; there is another at the west end. They are delightful additions to the room.

The two beams that run the length of the room are the purlins; they support the roof. They’re gluelam beams, and have been sanded and finished with a clear coat. The ceiling fan can be used in the summer to draw the warm air up and out through the two ridge skylights, or in the winter to push warm air back down into the room.

One of the design rules when using structural insulated panels to form the roof is that one is not supposed to mount light fixtures in the ceiling — it eats into the insulation of the house. Hence the light soffits that run along the north and south sides of the house, and the track lights that you can just barely see attached to the purlins.

There are additional light soffits in the kitchen and master bedroom, and track lights in the office, kitchen and utility rooms. This turned out to look and function very nicely, but added an unexpectedly large amount of money — consider it a hidden cost of using the roof panels.

The porch on the south side is made of concrete. T.B. is still finishing the trim out there so the photos will have to wait another week at least. Suffice it to say that when the sun hits the concrete, it warms up the porch nicely. In the summer time the sun is higher in the sky so the oven effect isn’t a problem.

In general, heating and cooling have worked pretty much as advertised. The house is so well-insulated that it doesn’t heat up much during summer days. Of course, this means it doesn’t cool down that much at night either!

So the cooling system requires a lot of human activity — opening all the windows and skylights in the evening, and turning on fans, then closing the house up in the morning. This is not a problem for me now, but I do wonder sometimes how it will work out if I ever break a leg or find myself in a wheelchair in my 80s!

The heating system has only been in use the past couple of weeks. The radiant floors are GREAT! It took a bit of time to calibrate them — I tended to set the thermostat too high and to come on too early. But I must say I’m very happy with the quality of the warmth. Haven’t enough data to comment on the efficiency but I expect that my propane bills will be quite reasonable.

Finally we get to the office, in the southwest corner of the house. The photo above shows the entrance to the office in all its chili pepper splendor. As you can see, I have my computer set up so that I have a view to the river on my left, and into the trees on my right. (Of course today the view is T.B. on a ladder finishing the porch trim!)

The office door opens onto the porch over looking the river. The trim should have been painted chili pepper instead of gold, but this door was done before the plan was fully established so it’s a bit of a rebel. That bland box to the left of my chair is a lateral file cabinet. I’m thinking of painting it too, maybe with a mural, or perhaps putting a poster on the back.

The kitchen windows face to the north, to the driveway, so that I can see whether my guests are arriving for dinner. The bump-out gives me a slightly deeper countertop near the windows, providing space for some plants.

The concrete countertop is by far my favorite part of the kitchen. T.B. built forms on the lower cabinets and poured the concrete in place. We added a coloring powder to the concrete before pouring, which gave it a nice brown color.

After the concrete had cured, T.B. spent a couple of days polishing the surface so that it is silky-smooth, and then sealed it with several coats of acrylic. It is not quite bulletproof, but not at all delicate either. It has the seamless feel of Corian or granite, but has a wonderfully earthy, organic look to it.

The materials are less expensive, of course, but the overall the cost is in the same range as these other materials, because of the intensive labor required for building the forms, pouring and working the concrete, and polishing and finishing it.

The cabinets are made by Kraft-Maid, sold through Home Depot. They have a clear maple finish, and shaker style moldings. The original plan called for an additional maple cabinet at the end of the peninsula, but when we placed it on the counter the effect was awful. It blocked too much of the view to the river, separated the kitchen from the great room, and took up a substantial chunk of counter space.

I didn’t want to completely eliminate that cabinet, however, as I needed a place for plates and bowls — and I wanted it to be convenient to the counter, the dishwasher and the dining room table. In trying to come up with a more open cabinet, I remembered what T.B. had done in my storage shed, using threaded rods to hang shelves. So we adapted the threaded rods notion for the kitchen.

The shelves are MDF, painted to match the other interior trim colors. The threaded rods are secured inside the soffit at the top, then go through holes in the shelves. Sections of painted metal pipe separate the shelves from each other and also camouflage the rods. Nuts at the bottom hold it together. As it happens, I have been collecting plates and other serving pieces in various bright colors for almost 30 years, so this also gives me a fun way to enjoy them.

There is another special cabinet. It’s built into the soffit over the peninsula, and is the perfect place for the turkey roaster, giant serving bowl, crock pot, waffle iron and other items that I don’t use very often. I have a small oak stepladder that allows me to reach up there.

The range is made by Dacor. It has a gas (propane) cooktop and an electric convection oven. It has many of the features of commercial-style ranges at a much more reasonable price, and has so far been wonderful to use. The cooktop is remarkably simple and easy to clean up after a spill, which is important for a wild and crazy cook like myself!

There is a lot of lighting. The photos show the lights in the soffits and under the counters, but there is also a large skylight and a track light on the ceiling. I never need to turn them all on, but it is nice to focus light on the task at hand.

My sincere apologies to anyone who has been faithfully checking the site for current information! Why so long?

Well, I’ve been kept pretty busy, between the house, the business, and the challenges of life in a tiny trailer.

A lot has been done in this three months, though of course there’s lots more left to do. I haven’t been doing much carpenter work myself. I injured my back shortly after the last update, and by the time I was able to do physical labor again it was time for me to be shopping. I’ve spent lots of money, probably too much of course!

The list includes cabinets for the kitchen, laundry, and master bath, plumbing fixtures, a wood stove, kitchen appliances, colors for the exterior stucco and trim, roofing material, and concrete stain.

As of the last report we had just finished installing the roof panels, and the windows had been delivered. T.B. had me start preparing to installing windows, and over the next months we installed a few windows each week, almost as a break from other jobs.

The first step was to prepare the window openings. I cut strips of 30-lb. roofing felt (paper saturated with tar) to fit the window opening. The side and top strips are 8" wide, the bottom 16" wide.

I used a chisel to remove any wads of glue in the corners of the window opening, and then attached the felt to the exterior wall with a staple gun. The bottom strip went on first, then the sides, finally the top, so that the raindrops would run down the overlapping felt strips and not find their way into the house.

After I’d felted a few windows, T.B. would stop his work and run a bead of glue along the edge of the felt, while I unpacked the window. They are beautiful windows, a clear Douglas fir with sage green aluminum cladding on the outside. The wood interiors will be clear-coated; in the meantime we’ve been very careful to avoid getting fingerprints on the wood.

Next T.B. would carry the window to the outside of the house and set it into the opening. I stayed on the inside and held the window in place, levering it up or shimming it while he made sure that it was level and square in all directions and nailed it in place.

The next step was to open and close the window to verify that it worked smoothly. Finally, T.B. applied a smear of glue on the outside of the window frame to cover the nails and ensure a final waterproofing.

T.B. and Don spent most of last week finishing infrastructure, installing hip rafters, and straightening walls, and then put up the first roof panel last Friday, August 20.

The roof panels are supported on the outer end by the walls, and on the inner end by a ledger board attached to the gable walls. At the corners, the hip rafters run on a diagonal to support the roof.

The hip rafters and ledger boards will all be visible elements of the inside of the home, so we are trying to figure out how to finish them.

T.B. has suggested several options. I’m leaning toward the simplest, which is just to round the corners, sand them smooth, and clear coat. With the concrete floors, every little bit of wood trim in the home is welcome.

Inside, I’m now able to see how the hip roof will feel. The outer walls of the "hip rooms" will be 8′ tall, and the inner walls will go to 10′8".

There are skylights in the bathrooms, kitchens, and master bedroom closet (it has no windows.) The photo below was taken from the master bedroom, looking down through the closet and bathroom. The second, larger skylight will be over the shower and tub.

Working with the roof panels is a challenge (photo below), as they are pretty heavy and awkward. On a larger project T.B. would have brought in a crane, but it would have added a lot of cost. Since this is a relatively small, one-story home, we are using muscle power and leverage instead.

Metal straps fastened to the panel faces give us something to grip, as the OSB can be slippery. When walking on the roof, we have to avoid stepping on nails, cords, or sawdust, as they could act as ball bearings and send us sliding down.

There are billions of nails to drive into the roof panels to hold them together, so I’ve kept busy the past few mornings. I bought a new hammer last week. My old hammer is all metal, so the handle weighs as much as the head does, and it transmits a lot of shock through to my wrist. The new one has a lightweight graphite handle and a 20 oz. metal head.

Besides putting all the weight in the head, the graphite acts as a shock absorber for my wrist. I’d probably be better off with an 18 oz. or even 16 oz. head, but this model didn’t come in a lighter weight. And after hefting all the hammers at Home Depot, it was the clear winner in just plain feeling good. It makes driving the nails SO much easier and faster than with the old mallet.

For the underside of the panels, T.B. will let me use the nail gun. The disadvantage of the nail gun is that it has a tendency to smash right through the OSB. T.B. will set it to its lowest compression, which should help but will mean that sometimes I have to finish the nail off with my hammer.

As before with the walls, adding the roof brings me closer to an understanding of how the house will look when it is done. I like it more and more every day.

It’s taken almost exactly two weeks to put up all the roof panels. Some of that time was spent straightening walls and installing the ledger boards and rafters on which the roof panels rest.

A bit too much of the time was spent planing the roof panels, many of which were cut too long. Half an inch or even a quarter of an inch might not seem like a large amount but it might as well be a foot when it comes to fitting the panels in place.

I’m still working on the job site regularly. Usually I’m driving those previously-mentioned billions of nails into the roof panels to hold them together, and also backfilling some of the places on the walls that were skipped or needed some beefing up. The new hammer is working out great, and I’m getting a little better with the nail gun.

I don’t know why it should be so hard to fire the nail gun properly. You have to press the tip of the gun hard against the spot where you want the nail, and then pull the trigger very briefly. If you’re not holding the tip hard and steady, it misfires or only goes in halfway. If you pull the trigger for longer than a fraction of a second, it fires two nails instead of one. And the thing weighs 50 pounds (just kidding). At first I needed to hold it with two hands. Now I can fire it with one hand sometimes, but still need the second hand to steady it if I’m holding it at an awkward angle or reaching out to a spot.

Theoretically you can just propel yourself (and the scaffolding) by pulling on the purlins (the beams up near the ridge). But in fact this is just another of T.B.’s myths. It assumes that one has a hand that can grip a six-inch wide beam and pull hard enough to roll a couple hundred pounds of scaffold, equipment, and worker along. My hand is perfectly adequate for most tasks, but not this one. I was able to pull from the skylights or push off the walls and move a few feet, but the rest of the journey required me to climb down and push from the floor.

Because the roof panels define the ceiling lines as well as the roof lines, I can for the first time feel how spacious the rooms will be. The great room feels much "greater" than before. It’s hard to capture on film; you’ll just have to trust me that it’s beautiful, or come see for yourself.

The other excitement last week was the arrival of the windows, French doors, and skylights. The windows and doors are made by Loewen, a Canadian firm, from vertical-grain Douglas Fir, clad on the exterior with sage-green aluminum. Because the wood is so beautiful, we will clear-coat the insides. The aluminum-clad outside should last a long time with minimal upkeep. They are "low-E", double-pane filled with argon gas to minimize heat transfer.

We should be able to begin installing skylights this week. Once I finish nailing all the exterior panels together (and T.B. finishes a couple of small jobs as well), we can call for an exterior nailing inspection and then start installing the windows. I guess that means I’d better sign off and get some sleep so that I can be nailing bright and early tomorrow!

If you want to know more about our home’s roof panels, you can learn more about roofing and roofing materials over at Roofing Articles website.

You can get some idea of how it works from the Whole House Building Supply web page.

The sales that weekend were an "estate" home in Atherton and a more modest home in Palo Alto.

The sales were well-organized. All the items in the homes were numbered, and a handout listed asking prices for each item.

Electricity and water had been turned off. Some items were easily removed, like bathroom mirrors and light fixtures. Others, like flooring or fireplace mantles, were going to call for a lot more work. We had come prepared with a Sawzall, but it wouldn’t have done us any good — one of the rules is that only licensed and insured contractors are allowed to use power tools for removing items. (They didn’t complain about our using my Makita cordless drill for removing screws, however.)

My first modest score was a dozen hooks for hanging brooms and other handled tools. $3.00 for the dozen, with a bicycle hook thrown in for good measure. We were off to a good start.

But the best find was a like-new Modern Day central vacuum unit at the Atherton home, complete with hoses, attachments, and replacement bags. We had already put the conduit for central vacuum into the slab, but the vacuum itself wasn’t quite in the budget. For $70 we found this 2-year-old system. There will still be some cost for installation, but it should save at least $600 compared to buying it new.

In Palo Alto, Ray fell in love with this built-in cabinet unit, left. But of course we couldn’t figure out how to get it out of its house, and it wouldn’t fit on the truck, and for that matter it wouldn’t fit in Ray’s garage either. Ah well, some pieces of furniture are meant to be adored from afar.

The Palo Alto house also provided me with an electrical sub-panel and a dozen breakers, all for $10. This wasn’t as good a deal as the others, since my electrician tells me that the 15-amp breakers are of a design that doesn’t work very well. But still there are several good 20-amp breakers in the panel, and it will work well in the garage or shed, saving me at least $10-20.

My friend Paul, with whom I’ve worked at five different companies over the past 16 years, lives a few blocks away from our Palo Alto salvage site. So he came to visit and help us analyze the workmanship of the old home. Part of the home was older than the rest.

We could tell because it used true 2" x 4" framing lumber instead of the dimensional lumber used today. Some of the framing showed the creativity of the crew, as in this rolling "hill and valley" line, right.

After we were finished for the day, we had dinner in Atherton with Randy and Joan, two other long-time good friends. Between the booty and getting to see folks I hadn’t seen in a while, it was definitely worth a trip to the Bay Area.

Each of the sales had around 6-12 other folks looking around at any given time. We were pleased with what we found, but several people told us that this was not a great weekend — they felt that there are usually a lot more interesting and useable items available. It’s a great way to recycle older homes and potentially save some money in the process.

Besides the Whole House Building Supply web page, you may find the following to be of interest:

• Internet Resale Directory lists secondhand, surplus and salvage businesses around the country
• The California Materials Exchange, a service of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, has a searchable data base of all kinds of materials one might use in construction or other ventures.
• Recycler’s World has a section on used home renovation materials, but currently only a few listings, midwest and east coast.

Next week we’ll start putting the roof panels in place.

My friend Tom came over to see the house on Tuesday the 11th, and boy were we glad to see him!

We needed to set a 28-foot gluelam in place as a header for the north side of the great room, and it was going to be tough. Tom allowed himself to be volunteered to help, which made a huge difference.

With that success under our collective belts, T.B. decided we could tackle placing the 18-foot header panel (with 6×8" header beam inside it) on the south wall of the great room.

Again, using the scaffolding as our only real tool, we managed to get this hefty panel up. (Understand of course that I’m the weakest member of this team but I want at least 10% of the credit!)

T.B. makes quick work of nailing down the top plate — he just climbs onto the wall and hammers from above (photo below). He claims it’s easier because you don’t have to hold up the hammer, and that I should try it, but I say that his balance is a lot better than mine and that I’m more comfortable on the ladder or scaffolding.

The scaffolding is a great place to work as long as you remember that it doesn’t extend the full length of the wall — I almost walked off the end of it a couple of times!

Under this header we will install (from left to right) a pair of French doors, a 30" wide window behind the wood stove, and a casement set totalling 8′ of glass.

At first I was worried that putting all the walls up would take away from the beauty of the site — making it feel too closed in. But instead each window now acts as a picture frame, and somehow each view becomes more special. Another day I’ll drop in some photos of the framed pictures made by each of the windows.

In order to put the gable walls up, T.B. and Don had to build a couple of interior walls. Whereas most interior walls would be 4" thick, these walls are 6" thick so that they can support the panels. The gables will be at each end of the great room, and the view of the trees through the high gable windows is already a pleasure.

Now that the walls are up I’m starting to get a feeling for the shape of the house. The floor plan is thoroughly embedded in my brain, but I’ve never been able to visualize the final 3-D structure. T.B. and the architect, David Wright, are both able to visualize what the final house will look like — I’m not sure how much of that ability is learned and how much is native talent.

At any rate, the good news is that the more I see of the final shape of the house the more I like it. It still doesn’t feel completely real to me, though. I may have to move in before I completely accept that it is a real house and not just an elaborate fantasy.

This weekend my friend Ray and I are going to the Bay Area to see what we can salvage from some homes that are being demolished.

You can get some idea of what we’re up to from the Driftwood Salvage web page, though for some reason they haven’t updated it with this weekend’s sales. Wish us luck! I’ll let you know next week whether we find anything interesting.

Then Friday we got to start playing with those structural panels mentioned in the July 26 notes.

We started on wall J, which is the west wall. Three windows, no doors, so it should be simple.

The panels are fastened onto a 2×6 pressure-treated (PT) board, which in turn sits on a thin 6.5" piece of PT plywood. Both layers of wood are bolted to the stem wall (foundation perimeter) using the bolts that were set into the stem wall.

So T.B. had to do some preparations before we could start. First he set the corner boards so that he could be certain that the foundation was still square. This might seem redundant, since he has checked everything many times over, but it is evidently part of doing a Very Good Job of making the house straight and the corners square.

Then he set the plywood and 2×6 in place on the west stem wall, and marked off where each of the panels would fit. In the meantime Don collected all the panels that would be needed to build the J wall.

During this time I was away from the site. When I returned, T.B. and Don had set the first few panels. (In the photo below, that’s Don on the left reaching into his nailbags and T.B. looking through the window opening.) To make me stop taking pictures, T.B. set me to work nailing the panels in place.

Now you have to understand that I’m not a carpenter — other than hanging pictures I haven’t pounded very many nails. But T.B. gave me some tips, and made me promise that if I bent a nail I would pull it out and start over. I wasn’t quick, but in an hour or two I managed to hammer in a lot of nails and didn’t bend any. Very satisfying!

As for working with the panels, it wasn’t quite as simple as we had hoped, primarily because some of the panels were unevenly cut or a little too wide in places and had to be trimmed.

But still, by the end of the day we had a full wall standing. The next walls should go faster now that we have worked out a system. Stay tuned!

The pumping truck and the first concrete truck arrived at 7.

The early start is imperative in the July heat, since the hotter the temperature the faster the concrete sets. Starting early gives the crew a little more time to properly finish the concrete before it’s too late.

The concrete is poured from the truck into a pumping bin attached to another truck, and from there flows through a hose up to the slab. Lots of volume, lots of pressure, so several people hold the hose to make sure it stays under control and doesn’t give everyone concrete showers.

The finishing crew steps into action as soon as the first cubic yard is poured. Wearing rubber boots, they wade right in, making sure that the concrete fills the forms and is level with the screed boards that mark the finished floor level.

The photo below shows the concrete contractor Joe (green shirt) and two of his crew working the concrete as Leo the pumper (2nd from left) handles the hose end. In the right background, T.B. and Don hold the hose for Leo.

Once the concrete in one section is roughly leveled, the crew tamps it (see Reuben below left) to settle it into the bottom, and then smooths it with long-handled tools. The grid lines for the finished floor are drawn and pressed into the slab. All these processes are repeated, some many times over, as the concrete sets.

When the entire slab has been poured, tamped, leveled, smoothed, and grid lined, the finishers set out with hand tools to smooth the slab again and again. Some of the crew work from the edges; others (right) kneel on snowshoe-like sleds and skim slowly over the concrete as they work it.

When the concrete has set to the point where it can no longer be worked, the process is finished. The crew hoses off the tools and the owner (that’s me) breaks out the sodas and beer for a little celebration. For a little while I get to pretend to be one of the guys, and we enjoy the river view and I marvel at the beautiful new slab.

For the finished slab is a thing of beauty. It is not perfect; some areas are slightly lower than others, there are trowel marks and unevennesses. But this is the nature of concrete — it’s not Corian –it would be virtually impossible to make it perfectly smooth. The marks and imperfections give it character; I see it aging gracefully, developing a patina from all the nicks, scratches, and stains that it will inevitably pick up over the years.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we have to care for the slab while it cures. To slow down the setting process (thereby lessening the likelihood of cracks), we need to keep it moist. "The more water the better," says my friend Roland, and T.B. agrees.

So I have a new job now, hosing down the concrete several times a day. It is the greatest job, and not just for the obvious joy of spraying water around on a hot day. I have determined that to do this job properly I must shed my shoes and walk around on the slab in my bare feet.

The feel of the warm water puddling on the smooth slab brings back memories of walking through a large warm shallow wading pool when I was a child. It is a happy time for me. I am learning to love this slab.

The concrete will take 30 days to fully harden. In that time it can be easily scratched or nicked, so we don’t allow anyone to walk on it with shoes. Even Sam is forbidden to walk on the slab, as her toenails could scratch it and her paws will track dirt and grit. We will put down cardboard as we work on the walls.

After it has cured, we will finish it with acid washes and stains — a topic for another day’s writing.

This first shot is taken from the knoll to the east of the building site. It shows the entire "floor" of the house.

At the top left you can see the river, which runs roughly parallel to the south wall of the house.

Top right is the knoll on the west of the site. It has a fine stand of Ponderosa pines, mixed with foothill pines and scrub oaks, and provides excellent afternoon shade.

The second photo, below, shows the bedroom and office on the western side of the house. It was taken from the north side of the house, looking south toward the river. (That’s T.B. that you see in this photo and near the top of the foundation in the first photo.)

We poured the stem walls (perimeter of the foundation) a few weeks ago, and have been installing everything that has to go into the slab. We’re scheduled to pour the slab on Wednesday (7/28).

Typically there are three places to run all the wires, plumbing, conduit, heating ducts, etc., that go into a house. You can put them under the floor, in the walls, or in the attic space between roof and ceiling. But this house requires a little more planning than most. It is on a slab foundation and the walls and roof are formed from "structural panels" (see below).

There are chases in the walls through which one can run electrical wires, but going around corners is tricky. Running anything through the roof is not advised, partly because it is awkward and partly because it compromises the excellent insulation qualities that are the primary reason for using the panels in the first place.

So almost everything goes into the slab. And obviously I don’t want to be digging up this chunk of concrete in the future so that I can add some wires here or a pipe there, so a lot of thinking has gone into the planning of the slab! Luckily, T.B. is has many years of experience and an excellent brain, so I feel that the planning has been done well.

Radiant Floors

For cooler, shadier winter days, we have radiant heating tubes (also known as hydronic heating) in the floor. This is the white tubing that you see in these first two photos. There have been many horror stories of tubing that failed, causing leaks and non-operable heating systems. The only way to fix these systems was to rip up the slab.

Most of these homes were built in the 60’s (or thereabouts), and fortunately technology has solved most of the problems. However, it’s still an area where we didn’t want to take chances. Besides choosing a reputable hydronic heating installer and the quality tubing, we needed to ensure that the slab would remain stable. So T.B. increased the thickness of the slab by one inch over the engineer’s recommendations.

We’ve also installed both rebar and a steel mesh (normally a slab that is not load-bearing would have only the steel mesh). The footings are also extra-stout.

Structural Panels

Here are photos of the wall panels and the roof panels. The wall panels have 6" of styrofoam, sandwiched between sheets of oriented stranded board (OSB). The roof panels are identical except that the styrofoam is 8" thick. The R-value (insulating efficiency) is very high.

We purchased the panels from Better Building Systems. They worked from David’s drawings to produce a "build by numbers" kit for my house. Each of the walls has a letter ("A" …) and each panel in the wall is numbered ( A1, A2, A3, …). All we have to do is follow the plans and put them together. Hey, this is simple, who needs a contractor?

Just kidding, T.B. Seriously, it is complicated by silly details like windows, doors, electric wiring, interior walls, etc., but still simplifies and shortens the framing process considerably. We will start setting the wall panels in place next week, and expect to be finished with walls and roof within a couple of weeks. We’ll let you know if it’s as simple as it sounds!

The goal was to design a modest-sized house (1400-1600 square feet) that was easy to live in and very efficient to heat and cool.

Though I haven’t yet lived in the house (as of 2/19/00 we’re in the drywall phase), I’m very happy with the plan that David developed.

Location

Geographically, we are located in a valley at around 750-foot elevation in California’s Sierra foothills. A river flows through this valley, and in fact is approximately 50-120 feet from the south wall of the house, depending on the river level.

Winter temperatures rarely stay below freezing for more than a few days, and we get quite a bit of winter sun. Cooling is more of a challenge in this climate, where summertime highs are commonly in the 90’s (all temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit) and occasionally between 100 and 110. We are fortunate, however, that the humidity stays relatively low, and that the temperature almost always cools down into the 60’s at night.

Floor Plans

A rough sketch of the floor plan is shown below. Total conditioned space is 1550 square feet. The driveway approaches the entry (top of plan) from the north. The river runs roughly parallel to the south walls (bottom of plan). East and west are sheltered by small rises and lots of trees. A bank of windows on the south side of the house will bring in the winter sun so that it can heat the slab and radiate warmth. In the summer, the sun is of course higher in the sky so not as much warming sunlight comes in.

There is no air conditioning, an unusual decision in this area. Thus passive cooling plan is to keep the house closed during the day, relying on the good insulation of walls, roof, and windows, and to open it up at night. David specified operable skylights on the highest ridge line, with a reversible ceiling fan. With open windows below to pull in cool air, the ceiling fan can help vent the hot air out the skylights, cooling off the inside air and allowing the slab to release heat that it has absorbed during the day. When it starts to warm up outside, we will close up the windows, and expect the slab to absorb heat, keeping the house comfortably cool during the day.

My one concern is the office, located on the west side of the house and containing heat-producing computer and laser printer. (And let’s face it, when it gets too hot in the office, I get sleepy and can’t work!) A good stand of trees protects the west side of the house from the full force of the sun, however, and if that is not sufficient, we can install a room-sized air conditioner in the wall of the office.

The home’s riverfront location also contributes to the cooling picture. The air temperature near the river is generally lower than "inland" air. In the late afternoons, you can feel a cool breeze coming off the water. However, the air near the river is also a bit more humid than it is even 1/2 mile away, making a swamp cooler not an effective cooling solution. On balance, I’d rather be by the river!

Elevations

The elevation drawing to the right shows the north side of the house. (Sorry about the chopped off right side, the drawing was too big for my scanner.) The doorway to the right of center is the front entry. The odd set of windows (one large and two small) are in the kitchen. The two skinny windows are in the two front bathrooms.

Below is the south elevation, facing the river. The office is on the left, great room in the center, master bedroom on the right. The porch roof in front of the great room will be covered with a translucent or transparent glazing to let in the winter sun. In the summer we will need to cover it somehow. Haven’t yet figured out how to do that. The budget options include bamboo or shadecloth. (These may be the short term solution.) For longer term, some sort of wood slats would be nice, and the ultimate would be a living cover such as a grapevine that would shed its leaves in the winter to let the sun through.

Here is the east elevation. The house is symmetrical, so the west looks the same except that it has just three windows and no doors. This elevation shows the gable windows that are at each end of the great room.

Materials

From the beginning, the goal has been to choose materials that are efficient, pleasant to live with, and durable. "Solid" is much more important to us than "fancy" (or "expensive").

We took David Wright’s suggestion and used structural insulated panels instead of conventional framing. They are highly energy-efficient, and the resulting house should be quite square (true lines, not skewed), and have excellent shear strength. Though the panels are abouit 10% more expensive than conventional framing and were a bit more challenging to work with than expected, we believe that the finished product will be worth the extra effort. You’ll see more information about the panels and the process of building with them in the diary (see link below).

We chose to build on a concrete slab, with radiant heating in the slab. The mass of the slab helps in both heating and cooling. The intricacies of the slab are also discussed in the diary.

I started this site because my dad and a few others have asked to see photos of the house that I’m building.

It’s turned into a diary of the project, with as much information as I can include.

You should know that a general contractor (I’ll call him T.B. for "The Builder") is the one who is actually building the house, but one of the reasons I chose him as a builder is that he encourages me to be as involved as I can in decisions and even in some of the labor.

It’s been a long and difficult project for me, and there have been many times I’ve wondered what on earth led me to tackle it.

But it’s also been incredibly rewarding and educational, and I know that the end result will be much more than just a house — it will be my dream home, and I’ll love it all the more because of what I’ve put into it.

Pictured below are some of the wonderful old oak trees on the property, with the river in the background. This is my view from the south side of the house. Yes, I know I am a lucky person.

I’ll try to update things regularly but I’m a working stiff so please don’t complain if I get sidetracked for a few weeks or months. And wish us luck!

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on anything I say in this web site. I’m not a licensed or even unlicensed contractor, and barely know how to use a hammer. So don’t believe anything I say unless you check it out for yourself.