DesignerThinking.com : The House

I designed and built this house myself. I hired no one, i asked no construction tradesman for advice. It's my house. I just needed to make that clear.

This house is ~3000 sq ft. total.

The livingroom/dining/kitchen area isn't subdivided (unless you count the kitchen island), and is 48x24ft, with a 16ft wide bay window, and 10ft to 16ft tall ceilings, open beams, skylights.

The den is 16x16ft, off the living room. There's an 8x8ft closet off it.

The foyer is 12x16ft, the top floor restroom is off it.

The top floor restroom is 8x16ft.

The elevator was (damned neighbor) to be 5x7ft, with stairs on theback of the stairwell.

Big bedroom downstairs is 16x24ft, open beams holding up the ceiling at 9ft, with 8x8ft walk-in closet off it.

The little bedroom is 16x16ft, with regular 4x8 closet off it.

The downstairs restroom is 8x16ft.

The utility room is 8x24ft, with washer and dryer.

The downstairs hallway also has stair access to the cellar, and was to have door to workshop (damned neighbor). There is door to where the zoned heat and air conditioning was to go.

The cellar is unfinished, i stopped all work on it in ~1999, due to rottwilers (damned neighbor). The concrete pad for the big lathe is set, the one for the 1200 gallon cistern isn't. The interior walls have not been started.

The roof to all this is latex over built-up tar, roughly flat, gently sloping to two roof drains as well to the backside of the house. The elevator was to goto the roof (damned neighbor).

This is looking up from down the hill.

The west wall. It's rebar reinforced, poured cement, 30ft from footing to roof line. The "rubble stones" are molded in, the "cut stone" is cut in after pouring. The windows are stucco'ed over, there's no window installed. You can see two planters on the back porch up there on the south wall. The deck under that, 12ft off the ground, is construction scaffolding. It's been there since 2002, i quit working on the house in Dec 2003, because of the neighbor and his gods having the rights to my property. I'll burn this down before i sell it to him.

This is the north-front wall, before the porch roof went on. There's the circular inground post for the prototype thermal solar mirrors at the bottom of the pic, with the white pvc pipe over it.

The column bases have downward facing recessed lighting, roof rain gutter drains cast inside them, and are heavily steel reinforced against impact and side forces. One base has 240v for arcwelding or recharging electric car, and two 120v circuits. One base has running water and compressed air.

A 2008 pic, the west wall buttress, looking up from the pathway from driveway to cellar door. That buttress sloping edge sits atop a 6ft deep, 6ft long, 2ft wide anchor of concrete. The rebar in the buttress runs in and thru a kitchen wall to the roof beams. You see the front porch roof is on in this pic. That porch roof was to wrap all the way around the house, over the windows which are now stucco'd over, over the bay window, around over the east wall deck and bbq. Oh, and that is fog in the air, not smoke this time.

The rest of these are just some construction pics........

The arch over the cellar door.

A pile of OSB to go up in smoke when i leave Alabama.

The roof insulation to go up in smoke when i leave Alabama.

Scafolding in the livingroom, to finish the ceiling, to go up in smoke when i leave Alabama.

Cement pours. Note there is a 3 inch airgap between cement and wood.

The "TYUIOP{" keyboard row is there because this is a digital shot of a pic from the olde 35mm film camera. I set the picture up on the keybd to take the shot with the digital and get it into the computer.

This is a heavy morning fog after a rainey night.

The pouring of the buttress.

The generator cubby. This was supposed to be outside the downhill side of the workshop, but as that's never going to be, i put a wooden cubby here. It's got a 1/2 hp blower in it for ventilation. I can plug the house in thru the 240v outlet there.

This is the first front porch slab pour. I got cement poisoning in my knees from this. The two 2inch pvc pipes will rise up thru the columns to the rain gutters. Before the concrete hardens, i'll have hooked rebar under that rebar around the pipes, to secure the bases to the slab when they are poured. You can see the under-slab drain pipe exiting upper-left, it lays under the entire front on the footer, and wraps this corner and on down to the southwest corner.

The outside wall of the downstairs restroom. There's a lot of steel in those walls. They are double stud, two layers of R25 insulation, plastic sheet between them and the rest of the house. The entire downstairs walls and floor is R50 like this.

The pathway i started down the slope of the mountain, from driveway to cellar door.

One of the drains stopped up, i got 1/2 a lake on the roof for free. More water than this water simply overflowed the spine of the roof, and went down the other drain. I waded out and unplugged it. If i'd been allowed to put a deck on the roof, it would have filtered out the leaves before they got to the drain filters themselves.

The front porch is now cluttered with far far more than i ever wanted to get into all at once. Most of it is generator stuff and boat stuff.

Floor Plans / Layout

I have no idea why, but the pics didn't make it to the browser very well. I believe that Windows fax/pic viewer truncated them when i rotated them. But there's enough left of the pics to see the important stuff.

Side view, looking east .....

Three views looking down thru the house.....

How the walls are built, plus there's a lot of vertical and diagonal steel within the 2x6 sections .....

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More later!

	The livingroom/dining/kitchen area isn't subdivided (unless you count the kitchen island), and is 48x24ft, with a 16ft wide bay window, and 10ft to 16ft tall ceilings, open beams, skylights.
	The den is 16x16ft, off the living room. There's an 8x8ft closet off it.
	The foyer is 12x16ft, the top floor restroom is off it.
	The top floor restroom is 8x16ft.
	The elevator was (damned neighbor) to be 5x7ft, with stairs on theback of the stairwell.
	Big bedroom downstairs is 16x24ft, open beams holding up the ceiling at 9ft, with 8x8ft walk-in closet off it.
	The little bedroom is 16x16ft, with regular 4x8 closet off it.
	The downstairs restroom is 8x16ft.
	The utility room is 8x24ft, with washer and dryer.
	The downstairs hallway also has stair access to the cellar, and was to have door to workshop (damned neighbor). There is door to where the zoned heat and air conditioning was to go.
	The cellar is unfinished, i stopped all work on it in ~1999, due to rottwilers (damned neighbor). The concrete pad for the big lathe is set, the one for the 1200 gallon cistern isn't. The interior walls have not been started.
	The roof to all this is latex over built-up tar, roughly flat, gently sloping to two roof drains as well to the backside of the house. The elevator was to goto the roof (damned neighbor).