Grandfather Cottage in wnc

Started by Hemlockhouse, March 05, 2017, 11:41:51 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Hemlockhouse

Hey everyone! My boyfriend and I bought 12 beautiful acres of woods in wnc and have spent the winter clearing out the overgrown pasture and having a road and house seat put in. We will be owner builders and decided on the grandfather cottage because it looks easy to build and we like the idea of having everything on one level. We are in the process of permitting so look forward to some pictures! I noticed that there aren't many forum posts about the grandfather cottage so maybe this will be helpful for others considering it. So this brings me to our question: what would you all reccomend for extending the porch to be the whole length of the front of the house? Would we have to completely do away with the gable or could we work with it? We would love the porch to extend at least 6ft, maybe 8ft. This might be a silly question but I just want to get all our plans solidified before we start ordering our lumber. This forum has been so helpful! I've learned so much just reading other people's build stories and it's given us the confidence to build ourselves. Thanks!

cbc58

Welcome to the forum.  If you are looking to do a covered porch the full front porch, then my guess is that with the grandfather cottage you would have to build up into the roof line a few feet in order to get enough headroom for the porch roof.  I don't know what the term is but the house roof pitch "breaks" at some point where the porch roof starts.  There are many house plans out there that show this.   I'm sure others will chime in and John R. can surely speak to what would be needed.   Look forward to seeing your project...


Don_P

You are talking about the gable end and cbc the eave from the picture the words are painting in my head. Can you post a sketch?

GaryT

#3
I did a little sketching of the grandfather cottage that might help visualize what you're looking for, maybe?  It's how I would do it if I wanted to keep the gable.  You would have a heck of a lot of water coming down the two valleys in a good rain; likely you would want gutters.  This is if you wanted to keep the gable, of course, which would be nice look, in my opinion.




Perspective looks weird, but I hope you get the idea.

A note of caution - I built this house for myself with the full covered from porch - the full covering certainly restricts the amount of light coming into the adjacent rooms.  something to think about.



Hope it helps,
Gary

cbc58

Thank you GaryT - your last pic is what I was trying to describe...   Good point about the reduction of the amount of light getting in...  something to think about ahead of time.   


GaryT

Glad it helped.  If you live in an area of heavy snow loads, the fairly shallow pitched roof of the grandfather cottage, if covered with shingles, could really hold some snow, especially if you put the even shallower pitched (something down to 3 or 4:12) porch roof on.  A steel roof might be a better option if that is the case; snow slides off more easily.  But you will have a heck of a pile of snow in front of the porch!  It's also no big deal to increase the roof pitch a bit...just takes a little more lumber and a bit more roof covering.
Gary