Victoria's Cottage plus

[CPike]

Is there a floorplan of Brad Raby's nifty cottage anywhere on the site? I'm curious to see where he put the stairs and how the loft looks over the bedroom, how it working with the walkout basement/garage... And, how's he doing anyway?

Thanks, Carol

[jraabe]

I went to Brads email link in the Owner/builder gallery and asked him if he wanted to respond to your questions.

[Brad Raby]

I am responding to the questions on the hillside home at: http://www.countryplans.com/raby.html

I think my excuse for not getting much further is fairly logical.  In other words, since getting the logs up, I have done little other than getting about 75% of the wiring done.

As to the lofts. On the one end over the living room, I have an 8' loft and this connects to the opposite loft over the kitchen which is 10' with a 36'' catwalk. Now, due to the bedroom wing being 16' wide, we have a full bedroom above the lower bedroom.  

The stairway was built and then re-built due to local code. Looking at the plan on the living room, I made a short flight up going toward the back of the home on south side wall coupled with a landing and then turning toward catwalk and ending on the catwalk.  The back side of the stair becomes a hallway which blocks the view to the bathroom from the living  room and leads to the bedroom. The stair to the basement goes down under the the one going up to the loft and offsets just enough to run alongside the down stairs wall in the garage part, no turns or landings.

I will send floor plans if I can get them (if anyone is interested).

Now the excuses. Shortly after submitting the pictures, I had a shoulder replacement which grounded me. Then within a few weeks, hurricane Charlie destroyed our home, boat and car in Punta Gorda, Fl. For the next month or so, we were down there cleaning up and getting life back in order. On my return, I needed therapy due to misuse of the new joint.

Anyone want to rebuild a great trimaran sailboat?  

The new home went on the lot this week in Florida. — Translation, we lost so much, we have no money to continue on the new home. We are trying to sell a couple of waterfront properties here in  northern Michigan to get back on our feet and will be here for a few more weeks and can field any questions. When we get something sold we will be back at work on the project.  My wife loves the home and really wants to live there, even though for the moment, there is a For Sale sign out front.

Hurricanes do funny things to your bank account.  

Brad

P.S. could have inserted some other dramatic interludes before the hurricane and now with very bad folks near our lake property. Things will get better!!!

[CPike]

Brad - Sorry to hear about all the troubles! It sounds like you are having a rough time of it...

For some reason, I was thinking you'd built the cabin in a cold climate - is it actually in Florida? My million questions included: How are you handling air exchange in the winter? Any problems with condensation? What did your total square footage work out to in the end?

I would LOVE to see the floorplan, if you get a chance!

I'm hoping to build a retirement home in the local mountains of Southern California one of these years soon. Of course, there are the problems of earthquakes and fires... Anybody out there with information about SIPS and earthquake code? Also, I've pretty much resigned myself to something like the Hardie concrete siding for flammability, but log siding would sure LOOK more appropriate in the mountains. (but for insurance savings this might not be the best route).

Take care of that shoulder! There aren't too many things worse than a bum one for keeping you from doing what you want to do...

Good luck - we'll keep a good thought that all will settle down for you soon.

Thanks, Carol