14x24 1-1/2 story

[John Raabe]

Member johnky is working up a Builder's Cottage sized version of the 1-1/2 story with the 10' side walls and partial loft.

He is modeling this in SketchUp the free Google design program.

He is planning to work on this over the winter and ultimately have a level of detail in his model so that he can print up an accurate materials list.

For now, here are some images of where the design is at...


Exterior image with background





Image of upper loft level


Interior image looking towards bath and kitchen


Exterior view

[mtman]

 Wow, I like it!! Can't wait to see more. This is what I've had in my mind, but couldn't quite make it work. 

[johnky]

I originally started with a floor plan like the one shown in John's builder's cottage plan.  My goal was to have a cabin that could start it's life as my residence for about one year while I build a bigger 20x30 1-1/2 story on the same property.  After that first year, I want this to become a guest house and part time office for me.  I also wanted the option of making this into a rental unit if needed some day down the road.  I laid out those goals to an Architect friend of mine and she came up with one simple idea that really brought this all together...  Her idea was to put all the "services" under the loft and leave the great room and loft wide open to become whatever they will become as needed.  So I rearranged the floor plan and came up with the plan you see above.

With this plan, there is an incredible amount of flexibility.  This little cabin can easily be switched from temp home, to office, to guest house, to rental unit by simply using different furniture and repurposing closets.

An example of this is that I've made room for a stove with oven and show it in the plan but I probably won't have a stove in there the first year.  I'm fine with a coleman stove and using a dutch oven on a campfire, however I've designed the space to accomodate a stove so that it can become a rental unit some day.  Same goes for the washing machine closet.  The first year I live there, I'll probably just have an old washing machine out in the shed and dry clothes on the line but again, I've included the space in the cabin to accomodate a stacked w/d so that I can repurpose the space at will.

The other big requirement I had was a "connection to the outdoors".  This requirement was actually my number one goal and my architect again came up with the idea for the french doors on the back side.  These doors will open towards the outside and offers a much better connection to the outdoors than a set of windows or a single door.  She also recommended using all casement windows so that I can really open the house up if needed since casement windows provide twice the airflow that a double hung window provides.

A final note, the roof shown in this iteration of the model is about 10" too high.  My goal with this version of the model was primarily to work out the floor plan and get the services under the loft.  I also wanted to show the exposed beams which will definitely be in the final design and so, for ease of finishing the model, I just slapped a roof on it, but the roof really should be about 10" lower than what you see.  Other than that, this is an accurate model of what I intend to begin building in late Spring 2011.

[bayview]

   Can't wait to see it built!

   Keep us informed . . .   With plenty of construction pics, too!   

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[John Raabe]

For members of our sister site PlanHelp.com, johnky has made his sketchup model available for download.



http://www.planhelp.com/public/main.cfm

[cbc58]

nice design.  if you did just a shower you could probably move the W/D in the bath area and really open up the kitchen.  also... would'nt it be cool if you could put a bed up in the rafters and pull it down to use... and then raise it back up flush so it looks just like part of a ceiling... 

[Boatz]

that is just sweet!

thanks for the renderings...