new member, 20x36 1.5 story plan questions

[forrest]

Hello all, new member here; I've lurked around the board for about 6 months now and have a membership over @ planhelp.com. I'm planning on building off of the 20x30' 1.5 loft cabin plans- this looks to be a great choice for me and my wife-to-be. We're big on debt-free living, and thanks to the benevolence of all those on this board, it's starting to become more reality than dream.

Anyways, I've got a couple of questions about extending the length of the 20x30' plans- or rather, how you can set up the interior walls on the first floor. I'll be purchasing the plans themselves very soon and they may answer my questions, so if that's so, I apologize for the error.

Basically, I'm thinking about extending the plans from 30' to 36', which from the info I've seen on this board basically involves more floor joists, which is no problem. As for where the extra six feet will go, I'm roughly imagining 1 more foot on the bedroom side and 2 on the living room side. The extra 3~ feet will be used to frame in a utility closet between the bathroom and stairs location on the stock plans. This will also add 3 feet to the bedroom. The utility closet will provide space for a tankless water heater, batteries/equipment for the grid tied solar system, etc, or whatever ends up in there by the time I'm building the house. (see the below pic for more detail)

My questions: first off, is this even possible? I'm by no means an engineer, but I have a concept of load-bearing walls and their importance. I'm thinking about using 4x12' beams on 4' centers, more or less exactly like those in mickey's cabin. It will be a full loft. Having exposed rafters is high on my list of priorities, so that rules out I-joists.

Btw, if Micky still posts to this board- your cabin pics are what convinced both me and my fiance to go forth with these plans. Thanks mate!

I greatly appreciate any advice or info you can give me. I've been watching this message board for about 6 months and am continually impressed with the helpful, open and knowledgeable advice given out by all your members. You guys have convinced me that this project is something I can handle, and I can't thank you enough.

-Forrest

Here's a basic pic of what I'm talking about (please ignore the incompleteness, the layout of interior stuff will pretty much follow the stock plans):



(click image to enlarge)

[glenn kangiser]

Welcome to the forum, Forrest.

You are pretty well free to do as you wish on the inside as there are no interior bearing walls.

Length and wall adjustment are up to you.  That's the nice thing about John's designs.  Unbending cookie cutter designs are for the housing projects in the city.  John realizes that a real man's home is personal and should fit him and his family.

[argalax]

I lke the cabin layout / floor plan -  functional, plain and simple.

[John Raabe]

As long as you are changing the LENGTH the structural configuration of the plans will stay the same. Changing the WIDTH will require resizing the structural members for different spans.

[CWhite]

I like your floor plan. 
I am also building from John's plans a 20 X 36 foot 1 1/2 story house with a bedroom added off to one side.  It's feeling very spacious due to the fact that I made the upstairs one entire room instead of just a loft, and I used 4 foot knee walls on the sides to elevate the roof. 
I added the extra 6 feet to make a hallway hiding the bathroom and bedroom doors from the large glass front door behind the stairs.   Now that I can walk around in there, it sure feels like plenty of room.   
Good luck with your house, and I highly recommend John's plans.  Even after altering them to suit us, they were a terrific start to my final design.  I got a lot of ideas from other projects on this board too. 

Christina