Wanted! Design guidance for projects, inside and out!
dsimber
11 months ago
last modified: 11 months ago
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Design my first house, Need guidance
Comments (3)It would help to know the conditions and restrictions you will have to contend with like the location of the project and the applicable building codes. Building codes are not very restrictive but you need to be sure you don't accidentally violate a provision. If the most common code is used (the IRC), hallways and stairs must be at least 36" wide and habitable spaces (a habitable space is a space for living, sleeping, eating or cooking - bathrooms, toilet rooms, closets, halls, storage or utility spaces and similar areas are not considered habitable spaces) must have aggregate an glazing area of at least 8% of the room floor area being lighted and the minimum openable area to the outdoors must be 4% of the floor area being ventilated. However, artificial lighting and mechanical ventilation may be substituted if they meet the required standards. Every dwelling must have at least one habitable room that is 120 s.f. or larger. Other habitable rooms must be at least 70 s.f. in area or 7 ft in any horizontal direction. Habitable space, hallways, bathrooms, toilet rooms, laundry rooms and portions of basements containing these spaces must have a ceiling height of not less than 7 feet. Bathroom ceilings must be at least 6-8 at fixtures including the shower head. A toilet must have a clear width of 30" and a toilet and a lavatory must have at least 21" clearance in front. A minimum shower is 30 x 30 but in some states it is slightly larger. Basements, habitable attics, and sleeping room must have an "emergency escape and rescue opening" with a maximum sill height of 44" and a minimum clear opening of 5.7 s.f. (grade floor openings can be 5 s.f.) and a minimum width of 20" and a minimum height of 24". A basement can have a door with a bulkhead. Window catalogs will usually have a star or asterisk next to windows that meet these requirements. Some states have modified the IRC code to reduce the required opening size....See MoreGuidance at the beginning of bathroom design
Comments (0)Hi everyone. I love this forum. It's so helpful. I'm building a house over the next few months and am working with an architect. Before we talk about the details of the bathrooms, I was hoping that you could help me figure out what I want. I've never chosen toilet appliances, cabinets, surfaces and hardware before; the existing bathrooms have always been fine. Now I have to start from scratch and am a little lost in terms of all the options available. Hopefully you can eliminate most of the learning curve and point me to resources that will be most useful. Our house isn't that big, only about 1400 feet. On the 2nd floor we have a bathroom shared by two bedrooms, with a combination tub/shower, a toilet, and a sink. For the next few years, this will be for us and our newborn baby/toddler/child. On the ground floor is a bedroom suite that will be for visiting family and guests, but we will move downstairs if our family grows. This bedroom suite needs a bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink. It will also serve as the hall washroom for guests, so there will be two doors, and the toilet and sink might be separate from another room with a shower and sink/vanity. My wife wants separate design styles for each bathroom: one Zen and one Santa Fe. We're working with a modest budget, so lavish materials are out of the question. I'd prefer to avoid things that require maintenance, since there's a newborn in our lives now. My grandfather can't stop speaking highly of his Corian shower unit. I hear good things about Toto HET toilets. OK, that's about as far as I have gotten so far. Embarrassing, I know. So what do I do now? Do I just go to appliance websites and wander around until I find something I like? Are there websites that clearly present the choices that I have in front of me?...See MoreAmateur orchardist in need of your experience and guidance on design
Comments (14)Doug, 10 foot on center is too close especially for the stone fruit. They grow like weeds and spread out. You will be spending alot of time pruning and keeping the growth in check if you want to keep the spread of each tree to less than than five feet on a side. Peaches & apricots, for example, grow fruit only on last year's wood. There is constant renewal pruning that needs to be done each year. So far, my apricots, plums, peaches and nectarines have put on 6-8 feet of growth EACH season during their first 4-5 seasons which I have had to "trim". And, if you want ONLY a 2 foot path between each tree the radius of each tree will only be 4 feet. Except for the center and side isles you are developing a solid 10-15 foot tall hedge as the trees grow into each other. That would also cut down on light penetration and kill air-circulation within the trees. Also, you should orient the orchard so the rows run north-south. There are many more aspects to this project and setting up a consult with some experienced people will yield dividends. As an aside, I would consult with a few different people to get a more encompassing point of view. You'd be surprised at the differing philosophies and viewpoints out there and each person will naturally speak more favorably (forcibly?) in support of his/her outlook. Just remember, there NOT just ONE way to do this. There are many ways to do this right as there are many ways to do this wrong. Choose the method that works with your "head". Because, if you don't enjoy what you are doing as you are doing it will be a very short lived project. You need to like what you are doing so you don't let the inevitable disappointments and setbacks to derail you. Just remember , they call it "farming" not "harvesting" or "fishing" and not "catching" for a reason. ;) Mike...See MoreI want to rip out ceiling and change design of this addition
Comments (16)rockybird, I hope everything will get resolved to your liking. As you know, I have been working on renovating my house. This being our first house and first reno, we have seemingly run into every possible obstacle. We just suffered a four month delay because the architect did not measure the existing house correctly. The approved plans for the existing part of the house have dimensions that are off by as much as 10". It wasn't just a few dimensions. There were mistakes every where. To make it worse, the incorrect dimensions were all larger than what they should be. This messed up all the windows and doors placements and the interior layouts. The GC told me he has to build what the plans said even though they are not correct, so I told him to stop working. Of course, the GC is not totally blameless. His sub poured the foundation for the addition one foot wider than what the plans specified. I went to my architect and went over all the problems and he said he would fix them, but he is super busy and I had already paid him in full since the plans were approved. It took over three months to get everything updated correctly. Once I had the updated plans, the GC is swamped and I had to wait a month for his guys to restart work at my house. Even now, things are still not in full swing as we are waiting for building materials. This has been such a crazy process! I am not sure I will ever want to tackle another renovation in the future if I can get this one done....See Moredsimber
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