House plan update

We received a number of comments about the first set of posted house plans and have made a few changes. We've extended the breakfast nook to allow for more kitchen cabinet space. We have redrawn the screen porch to now be 14'x17' instead of the original 12'x12'. Additionally, we have rearranged the utility closet/shop/laundry area to allow shop access without going into the uninsulated garage and have shifted the woodpile to the garage with an easy access door to allow for greater shop space. One of our big debates right now is whether or not to "sink" the great room. The first set of house plans had the great room on level. This set illustrates what it might be like with two wide sets of steps down. It would likely only be 1 or two shallow steps down. We are trying to decide if this would make the great room feel more cozy or if it would just create a feeling of separation between rooms and disrupt traffic flow (in particular to get from the kitchen to the bathroom.) Thoughts?



I sketched a side view of the south face of the house with power point to give folks a better visual idea of what we have in mind. East and west face powerpoint renderings are not exactly publication worthy just yet but I think the south face and the floor plans give a decent impression. The garage (east) is on the right side)




On an unrelated note most of you know that I spent my first 6 weeks or so here dealing with firewood. Cutting it down, bucking it, splitting it etc. Here is a picture of our two wood piles at our rental place; and a toad that was living in the big pile :)


In front of the tractor is the pile. in the back corner is 1 1/3 cords we already stacked.

Next to the bikes is another 2/3 of a cord we stacked.Here is the toad about the size of my fist hanging out; he was not happy that I moved the wood pile into the garage.

Timber

The last two weeks have been spent ostensibly destroying decades of growth. It has been quite an adjustment for me to cut down massive numbers of trees just to create room to walk let alone for a house site and a yard/view. I am very happy with the trees that are growing on the site and am trying to leave as many as possible, within reason. Beech is the dominant species (great firewood, extremely dense). Maples are the next most common with 20+ (red and sugar) growing around the house area; all with tall slender trunks somewhat like palm trees due to their prolonged growth in the dense forest. The rest of the forest is mostly hardwoods:ash (I believe white ash), birch (yellow, paper and possibly cherry), ironwood or hop hornbeam, and black cherry. There are many eastern hemlocks, some balsam firs and some white pines though the pines are mostly limited to the periphery of the property.

The plot we are building on is highly rocky with stones ranging from 1/2 the size of my head to the size of our truck or so. The forest doesn't seem to care. It grows out of every nook and cranny and often envelops these rocks. The land was harvested for timber probably 10 to 15 years ago and the majority of very large trees were removed. As you might guess 10 to 15 year old saplings cover the property. Depending on the species these are anywhere from 8 to 20+ feet high and usually about the diameter of a quarter or a 50 cent piece. They grow extremely densely in places, 5+ per square foot. I tried to take pictures of this but it is totally unintelligible, you'll have to take my word for it.

(Thinned)

The overwhelming density of the saplings caused me to begin clearing with a tree lopper and a machete, highly effective and great for anger management. I think it is fair to estimate that I've probably cut down somewhere on the order of 2000-3000 trees! After a solid week of machete bush-whacking I moved on to the mighty chainsaw. Trees up to 1 foot in diameter have now come into the mix.

A portion of the cleared space ... now a giant mess

I have created an incredible mess with all of the clearing and it has become very difficult to walk anywhere on the site, especially while holding a chainsaw. With that in mind I have started to clean up the logs and brush etc to create space to do more clearing!

My trusty tote of tools and log pile 1 of 3 so far

Property

As of yesterday at 1pm we now officially own property! The place is 33 acres on the Temple Road in Wilton, ME. If you haven't been looking at the map and tromping all over the property it can be difficult to visualize what it looks like so I made a simple powerpoint map of it...




Here is the Google satellite link to the site, the terrain button will let you see the topo of the site.


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Temple+Road,+Wilton,+ME&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=63.215425,104.765625&ie=UTF8&ll=44.633146,-70.200341&spn=0.00707,0.012789&t=h&z=16


Our desktop computer is on the fritz and our scanner isn't out of the box from moving so I couldn't scan in the floor plan drawings. I did, however, have some free time yesterday morning so I made up some powerpoint graphics of them! Let the advice begin!



The font is pretty small and is hard to read in the blog window, if you click on the image an enlarged version should appear. If you have trouble seeing these or just want a higher quality copy send me an email and I'll get them to you.

We will be taking pictures of the site and putting them up either later today or by Monday.

Cheers,
Ross and Lorien