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So, in addition to finishing the cleaning up this morning,and dropping The Husband a note to tell him that I miss him, I spent most of the morning reading the "No Impact Man" blog, and most of the afternoon doing a floorplan for another eco-house -- this one to be built on one of those crazy long-and-skinny lots that sometimes turn up in Hintonburg.
(Ideally, there'd be one showing up in... a couple of years, on Oxford Rd. or - what a Sign that would be - Armstrong St., with a south-facing front-yard. For about $100K. I know there's one available now -- 99' deep by 33' wide -- for that price but, (A) I don't know the exact location, and (B) we can't afford to get the loan to build a house from scratch right now).
See, as I've mentioned many times before, I want an ecologically sound house. Reclaimed/Sustainable materials, earth sheltered on the north side, green roofing and/or solar panels (to supply the electricity and heat the water for our tankless-hot-water-system/radiant-heat-floors), big garden space, significant compost bins, and the whole bit. :-)
That said, I *don't* want to have to move out to the boonies beyond North Gower (sp) to get that house.
So I decided to try and design a lay-out for a house that looks like it belongs in a city, even if it does have a burm built onto the back (covered for its entire height of, like, thirty feet, with multi-seasonal bulbs and, to a lesser extent, creeping juniper and/or something else with a really good, extensive-but-shallow root system).
What I came up with is a house that is... sort of like those "ranch" houses. There's a front porch that elevates the main floor to about 3' above-grade, and the front half of the house is 'bungalow', while the back half has two floors. The roof of the 'bungalow' portion would be a green roof -- a creeping-sage 'paved' patio/terrace framed by a perimeter of cubic meter planters in-which I would grow annuals like squash, beans, peas (maybe), and tomatoes (and, perhaps, asparagus) that I would, for the most part, support themselves on the chain-link fencing that extended another meter up past the edge of the planters, so that when I stood on the planters to harvest stuff, I wouldn't risk breaking my neck in a fall.
This (below) is the floor-plan for a build-it-from-the-ground-up house in Hintonburg, on a damn-skinny lot. Assume the usual bamboo flooring through-out, R2000 insulation, grey-water system, and huge banks of triple-glazed, well-screened windows on the eastern, southern, and western sides (even in the basement).
*~*~*~*~*
Not bad, eh? :-) (Though I suspect that the basement bathroom only needs the one door).
That blue block on the north end of the house is the 'burm'.
The veranda on the front of the house would be made out of, like, poured concrete reinforced with rebar, or something, because it has to hold up some of those cubic-meter planters, but I think that would look really classy (depending on how it was done - with nice arches and so-on, I think) and also be sturdy and strong.
Oh, and the red 'L' in the south-east corner of the living room (main floor)? That's where the "lan cupboard" goes. (See? I'm learning).
Oh. Notes: Bedroom #1? Is actually 10' x 20' -- I changed some stuff around and didn't correct the spacing. (Those little red squares are roughly ten feet apart, and the burgundy ones are about eleven feet apart).
Also: I think it would be better if Paul's office and the fourth bathroom shared a wall, the bathroom did not have two doors, and the house-side door to Paul's office would be directly opposite the door from the office to the clinic space. That would make it very clear that the whole area was really quite usable as a Secondary Suite of the sort that one could rent out to a student, or offer to a mother-in-law, or whatever, should the need arise (or if the place were owned by a different family after Paul and I retire to the hip, eco-friendly seniors residence of our choice at the ripe old age of eighty-five. :-)
So, what do you think? :-)
Particularly Ami_B (who has an idea of how houses are built) and Arndis (who is in design school and also into earth-friendly housing) and Tchang (who is into specifically earth-sheltered houses).
I'm quite excited about the idea, myself. :-)
In other news: I made tandoori sole with spinach for dinner (with the last of the wine brought by lmondegreen - thank you dear), and it was quite, quite tasty. I might even be able to feed it to Paul. (Assuming the tandoori didn't screw with his stomach). I have some left over for lunch tomorrow (I will also be taking some of Torrain's awesome-and-spiffy vegan spelt chocolate cake - thank you dear). :-D
Life is so, so good right now. :-D
Off to read. :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
(Ideally, there'd be one showing up in... a couple of years, on Oxford Rd. or - what a Sign that would be - Armstrong St., with a south-facing front-yard. For about $100K. I know there's one available now -- 99' deep by 33' wide -- for that price but, (A) I don't know the exact location, and (B) we can't afford to get the loan to build a house from scratch right now).
See, as I've mentioned many times before, I want an ecologically sound house. Reclaimed/Sustainable materials, earth sheltered on the north side, green roofing and/or solar panels (to supply the electricity and heat the water for our tankless-hot-water-system/radiant-heat-floors), big garden space, significant compost bins, and the whole bit. :-)
That said, I *don't* want to have to move out to the boonies beyond North Gower (sp) to get that house.
So I decided to try and design a lay-out for a house that looks like it belongs in a city, even if it does have a burm built onto the back (covered for its entire height of, like, thirty feet, with multi-seasonal bulbs and, to a lesser extent, creeping juniper and/or something else with a really good, extensive-but-shallow root system).
What I came up with is a house that is... sort of like those "ranch" houses. There's a front porch that elevates the main floor to about 3' above-grade, and the front half of the house is 'bungalow', while the back half has two floors. The roof of the 'bungalow' portion would be a green roof -- a creeping-sage 'paved' patio/terrace framed by a perimeter of cubic meter planters in-which I would grow annuals like squash, beans, peas (maybe), and tomatoes (and, perhaps, asparagus) that I would, for the most part, support themselves on the chain-link fencing that extended another meter up past the edge of the planters, so that when I stood on the planters to harvest stuff, I wouldn't risk breaking my neck in a fall.
This (below) is the floor-plan for a build-it-from-the-ground-up house in Hintonburg, on a damn-skinny lot. Assume the usual bamboo flooring through-out, R2000 insulation, grey-water system, and huge banks of triple-glazed, well-screened windows on the eastern, southern, and western sides (even in the basement).
*~*~*~*~*
Not bad, eh? :-) (Though I suspect that the basement bathroom only needs the one door).
That blue block on the north end of the house is the 'burm'.
The veranda on the front of the house would be made out of, like, poured concrete reinforced with rebar, or something, because it has to hold up some of those cubic-meter planters, but I think that would look really classy (depending on how it was done - with nice arches and so-on, I think) and also be sturdy and strong.
Oh, and the red 'L' in the south-east corner of the living room (main floor)? That's where the "lan cupboard" goes. (See? I'm learning).
Oh. Notes: Bedroom #1? Is actually 10' x 20' -- I changed some stuff around and didn't correct the spacing. (Those little red squares are roughly ten feet apart, and the burgundy ones are about eleven feet apart).
Also: I think it would be better if Paul's office and the fourth bathroom shared a wall, the bathroom did not have two doors, and the house-side door to Paul's office would be directly opposite the door from the office to the clinic space. That would make it very clear that the whole area was really quite usable as a Secondary Suite of the sort that one could rent out to a student, or offer to a mother-in-law, or whatever, should the need arise (or if the place were owned by a different family after Paul and I retire to the hip, eco-friendly seniors residence of our choice at the ripe old age of eighty-five. :-)
So, what do you think? :-)
Particularly Ami_B (who has an idea of how houses are built) and Arndis (who is in design school and also into earth-friendly housing) and Tchang (who is into specifically earth-sheltered houses).
I'm quite excited about the idea, myself. :-)
In other news: I made tandoori sole with spinach for dinner (with the last of the wine brought by lmondegreen - thank you dear), and it was quite, quite tasty. I might even be able to feed it to Paul. (Assuming the tandoori didn't screw with his stomach). I have some left over for lunch tomorrow (I will also be taking some of Torrain's awesome-and-spiffy vegan spelt chocolate cake - thank you dear). :-D
Life is so, so good right now. :-D
Off to read. :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
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