we're thiiiiis close...

Over the past two weeks we've been working toward getting drawings ready for permit with Rich who we were refered to by Jeff the builder. Rich has done a ton of homes in the area over the past 15 years or so. The task we gave Rich was to help us make our floor plan as structurally affordable as possible. He's been great! The plan has changed a bit, but apparently that's what happens when you're trying to build super cheap.

So here's a quick color block of the front elevation dropped onto our site.

And the revised, and hopefully final, plans.

What do you think?

To build or not to build...

House update...sort of.

So Kit and I have been going back and forth as to what to do about a house. Do we buy an existing house while the market is still low, even if it's a house that we aren't crazy about - most everything in our price range needs to be updated a LOT...OR do we maintain our "renter's" status until the economy and jobs seem more secure - we do adore our landlords...OR do we go ahead and build a conventional home on the property we bought in Summit Park since reality has now set in and we won't be building our container house in the near future?

As of the past week, we've been moving in the direction of building a conventional home. We've been talking with a builder (Jeff with UHB) who has been great! We've met with him twice in the last month, and each time he'll ask us questions/make suggestions about the plan. As I've spent a lot of time deliberating over each plan issue, I usually have a ready answer for every suggestion he presents - my answer is usually no...then I go home and challenge myself with seeing if I can make his suggestions work for us. This past weekend I took on the biggest "Jeff Challenge" yet, reducing the square footage to be able to just use the footprint of the previous owners already poured footings...the outcome...we LOVE the new plan even better than the old one! I really do love a good challenge. My mom always said I work best under pressure, and seeing as we need to get this house through permitting about a month or two ago, the pressure is definitely on.

So here's where we are with the plans...

Almost 2400 sf livable, just over 3000 sf including the garage.

(4) bedrooms, (2) full baths, (1) 3/4 bath, (1) powder room

We've maintained a nice open great room which takes full advantage of our amazing view. We've moved the master to the top floor and made it more of a suite with a nice big walk-in closet, sitting area, and a private deck that again faces the great view. By moving things around on the lowest level, we've made room for a bedroom/office with its own bathroom. With Kit's growing photography business, we thought having a home office that's professional and accessible for clients was a good idea. The wide entry hallway will be a great space for clients to see his work or for him to debut the client's images in a gallery setting when the client comes in for their veiwing appointment.

We're still trying to build very eco-conscious. We still plan to have radiant heating in the floors to heat the house in the winter, and use cross-ventilation as the main way to cool the house in the summer. We're hoping to be able to utilize the water from snow melt in some way, but have to make sure that we're not breaking the laws regarding water rights in Utah. All appliances will be energy-star and most will be reused, and the plumbing fixtures will be low-flow.

We're feeling pretty excited about the whole house thing again! Yay!

Help?

Okay, so we all have heard that lenders aren't feeling terribly lend-y these days, what with the economic world weathering this little crisis and all. We thought that a good credit history and a good job would help us to overcome the lending obstacle. Not so, as of yet. Apparently adding the containers in to the mix of our building formula scares off lenders, appraisers, potential builders and the like.

In chatting with Kit's cousin Tara this weekend at a family event (Kit's Great Aunt Elma's 100th birthday-WOW!), she suggested we contact HGTV or TLC to see if they had any interest in doing a show about building a container house - completely green, completely modern, with a fun young couple - that seems like their kind of thing right? We'll see if they bite. I just sent Pie Town Productions an email. Maybe if it's going to be on TV, lenders will feel more giving - who knows.

We REALLY want to build this house! Anyone know anyone who could help?

SOLD!

Okay, so I should have posted this 3 weeks ago when we actually closed on the property...but I kept waiting to include some images along with the post...that never happened.


In any case, Kit and I are now the happy owners of almost 1/2 an acre of a mountain in Park City, Utah! We affectionately call it our little "rock pit" or "the quarry"; when I post images, this will make perfect sense. It was a foreclosed property, previously owned by a gentleman who had done extensive excavation on the site and had already begun pouring the footings before money apparently ran out. Our plan is to continue with his house footprint and modify most everything else. At this point we're starting with a house that I've designed that is three-stories tall, about 3,000sf finished, has 4 bedrooms, and 2 1/2 baths with a totally open living/dining area...and the main structural components are going to be shipping containers! I'm so excited about that last bit!


We are striving for four things with the house:
1. an open, loft-like layout with some more traditional seperations for bedrooms, and as little wasted space as possible (Kit and Kate coming together)
2. to make as little impact on the environment as possible
3. to focus on design with affordability in mind - both in construction and in energy costs moving forward
4. to be moved in before the snow flies (everybody cross your fingers on this one!)


We want to use recycled and recylable materials as much as possible, and we don't want to add finishes to things that can be beautiful (to us at least) in their raw form. The containers are just the begining of that story. Think exposed concrete floors (with radiant heating), exposed structural steel beams (instead of everything clad with gyp.). This means no wall to wall carpet to one day clog up a landfill and minimal waste materials from the construction as the plan is that things are mostly built off-site in a factory and trucked in in a modular fashion. We are also trying to find cabinets that are in good enough shape to reuse (loving the metal ones from the 50-60's) and possibly used appliances, as long as they are also Energy Star rated.

Prior to buying this piece of property, we had hoped to utilize solar for power, but we are doubtful that this will be beneficial as we are pretty much in the middle (literally surrounded) of very dense, really tall pines trees. So our window of capturing useful light is minimal. We also had dreams of using thermal...did I mention that we are building on and into bedrock and that we are in Park City. Basically digging in to the ground might cost a small fortune and as we don't really have a hot summer, we could only generate good power in the winter. If anyone has more info on how we might still be able to utilize some green energy, we would welcome it!




Here are the floor plans...


The basement is basically just the entry, garage and storage.



The main floor is all of the living/entertaining space and the master bedroom - single level living, for the most part.



The upper level is for guests and someday children. We intend to use the loft space as a TV/play area.

Here is an elevation of the front...LOTS of windows on the front, as the other three sides are pretty much in the mountain.



And the sides...

These plans/elevations are still really preliminary because the structural engineer needs to make sure it all works. But this is what we're shooting for. We're still trying to get a construction loan. The bank we tried first decided the lot was too steep to lend on...I got that news as I was typing this...I about cried. Anybody out there want to lend us a few hundred thousand? We're super-nice and we're good for it.

in the begining

Long time reader...first time blogger...please bear with me...

I'm am starting this blog to document something that Kit and I are both crazy excited about and equally terrified...building a house. Anyone that knows me, knows that I can't just 'build a house'; there has to be something in it to mix it up a little and supply me with a challenge. Something I can have some fun designing in a fairly forward thinking, modern way. Anyone who knows Kit, knows he's a traditional guy with traditional ideas of what house and home mean. So how do the two of us come together as husband and wife to design a home...stay tuned!