This 2009 square foot home is fully capable of going off grid with ease. Every room has direct access to passive solar heat and there are plenty of southern facing roofs to put solar panels on to provide the electricity for this home. A bank of batteries could be housed in the large root cellar. Add a well and a roof rain water collection system and you are in business!
Remember! If you want to see the floor plan better, just press ctrl and + at the same time!
The main entrance opens into a spacious great room with a cozy conversation area. The dining area has enough room for a table, a desk and includes a breakfast bar with a pantry that is close to the kitchen. It opens directly into the sunroom with large double doors for easy access to year round fun in the sun and the root cellar/high tunnel type greenhouse.
And the kitchen! It is a cooks dream! The15 x 15 space features wall ovens, a professional gas range, a huge sink, lots of counter space and ample room for a professional size refrigerator and freezer. Processing produce and getting ready for farmer's markets, bake sales, or entertaining would be quick work in this kitchen.
Oh there's just too many places for homesteader to go in this place!
Back to the sun room! I don't know about you, but if I could, I'd grow tomatoes, peas, lettuce, chard, bush cucumbers and peppers all winter long for my salads. The sunroom is heated by the rocket fired stove with a hot tub for thermal mass. The raised bed on east side provides plenty of room for the warmer weather crops and grow lights can be put above it to supplement lighting if desired. There is also a utility room that houses the water heater and heat pump. Both coil pipes under the hot tub to provide hot water during the winter. The heat pump then returns heat from the house to the hot tub during the summer, still warming the water before it enters the water heater.
The high-tunnel style greenhouse on top of the root cellar provides heat for the bedroom wing of the house and gives plenty of room to start your garden early and if by chance the temperatures take a nose dive after you've started those precious tomatoes, the windows and the sunroom can be opened to help provide the extra bit of heat those pretty little things will need to get through.
The root cellar underneath can be accessed by a small door on the kitchen side for hauling canned goods down there, but also can be accessed by wide doors on the east side for storing garden produce you need to load on your truck to take to market.
There's a shower in the sunroom so you can rinse off before and after using the hot tub or after playing with dirt in the garden. I envision a bank of sky lights too and thermal window coverings that can be rolled out at night or on cold cloudy days.
Just off the mudroom entrance to the sunroom, there is a half bath. Hopefully, the kids can be trained to use it instead of running through the living room in wet swimsuits! There is also a large walk-in shower for Grampa Tom or your big guy! Grampa Tom is always wishing he could just walk in the door, put his dirty clothes right in the washer and step into a huge shower! Don't tell your guy, but there might be a filthy teenager or momma who might just take advantage of this too ;)
The family room is right next to the kitchen. One of the things I hate about my current house is that the kitchen is so far away from the man cave where Grampa Tom spends most of his time. I put in double pocket doors so that I wouldn't have to feel exiled when ever I cook. The doors can also be closed on hot days so the family room can be kept cooler. I would equip each room with separate thermostats of course!
This house is made with two 16 foot wide sections so it could easily be built by a modular builder. It has double doors into the sunroom and into the main living area to make moving furniture in and out easier. Our family has always been involved with caring for older folks and since we aren't spring chickens ourselves, wide doors and hallways are features I try to incorporate into every home I design.
If you have kids, a basement could be put under all or part of the house for extra bedrooms, or an east wing could be added.
There's probably things I haven't told you about this home, but if you're not excited by now, more words won't help :)
Tell me what you think! What do you like and what would you change?
God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue
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