House Under a Pole Barn

Haven't been posting much lately. The gardens and markets have been taking up most of my time. It's summer, that's how it goes :)

But, the other day I was doing a little care giving job and there was a show on about buying property in Hawaii.  Did you know that the average daytime temperature there is 75 degrees all year long? and that on occasions it might get down to 60 degrees at night? I've never had any desire to go to Hawaii, but those temps make it kinda tempting to live there :)

The farmer in me was thinking if you bought 5 or 10 acres there,  you could really grow a lot of food and you wouldn't need much of a house. Throw up a pole barn roof and build a bathroom, a kitchen and a few movable walls to provide some protection in cases of extreme wind, screen it in and you'd be good!

Anyway, the next day on the way to the market, I mentioned these thoughts to Grampa Tom. He wasn't so crazy about moving to Hawaii, but he really liked the idea of building a house under a pole barn roof, so the discussion morphed into how to adapt that idea to living in the Midwest. When we got home, I was exhausted, but it had to be drawn before I forgot it. I've been tweaking it for the last few days and I have a little time today, so I thought I'd share it with you. Looks like on the last tweak, I forgot to put the door from the dining room into the hall that leads to the mud room back in. Hope you will forgive me, but I my program doesn't allow me to post directly to the internet. It's a pain to do and I don't have the time to fix it right now, but here it is:

This home sits under a 2 sided 72'L x 48'W x 10'H pole barn. The walls are on the north and the west sides of the home to provide a windbreak. The house sits 8 ft. in from these walls to provide a nice air space between the walls and the house itself. They also have garage doors that can be opened in the summer to provide ventilation on nice days. When it rains, all the windows can be open without fear of it raining in.  I'm thinking the doors on the west side ought to be glass like this, to allow a view from the kitchen and master bedroom windows. I'd also make liberal use of solar lighting tubes in this house because I'm afraid it would be rather dark without them. My dad used these at his place a while back and it was amazing how much light they brought in even on a cloudy day! The south side sits right at the edge of the pole roof and has a full length sun room to provide passive solar heat. The east side over hangs 16 ft from the mud room to provide a carport that would fit a couple of cars, a mower and various bikes, trikes or other small vehicles. 

You could make the mud room quite a bit smaller, but Grampa Tom wanted to be able to bring in eggs and veggies to wash them in the mud room so I made it big enough for a couple of people to work and for our commercial sized refrigerator to fit. :) He's also really big on having a huge open walk in shower, so I put it right next to the mud room and stuck a little sink and a toilet in there for an extra throne accessible from the family room.

Grampa Tom is an introvert. Company and grandkids can get a little overwhelming at times so I like to create a couple of basic spaces in the houses I design so he can have a place to hide. The family room can be shut off from the kitchen/living room area if he wants, but the double doors open up the space if he wants to be sociable. 

The kitchen/ dining area has an extra large sink, a hand sink and a desk. I'm thinking the bottom cabinets in the dining room ought to have solid doors, but the top cabinets should have glass doors with lighting so I can display a china set  and that Swarovski crystal collection I've always wanted :)

There are two entrances to the basement, one in the middle of the home and one outside. Grampa Tom is a big advocate of outside entrances to basements for fire safety reasons and just to make moving things in and out of the basement easier. He also wanted an outside entrance to the master bedroom with an outside shower so I accommodated him. You might just want more room in the bath room. Since the bathroom has two doors, I put the toilet in a little cubby hole that can have a curtain hung across it for privacy.

Hope you've enjoyed this little dreamland excursion in the midst of planting season!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Mobile Home Makeover

Got one more makeover of my 72x16 foot trailer. Like the other two, it has sun room with a
rocket stove mass thermal heater with a hot tub for the thermal mass. couple the passive solar gain from the sun room and the thermal mass heating system with a heat exchange pump coiled under the hot tub and there should be very little need for additional heat energy.

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

 

Double pocket doors connect the large living room with the kitchen/entry enabling these two rooms to be one open area or two separate areas when cooking in the summer. A large closet in the living room and the guest bathroom may not be something you'd want, but I'm a pretty light sleeper and Grampa Tom is a morning person. Right now we have his closet in the TV room at  the other end of the house. That way he can get up and shuffle around without bothering me.

The  kitchen is gigantic because I love big kitchens! It has a triple sink washing dishes and processing  veggies, a professional range, a hand sink, a gigantic pantry and a breakfast bar.

Off the kitchen is a bump out that I have put over a basement storm shelter and storage room. If you want more bedrooms, there would be room for one or two down there. The bump out is connected to the master bedroom and the sun room and has a direct door going outside. 

I've been having a lot of fun with these. All of them could easily be built by a modular home builder and even be put over a full basement. I'm thinking about playing with some 12 and 14 foot wide mobile homes soon,   but I have some variations of the court yard home that I want to post next. 

What do you think? 

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

 There's lots of great pools and hot tubs on this site!

Trailer Gold

We have some friends who took an old trailer, gutted it and added on to it. The result is a beautiful home that didn't cost them much.

We have lived in our 16 x 72 food trailer for 15 years now. It's paid for and we've talked about doing this too. The other day I thought, I'm just going to sit down and play with this for awhile. I came up with two designs that I like. This is the simpler one. I'll post the the other one next week.

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

I left the master bedroom and bath that are currently there, but I put a door where the water heater currently is. I'd move the water heater to the closet just outside the master bedroom and I'd leave the furnace where it currently is in the pantry. Either that or just build a little utility shed out in the sun room near the rocket stove heated hot tub so some heat from the thermal mass could be tapped.

One of the things I dream about a lot is adding some passive solar capacity to my home. I probably wouldn't go so far as to put a permanent sun room on. This space could be as simple as patio and a hoop structure with clear plastic tarps that could be rolled up or removed in the summer. I think I this would be cooler in the summer and it wouldn't be taxed like a real sun room.

My oldest son has a hot tub. We went out there last fall and had a chance to play in it. A hot tub is now one of my highest goals! But I don't want to pay the electric bill and the idea of running through any amount of cold snowy weather to get out to one on a deck like they have would keep me from using it. I don't think I have an ounce of Viking blood in me! But, I came across instructions for how to build a rocket fired thermal massstove a while back and I thought a hot tub would be the perfect thermal mass. I could put it in a sun room! Voila! Problem solved. This concept is in a lot of my designs now.

The pantry and ½ bath are carved out of what currently is a bedroom and the kitchen/dining room area are what currently is the kitchen/living room area. I really miss the gigantic kitchen we had in the old farm house. This area isn't quite as big, but the pantry ought to make up for that.

The other end of the house then becomes a large living area that opens to the kitchen/dining area with sliding pocket doors. They allow an open feeling when wanted, but the kitchen can be closed off from the living room during the summer so the living room can be kept cooler while cooking.

I also added a mud room with a toilet room, walk-in shower and a large closet.

If you wanted to build this home new, I'm sure any modular home builder could build this. If you put it on a basement there would be plenty of room for bedrooms for kids and storage.

Your feed back would be greatly appreciated!

What do you like about this home?

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

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