Deadwood Update

[Suzon]

So, if you remember, my DH and I purchased a dump on a very beautiful piece of property last year. We've been debating what to do with the house and investigated keeping it, raising it and putting a foundation under it. Last month when we had the property mowed, we had all the bushes pulled out from around the house, so we could get to it to work. What we found was huge amounts of moisture related damage that we couldn't see before (it originally looked like just the front sill was damaged). So that radically changed our plans. The house will not survive.

So now we have to figure out what to build. We'll be doing the work ourselves, so it won't be anything elaborate. It'll probably still be ugly because we've decided on a flat roof to allow for a roof-top deck (to overlook the water) and roof-top gardens (to save space on the ground for animals). So now I have to decide on floor plans. If you have anything you love in the open-concept arena, send me a link. It'll probably be somewhere between 1000 and 1300 square feet (possibly smaller if it's a great layout). We don't really need more than that for just two people.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the west end of our property...which I had not explored until now due to lack of time in the fall and then the water was too high this spring to get to where I'm standing for this photo. We were there for about five days at the end of July. Hope to be back in September or October.



And here are some ducks that were paddling by one morning:

[piedmontfields]

Love the photo of the brook and the mergansers (I think?)!

I think with your experience and artful eye you'll come up with a wonderful home design. I look forward to your updates! I personally am a big fan of small homes that have the open living-dining-kitchen-woodstove area in the middle and then two small wings off each side. It's nice to have the privacy via the great room for the wing rooms. I think you'll want a mudroom, too, given the watery environment!

[PaulaO]

I'd build a small house and use the land for the animals.

[Josette]

https://www.google.com/search?q=small+r ... XeRWcVM%3A

[VBOpie]

Suzon
Please keep us posted on what you find

[Suzon]

Love the photo of the brook and the mergansers (I think?)!

I think with your experience and artful eye you'll come up with a wonderful home design. I look forward to your updates! I personally am a big fan of small homes that have the open living-dining-kitchen-woodstove area in the middle and then two small wings off each side. It's nice to have the privacy via the great room for the wing rooms. I think you'll want a mudroom, too, given the watery environment!

Yes, I'm pretty sure they were Mergansers, which, being from the east, I'd never seen or heard of.



We also love the big open main room/kitchen concept, and a wood stove is a given, though we probably won't be using it except during power outages. The one downfall of our little slice of heaven is that it's in a valley and naturally sheltered from the wind. The entire valley seems to heat with wood, so all winter the air quality is pretty suspect. It just sort of hangs around.

[Quelah]

Just a thought, depending on size and whats growing, rooftop gardens can be quite heavy, so factor that into your building costs.

[boots-aregard]

Roof garden is very heavy, so you want to be sure of your engineering. WET roof garden, even more so.

[Suzon]

Roof garden is very heavy, so you want to be sure of your engineering. WET roof garden, even more so.

I live with a building inspector who hangs out with a lot of structural engineers.

[Kelo]

You might try crusing on houseplans.com. You can search by type of house, size, or bed/bath/stories. I found it a good way to find ideas I liked.

[Suzon]

Suzon
Please keep us posted on what you find

Will do. I've downloaded a couple simple floor plans but there are things I like and don't like about each one, and then I'm sure DH will have his input as well, so I'm sure it will be a process.

[M&M]

Gorgeous property, Suzon!

[WheresMyWhite]

Arrggghhhh, I replied earlier today and not there

Love the photos!!! Did you HDR the one of the stream? (sans ducks?) If so, I like it!

Sorry about the house In an area such as Oregon, wouldn't it get too much rain/moisture to want a flat roof or can you make things adequately water proofed when flat? I do love the idea of "living" on the roof with a garden and some type of "patio"

[Suzon]

Arrggghhhh, I replied earlier today and not there

Love the photos!!! Did you HDR the one of the stream? (sans ducks?) If so, I like it!

Sorry about the house In an area such as Oregon, wouldn't it get too much rain/moisture to want a flat roof or can you make things adequately water proofed when flat? I do love the idea of "living" on the roof with a garden and some type of "patio"

Flat is relative. A slight grade will direct water off the roof surface and into the gutters. Doesn't have to be much. It's not like it has to shed snow load.

[Suzon]

Arrggghhhh, I replied earlier today and not there

Love the photos!!! Did you HDR the one of the stream? (sans ducks?)

To reply to this question. No. I've been doing a lot of different stuff for my landscapes. This is a single exposure with a lot of different work in different areas with masking. The water is tone mapped with more of a balanced contrast to bring out detail. The greenery has more of a glow by turning down the clarity, darkening shadows, but preserving highlights. Then different areas or tones are warm or cool as appropriate. It was a very foggy morning and everything was saturated, so I tried to preserve that. I've been trying to go for more of a painting feel without losing the photograph.

[redsoxluvr]

I've done a ton of research on DIY home builds. How much access to the site will there be?

We are really enamored with the SIP panel design, which is basically a timber frame with super insulated panels with exterior sheathing. Check out http://www.enviro-techpostandbeam.com. You can buy a 1678 SQ ft house kit for less than 60K.

We also looked into First Day Cottage, which again is geared towards owner/builders. I like the product, but the owners were ridiculously slow to respond to questions and I do not have time for that.

Tuff Shed of all places is now selling cabin shells as well.

[Chisamba]

They buildy sturdy waterproof houses in hillsides, why not a roof garden?

[Jan & PJ]

Very beautiful property. Looking forward to more photos and updates.

[Rosie B]

redsoxluvr, are you me??

LOL.

After doing a ton of research on DIY homes, Hubby and I built our house in 2010 using a timberframe and SIP kit. We did almost all the labour ourselves. It took us about 8 months before we could move in (with both of us working full time throughout the process). We bought the kit from Maine. Our house has a 30x40' footprint and the kit was 44K US I think and included a TON of extras. We have an open floorplan. The whole house is about 1800-2000 sq ft (ground floor + a big loft with a studio and 2 bedrooms) and is built on a slab. All our living needs are met on the main floor, which has a big kitchen, a great room, bathroom, bedroom, and a utilities/mudroom.

It's now 6 years later and we still LOVE it. Our house is super rugged/rustic and energy efficient. It's also passive solar. We heat primarily with wood and burn about a cord to a cord and a half of wood per winter, and we're in the north east.

Suzon - if you're interested I'm happy to provide lots more detail (and photos).

[WheresMyWhite]

I've been doing a lot of different stuff for my landscapes. This is a single exposure with a lot of different work in different areas with masking. The water is tone mapped with more of a balanced contrast to bring out detail. The greenery has more of a glow by turning down the clarity, darkening shadows, but preserving highlights. Then different areas or tones are warm or cool as appropriate. It was a very foggy morning and everything was saturated, so I tried to preserve that. I've been trying to go for more of a painting feel without losing the photograph.

I really like how it looks. To me natural (i.e. not over processed). Nicely done

And got it on flat vs well, sort of almost flat!

Looking forward to progress reports.

If it isn't too nosy (and I get if you don't want or PM works), what's the address... thinking Google maps/earth (and I'm good if you don't want that info out in the ether

[Suzon]

redsoxluvr, are you me??

LOL.

After doing a ton of research on DIY homes, Hubby and I built our house in 2010 using a timberframe and SIP kit. We did almost all the labour ourselves. It took us about 8 months before we could move in (with both of us working full time throughout the process). We bought the kit from Maine. Our house has a 30x40' footprint and the kit was 44K US I think and included a TON of extras. We have an open floorplan. The whole house is about 1800-2000 sq ft (ground floor + a big loft with a studio and 2 bedrooms) and is built on a slab. All our living needs are met on the main floor, which has a big kitchen, a great room, bathroom, bedroom, and a utilities/mudroom.

It's now 6 years later and we still LOVE it. Our house is super rugged/rustic and energy efficient. It's also passive solar. We heat primarily with wood and burn about a cord to a cord and a half of wood per winter, and we're in the north east.

Suzon - if you're interested I'm happy to provide lots more detail (and photos).

Rosie B and RSL, I'd forgotten about SIP panel construction. That would be really slick. On my list for further investigation!

[Koolkat]

https://www.studio-shed.com/products/signature-series/

[bits]

Where is this? I'd look into steel and glass contemporary homes.

[Suzon]

You might try crusing on houseplans.com. You can search by type of house, size, or bed/bath/stories. I found it a good way to find ideas I liked.

I marked a few floor plans for ideas. Will be looking at it more this weekend...I hope.

[bits]

The Houzz app has a lot of good ideas.

[Woost2]

Just because I love these folks so much and they have a grassy roof in a rainy place. Decidedly NOT flat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhDgi9YnrqU

[bits]

[redsoxluvr]

redsoxluvr, are you me??

LOL.

After doing a ton of research on DIY homes, Hubby and I built our house in 2010 using a timberframe and SIP kit. We did almost all the labour ourselves. It took us about 8 months before we could move in (with both of us working full time throughout the process). We bought the kit from Maine. Our house has a 30x40' footprint and the kit was 44K US I think and included a TON of extras. We have an open floorplan. The whole house is about 1800-2000 sq ft (ground floor + a big loft with a studio and 2 bedrooms) and is built on a slab. All our living needs are met on the main floor, which has a big kitchen, a great room, bathroom, bedroom, and a utilities/mudroom.

It's now 6 years later and we still LOVE it. Our house is super rugged/rustic and energy efficient. It's also passive solar. We heat primarily with wood and burn about a cord to a cord and a half of wood per winter, and we're in the north east.

Suzon - if you're interested I'm happy to provide lots more detail (and photos).

LOL. I would love to hear about the kit that you bought and the process of building it.

[Suzon]

Bits, that's a cool concept, but I might want to change my underwear once in a while. We do have neighbors across the creek who can probably see us in the winter. Though lots of glass in the main living area is on the list.

[exploding pony]

We have a rather circular floor plan and I love it. Open between the living room and dining room, but we have a craftsman bungalow type house.

It's 1400 sq and we added a second bathroom/walk in closet last year (which is awesome btw). I can't imagine going much smaller than that (and we have a basement which we use for storage).

Our house is fine for the two of us, but smaller would be fairly miserable. Now keep in mind DH is 6'6", so his stuff is all enormous (shoes, furniture, etc).

The only thing I wish we had is a separate TV room especially during the various never ending playoff seasons

[Suzon]

It's 1400 sq and we added a second bathroom/walk in closet last year (which is awesome btw). I can't imagine going much smaller than that (and we have a basement which we use for storage).

Our house is fine for the two of us, but smaller would be fairly miserable. The only thing I wish we had is a separate TV room especially during the various never ending playoff seasons

I hear ya on the separate TV room! Before I moved here, I only ever watched the occasional movie. Other than that, TV was never on. DH has the TV on all the time. He's a news junky...I avoid the news like the plague. However, other than that, we can easily live in about 250 square feet...we do that now when we visit Deadwood and live in the RV. At home we only use about half of our 1100 square foot house. So we're good living in close quarters.

We're currently working on the "big purge" and don't plan on keeping anything that we don't love or have a place for. I forsee calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK at the very end. Right now I'm taking photos of stuff to put on Craig's List and eBay.

[Flight]

I haven't kept up with the thread about the house stuff, but just want to say those pics are just beautiful!!!