[Jim S.]

Woody; Have a standing seam metal roof on my house & love it. Pricey though (55 squares) on my home. I have a combo of sky lights & dormers. If I were doing it again, I would use dormers. More architechtual interest and less troublesome than sky lights. Have had to repair leaks in a couple of mine. Think about having dormers or sky lights in the garage. Lots of natural light is nice. They don't eat up wall space & offer more security than windows. I have 4 sky lights in my 2 car garage & really appreciate them. Lots of good tips in this thread. Have fun. Jim

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Woddy, seeing as how you're in WI and it's likely to be cold there, I would consider radiant heat flooring. A friend's parents have it in their home and it is awesome. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it basically circulates hot water through a series of tubes underneath whatever flooring material you decide on. I would also HIGHLY recommend this for the shop. Makes working on the floor very bearable. I'm not up on the cost savings, but IIRC the monthly utilities costs are noticeably less than when using forced air or baseboard heat alone. Oh, and one really nice thing they did is doubled the number of tubes in the floor around the sh!tter. Makes for very pleasant visits as the porcelain warms up too

Ary

Edit: One more thing. Get some graph paper for doing quick sketches. Makes for a much cleaner appearance. I was designing a cabin for my folks a few years back(which didn't end up getting built ), but all I used was graph paper, drew the basic outline of the house, then copied it a bunch of times onto more graph paper. Made for quick/easy sketches when CAD wasn't within my abilities.

[residualboulders]

forgot you mentioned the detached garage. In floor heat is supposed to be great. From the estimates I've seen given to clients... its not cheap to install.

[Cruisin'Carolina]

Standing seam is nice, more $$$, but nice, especially in heavy snow areas.....

Skylights are nice, but they will leak and leak unless careful thought and over-engineering is used. Skylights should have curbs high enough to raise them above any snow accumulation, and water needs to be diverted so it does not pool on the high side. Dormers and skylights, or any protrusions through the roof surface can be trouble spots down the road unless done right (good flashing)...

Check into "periscope" skylights, which I know nothing about, but they provide good lighting from above, look like a normal skylight from below, but only have a small roof penetration to the outside, much like a vent.....

[Cruisin'Carolina]

Hard-wired generator for power outages? (Especially if you are going to use water tubes for heat in floor......if those froze..... OUCH!

[residualboulders]

I beleive these "periscope" skylights are called Solartubes. They are pretty cool. The kind I have seen are about the size of a turtle vent on the outside, and look almost like an 8" can light on the inside. they let a lot of light in because the tub is lined with a mirror like material. Pretty cool, but I'd try and keep the tops of them on the back side of the home so they're not as noticable. You can get them at Lowe's, Home depot or the like.

[woody]

generator could be a future addon....good thot tho...I'll at least have the ability to hook up the Lemon generator for desparate times...lol

skylights - like the dormer idea, excellent point...time for more tweaks....

my Dad has infloor heat throughout his new home....expensive....but it IS very nice....gonna pass on that for our house tho....we'll see tho.....considering it for the shop. Dad's infloor is all safe down to a pretty cold temp, lotsa antifreeze in there.

[residualboulders]

one thing to consider with in floor heat...
if you live in an area where you need central air in the summer, you would still have the expense of running the duct work for that system. So just about all you'd need is the furnace and you'd have a heating system too. much cheaper than paying for two systems. Still a nice feature if you can afford it.

[tea LC]

this is the kinda stuff i do on my free time!

how many people will live there?

[woody]

yeppers, need central in summer, heat is tolerable, humidity sucks majorly....current house has no AC and it will be a must-have in the new one. Temps around here range from -20 in winter to +90 summer, even 100 on rare years. Hell, we were -14 last Friday morning and outta be high 30's later this week, with rain....uugh.

2 adults, zero kids....figger having 2BR's down later with a full bath and space for a "kids" entertainment area will help on resale...in 20 years, when I don't give a rip anymore....

[tea LC]

i didnt read everyones comments so this might be a repost...

the first comment would be to enclose the crapper in the master bedroom. if you're chilling out taking a dump, you may not want the mrs., or whoever, all up in your grill doing their hair or brushing teeth. if you do enclose, a flat tv on the door is a MUST! you'll thank me later.

next, id consider the wall partitioning the entry and kitchen to be glass blocks or something unique.

next, i couldnt tell if the living room area was sunk in, but that would be a nice feature as well.

the rest is kitchen details. get the kitchen right and the rest will fall into place.

good luck. keep us posted with the progress.

Originally Posted by woody

yeppers, need central in summer, heat is tolerable, humidity sucks majorly....current house has no AC and it will be a must-have in the new one. Temps around here range from -20 in winter to +90 summer, even 100 on rare years. Hell, we were -14 last Friday morning and outta be high 30's later this week, with rain....uugh.

2 adults, zero kids....figger having 2BR's down later with a full bath and space for a "kids" entertainment area will help on resale...in 20 years, when I don't give a rip anymore....

[albee]

Radiant is not that expensive if you run the hose yourself. I put it in my shop and love it. It cost me about the same as an oil burner and baseboards. Open floor plan is the best. In the house that I am just finishing for my family I insulated all interior wall for sound reduction. On the other hand we do not have any t.v.'s in the house to compete with. Think of geo thermal for a heating and cooling option. It would more then pay for itself in 10 years. Look into attic trusses for the house. It only added a few hundred dollars to the cost and gave me an additional 12'x 50' of storage. Oh yea put extra plywood up their while the crane is setting the trusses.

[Rookie2]

I'd be interested in hearing from guys with standing seam roof's, if you notice any differences between these roof's and a normal asphalt shingle roof in regards to heat in the summer time. The office building I work in has a standing seam metal roof, and the office gets hotter than hell in the summer time. The AC runs non-stop. I'd say it's mostly due to how the roof is insulated, but was interested to hear other's experiences.


Rookie2

[Jim S.]

Standing seam is cooler. I'm in Texas & had a cedar roof originally. The metal reflects a lot of the heat & is definitely cooler. Stands up to hail real well too.

[Deep South Cruisers]

1. You might want to show extra bedrooms even if you don't plan to use them that way. I had the 3rd bedroom labeled OFFICE on my plans and the bank suggested I change it since a 2 bedroom house loans less than a 3 bedroom.

2. Install a urinal just because every man should have one.

3. A utility sink near the washer dryer area for cleanup.

4. While radiant heat is all the rage and would be fine in a shop I wouldn't want to introduce water into my living spaces no matter how safe they say it is.

5. Open floor plans can have seperation using pocket doors and not lose any floor space to door swings.

[woody]

final plans will show 2 bedrooms down (basement), one up, 1.5 bath down, 1.5 bath up, and a basement rec room as well.

Bank isn't much concern, for some reason, they like us. (not always a good thing...)

Utility sink...knew I forgot something....

good point on pocket doors....hhhhmmmm

[paulj]

Woody;
My $.02 and random thoughts:
The downstairs of my house is an open floor plan and I've never liked it because of the noise that you can't get away from.
I hate sharing a bathroom with my spouse. I love her but not all the crap she leaves in there.
Think storage. I've built in 3 book shelves into our house since we've lived there and it's still not enough for all the books, records (yeah, records) CDs, TV, stereo, etc. I'd much rather have smaller rooms and bigger closets.
What about another story? Put the master suite upstairs and make the footprint (and thus the foundation costs) smaller. You can do this by building short wall and then a steep roof, and not add that much to the cost. It's kind of cool to have the bedroom in a room with a sloping or vaulted ceiling.
Think about how the building relates to your site in terms of views, breezes, access, etc. Always nice to have the bedroom face the morning sun and the dining area face the sunset.
Build a cardboard model. If you get it drawn up in a cad program, print out the drawing and then use spray glue to attach it to a piece of foam core or cardboard that you can then cut with a utility knife. You'll see a lot that you won't in a 2 dimensional model. You can of course do the same thing with the elevations. Even if you don't make a model, it's a good thing to project the elevations from the plan and work out the placement of the windows.
I'd think about getting an architect to help you. There are lots of them that are 1 man shops that don't charge too much. He or she could come up with all kinds of ideas that will make your house more energy efficient, easier to build, and more attractive, all of which will be more satisfying to live in and affect resale value.

[Exiled]

Brian, these may sound like really stupid suggestions, but my wife and I built a home about two years ago and these are some of the shortfalls:

1. Exterior outlets. I'm not talking about just at floor level, I'm talking about having a couple come out on the side of the house, like on the porch or something, 6 or 7' feet off the ground. A buddy of mine has them on the ceiling of his porch, facing down. Makes putting up Xmas lights a lot easier than running a bunch of extension cords!

2. Make sure you get at least one storage closet big enough to hold a full size vaccum cleaner. I know it sounds dumb, but our house doesn't have a coat closet and we're forced to keep the VC in the garage.

3. Someone already suggested this, but I'm reinforcing the idea. Isolate the crapper and make sure it has it's own exhaust fan vented to the outside. WELL worth the positive impact on your life!

4. Figure out how many outlets you want, then DOUBLE that. Trust me, even then you'll still find yourself wishing you had them in other places.

5. Recessed lighting is much nicer than having to add a bunch of lamps, and it's relatively cheap to do when you're building the house.

6. This might not be a big deal up there in cheese country, but I've slowly added a ceiling fan to pretty much every room in my house, and there's a couple where I wish I could, but can't. At least make sure you have the wiring run in case you change your mind.

7. I got this tip from a contractor friend. In your laundry room, put down industrial rubber floor padding instead of tile or linoleum. Not only is the stuff indestructible, it actually helps isolate the noise and vibration from the machines. There's a lot of different varieties available and it's pretty cheap.


8. If you're going to have a computer in a room and you know exactly where it will go, consider floor-mounted outlets, looks a lot cleaner than running the big bunch of wires down to the floor.

[wesintl]

Originally Posted by Exiled

3. Someone already suggested this, but I'm reinforcing the idea. Isolate the crapper and make sure it has it's own exhaust fan vented to the outside. WELL worth the positive impact on your life!

Hidden wall that opens with urinal behind it in every bathroom

[Jman]

We gutted and renovated the house we bought, and here are my pearls of wisdom.

1. Put washer/dryer as close to source of dirty laundry as possible. Get a front-loading washer to cut down on noise. Hauling load after load of laundry in and out of the basement for 15 years, or listening to someone complain about hauling it, will become unbearable. If you must keep them in the basement, build a laundry chute in your bathroom.

2. Large, walk-in showers rule. We have one. The only improvment I can think of would be to elevate the bathroom floor (tile!!!!) enough to recess the shower floor so that you don't need a transom--that way you could mop the floor and push it all down the shower drain. If you can't do that, then make sure all bathroom tile floors have floor drains somewhere.

3. Overbuild. Make more closets, add more outlets, make each overhead lighting double-wired so that you can put a ceiling fan in there if you want to, etc. Adding these things later on can be expensive, and sometimes difficult to do with some layouts.


Good luck, it's a lot of fun.