Timber frame owner builder in NJ

[emanaresi]

I have closely been following jk96's build thread as we have been planning and working towards building our own timber frame home in NJ. The drawings are currently being reviewed by the engineers to get the magic PE stamp on them. Hopefully in the next few months we will be able to finally break ground and have something real to show. For now, attached are some of our drawings. Feel free to give me some feedback on the drawings. I do have to admit we are pretty committed to the current layout.

 

[emanaresi]

Here's some elevations:

 

[dave1949]

Nice house, hope you get "stamped" and underway soon.

The stairs in the garage could be combined into one set with a landing for the hallway entry. They could be turned 180* to face the overhead door, go up three steps to a landing, then continue up with a right turn in the corner of the garage. It would require moving the rear doorway, but you could put an under-stair closet next to the door.

Do you have enough head room upstairs above the garage if the steps don't more or less follow the gable line?

 

[emanaresi]

The steps definitely have to follow the roof line. But there may be some wiggle room. I kind like the steps going into the house the way they are because you won't have to walk between a car and the steps to get to the stairs. Thanks for the input. I'll look at it and see if it makes sense with headroom and everything.

 

[dave1949]

Stairs are usually not easy to design and can be real space eaters.

You will have to walk between a car and the stairs if you are carrying groceries in, for example, since you would start at the rear of the car (trunk) typically. It might help if you draw the outline of a car to scale as it would be parked in the garage and note where the doors fall in relation to the stairs.

For compact and subcompact autos a 9' wide door is fine, but a bit tight for a larger SUV or pickup.

The stairs to the basement being off the living area are handy if the basement is used a lot as extended living space. The drawback is if your mechanical systems are in the basement and someone comes to work on something, they have to take everything into/past your entry and living space to get there.

It's always going to be a give and take trade-off, so I am not saying it's bad, just offering things to consider.

 

[jk96]

A couple of dormers on the front may add some more usable bedroom space and help break up the roofline.

 

[emanaresi]

yeah, I've gone back and forth wwith dormers. It adds a lot of complexity to the timber frame. We have about 4 1/2' at the knee wall upstairs and it is a 12:12 roof, so there is pretty good room in those bedrooms. And most furniture will fit all of the way out at the knee wall. So it should work fine.

 

[jk96]

Have you quoted adding them in. Now that we have some walls up on the second floor I can't imaging not having the dormers for our bedrooms. They do add extra room but more importantly they add a lot character to the rooms. If doing them in timber is prohibitive you could always stick frame them.

 

[emanaresi]

Thanks jk. I've gone too far down the road to start redesigning roof structure. Hopefully I'm only about a week from having an engineers stamp. Dormers would dramatically change the roof structure. And the rooms are plenty big and will have plenty of character with all the timber and tounge and groove in the roof.

 

[MossRoad]

Pretty nice. :thumbsup:

I'd swap the kitchen and dining room locations. You have to walk through the corner of the kitchen to get from the living areas to the eating area. If you swap them, it flows better. Also, you can't see who's coming to the front door from the kitchen as it is now. And if you ever get the chance to host a large family gathering, you can extend the dining room table into the living area so everyone can eat at one long table. You're boxed in and will have to seat other in a 2nd room as it currently stands.

But still, its nicer than my house. :laughing:

 

[emanaresi]

Moss road. Good thoughts. Especially the one about the family gathering. We can fit our 10' table easily in the current location and the sizes of the rooms work better the way they are :-/

We have about a 550' driveway so we won't have a lot of strangers showing up at the front door, I hope.

 

[EddieWalker]

Pretty nice. :thumbsup:

I'd swap the kitchen and dining room locations. You have to walk through the corner of the kitchen to get from the living areas to the eating area. If you swap them, it flows better. Also, you can't see who's coming to the front door from the kitchen as it is now. And if you ever get the chance to host a large family gathering, you can extend the dining room table into the living area so everyone can eat at one long table. You're boxed in and will have to seat other in a 2nd room as it currently stands.

But still, its nicer than my house. :laughing:

I agree with Moss on changing the kitchen location. It will also give you more of a U shape, which will increase counter space and storage.

The dormers are pretty easy to change or add on if you want them. I wouldn't be too worried about a timeline until I had the plan perfected. This is going to cost you a lot of money and the biggest mistake you can make is rushing to get it done without considering every option. Sucks to wish you had done it differently when it's all said and done.

Two things that caught my eye are the location of the door to the Master Bedroom. I don't see a solution to this, but it's always a bit awkward to have your bedroom door opening into the living space. In homes that I've been in that have this, you either see into that space all the time, or you have to keep the door closed. It is what it is, but during the design phase, something that I try to avoid.

The other is the shower. I remodel bathrooms for a living. They are kind of my thing. I don't know anybody who wants a small stall for a shower. They are cheap and easy, but they are also small and unappealing. What I usually get hired to do is remove those little showers and create a nice walk in shower. Usually without a door or a lip to trip over. To do this they either throw away the tub or I take some space from an adjoining room. Usually a closet.

Over half of my clients are elderly or getting there. They are worried about getting into the shower and being able to use it if they need assistance walking. Stepping over a lip is something they are afraid of and don't want. Lowering the floor is easy. Making it bigger requires finding some space, which you don't seem to have right now.

Again, for what you are going to spend, you should have a high end, really nice bathroom. This is one area that it's always a good idea to spend the extra money.

Eddie

 

[MossRoad]

Moss road. Good thoughts. Especially the one about the family gathering. We can fit our 10' table easily in the current location and the sizes of the rooms work better the way they are :-/

We have about a 550' driveway so we won't have a lot of strangers showing up at the front door, I hope.

It looks like the dining room is about 14' in either direction.
A 10' table only leaves 2' at each end.
It will be difficult to get into a chair (especially if it has arms) at either end and no one will be able to walk behind the person seated at either end of the table.

 

[MossRoad]

Also with 2 sinks in the master bath there is little room for makeup, blow dryers, curling irons and other things essential for the boss.

 

[emanaresi]

No, the dining room is 16' long. Minus the posts, but the posts won't effect table and chair positioning too much.

Eddie, thanks for the comments about the master and the bath. I don't know what to do with the master bath... The shower is 4'x almost 5' I think. Not big. But not small either. I hear what your saying about the zero entry shower.

 

[emanaresi]

Moss, good thought. That's her design. I will mention it to her.

 

[EddieWalker]

Looking at that bathroom a little more, and the comments about the double sinks, I'm thinking you really need to scrap it and start over fresh. Two sinks in one vanity is always a really bad idea. Do you both use the bathroom at the same time?

I'm a big fan of putting the toilet in it's own room with a door. Nothing like stinking up the bathroom, or walking into it after your wife has stunk it up. LOL I know it's not always possible, but it should be a priority in the planning stage of any bathroom in my opinion.

Do either of you use the bathtub? There is one upstairs, so that's all you really need unless one of you takes baths. National studies show that on average, most home owners use their tub three times. Which means some use it a lot more, and some never use it. I haven't taken a bath in decades, and don't ever plan to.

Why have the door to the closet through the bathroom? You can open up a lot of room in the bathroom if that door is in the bedroom? You can also avoid getting in each others way, or private time in the bathroom if that door was moved.

Eddie

 

[dave1949]

I totally agree with Eddie's bathroom comments. We have a soaking tub, mostly because my wife wanted one. It doesn't get used all summer and about once per week in the winter months.

The dining/kitchen reversal would also help with isolating the kitchen a bit from the living areas. Kitchens can be loud. In an open plan you will appreciate the quietest dishwasher, frig and range hood you can find. I would also try to have a high cfm range hood that exhausts to the outdoors. Cooking odors can easily fill that open space if you don't get rid of them.

 

[jk96]

I agree with most of what everyone has said with the exception of swapping the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen gets used a lot, at least in our house. When you have guests or entertain it's the area that everyone tends to migrate to. We really like our current home we live in now with the kitchen flowing right of the living room. If you switched locations you would isolate your two entertaining areas from each other.

 

[dave1949]

Also with 2 sinks in the master bath there is little room for makeup, blow dryers, curling irons and other things essential for the boss.

I've never seen a bathroom designed to deal well with all that junk. Mine certainly isn't. :laughing:

Somehow, you end up with clutter like waterpiks, recharging toothbrushes, dryers, etc. It really calls for some built to purpose garage-style cabinet work like has become popular in kitchens to tuck away small appliances.