Comments on: The First Designs are In!

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:48:00 +0000

L: True. Working on it…

Rich: Yep, public and private are separated by stories. Probably don’t need an elevator just for one floor, but I’m definitely putting the laundry room upstairs.

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:15:14 +0000

Mike, I see that you are having a lot of fun with this process so a few additional ideas. You might consider the efficient advantage of entering your house from the garage through a combined laundry & pantry area into the kitchen. I am a big fan of separating the private & public areas of oneâ€s home. Here are a couple of other ideas to consider: If you are going to place all of the bedrooms upstairs you might consider putting an elevator in & in that case the laundry upstairs as well. Or consider placing the master suite on the ground floor as well. Another wild idea is to place all of the private space on the ground floor & the public space including the kitchen on the second floor. You are at the design stage & ideas are cheap on paper so all should be explored.

By: Jason Hale

Jason Hale — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:50:13 +0000

One thing you may want to consider with the BWRTâ„¢ is making the south facing part a stone wall for some passive solar heating. I’m not exactly sure how these walls work but that wall should have lots of sun during the winter months.

By: L

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:41:54 +0000

Okay dude, you need to post bigger pictures so people can actually see the floor plans.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 06:04:53 +0000

Hi Tiff! Yeeeeeeeah, had to violate the 5-sentence rule in a big way. :) With regard to the neighboring houses, the house on the north is a large, flat, awesome Paul Hayden Kirk mid-century modern house so it should blend in nicely, and the house on the south is barely visible through the foliage.

By: tiffehr

tiffehr — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:54:08 +0000

What happened to your 5-sentence e-mail rule? Kidding, of course.

I’d like to see either house modeled from “cliff view”, or what it would look like amid the neighboring houses, from the bay.

By: lou

lou — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:16:44 +0000

First off, great idea for a blog and even more so that it’s about the realities of
building a modern home. I’ve scoured the web landscape and nothing this detailed
exists to give people a true and honest look into the process from all angles.
I think its terrific that the architects are weighing in on the feedback on the blog
as well because its important that rationale is explained for decision-making.
Taste is certainly subjective when it comes to what people like as far as designs but if you dig deeper there are some rich nuggets
to be had here in terms of learning and getting to be a fly on the wall during
what is both an exciting, stressful and tremendous opportunity to
craft something custom and highly personal to the owner. Look forward to seeing
how this all plays out.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:46:53 +0000

In response to some of the questions/comments/concerns above, we (BUILD) put together a quick and dirty guide to our architectural process which you might find interesting: http://blog.buildllc.com/2008/09/23/the-process-of-architecture/

Kyle – the bathroom was positioned north of the kitchen to accommodate the adjacent hot tub. However the hot tub is moving upstairs in the next couple of schemes, stay tunedâ€¦

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:16:06 +0000

Kyle: Good question. Probably (definitely) don’t need a full bath in there. I don’t love the location of the kitchen in general (see my note to architects above) but could be talked into it.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:12:21 +0000

Like you Mike, I really like the exterior of the first design but the layout of the second design.

I know you’ll most likely be moving some rooms and spaces around, but what was the rationale behind a full bath on the north side of the kitchen? Other than filling the bathtub up with ice and drinks during parties, I really can’t see much use for a bathtub in that location. Maybe switching the pantry and bathroom and making it a half bath would allow for more kitchen space and the possibility of an “island bar” instead of the bar the kitchen currently has. Then the kitchen would have two entrances rather than one – and since you seem to enjoy entertaining – more access to the kitchen seems like a great idea to me.

Either way, I’m really enjoying the site and look forward to seeing how the design evolves in the coming months!