The 5° Solution

Foundation walls are in place and Attila just helped me finish the "wet" sills last night (no pictures of that as it was too dark by the time we were done).  But let me digress for a moment.  Our earthwork and concrete work is being done by a local contractor, Doug Gott & Sons.  They've done a good job so far and are on board to get things done, even as some unforeseen events shifted our schedule.  The project was being handled by Jeff Reed.  Some of you may know Jeff; I did not know him well.  I worked with him on a couple of projects and I found him to be a straight shooter and very organized.  That is one of the reasons I hired them to do this project.  Unfortunately, Jeff passed away on Sunday of a heart attack.  It's tragic and I know he will be missed.  The service is this Saturday at 1:00 in Bar Harbor at the Episcopalian Church.  Thanks, Jeff, for all that you did.

If you have been here before, looked at the very first post and clicked on the plan, you may have noticed the addition is rotated slightly so that it is not parallel to the main house.  This will become more noticeable in the photos below.  No, this is not a screw-up.  The rotation is not much, just 5°.  The reason for this is twofold.  First, the septic field for the house is at the eastern end and the addition must be a certain distance from it.  Because the addition goes past the existing house, we were going to be too close.  Why not just pull the addition a little farther away from the main house, you ask?  Great question.  The problem is that we are up against a setback issue to the north.  This is also partly why the addition is set back from the front of the existing house.  You can see this in the site plan below.  We could rotate the building, to a certain extent, but not pull it farther away.  Thus the 5° solution.  This gets us far enough away from the septic field without encroaching on the setback.  It is very subtle but interesting.  When you stand between the two buildings on the driveway end, it is not readily apparent.  The perspective reduces the impact of it.  But from below, it becomes more apparent - see for yourself.

 

The setback is the dashed line inside the property line.

Ramona wanted to help, though she is better at knocking over tools than anything else.

The start of wet sills.

Sill sealer.

From this view the the angle is much more clear.

When the world is your litterbox...

This weekend I hope to get the "dry" sills on.  Unfortunately I can't start framing the floor until the slab is poured in the basement.  That is scheduled for Monday.  So I'll probably spend the rest of the weekend cutting material and getting ready for next weekend when I plan to throw a large framing party.  More on that to follow.

Footings

Quick update: footings have been stripped and backfilled.  They have started laying the drainage tile and are ready to start forming walls.  Hopefully we'll have some formwork up next week.  Some pictures below. 

 

Post One

A lot of people have asked about the progress on our addition.  So here it goes.  But to back up a bit, let's go to the beginning for those of you that are new to this.  I am an architect living on Mt. Desert Island and working in Blue Hill, Maine.  I live in a one bedroom one bathroom house that looks like this:

It is in the middle of the woods, very secluded, and very bright (light is a commodity in Maine after all).  I live here with my cat Ramona.  In December I proposed to my girlfriend Susy and for some reason she said yes.  Well first she cried, which made me a little nervous, then she accepted.  And she has two kids: Valerie who is 18 and a senior in high school, and Victoria who is 13 and in 8th grade.  They are both on volleyball teams I coach; Valerie is on the varsity team at the high school and Victoria is on my 14's club team.  They are great (most of the time) but the problem that became apparent after the proposal was that my house is a little too small for all of us.  To make matters worse, and against my objections, in March we adopted a Corgi pup named Marlowe.  She is a little beast, but very cute so she gets away with more than she should.  And 750 square feet that once felt like the perfect size suddenly needed an upgrade.  And fast.  So I began work on a design for an addition.  With Susy one night I basically sketched out a floor plan that is pretty close to what we are building now.  I quickly drew up plans and then went to the bank to discuss getting a loan.  Fast forward many months of delays, bank requests, etc., and finally we were approved.  And so at the end of August the land was cleared and foundation work is now underway.  I wish I had taken pictures before it was cleared but so it goes.  Footings are being poured today.  Below are some plans and images of the proposed design.

As you can see the addition is larger than the existing house by about a third.  It will add three bedrooms and two baths.  There is also a mudroom and laundry room as well.  The addition will be connected to the present house via a bridge that will establish a new entrance.  We will then turn the current bedroom into the living room.  Now here's the trick: we only have $160 a square foot to build this thing.  That's where things get interesting.  Anyone will tell you that it's hard to build a house on the island for that amount of money; I know, this is what I do.  So we have to be careful and clever.  We will also need to put a lot of sweat equity into this.  When I say we I mostly mean me.  But more on that later.  In the meantime, here are some shots of the footing work that is underway as I type.  I'll try and update this regularly and as milestones occur.  We're hoping to move in at the end of May so we have a lot of work to do!  And we will need a lot of help.