New House Plans!

Well we're getting much closer now.  The second floor has been shifted over so that the house looks more balanced.  See what you think:

The first floor is nearly where we want it too, with only a few small modifications left to work out.

The second floor is pretty much locked in, as is:



We've also gotten a preliminary foundation design, but I won't post that since it won't mean much, except to Rob maybe.

Project Update

Floor plans are being fine tuned, along with a request by us to revise the roofline to make the house look more balanced.  This will mess up the upstairs layout, but we're confident that our architect, Laura, will figure it out.

The engineer is about to start work, but we need to decide on the height of the house and the type of columns.  We are going to be at least 13 feet in the air to get above the storm tide, but may go a few feet higher to get reduced insurance costs.  We toured a couple houses under construction on Sunday that are raised and yes, 12 feet is up there.  One was 17 feet up - Wow!  Plan for an elevator if you are going to get old. :-) We also need to decide on wood or concrete columns to hold up the house.  We're concerned about possbile "sway" being that far up. 

We've hired a firm to perform a wetlands delineation to figure out where we can build and where we can't.  Below is the map they've provided, along with a report.  Both these will go to the DMR and the Corps of Engineers and then maybe we can get our permit.  The wet area is the small bit on the left.  It will restrict the boat dock somewhat, but not too much. 

New Plans! and a wetlands delineation

Today we got a new set of basic floor plans from our architect, much more what we are looking for.  We will spend some time with them and make some minor tweaks, but I think this is the concept will will go forward with.  I will try to post them, but it's not working right now.

I have also talked to a biologist/wetlands dude about doing a delineation of our waterfront lot.  He was supposed to look at it today and call me, but I haven't heard back yet.

I got it to work, so here are the plans, noted below.

This is the main floor, which will be 15 feet above ground or so.  The master bedroom is on the left.  The living room is in the center and the dining room is on the right.  They will all look out toward the water.  The stairs, kitchen and bathrooms will be to the back.  The kitchen layout is kinda whacky right now, and needs some attention, but that can be worked out now that the main floor plan elements are nearly settled.  Our architect will also work out how make the powder room door not open right into the main living area, but be off a side hall or around a corner or something.

We actually have a couple nice oak trees, one right in front of the house, so the porch level and main floor views may be through the tree foliage!

This is the second floor, with three bedrooms, all with a view toward the water.

This is a perspective view, as if the second floor was lifted off, and you're up high looking down at main living level. 

This is a view looking at the house from the road, or the water side.  The windows aren't really worked out yet.  That will come now that we have a floor plan pretty much settled.



Looks really cool, huh?  We're really excited!

Building Plans Update 11-09-11

We have looked at two sets of plans from the architect so far, and she's revising again.  The first set was almost the same as my hand sketches, but drawn to scale and drafted in CAD. On the second set she threw us a curve-ball and changed major stuff, which we didn't like.  For instance, she had a stairway at the front of the house and the dining room at the back.  Why put a stairway in front and cut off some of the views of the water and wetlands?  She had a reason, but we said we wanted the dining room to have the water view - put the stairs at the back.  She had some other things that we didn't understand, but got to like them when she explained the purpose.  So now she's revising again, and hopefully we'll have another set next week.  I haven't posted any of these to the blog since they're worse than the first!

Waterfront Update - 11-9-11

The Mississippi DMR, ( Dept of Marine Resources), who are supposed to grant the permit for water front improvements has declared our water front to be wetlands, with more restrictive construction requirements.  I think it's debatable about being a wetland, but they're the authority.  If I want to contest their ruling I have to get a biologist/wetlands expert to inspect and delineate the wet from non-wet lands.  I am talking with my waterfront contractor about the situation, and we'll figure something out.  Even if the whole thing stays wetlands, we can build the dock and covered boat lift, so not a deal killer.

Floor Plan Sketches

I thought I posted these long ago, but can't find them now on the blog, so here we go again.  These are rough floor plans we developed and have given to our architect, and she is adding necessary design updates and planning.

View of House from the street

Here's a sketch of what the house might look like from the street.

Waterfront Improvements

After a month of getting quotes and redesigning the waterfront designs, yesterday we awarded the contract for construction of a bulkhead, a covered boat lift and dock for fishing and messing around.  The next step is to request a permit from Mississippi's Dept of Marine Resources, which I should mail off next week.

Here's a sketch of the proposed improvements:

First Post

This is our first attempt at a blog, so not sure how it works, but we're willing to give it a try.

We bought the lot, ( 2 lots actually), on August 5th, 2011.    We have 2 lots, one on the water and one across the street from the waterfront lot.

Here's a picture of teh view from our shoreline:

Here's a view from the back of the lot, looking toward the street and water:

On August 19th, tom met with three building contractors and two marine contractors to discuss building a house and improving the water front.  The marine guys will install a bulkhead, or retaining wall, to keep the shoreline from eroding any further, and also install a dock and boat lift/roof system.  The building contractors will do the foundation and house construction, once we get a set of plans and engineering work completed.  the foundation has to be engineered to withstand flood waters and wave/tidal action, without major loss of the house structure

We've spent some time doing rough drawings and trying to assemble all the elements of the house as we would like it.  But that's not enough.  We have pretty much figured out that we need a drafter or architect to turn our desired floor plans into a set of construction grade drawings.  If I canfigure it out, I will try to post the floor plans we are thinking about.