Category Archives: Design
Greenhouse Heat Reclaim
After exploring many ideas, our team has determined the best option for saving energy on a typical sunny cold day will be to transfer collected heat from our Greenhouse/Dining Room to a second floor location near the central open staircase. Trey Austin, Geo-Energy Services, LLC., is proposing an air transfer design which will utilize an energy efficient inline fan controlled by two thermostats. The thermostats [...]
Greenhouse / Dining Room
While we enjoy cooking and hosting dinner parties, a dedicated dining room would go unused 95 % of the time. As a family, we’ll eat most of our meals in the banquette right off the kitchen. We developed this plan with Rob and Lisa combining uses to allow a vertical growing system on the south wall of our dining room. Floor to ceiling windows [...]
Solar Photovoltaic (PV) System
Our final Solar Photovoltaic (PV) System of 20-panels provided by SolSource, Inc. will produce 4.9 kilowatts (kW) per hour on a bright and sunny day. The initial design incorporated one more panel and was rated at 5.17kW. With a new lower rebate structure currently in effect, we were faced with reducing the number of panels to stay within [...]
Not So Big
There were three main design concepts we focused on with Rob as we designed our home: Functionality – multi-use rooms primarily designed for how we would use them 95% of the time with flexibility built-in to easily serve the other 5% Adjacencies – spaces we would use most often located together Size – “not so big” [...]
Shift in Direction
Foundations for both the house and garage are complete. We had originally expected to set the prefabricated modular boxes by now, but ran into issues. All American Homes (AAH) had provided preliminary pricing last March based on our floor plan, elevations and a series of meetings with Merten, Inc. Their pricing would be confirmed upon [...]
Final Permaculture Landscape Plan
Karla Dakin has completed the final landscape plan based on Lisa Lee Benjamin’s conceptual Permaculture Landscape Plan and Supporting Images. As originally conceived, the plan provides a low maintenance program for seasons of drought as well as high moisture. The fruit bearing trees and shrubs provide food and visual appeal while the spaces between allow [...]
SketchUp 3D Modeling Program
Perspective Looking Northwest One of the greatest advancements in the architectural world has been the ability to render a 3D image with computer software. Rob Ross and Seth Lytton with Merten Design have built a model of our house using software called SketchUp. Once the model is built, it can easily be viewed from any [...]
Kitchen Design Development Process
This is a series of drawings that show the evolution of our kitchen design. The first is a sketch that Michael and I generated after completion of the preliminary Main Level Plan. We didn’t have many pre-conceived notions about the look of kitchen, but I leaned toward open shelving and different colors for upper and [...]
Permaculture Landscape Supporting Images
Lisa provided this collection of supporting images for her conceptual Permaculture Landscape Plan. Throughout our collaborative design process, we found images to be an effective way of communicating ideas. This allows everyone to fully understand and agree on the vision prior to executing detailed drawings for construction. Our next step will be for Lisa to [...]
Permaculture Landscape Plan
Our large lot would have allowed us to build-out a much larger house. Instead, we kept our footprint relatively small not only for lower heating and cooling bills, but to allow for a more dynamic permaculture plan with onsite food production. Two weeks ago, Lisa Lee Benjamin, with Evo Catalyst, presented this first concept plan. She [...]