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Third Draft...Getting Closer

It is February and all week it was in the 60's. This weather has us twitchy to start our process but we know that the warm won't last. Typically February in CT is still below freezing most of the time.

This week still shows warmer than normal weather for February. We can't do much to start the house yet but there are other things on the property that we need to work on. I am also working on the design of the small horse barn we will be building before the dome goes up. Once I finish the design I will share it. 

The property came with a small barn. We can't use it for animals since it is in a conservation area but we are allowed to use it for anything else and maintain the area around it. The structure is solid and the roof is good but the walls.... not so much. Some genius used particle board sheets for the walls and then never put siding on the outside of the barn. So now the walls are sad, saggy and falling down. All these need to be pulled off and we will measure for new metal siding. Since the weather is unseasonably warm we might as well start working on the barn. The first thing that needs to happen is brush cutting. Three sides of the barn have thick prickers and brush right up to the sides. Unfortunately there isn't enough room to get the tractor with the brush hog in so that means we will be hand cutting it. I am not looking forward to my hand to hand combat with prickers but it is easier to do while there are no leaves. 

This week was another decisions week. We sat down and picked apart the third draft of our plans and answered questions for the designer. This draft includes technical aspects of the house and not just the layout I show below. It is getting closer. We hope to get the 4th draft in the next week or two. This is the one we will take to the town before we sign off on the plans as complete. We want to make sure the town doesn't have any changes before we apply for permits and are still in the revision stage. As soon as we have the 4th draft we will schedule a sit down meeting with the building department and maybe zoning and engineering as well. I am not sure how hard it will be to get them all in one room but hope we can at least chat with each department separately on the same trip.

Here it is. Draft number 3 floor plan!


We still are tweaking things a bit so this one is still not final. Most of the changes this time around are not on this floor plan but on the other engineering pages. This one has only 6 changes. 

  1. Move the wood stove a bit
  2. Change the location of the pocket door at the top of the basement stairs
  3. Add a small closet at the top of the basement stairs
  4. Change the pocket door to the same size as the others in the 3rd bedroom/multipurpose room
  5. The window we added to the right side of the great room should be a large round one not blocks
  6. Push the glass wall door to the deck out as far as possible to give more interior room







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