Dometastic

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...

Lets talk about the disaster proof aspect of a monolithic dome. Depending on your personal belief in Global Climate Change you may need to keep your tinfoil hat ready. For those of you who believe that the data means that humanity is shooting itself in the foot...you can just skip the tinfoil for today. Clearly Mr. Dometastic and I believe that climate change is a reality. That is one of the biggest factors for building this house. I will admit that there is a part of me that feels awkward about building this house because of future "ifs". This must be how all the people who built cold war bomb shelters felt. For them it was a pointless exercise in making them feel safe. Of course, at the time, all those people didn't know that the bombs would never come. The shelters were never needed and were arguably inadequate if there was nuclear fall out. Duck and cover! "40 Million May Die. How About You" (That is quite the marketing tag line!) Maybe we are no...

The engineering on the dome is progressing. This week my homework was to decide what company we are going to use for our security shutters that will cover all the windows and decide how big we want the garage/basement to be under the dome. We looked into having the basement be the entire footprint of the house. It was too costly and way more square footage than we need. A 2700 sqft basement would just encourage us to store even more boxes we packed up 4 moves ago! I think everyone has these boxes. You know the ones I am talking about. The ones you pack with stuff you just CAN'T throw out but have no use for either. We have boxes we inherited that were packed from when my Mom sold her house in the late 1990's. Extra storage space is an enabler to the pack rat in all of us. We made our basement size decision based on one very important feature. A recycling chute! We want a kitchen island recycling chute straight into a bin in the basement. I think this is genius! I can...

While we wait as patiently as possible for spring to dig holes for our new perc tests my posts will be directed towards general dome related things. Most people I talk to know what a dome home is but are clueless about the different types of domes. This post is to help show the differences between geodesic and monolithic domes with a few pictures of each. The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true and a video must be worth 100000 words. (Watch a video of a monolithic dome being constructed at the end of this post to really wrap your mind around the process.) Many people have asked me how a monolithic dome is different than a geodesic dome. The answer can be quite simple. A monolithic dome structure is all one piece and geodesic domes are made up of many pieces (triangles) connected together. Monolithic domes are sprayed concrete like some inground pools. Here are some photos of interior and exterior monolithic domes. Compare the above Mon...

We are now playing the waiting game.  It is the "Wait for Spring" game. Our decision to move our septic location has pretty much halted the progress I was making. We need to wait until spring to dig holes for the new perc tests. We have had some weird warm winter weather BUT it is really wet. It is wet and could decide to freeze at any point. February in CT is not known as a great time to plan outdoor work. The wise (although frustrating) thing is to wait until spring so we get our best shot at good perc tests. I thought this winter would be a great time to prepare our updated plot plan but that would be too easy. Like most big projects, there are bottlenecks in the timeline that make things screech to a halt before they go full speed again. I am a patient person in most aspects of life but this does not extend to projects I am working on. Once I get going I can't just sit and wait. I get twitchy and need to focus on something else. My new focus is the barn. Mr. Do...

We have officially hit the first of many hidden costs in building from scratch. Part of what the building engineer needs is info about our land. They need to know everything from the topography and elevations to the location utilities will enter the house. I have spent the last 2 weeks talking to surveyors and getting quotes. This was informative in many ways but I do have one huge take away. The number one thing I learned: Don't always choose the cheapest way to do one step of a complicated process. Look at the bigger picture and ask people who understand the whole process not just the expert in that one step. Choosing to save money now may result in spending way more in the future. The septic system for our house is a prime example. I needed to listen to the surveyors but then take that info and talk to someone who understands the whole process of putting in a septic system.  The property already has an approved building plan but we want to move the proposed house location ...

I have been assigned some serious homework related to the engineering of the house. Everything from picking out the actual doors to picking the location of all the lighting. Not just lighting BUT the switches that will control the lights as well. The obsessive compulsive part of my artsy brain has been turned on. I have spent the last 7 days on these details drawing color coded lighting plans on the floor plan. Back when this house was only a dream a friend warned me about this aspect of building your own house. Every itty bitty detail is your choice. Your choice to get it right or to get it wrong. There is definitely a part of me that loves this and a part of me that is sure I will be super annoyed if I get it wrong. But I am determined to embrace these choices and not get frustrated.  Mr. Dometastic and I have lived in 14 different homes together. After 14 different places you definitely get a feel for what you love and hate. With all those others we could just hate it and...