Moonlighting for my Sis

[shipperx]

I know I've been MIA on-line a lot and it's only partially due to work.  Part of it is due to still working on my sister's house (which she still drives me nuts about daily).  So, after months of aggravation, two stress induced psoriasis outbreaks, and more headaches and back aches (from sitting at the computer doing CAD after 9 hours of actual paying work doing CAD), we've moved onto construction of my sister's house  (I swear to god, my own house could fit into the attic of this one.  My sister is my sister, and I love her greatly, but -- whoa -- she wants a lot)

Anyway, pics of where we are to date:

Before Shot.  (Before we even had a permit to build)






Six months later (when we finally had a permit) we cleared the site:

(In the industry, we call this 'raping the site'.  But we didn't have a choice, the damn house fills the entire lot)







Forms for the pouring of concrete foundation walls (I know.  They're daunting!  Had to do it because this is all backfilled)

I mentioned that this site has a +20% slope, right?





My neice, Lexie, with the framing crew






More or less the state that it's in now  (the more recent work is plumbing/wiring):

(Drove by yesterday and they have now begun laying the brick and stone for the exterior)


Contractor @ rear of the house:

 

Comments

[shapinglight]

There's a TV series over here called Grand Designs, which follows various people building their dream homes from scratch, and it always looks such awful hard work! I'm not surprised you haven't been around much.

Is there some point at which your responsibility for the project ends and someone else takes over?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in it for the long haul (no real choice in the matter). I'm just hoping that she'll be happy when it's done. No house is perfect and she had incredibly unrealistic high expectations.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, that's a big house! How many square feet? Our house is built on a slope, too. I remember the huge amount of concrete.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Re: square footage, that's one of those things up for debate.

To follow the complete insanity of my sister's house psychosis, it began with my brother-in-law wanting to downsize since both my nephews have graduated high school and entered college. So they sold their 5000sq.ft. house and searched for a smaller house... which my sister was... um... shall we say an eensy bit passive aggressive about. Unable to find a house that she really "wanted" and ignoring my mother's a my advice they moved into a house that was undoubtedly two small for them... which she proceeded to make pretty much unlivable by not parting with just about any of the furniture from her previous house (Hell, I have one huge antique of hers in my living room). For months she didn't unpack the boxes of stuff and basically made their new house seem even smaller than it actually was (which was too small) in order to pretty much manipulate convince my brother-in-law that they had to build a house. I tried to convince her to hire an architect, but after interviewing a couple (and finding out what they cost) she more or less guilted me into doing it.

Following all her requests in the house, I ended up producing a plan for another 5,000 sq.ft. house. My brother-in-law freaked. They then begged me to reduce it down to 3,900 sq. ft. Which I did... to which my sister complained about parts of it so it was around 4,200 sq.ft. when it was put out to bid. Since then they decided to extend the basement to a full basement instead of a half-basement. So, by the time that construction began it was 4,700 sq.ft. of finished space with extra basement and attic area for storage. During construction she's now finished more of the basement and more of the attic. I'd guess that at this point it's probably 4,900finished,but the contractor says (including unfinished spaces) it's right a 7,000Sq.Ft. . . .Which is insane. But... there's be no way around it and satisfy my sister. It's been rather apalling astounding.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's some creative downsizing! I hope your part in it ends soon.

[rahirah]

Jesus X Christ on a pogo stick, 7000 square feet?

If it were me, I'd have taken a fourth of that and left some of the trees standing...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't think (actually, I know) there wasn't really any way to save the trees. As gargantuan as the house is, the footprint is relatively small (comparatively speaking). It's just that it's freaking three stories high.

She's nuts. I just hope she's satisfied.

[tnmisery.livejournal.com]

You built her a turret. I AM SO JEALOUS. That's awesome.

Hehehe, ummmm...a lot of my friends are framers and roofers? Now there is a rare breed. :D All the ones I know? Crazy. But usually good crazy.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Dude. I don't know how framers do it. I wouldn't even go out on the roof to check the flashing condition, just had to trust the sub to tell me that they had done it the way that I had requested.

And I admit that I more or less shrank and copied a turret we (my firm... well not my firm but the firm where I work) put on a school a couple of years ago.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

That's a seriously big house, I don't envy her energy bills. But building on that site was, I'm sure, quite a headache for you so I'm glad things are finally falling into place (and she's happy I hope).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I hope she's happy (or will be when it's done). I have my fingers crossed about that.

And we have tried to go as green as possible with it. The exterior is recycled/reclaimed brick. We've used tankless water heaters, heat pumps, and low-e insulated glass. But... yeah, I'm glad I don't have to pay the kind of utilities this place with require (or the taxes given that she's built it over in Mountain Brook)

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Holy HANNAH that's big, but pretty :D

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I find the place almost depressingly huge. I don't even envy having a place this big. I just keep thinking how much it all is in every sense.

But, from the point of view of a designer, it's an impression commision (if I were being paid a regular architect's fee for designing, which I'm not). But still, I tell myself it's worth having in my portfolio.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

*nod* What's the square footage? How is it allotted?

When Scott and I talk about our eventual home, we fully realize that it's going to have more square footage than most folks would consider reasonable for 2 people. But we have a lot of specific use alloted for that footage.

We will have 2 offices, which is just necessary to the continued existence of our marriage ;) Also, because he works at home 90% of the time. I will either have a craft room, or my office will be multi-purposed.

I want a really functional pantry and laundry area. We want a well-designed great room, with specific layout for media.

We want 2 spare bedrooms, so he has one to go to when I'm sleepwalking and he NEEDS to sleep (it's just something you hve to adjust to!) and we can have a guest.

We want to have specific space for fishtanks - including a "fish room" behind/beneath the big tank, which will have specific plumbing/HVAC/electric needs.

Probably no one else is ever gonna wanna buy this house, but we really don't care ;) We're hoping to make it our eventual "retire and die in it" home :D

BTW, some day I may be pinging you to see what you know about alternative energy in home design *grin*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

There's a huge amount of storage in attic and basement (but seeing what she dragged out of the last house... they sort of need a huge amount of storage). And she had the request of not one, not two, but three offices (as she has one, her husband has one, her daughter has one). I kind of hid that in making the daughter's study a "spare bedroom" (that isn't a bedroom for them but could be for resale) and calling my sister's office a "keeping room", but for all intents and purposes it's three offices. Plus, there are bedrooms for the two college age boys. Then there was the fact that it was a HUGE slop on the site requiring a basement to level the whole thing off (they wanted a basement so even if I had found a way to do it without one, they would have insisted). I posted the plans here:
http://www.box.net/shared/ulmr3judi2

We did go with some energy saving with using low-e insulated glass, and tankless water heaters. A added solatube daylighting (http://www.solatube.com/residential/), some flourescent floods instead of incandescent, and vacancy sensors (http://www.environmentalhomecenter.com/shop.mv?CatCode=PRODUCT&ProdCode=WATTSTOPPER) in rooms such as bathrooms and closets. We're also using recycled/reclaimed brick from an old building which was torn down, so some efforts were made for going green though there's a heck of a lot more which could be done. We considered a cistern for lawn watering, but the upfront cost was somewhat prohibitive

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Very cool!

I'm grabbing the plans - I'm a floorplan geek ;)

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

Very impressive!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I hope it turns out well and that's she's happy with it.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

That's a mini-castle, not a house! I'm so jealous of her turret.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I pretty much stole and shrank the turret we used on a Mt. Laurel Elementary a few years ago:



And, yeah, the house seems impressively overwhelmingly huge to me, but it's pretty much what she's demanded requested. :)

[cordykitten]

Looks like a castle :))
Not sure how good it is to live in one but it sure looks good.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

She has some castle-fixation I think (her last house had sort of a castle-y motif as well). I don't quite understand it, and am rather overwhelmed by the scale of what she wants. But, hopefully, I designed what she wants (even if the size of it is more than I could ever imagine dealing with).