Home Renderings, Volume 4

(Brendan)

Continuing in the series of renderings, this one is a little less dramatic, but still very useful. The point of this rendering was to show a different angle from the front of the house, and to show the sightline straight through the front door and out to the wetland as one approaches the house. This sightline not only adds drama but gives a visitor a sense of the "thinness" of the volumes of the home and the connection of the home to the surroundings. Click to enlarge.
My brother finally got Clara in there!

An immediate question I had was whether we would really have a front door with that much glass. Not that there aren't front doors with lots of glass, but in Minnesota you typically would see a heavily insulated front door with maybe a small pane of glass toward the top. My brother really insisted (because of the sightline) on the need for a door with a lot of glass, and it could be one with double or triple panes for insulation. This I will have to research. Molly also thought, is such a door less secure? For example, couldn't someone just break the glass to enter the home? But, given all the other glass we have, I guess if the front door is solid they could just move over to a window if that's really what they want to do. Another potential issue is privacy, with any visitor having the ability to look right into the home from the front door, but this is where the brilliance of my brother's design comes through. The main volume of the home has small dividing walls that separate the kitchen, dining, entry, and homeschool room areas, and so the front door really only offers a view into the entry area, which I think is appropriate. Other areas of the home are visually separated and contained.

Another thing my brother felt strongly about was that the entryway be white so as not to distract from the view through the home. I think it makes sense, and the shelves you see to the left of the entry are just simply bookshelves from IKEA or similar, aligned side-to-side. These could be used for displaying family pictures and other such things.

Anyway, that's the renderings we have to date, my brother is currently working on two more: the interior of the chapel (something we'll have lots of discussions with my brother about, no doubt) and the interior of the master bedroom. When we get them, we'll post them!

Home Renderings, Volume 3

(Brendan)

Now we move on to a view from the front of the home. This view is interesting not only because it's of the front, but because it contains a few design changes as well. Here it is, click to enlarge.
Beautiful, isn't it? Landscape-wise, my brother thought we should have apple trees or some other flowering tree in the enclosed wall in front of the house, and we really like that concept. I think we'll definitely go with apple trees, and stay on top of trimming them so they don't get too large. He added that little door in the wall so that you can go in and tend the other plants in there, and also to pick apples. It's kind of monastic!

Also, he thought that a good way of transitioning from lawn to wooded area was with wild flowers. It's also low maintenance, which I had requested of any landscaping. Our current home has too much landscaping and it takes an incredible amount of time and effort to take care of it all. We'll probably have more lawn that what is shown here, but I like the concept, especially how the flowers go right up to the house.

Structure wise there are other changes you can see. First, there are new forms of windows on the lower level. The front entrance and the clusters of windows to either side are meant to be a family of similar forms, and there are now only three windows on the upper level which are aligned with the clusters on the lower level. This eliminates yet another window on the upper level for cost and I think aesthetics are still preserved. Also, there used to be brick that went all the way up the southern face of the main volume of the home, which my brother said he didn't end up liking once it was rendered. So now the brick on that face is limited to being even with the brick on the front, and a small brick face is added on the secondary volume of the home to continue the small brick wall into the hillside to the right.

Home Renderings, Volume 2

(Brendan)

So now we are on to the next in the series of photo-realistic renderings my brother has produced to help visualize the home and tweak the finer design details. The next rendering is from a position in the family room, with one's back up against the wall that adjoins the stairway upstairs. Again, it's best to click to enlarge it to see the details better.
Again, we laughed seeing Aidan plopped in the picture way off in the corner of the terrace!

I really like this view because this really shows the design concept of this volume of the home, to separate the wetland area from the wooded area and create two separate views with the home running in between. I think this also shows how the terrace, being at the same level as the interior floor, really makes the home feel much larger than it is. In actuality, the volumes of the home are quite thin (which I think is unique and will make cooling the house in the Summer a breeze... literally), but the terrace enlarges the feeling of the spaces. Also you can see the exposed flue here, with a fireplace that my brother designed.

We had a lot of discussions after looking at this rendering with my brother. First, those doors are cool but huge. I had modeled the doors in my Google Sketch-Up rendering as the standard 7 ft. height, but here they go all the way up to the ceiling (which is 10 ft. in this room). Wouldn't those be expensive? My brother convinced my that they wouldn't. The doors are very simple and could be custom made (hollow even) using quality plywood or other basic materials. And he has no door hardware on them. It would probably cost more money to do a standard door because then you have to continue the wall above the door with the framework behind it. We did tell my brother we'd rather have the doors to be "pocket doors" or sliding doors, which he is going to try to change. The doors will almost always be open, so we'd rather not have them sticking out into the family room all the time.

Another discussion point was the height of the windows by the terrace. I had modeled these to be shorter to save cost. But my brother really felt like they needed this level of height, and this was one of the reasons he got rid of the large windows in the school room to save on cost. It is still yet to be determined what we can afford in terms of these windows, and they will certainly be subdivided into smaller, stock-size windows to lower cost.

Lastly, the fireplace is to be a see-through fireplace so that it can be used in the library area as well, something my brother forgot about. The windows on the woods side are also too large. But these are all details that can be worked out later.

Home Renderings, Volume 1

(Brendan)

My brother has been working on the exterior design details of the home, and as part of this process he has created some photo-realistic renderings for better visualization. He has a CAD model of the home which allows him to set up the design of the home and exterior, and once that is in place he uses his fancy schmancy architectural software to create the rendering. The rendering takes the form of a single picture of the view of the model he wants, and it usually takes an hour or two for the computer to actually create the rendering (a lot of it is probably calculating light reflections and all the subtle details that fools the eye into thinking it's real or near real).

The renderings have blown Molly and I away with their reality and ability to give us a preview of how the home will really look. Each one is fascinating to look at. I'll post these renderings in a series of posts, with only one rendering per post to give each its due. Volume 1 of this series is a rendering of the back of the home, as if you were standing on the covered walkway outside. It includes actual photos of our land so that this is essentially exactly how this will look in real life. You'll want to click this to enlarge it for better detail.
We thought it was hilarious how he cropped an actual photo (from our trip to Florida a couple months ago) of Molly with Aidan and Eleanor and included it in the rendering! Here's a link to a previous post that has the real photo.

A few points of discussion. This for the first time shows exterior design color schemes which we really liked. The accent color, which is located on the columns and in all of the trim is a cream/yellow color. I think it looks great, and since it is included underneath the balcony in the covered walkway it really brightens up an area that could have been too dark.

In terms of the terrace, my brother rendered it with all brick, and it's this rendering that has convinced us that this is the way to go. We had previously thought we would attempt to simply use wood decking to make the terrace, which certainly would cost less money. But given the fact that we almost certainly will not be able to afford to do the terrace or balcony right away, and seeing how much stability, permanence, and quality the brick adds, we figure we'll just wait (and wait) until we can afford to do it right. The brick is also much lower maintenance than a wood decking material, which we all know degrades badly over time. Oh, as an aside, you'll also notice that any brick on the home will be this more subdued gray color, with cream accents in it. My brother thought this would be best with anticipated roof colors and the trim of the home.

The chapel at this point is only starting detailed design, and so you can see there are no windows in the rendering in the chapel. This will not be the final form. He also left out a few windows that should be there underneath the balcony along the side of the home (to the right in the rendering). He did actually remove large windows that were planned in the school room and these will be replaced with more standard windows to conserve cost (and they weren't really needed anyway).

I love the fact that in some ways the back of the home feels like a lake home, except without the worries of actual water for children. It's rare to have wild areas come right up to the back of the home like this. Garden areas and lawn will be more towards the South and front of the home.

One last thing. Right now he also rendered the home with a standing seam metal roof, which we would absolutely love, but probably won't be able to afford. We need to get a quote on this first. Also, he rendered the in-set gutters along the lower roof-line, and this is something I'm having second thoughts about (watching the ice in my current gutters). I think I have a different solution that I'll post about in the future.

Pictures of our land: Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer

(Brendan)

So now we've gotten to the point of actually posting some pictures of our land, taken with our good old-fashioned 3.2 MP digital camera. We've actually seen all four seasons with the land, as the first time we set eyes on it I believe was early November 2006. It can be kind of hard to get oriented in terms of which way the picture is facing, so I've included a handy little legend picture (probably 90% of you just like looking at the pictures, fine... the engineer in me needs to provide some spatial perspective on a schematic drawing). The legend image, as with all the images below, can be clicked to be enlarged.

Legend

Fall 2006

We had my family out to see the land after we signed a purchase agreement, and so here's a few pictures from their visit. Here's the "sold" sign!

This is a picture of my youngest brother Evan and my sister Allison walking out towards the wetland area (I'm the oldest of four).

Here's looking back from the wetland area towards the buildable land, on the West side of the property, with my parents.

And here's a view across the wetland area to the East side of the property. A road is in the process of being constructed along the East border of our property, but there's enough trees and vegetation that it should be naturally blocked from view.

Winter 2006/2007

Here's great picture of my "older-younger" brother (our architect) with the eldest two of our kids as we visit the property for my brother to take pictures.

And here's me with the kids on that same trip.

Spring 2007

The Spring is interesting at the property, as all of the snow has packed down the tall grasses and reeds in the wetland area so that it's really easy to walk around. Again, the eldest two kids and I took a trip to see the property in the Spring and take some pictures (not to mention to have Aidan blow off some energy, of which he has in seemingly infinite abundance). Here are the little buddies!

Summer 2007

And finally, here are the most up-to-date pictures. I just took these in early July, and wow the wetland looks totally different in Summer! It is almost impassable; I was able to get out and walk a few yards in, but the grasses and reeds are almost up to my chest. It's beautiful though, I'm really looking forward to the views in the Summers. Here's what it looks like under the trees on the buildable area.

And here's a look at the two main site-lines out the wetland area. These site-lines will be utilized to give great views from various rooms of the home.

And here's one last look back at the buildable area from the wetland (at least as far as I was willing to walk in). As can be seen, a lot of trees are going to have to come down to make room for the home. However, we are working in plans try to save the biggest trees.

Details of our land

(Brendan)

One of the first things that my brother (the architect) did for us is to utilize the official survey of the land to generate computer images of the layout of the site. The site itself has two main areas: buildable area and wetland (which you cannot build anything on by law). The buildable area is adjacent to the street and consists of roughly 1/3 of the site. The majority of the rest is wetland, and it's just beautiful. The wetland is great because not only does it provide some spectacular views, it really separates the property from any future lots to the East and ensures that we'll always have the views we see today. The wetland is fairly impassable in Summer, as the tall grasses and vegetation reach up to my arms. But in Spring, Fall, and Winter you can actually walk around in there, and I'm sure the kids will love it for "exploring."

Without further adieu, here's the official survey and computer generated images (click any of the images to enlarge):

Images 5 and 6 need a little explaining. We met with my brother over Christmas 2006, just after closing on the land, to establish the "program." The program is the number of rooms in the house, the types of rooms, and their first guess square footage. The program can also include general spatial arrangements of the rooms in relation to each other. Our first pass was "if we could have each room be the size we wanted, independent of cost, what would each be?" After going through that, my brother put the room sizes (shaped as squares and rectangles for now) next to each other so that we could visually see if one was too big in relation to another (image 5, below). This would start the process of cutting down the sizes to something that was more workable. Image 6 shows the rooms laid out on the land, as if the whole house was one story, just to see how it fit on the suggested building site.

The other cool aspect of the computer renderings is that they show site elevations, so you can see how the buildable area is higher than the wetland, and slopes towards the wetland. The suggested building site (called the "pad" area, in gray in image 7, below) is on the North side of the buildable area, and after walking the property with my brother, it is the place that offers the best views. So we'll likely go with the suggested building site as the actual building site. The computer renderings show the suggested building site as perfectly level so that you can see the slope from West to East. Images 7-9 show the computer rendered site elevations:

Finding our perfect land

(Brendan)

As mentioned in a previous post, though Molly and I had eventually realized what we really wanted in a new home, it still didn't seem like something that was within reach due to a number of factors. First there's the monetary factor. In order to build a home, one of course needs to own land on which to build the home, and that land costs money. Though the Lord had blessed us immensely with our current house, we didn't really see how paying our current mortgage while also buying a plot of land could possibly work. Second, there's the availability factor. It seemed to me that land was being snapped up by the day (this was during the boom years of the realty market) and that by the time we could afford land, it would all be gone (at least all of it within 50 miles of the Twin Cities).

We also had just moved to Coon Rapids, MN, to be closer to my place of employment, and more importantly to join as parishioners of the Church of St. Paul in Ham Lake. This is a whole other story in itself, but suffice it to say, the Church of St. Paul is, in our humble opinion, the most dynamic Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, utterly faithful to the teachings of the Church, and the ideal parish in which to raise children. We were not leaving this parish, and this would take priority over building a house if the two conflicted. We wanted to make sure our priorities were rightly oriented. So, if we were to buy land, it had to be within a reasonable distance of the Church of St. Paul, and preferably not a great deal farther from work so that I didn't significantly increase my commute.

Despite all this, there was an acknowledgment that if the Lord wanted this for our family, our dream of building a home oriented for the family as the "domestic church," and oriented towards fostering virtue and holiness, somehow He would make it happen. We had no interest in building a home for a status symbol, or for lavish living (as if we could afford it), or simply for the sake of building a home. If we were going to build a home, it was going to be specifically because it would truly assist in raising children for the kingdom of heaven, and if this was possible and a worthy goal, the Lord would make it happen. For good measure, through praying a novena we asked St. Joseph, patron saint of homes, to pray for us!

In September of 2006, almost on a whim, and partially out of impatience, I started looking online at available land. I first calculated what I thought we could afford (though I didn't really know what I was doing, in that I thought one bought land with a "mortgage" just like a house) and then set about seeing what was available. I thought that it would be good if we could get at least 1 acre for space for the kids to run around, something a little lacking in our current house. There was not much available in our price range, and the closer to the Twin Cities the lot was, the smaller it got and the more it cost. Over the next few weeks, we drove and looked at lots that were as much as 20-25 miles from Ham Lake, and no where near my place of employment. We were a little dismayed at the possibilities, and what it would mean for family in terms of drive time to visit us, not to mention the drive to church and work.

One thing I am very sure of is that the Lord started giving me lots of ideas of how to make a higher price feasible, and in realizing this, I increased what I thought we could afford. Soon, we found a lot right in Ham Lake, 5 minutes from church, 2.3 acres. We were in love with it! It seemed perfect, a little out of our price range, but we felt we could talk down the owner a little. We made an offer. The offer was rejected, with a counter-offer at the same price (i.e. "pay my price or take a hike"). We actually got into a multiple bidder situation, as someone else was readying an offer and the seller knew he was in a good position. Thank God our offer was rejected! While pondering whether to meet the seller's demands, I asked a few more innocent questions about where the house would go on the lot, and it was discovered that almost 85% of the land was zoned as wetland. Only a small corner of the land was available for building. We rescinded our first offer, and got the heck out of there. Whew!

Still, this was disappointing. To have come so close! The next few weeks were spent trying to find a lot that would replicate what we thought we had, with nothing coming even close. One weekend, Molly was away (a rare event) volunteering on a Twin Cities TEC retreat, and I was going solo with the kids. I decided to take them out looking at a few lots that were somewhat interesting. I planned on visiting four lots, and the first three all royally disappointed. Then I drove to the final lot, actually in Ham Lake, about 5 minutes further from church than the lot we almost bought. I still remember driving up to the lot vividly. I'm a Mechanical Engineer, and a very logical thinker. When all the pieces fall into place, I need no further time for discussion. I took one drive by this lot and immediately pulled over and called our realtor and asked him contact the realtor for the land. This was definitely it, and I wanted to move fast!

To attenuate a long story, after a lot of back and forth with the seller, we signed a purchase agreement. The land is absolutely beautiful! It's 2.6 acres, it's in Ham Lake - 10 minutes from church, and it's right off Lexington Avenue, which is the same thoroughfare on which the company I work for is located (only 5 minutes extra commute, and a lot simpler). God is awesome! We closed on the land in December of 2006.

Here is a satellite image of our land (click the image to view it in larger size):

And here is a link to an updated satellite image in Google maps, with our lot outlined. You can see the houses that have been added since the image above (a couple more homes have been added even since this newer image). The newer image was obviously taken in a different season. Kind of interesting - I didn't think Google updates their satellite images that often.

Pictures of the land from human level will be loaded in an upcoming post. Stay tuned!