Category Archives: Farm House

Farm House

Barn House… NOT

Update 9/23/2015

Long overdue update.  No Barn House.  🙁

Our work with Appalachian Contractors and Hank Spiker not good and we have made the difficult decision to go a different direction and start over with someone new.

While there will be no Barn House – there will be a Farm House 2.

Barn House page has been.

I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to keep the original text, although I currently find incredibly depressing.  It is a reminder of how excited and hopeful we were about this project once upon a time.

Everything works out the way it is supposed to.

We have already started working on Farm House 2 and things are going well, but that is a topic for a different post.

TTFN

ORIGINAL BARN HOUSE PAGE

Barn House.

You might be wondering – what is it and why would you build such a thing.

  • Barns are pretty cool.
  • We need a Barn for the Tractors and stuff.
  • We need a place to live.

Solution:  Barn House.   Barn on the lower level with living space on the second floor.

It’s really very practical.  Rather than building a barn and building a house big enough for us to work from, have room for the girls, and guests.  This way we leverage the existing home and the infrastructure that’s already in place here.

  • Barn House  (Barn and Living Space)
  • Renovated Farm House (Offices and Guest Space).

We have some ideas, but will have to meet with an Architect to draw up plans that the builder can work from and those may drive big changes to our ideas.

But at least we walked the site with our contractor and he thinks it will work.

Yay!

 

Farm House

Construction Documents

The final design is here:

The updated design drawing here is not quite final, but it has nice color pictures that the Construction documents do not have:

Goodliffe Updated Design Drawings – pdfs 12 sheets 123014&011415

Unless we have any more changes – this is what they are going to build us.  It’s broken into 2 separate files so they could e-mail it to us.

Goodliffe Final Coordination Set 031215 Sheets 1-5

Goodliffe Final Coordination Set 031215 Sheets 6-14

Farm House

Barn House and Guinea Fowl

We are getting close to finalizing the Barn House plans.  Very basic structure, but the inside is the star.

Haven’t mastered terrain or roofs, but there will be a screened porch on the back and the lower level is a partial basement.

Also – we have 12 new Guinea Fowl.  They are now 2 weeks old and already starting to fly.  Which is interesting because we don’t have an outdoor home for them yet.

Here are the updated Barn House plans.  Feedback if you have any!

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Perspective Full Overview Image – Front and Side

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Perspective Full Overview Image – Back and Other Side

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Perspective Full Overview Image – Back and Side 2

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Perspective Full Overview Image – Front and Side 2

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Floor Plan – Basement Garage

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Floor Plan – First Floor

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.6 roof-Floor Plan – Second Floor

 

 

IMG_0318

 

IMG_0313

 

IMG_0405

Farm House

Barn House Updates

OK – After much thought and work – here is the latest version of the Barn House.  I think the rooms and sizes are much more in line with what we will be happy living in while still providing entertainment spaces that are going to be amazing.

Look at the floor plan.  The outside is plain.  This is intentional.  It is hopefully going to look like an old barn that was renovated.  The outside should be plain and somewhat random.

Still learning the house design software, so don’t judge too harshly on location of random windows/doors/etc..

Feedback!  What do you think of the general floorplan?  Good?  Bad?  I’m sure there are things we haven’t thought about so please let us know if you see something that looks off or like it wont work.

 

BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.5-Floor Plan Second Floor BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.5-Floor Plan First Floor BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.5-Floor Plan BasementGarage Floor BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.5-Perspective Doll House View Image Side BarnHouse30x45 Stairs v3.5-Perspective Doll House View Image Front

Farm House

Barn House v2

Here is the second version of the Barn House plans.  Some changes to layout and some size reductions.  The first version was AWESOME, but over the top.  Still a few things to refine and fine tune.  I wish it included a view of the outside and how the changes impact the look from the outside.

Goodliffe Further Studies 061314

Comments regarding changes from Jim and Hank..

Jim Notes:

A couple of things that I see:

· Overall size reduction is probably a good thing, from a cost standpoint anyway.

· Column spacing at lower level is improved.

· Lower level bathroom still seems far from your office/workspaces.

· Silo entry with straight stairs leaves a large limited use foyer space.

· Silo entry with curved stairs allows the opportunity to move the silo to the right until it engages the house at two points, shrinking the unused foyer space. Some details remain to be discovered how those stairs/landings would actually work. Access for moving furniture (that doesn’t fit in the elevator) is less convenient, but generally a one-time thing. Spiral stairs may be considered somewhat less safe and will be more costly……………but they sure are cool!

· Kitchen area seems much improved with pass-thru serving to screen porch and straight thru passage to great room.

· Powder room feels a little bit awkward. It may want to switch with the laundry.

· Overall, the placement is better on the site I think. Hopefully we’ll have less required structure to retain soil at the right end.

 

Hank Notes:

  • Attached are four sheets showing proposed adjustments…
  • The site plan shows moving the house 50 ft north, and west till silo is adjacent to the setback line.
  • The turn area is moved to the west side of drive where little cut/fill would be needed instead of east where there would be a good bit of fill.
  • The plans show idea of moving the silo southward thinking as the ‘entrance’, it should be more convenient to the front of the residence. This allows entrance direct to the lower level (Martha’s original thought), and avoids a rather steep (12%) walk up the hill to the previous silo location.
  • The stairs are shown as a straight run, with the ‘main to loft’  stacked over the ‘lower to main’ runs. As an option (see Main Level Plan), the spiral stair idea would work…  I can show in 3d if needed.
  • In moving the silo to the center of the west facade, the kitchen moves northward, deleting the ‘Breakfast’ niche.
  • Martha’s request to split one of the guest bedrooms into two smaller spaces is accommodated, and a ‘satellite laundry room’ is added on the Main.
  • Lastly, I’ve tightened plan to eliminate four feet of building width x 50 feet on three levels.
  • The column spacing on the lower level is a little better too.
Farm House

Demolition Day

It’s Mobile Home Demolition Day (06/02/14) here at the farm.  Got some cool pictures of the mobile home being crushed.

Demolition Crew is Chris Higgins Contracting based in Dahlonega, GA.  They have a two man crew out there, and clearly they have done this many times before.  It is quite impressive.  They got here around 8am this morning, probably started demolition an hour or so later and made quick work of it.  They cleared a path, moved the dumpsters and started wrecking.

As of 1:30 they have it mostly down.  I have to run into town and I’m betting it will be completely crushed before I get back.

Tim and Chris worked Mon, Tues and Wed on demolition and clearing.  Tim worked some more on Thursday.  (6/2-6/5).  It’s been raining so as of 6/16 nothing new has happened with demolition / clearing.

6/17 – Chris and Tim were here for a couple of hours.  9-10:30 or so.

6/23 – Chris and/or Tim arrived approximately 3pm with the big dump truck.  So far, no activity appears to be happening.  Looks like they may have a problem with their big machine – not working…

4:45 looks like they may have fixed it.  They are removing the trees by the tractor shed.

 

 

 

 

Farm House

Farm House 05/21

Due to the length of time that Barn House will take to be complete, we are making our own updates to Farm House so we can be more comfortable here for the next 12-18-24-? months.

I am going to see what we can dig up in terms of before pictures, but Meagan was nice enough to make some photo collages with our recent work.

Some recent changes:

  • Picked out paint for several rooms (5/11)
  • Painted girls room (5/14), Hung Curtains
  • Painted LR (5/17)
  • Painted Guest Bath (5/18)
  • Washed dressers for refinishing (5/18)
  • Painted half of hallway (5/18)
  • Living Room couches (5/19)

Next Steps

  • Refinish dressers
  • Continue Painting
  • Replace Carpet

 

Pictures coming soon…

 

 

 

Farm House

Farm House Page

The current farm house and plans for renovation.

What the farm house floor plan looks like today: Farm House

Farm House is in a great location, but it does need a LOT of work. This will be worth it, because as the contractor says – ‘it has good bones’. So – we renovate.. But because of the size of the project – first we need a place to stay and because this will be our permanent home site – Barn House. Barn House is going to get his own page.

Farm House Renovation Highlights

Inside
New Windows / Insulation
Drywall Repair
Ceiling Repair
Interior Electrical and Wiring
Plumbing
Cabinets
Kitchen and Bath fixtures
Appliances
Flooring throughout
Outside
Siding repair and paint
Grading for basement leaks
Roof Repair
Porch Repair
To make it nicer
Make the Kitchen bigger and create a more open floor plan
Redo the porch – fix the roof so the porch doesn’t need to be covered because this blocks a lot of natural light.
None of this will start for at least 6-9 months because of Barn House.

Farm House Updates are posted in the Farm House Blog.