Rebuilding a Modern Farmhouse After a Fire

Here is a new project to follow on the New House Next Door blog:

The New House After the Fire

House was a Cape Style before the fire

Burnt home removed, except for part of foundation

This is almost a new home design, except it's not. A house stood on this property - it was a 1.5 story type house, which means the second floor is up within the roof, often with dormers popped out of the roof for additional space and windows. A fire devastated the structure.

(Public Service Message: Use the correct size/ rated extension cord!)

So what started as a bad situation has led to an opportunity. We have designed a new modern farmhouse with more space, a full second floor, an attached mud room and garage, and an expansive custom-truss roofed open chef's kitchen where once was a family room that suffered by being so disconnected from the rest of the home. The new home will serve the family that lives there much better because we took the time to think about what worked in the former home and what did not and we didn't stay attached to placing rooms, like the kitchen, in the same spot on the floor plan just because that's where it was before.

Forms set for pouring the new mudroom & attached garage

The former house had 2 parts - on the right was the 1.5 story Cape-type part with living/kitchen/dining and 2 bedrooms on the first floor and 2 more bedrooms upstairs within the dormers. On the right side was an addition that was built with a lower floor height, so that from the kitchen one could climb down a few steps and be in a large sunken family room. This part had no second floor atop it, and so could have higher ceilings, but I don't recall if it really did. The back of the home had a large deck and a new 3 season room to enjoy the mountain view. The only thing that could be saved was the foundation under the family room area (where is was fairly new, and made of poured concrete) but the "sunken" nature of it was undesirable and created problems, so in the new design we add a special foundation wall extension to bring the height of all the floors even with each other. The older concrete block foundation was deemed insufficient, but the new poured foundation in that area will still be exactly the same size/shape the old one was. We are adding a 3rd part on the left side that is a slab on grade as will be the foundation for the new mudroom and attached garage.

Drawing of the new Front Elevation