Roof Shape Transformation

 

Second Floor Area expanded and gable roof shape replaces almost-flat roof

Front view before

The shape and arrangement of the roofs at any structure greatly influences how the building looks, feels, and functions. Some existing structures, than have been added to over decades (sometimes one room at a time) can look very disorganized and overly complicated. Oftentimes when I begin a renovation or an addition to an existing older home, I have to start by thinking about the roofs.

Back view before

This home is a good example. This existing house may have started it's life as a timber barn in the late 1800s, and it was modified and added onto multiple times with varying level of skill as the owners converted it into a home, added modern amenities, and needed more space. My clients bought it thinking it could be renovated into their forever home with just a small bit of space added, so I designed a second floor addition over an area that had been only one story, and a small addition off the back. We came up with a completely new interior layout that would work for their family but even with all that, one of the most important design tactics I brought to the process was creating order from the jumble of low-pitch roofs housing low-ceilings rooms. The new home has shapes that look intentional rather than cobbled. Bringing order to what has become a mess is what a good designer can do. Part of if, for me, is looking at how the structure wants to be organized. Usually there is a logic that can be uncovered and brought forth. And this isn't esoteric - this can be about real-world solutions for shedding rain and snow as much as anything.

Back view before

I hope you can see how the change from low, almost flat roof shapes to more traditional, appropriate gabled roof shapes improved how this house looks and feels. And how, while client's eyes are focused on the floor plan, an architect is thinking in three dimensions to make a cohesive whole and can make it seem effortless. This cute building now accepts the challenge and succeeds at holding it's place in the streetscape of the historic village of which it is a part.

Built-in Bench Seats

Entry bench and cubbies and wall hooks

Built-ins add incredible character and personalization to our home designs, as well as a way to help us be more organized and arrange our stuff beautifully. Built-in benches are close to the easiest thing to build - it could just be a horizontal surface at the correct height- so they can give a big bang for the buck, as opposed to cabinet-style built ins, which can be very pricey.

My previous post was about window seats (cwb-architect.blogspot.com/window-seats), which by my definition are a cozy nook where a person or two can relax and be on the edge of the larger room, skirting the more major function of the room. The bench projects featured here are perhaps more functional than the dreamy window seat. They are located in kitchens, next to a table for eating. They are located in mudrooms or entries as a place to sit and remove shoes or zipper a kid's coat. Since they are usually in working areas they can be surrounded by designed storage.

Mud Room Entry Bench 

The simplest bench is a slab that has open floor space below it. This space can be used for storage of shoes, etc. if the bench is near an entry. (If the bench is at a table, this open space makes a space for the seated person to tuck their feet, adding comfort.) Sometimes we built shelves or cubbies or drawers below or next to a bench seat to organize all the sports/school/outerwear stuff we have near the door. Cubbies can hold bins that act a a more economical "drawer" to hide some of the clutter.

Benches that are not open below should still offer space for one's heels to tuck under for comfort, but the inner area can still be enclosed for storage. Sometimes the lid flips up on a hinge to access the inside space. Sometimes it is noted that that space is not so easily accessible, especially if a cushion is placed atop, and so we keep it simple and just box it in, minimizing the cost by not finishing the interior.

Bench along side of dining table

Corner Banquet Bench in Kitchen

Window Seats

Window Seat is game/reading nook in a casual dining area 

Reading nook window seat on edge of master bedroom

Window seats are special. They are carved from the edge of a room, either bumped in or bumped outward to create a special zone of space unique from the rest of of the room. The nook they create has a smaller scale where a single person can sit, read, think, or just gaze outdoors. It can feel like a room within a room, and can allow a room to feel more comfortable and be used for a greater variety of functions.

Long seat at Dining Room feature window

I love using window seats in my designs, and many clients ask for one. They are space saving and evoke a homey, hygge sense of comfort. I’ve placed them in bedrooms, as a cozy reading nook. I’ve used them in kitchens or casual eating areas as a built-in seat along one side of a table. (Used in this way, the room can be smaller than if chairs, which need space to slide backward, need to be placed all the way around a table.) I’ve used them in large rooms, like living or formal dining spaces, that may not be used daily or often, so that when one is home alone that large space can offer a personal-sized space in which to feel comfortable. I’ve used them in hallways or foyers as a way to make that space more than just a pass-thru area, by creating a place to sit and stay a while.

Built-in bench seat- or display shelf surface- in Farmhouse Kitchen

The design and construction methods for building a window seat can change to fit the space or use of the seat. Sometimes the seat flips up to access storage space inside, sometimes we have cubbies or drawers that are accessed from the front. We can plan for cushions, lighting, and an angled back for comfort. Bookshelves and woodwork and trim and soffits can all be custom designed so that the window seat is a real architectural focus in the space.

Cubbies below seat and bead board wainscotting accent woodwork

Of course to be called a window seat, it has to have a window- or three windows- which is what I tend to do, as you see in my projects featured here! Next blog post I’ll share photos from projects with built-in seats or benches that are not at a window, but are just as functional and beautiful and also add a certain desirable homey quality.

Farmhouse kitchen table designed with built-in bench seating

Really Custom- photos from various projects

Mexican Tile and Wood Stove w/ Bread Baking compartment
in a Farmhouse Kitchen Addition to an Older Home

It's fun to be an architect, or hire an architect, and work on a design that creates something unique and personal as a result. It's part of why I enjoy being a residential architect. You can find out what the client really wishes they had in their home and build exactly that- a wine cellar? a wood stove to bake bread in? a library for a collection of books? a kitchen from which you can watch the game while cooking? I often urge my clients to dream of what they want from their home and not worry too much about how we get there. Use colors, styles, and materials that you will be happy looking at- for some that is clean and serene with a lot of white and cool colors, others keep wood accents natural and unpainted. And still others enjoy whimsy with bold and bright checkerboard patterns and unique tiles.

Red Tile, Wood Beams and Kitchen open to Living Room

Bold Colors and Patterns in this Home Office

Understated Custom Tiled "Tree of Life" Back-splash over cook-top

Colorful Tiled Back-splash

A Bench and Cubbies in the Entry

Panels built to match cabinetry hide appliances for a very clean look (not painted yet)

I like to incorporate features into the design that will make life easier and work for the way my clients live - a bench, wall hooks & cubbies near the entry or a room with a dutch door to contain the dogs. I also like to problem-solve to use space and materials efficiently - like when I tucked a little shower seat into a nook created when an addition was built around an existing fireplace or when a sink was tucked into an artist's closet rather than using up the corner of a room. No room to call a library? How about shelves at the top of the stairs? An easy place to personalize is a tiled design over the stove.

Book shelves create a Library in the Hall

Artist's sink hidden in closet of Painting Studio

Dog Room has Dutch Door, Doggie Stair up to
Doggie Door leading to outdoor Fenced Kennel

Shower Bench tucked into an extra bit of space

Sometime we want to highlight a beautiful piece of art or re-purpose a found object into art- I encourage this, as long as we are not using old single-pane glass in our new building envelope. (Always use insulated doors and windows that exceed energy code! Reusing old windows or doors is NOT being green - but that is another post...)

One client had a stained glass window we placed among bookcases between the library and entry and back lite for a marvelous connection between rooms. Another had antique heavy wood doors that were re-used as a laundry room and panty door. Objects and antiques as art can be placed in your home for you to admire each day.

Art House- from left Stained glass window set in bookcases,
Iron gates mounted and lite on far wall at end of long view,
Large-format tiled wall wraps around side of refrigerator

Closer view of the Iron Gates as art - and Antique Columns used to partition the Room

Sometimes custom can be more expensive, but not always! So go for it next time you renovate or paint! Be brave! Chose a funky tile or different light fixture or an antique piece of furniture. Plan for a built-in so you can put stuff where you need it and save space. Add a root cellar or a greenhouse or even just window boxes, if you are a gardener. Put wood on the ceiling instead of the floor. If you want to bake bread, get an awesome oven and use cool tiles to accent it. Find an antique barn door or column or metal hinge that you love and re-purpose it inside. Make your space personal & beautiful so it brings you joy and ease in your daily life!

Antique Dry Sink re-purposed as Vanity Cabinet

Painted Kitchen Cabinets and Built-in Bench under Window

Built-in shelves in a Mud Room Entry

NHND to the Pond - A Sheltering (& High-Tech!) Roof

In the book "A Pattern Language" the authors state that there are "patterns" that can be used to design a town or a home. They really take the language of house design away from square-footage and number of bedrooms and instead refer to big picture, not-quantifiable ideas like:

• Sheltering Roof
• Car Connection
• Entrance Transition
• Indoor Sunlight
• The Flow Through Rooms
• Dormer Windows

There are 253 "Patterns" in the book- and I am sure I will write future posts about some of the other patterns I tend to use... But today we will focus of the "Sheltering Roof" -Pattern #117- because the New House Next Door to the Pond offers us a really good example.

A roof is the iconic symbol for shelter- as in the phrase "a roof over one's head". Some of the most primitive shelters are only a roof- and Christopher Alexander and his co-authors had some serious thoughts about our building's roofs and all they must do: (the following list is directly from the book)

1. The space under a roof must be useful space, space that people come in contact with daily. The whole feeling of shelter comes from the fact that the roof surrounds people at the same time that is covers them.
2. Seen from afar, the roof of the building must be made to form a massive part of the building. When you see the building, you see the roof. This is perhaps the most dramatic feature of a strong, sheltering roof.
3. And a sheltering roof must be placed so that one can touch it. If it is pitched or vaulted, some part of the roof must come down low to the ground, just in a place where there is a path, so that it becomes a natural thing to touch the roof edge as you pass it.

There is even a 1914 John Burroughs quote (really!) placed in the text after item #2 with nostalgic ruminations about roofs- such as the "charm to the eye of the old-fashioned country barn with it's immense roof"... "it's amplitude suggesting a bounty that warms the heart". And how those barns "covered their inmates as a hen covereth her brood".

WOW! How can you not be inspired to design an awesome, sheltering roof after reading that?!

Front of the House

Back of the House

When designing a house, addition, or outbuilding, my thoughts often start with possible roof forms. For the New House Next Door to the Pond, my clients knew they wanted a sustainable house, a metal roof, porches, and that they wanted most of the living spaces located on the first floor, with only the kid's bedrooms upstairs. These ideas lent very nicely to the house having a 'sheltering roof'.

Touch a roof as you walk out of the kitchen door? perhaps...

1. The space under the main roof is useful space - it is bedrooms and a bathroom. In the case of the master bedroom and the screen/sun porch, the ceiling is vaulted so that the space under that roof increases the volume of the space, creating a feeling of being surrounded by the roof.
2. Seen from afar, the roof is a very prominent feature because of it's covering of the second floor with dormers poking out. Using metal as the roofing material will also call attention to it and make a dramatic, strong visual statement. 
3. Now... touching it from the ground... maybe... my clients are quite tall and athletic. :) And we do have some awesome thick eaves and bracketed overhangs over some doors. Building codes do require a minimum headroom height, and I don't know if physically touching the roof inside or out is likely, but figuratively, this roof and the sloped ceilings in many of the spaces will call attention to themselves in a way that another less sheltering roof (or flat ceilings) would not.

Sheltering roof over a door

In addition, the NHND to the Pond has a super well- insulated building envelope- and the sheltering roof is part of that envelope. The roof eaves (white edges) may look thick to you, and that's because they are; this roof is covered with 4" of continuous rigid foam. (Exterior walls have 1" C.I.) Click HERE to go to a former post to learn about continuous insulation, and if you want to use it in a project, be sure to have someone knowledgeable work on dew point calculations for your climate zone. CI means that there is not just insulation between framing members, like typical construction. You've see photos of framing here on this blog - there is a lot of wood, and everywhere there is wood, there would be no (cavity) insulation. (And yes, wood does have an R-value - about R-1 per inch- but that is a pretty negligible number and more importantly the studs provide a "thermal bridge" conducting and transferring heat and cold from inside to outside and vise versa)

We used pre-fabricated Hunter Cool-Vent panels on this project. They were installed atop the roof sheathing and the metal roof will then go atop of it. (after some other high-tech barriers and membranes that you see covering the roofs in the photos) A one inch air space above the insulation vents the underside of the metal roofing, keeping it cool to prevent expansion and contraction. This house will be quiet, warm in winter and cool in summer, have low energy bills and very little air infiltration. (Yes, it needs mechanical ventilation) With rooms in the roof, this system is extremely valuable at keeping those second floor spaces comfortable.

So the roof is doing many jobs both practical and aesthetic - and maybe even a little psychological as well. It is a high-tech, advanced performance system with the appeal of traditional forms and materials that does the important job of meeting our most basic human need for shelter. It evokes protection and contributes as a prominent design feature of the building while enclosing useful spaces that surround those who live there. It creates one of the most important layers of insulation between inside and outside, and, of course, it will keep out the rain & snow, too.

Program Analysis for the NHND to the Pond

After (but really during - that's the thing- architects are thinking about everything all at once) analyzing the building site, (see post about Site Analysis HERE.) I analyze the building program. The "program" is the architect term for all the spaces that are needed/wanted and in the analysis we think about how they relate to each other, the size or proportion of each space, and where on the site (solar orientation,view, privacy) is the most desirable. (for example, the kitchen wants to be near the eating area and also convenient for carrying in groceries, and perhaps wants to be open to the living space, and sunny in the morning and throughout the day.) The program for just about anybody's house can be similar, of course, but a custom-designed house can be more responsive to the wants and needs of the folks who will live there and to the specific site the building is on.

These clients liked the idea that this house would have almost all the spaces be on the main level, with only the kid's spaces being upstairs, and a (future) recreation/guest room facing the pond in the basement level where the hill drops away. A very large garage was included to store two cars and the myriad of outdoor recreation equipment the family owns. With all this ground-floor space, this was starting to look like a really big footprint on the site! Aside: When I asked them to show me photos of architectural styles they liked, a two-story farmhouse "box" was among their picks, but I had to explain that that was not at all the massing we were ending up with because of the master bedroom, office, etc all being on the main level. They also showed me lots of bungalows, capes, and craftsmen styles, and stylistically that's what we strove toward with our design, as those building shapes tend toward prominent roofs with minimal upper floor spaces being located within the roof/attic. That is another aspect of pre-design: looking at precedents- a picture really does tell a thousand words, so I always ask clients to show me photos of things they like and explain what they like about them.

One of the precedents my clients showed me- by Locati Architects in Montana

You can see photos of the above "modern bungalow" at another blog by clicking below:
http://hookedonhouses.net/2015/03/16/a-new-bungalow-built-to-blend-into-an-old-neighborhood/

One of the best ways to "be green" when designing a building is to keep the building as small as you can. Early on, my clients decided they didn't need a formal dining room and that one eating area and one living/family area was all they needed- and this helped a lot. They wanted an open and informal kitchen/living/eating space and liked the idea of incorporating a built-in bench for the eating area. Built-ins are great space savers! (think of a Tiny House on wheels and how everything is built-in) A built-in bench seat can be right against the wall/window, whereas with chairs around a table, you need 2.5 feet minimum behind each chair to slide it back or walk around, ending up with a much larger required space. I proposed a few more built-ins (storage cubbies and a bench in the mud room entry from the garage, a window seat & shelves to display art and store books in the master bedroom, book shelves on the stair landing) and all these features added to the functionality of the space and allowed each of those rooms to be a bit smaller, while also adding interest and detail. (but I'm getting ahead of myself again)

In placing the spaces in relation to each other and on the site, I ended up with something like the diagram above. I wanted  the kitchen to be the front/south - open to other spaces -including an outside space- and filled with light. I wanted the garage hidden but with a direct connection to a mudroom entry. I wanted a sunny southern porch and a western facing sun/screen porch toward the pond. I wanted the master bedroom to be away and private and not have any second floor over it, so I could vault it's ceiling and give it a feeling of expansiveness despite it's not-huge size. I wanted to office to be able to be closed off for privacy, but to also be able to be open to the living spaces with wide pocket doors to share space when they want/need extra space. I wanted the stair to be a beautiful piece of woodwork that is visible from the living area. I wanted diagonal views from kitchen, through living toward big windows facing the pond and long views from the master suite toward the public areas of the house. Of course, I wanted them to have lots of storage space, but also lots of windows and an friendly, uncomplicated feeling about the place.

These bubble diagrams become squared-off spaces with walls, doors, windows, ceilings, materials... you start to figure out how a roof might be shaped to cover it all... and the house design goes on from there, getting more and more refined, stretched, re-organized, detailed, etc. - that's the design process!

Site Analysis for the New House Next to the Pond

In the first post about the NHND to the Pond, (read it HERE ) I mentioned how an architect-designed house such as this one starts with a site analysis and a program analysis.  Through the analysis of the site I review the legal, natural, man-made, and physical conditions of the specific building site, as well as the climate/solar path/prevailing winds. The "program" is the architect's term for the rooms or spaces needed/wanted (pretty standard in residential architecture) and where they should be placed in relationship to each other on the site.

Proposed Site Plan

First let's talk about legal restraints. These include required zoning regulations such as setbacks from property lines, water, etc. This information can help inform where the building or driveway/curb cut can be placed (without having to get a variance from the town or special permission from the DEC, for example). The zoning regulations will also set limits on the footprint size, maximum lot area to be covered, maximum and minimum building square footage, and maximum height of primary or accessory buildings so that something completely out of character with the neighborhood cannot be constructed without input/review. Some laws can also include "pattern" books or suggested materials or styles- this is mostly found in village centers and historic districts, and not relevant for this project, which is located outside the village boundary on a rural road.

Open Meadow by the Road

The natural features of the site were then examined. This site is large with a stream, pond, wetlands, rock outcroppings, wooded and meadow areas.  There is a lot of grade change and a surveyor was engaged to create a topography map so we could read how water drains off the hillside. This map helps the designers figure out where the rock outcroppings are and where the land/soils might be most suitable for the house, the well, and the septic (SDS) system.


The man-made features on the site include a old farm path leading up the hill, a rudimentary stream crossing (which did not meet current standards and needed to be upgraded), meandering old stone walls at some property lines, and utility poles along the edge of the road. These features are all shown on the survey as well. In a neighborhood or a smaller site, neighboring buildings would be taken into consideration, so the placement of the new building fits in (see NHND post showing a site plan in a village HERE ) but on this site, we have no "context" like that that we need to be sympathetic to.

The physical conditions, like soil type, were looked at by the engineer to determine the design of the SDS system. He also determined the volume of water (design is always for the worst case - the 100 year flood) that will be coming down that hillside so as to design proper drainage for the driveway, and around the structures. This helps set the finish floor elevation and the garage slab elevation so that the building is up enough to be dry, without having its foundation sticking out too much. It also helps us figure out the grading into the garage for a car and setting that so that we don't need an excessive amount of steps between garage and house.

Correctly designed overhangs let in winter sun and block summer sun

 One of the most important things I look at during the site analysis is the solar orientation. Following the track of the sun across the sky helps layout what rooms might go where and informs the orientation of the long axis of the building. When at all possible, it's best to have the long axis north-south with an eave overhang for shading in summer. Creating a diagram of the height of the sun in winter (when we want to let the sun it the house) and summer (when we want to shade the house from the sun) informs the size of the roof overhangs.

Site Analysis informs design of house

So the site analysis of this pond property showed that what at first glance looked like the best building spot - the level meadow by the road- was not legally allowed, as it was within the DEC wetlands buffer. Therefore, a long driveway would have to be constructed up the hill to a building site in the woods. We elected to have the driveway come from the road at the southern edge of the property, even though this meant crossing the stream, because it meant not crossing through this wetlands buffer, which a driveway from the northern edge would have to do. (the engineer stated that steam crossing would be the easier permit to get). And this way we could re-use the existing farm lane as our driveway, therefore requiring less clearing and re-grading than a new driveway from the north edge of the property.

The SDS system and it's expansion area were placed where the soils could handle the percolation required. The house site was decided to be on a level-ish area not-too-far up the hill in the woods with the house oriented such that it's long axis faces south for ideal solar advantage. A walk-out basement recreation room could be incorporated in the northwest corner where the grade slopes down toward the pond. The garage could be tucked behind on the north, not blocking light or the view of the beautiful house as one approaches. (us architects always want to hide the cars/garage) The south/front of the house can have the porch my clients want while also functioning as the entry, and the west side- near the pond- can be the place for the screened porch. Now we are starting to get into program analysis - and that can be the next post.

Solarize!

Us with our solar panels

I went to the Tivoli "Solarize Northern Dutchess" workshop over the weekend and got re-energized on just how cool solar is.

We have a grid-tied solar generation system (PV or "photovoltaic") that was installed in January 2009. We don't use a huge amount of electricity (we use high-efficiency propane systems for hot water and base-line heat and, and a clean-burning wood stove for the majority of our heating needs) so we didn't need an enormous system. In the field behind the house and garden two masts with 8 panels each were installed to generate about 80% of our electricity annually. We did a freestanding system, as opposed to a roof-mount, as our house is surrounded by old shade trees; and the masts allow us to manually tilt the panels 4 times a year to optimize the angle to the sun and increase their production by about 20%.

Tilting the panels for different seasons

 Before I attended the Solarize event, I brushed up on my numbers. (which I'll admit, we don't really think about much after the excitement of watching the meter spin backwards wears off and we get used to the lower bills) Once a PV system is installed, it is there doing it's magnificent job of making electricity from sunlight without any moving parts or maintenance required. But I checked the inverter in the basement that counts all the electricity the system makes, and I made some calculations.

Since it was turned on, our system has produced about 33,700 KWH. At the current rate of 13c / KW delivered, that means it has saved us $4300! To be up-front, the system cost us more than that (even with all the fantastic incentives, rebates and tax credits available at the time) but that's thousands of kilowatts of energy that didn't need to be produced by a fossil fuel burning or nuclear plant, and I think that's great. And, in a few more years we will have broken even - and then for the many, many more years the system is active, we will actually be making money!

Even taking in the life-cycle costs of manufacturing and the eventual disposal of the panels and frames, solar is a very environmentally friendly product/system. Point of source power generation (making electricity at our house, to use at our house) is much more efficient than transmitting power over long distances, where much of the power generated at the plant is lost along the transmission lines. Using the sun for electricity generation makes no carbon emissions.

On the longer days of summer, we generate more power than we use, selling it back to the grid so our neighbors can use it. We buy power from the grid at night. It has a nice rhythm of give and take to it. Being grid-tied, solar becomes a community action- which is what was exciting for me about the Solarize event. If you can, I highly suggest you get solar panels.

Outdoor Living Spaces: Part 2

Site-built King Trusses create a large, open outdoor room off a small ranch house

 So, in celebration of the end of winter, we are looking at those wonderfully special living spaces some of us are lucky enough to have attached to our houses - decks, porches, patios and screened porches. We may not be able to use them right now, but once it warms up again outside, the sun shines during the longer days, and there's no more snow and ice, we will be using our outdoor rooms and loving them!

Adding a glass door and private outdoor balcony space off a bedroom

This is the second part of a series about outdoor living spaces. Click here to see the first post that talked about decks and balconies- and the photo above is another master bedroom balcony view that I should have included in the Outdoor Living Spaces: Part 1 post.

A screened porch tucked away for privacy in a village- Bonus Points for any locals who can tell me where this is!

Screened-in porches are special. They tend to be on the private side of the house, accessed by glass doors from a family room, hall, or kitchen/eating area. They have "walls" (or at least posts and screening) and a roof/ceiling to protect the space from sun and rain- but they are so different than sitting in your living room. They are truly rooms that allow one to feel protected in and yet feel like you are outside breathing the fresh air, hearing the birds or the frogs...  Different treatments can give different effects: flat ceilings vs. vaulted ceiling following bottom of roof rafters; painted wood vs. stained wood; various guard rail designs- wood/cables/low walls- or no guard rail; landscaping and stairs and doors and how it is connected to the yard...

Natural finishes, soaring ceiling, and a "repeated squares" motif for the guard rail

 Screens can also be designed to be removable, and swapped with glass panels, to extend the months one can use the space into cooler times of the year. One must be careful though, when designing a flexible space such as a sun/screen porch that the sense of being outdoors isn't taken away by too much solid wall and too little glass or screen. (There is this propensity that if something is good, it would be even better to do more of it. But lots of times a screen porch should just be left a screen porch, once you change it into a 3-season room or such, it loses all it's special outdoors-y charm and it can begin to feel just like any other room in the house.)

A screened porch with change-able screen/glass panels so it can become a sun porch

One of the cool extra benefits of a sun porch - besides being able to sit in the warm, sunshine on an early spring or late fall day- is that that sun can give the house some free solar heat gain. This is the simplest of passive solar spaces: just allowing the sun to enter through south-facing glass (yes, it is important which direction your sun porch faces!) will passively warm the space. With some designs I place this screen porch/ sun porch off a large interior space, like a living room, so that when the (french) doors are open between the house and the porch, the sun room actually adds heat to the house. This flexibility is especially wonderful in a small house- it's a free extra room for most of the year, at a much lower cost. (because remember, it's not heated or insulated - and sometimes folks think you should add those things and make it usable year-round - but then you are losing the special outdoor room! (see side note above regarding more of a good thing)

Enjoy the rest of winter! (and dreaming about the coming spring)