Modern Farmhouse after a Fire - finishes

Front View of New Modern Farmhouse with mountain behind

My 'Modern Farmhouse after a Fire' Project is almost finished. I stopped by on a sunny winter day to check it out. The exterior has all the siding and trim and roofing installed and it looks classy in black and white. The porches and decks and balconies are mostly finished - just some railing needed here and there. With the stark blue sky of winter, the sun and the mountain view from the back of the house are striking as you stand inside the new living spaces.

South Elevation -Unique window shapes and asymmetry on the back

Balconies off each bedroom toward the view/sun

Inside the cavity insulation and spray foam and rockwool has all been installed in walls, attic and basement and the sheetrock has been applied and taped and in some cases, painted. The HVAC system is mostly installed, but not yet turned on - and the contractor stated that even on this 15degree morning, the two space heaters they use warm up the house easily. (Can't wait to see how this place performs on the blower door test.)

Kitchen cabinets are delivered (in boxes in the garage) and the contractors wood shop is busy building the stair and interior trim pieces so that once the sheetrock is painted, the trimwork and other interior carpentry can be installed.

Preparing for painting at Trusses over Kitchen

It all looks GREAT and will only get better once the faux brick arch is constructed and the fireplace hearth is in place and the wet bar is built and and and. This is a fun project with mail slots and charging stations by the every-day entry and reclaimed barn wood being used as accents in the powder room. Stay tuned for those awesome interior material photos coming soon!

Click here to read the previous posts about this project:

https://cwb-architect.blogspot.com/2018/10/modern-farmhouse-mechanicals-roofing.html

https://cwb-architect.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-house-after-fire-framing.html

https://cwb-architect.blogspot.com/2018/07/rebuilding-modern-farmhouse-after-fire.html

New House After a Fire - Framing

Tilting Up The Back Kitchen Wall

Framing is complete at The New House After a Fire including the front porch and the future room over the garage. Here are some photos of the progression of first floor deck framing and then first floor walls, then second floor deck framing, then second floor walls, and then trusses, roofs and dormer.

First Wall Up in Place at Gable End

Back view with 1st Floor Exterior Walls in Place

You can see the cantilevered balconies jutting out the back of 3 of the bedrooms on the southwest. The windows have been installed and you can see the higher ceiling dining room and kitchen has transoms above the glass door and kitchen sink feature window. They were framing the back deck yesterday - and then it will be time for interior and exterior finishes.

Front View now with Mud Room and Garage begun on left

Beautiful Exposed Trusses ready to be installed in Kitchen

Timber Trusses over Kitchen and Dining

Kitchen Sink Windows

Eating Nook Corner Windows

Two Car Attached Garage

Future Room Over the Garage

Lots of windows toward the back view from the Master Bathroom

View from Second Floor overlooking into Foyer Entry

Back (Southwest) View of House

Back View showing Garage and Mud Room Additions

Front View of House

Updating a Family Room

New Windows on Front Elevation

 

New Tall Windows on Back Elevation

This is the same house the "Modern, Open Plan Updates Historic Home" blog post is about. (click here to read it)

This Historic Federal-style Colonial had been flanked in the 1970s by a two-car garage at one end and a large family room with open-truss ceiling on the other. Of course these spaces added to the modern usefulness for any folks living there but these additions, while sort of symmetrical in their massing at least, were not sympathetic to the historic nature of the existing home. The windows were small and high in the back, with a large bow window in the front. The family room had a very dated style and the open trusses were designed with a heavy bottom chord that, due to the step down from the main floor level, was low enough to feel like you might hit your head as you left the kitchen and just made the room feel oppressively low for such a large space.

Renovated Family Room

The pluses were that this family room was large area-wise, with glass on three sides, and connected to the deck and pool with a sliding glass door at one end and the kitchen on the other end. We changed the front and back windows to let in more light, allow views of the beautiful property due to their lower sill height, and have more historically accurate proportions/placement on the wall.

We re-configured the truss to raise the height of the space below the structure and make the room feel larger, higher, and more contemporary. We removed the horizontal band of chair-rail/wainscot that further divided the walls and accentuated the long/low feeling of the room as well as the horizontal heavy beam along the top of the walls. We added new mechanical systems for heat and A/C, allowing the inefficient, dented baseboard radiators to be removed. In addition a new efficient (red!) wood stove insert was installed, bold paint color covered the walls, and engineered wood flooring replaced the water-damaged particle board.

Renovated Family Room- 3 Windows replace Bow Unit

Now the room is a family friendly, sunny, and comfortable lounging space with a vaulted/high open truss ceiling. It is accessed off the kitchen and the office by just a few steps. The space in the main section of the house that was a living room was taken over to be a mud room by the entry/garage and a larger dining room. (read previous post to see more on that). Once the clients decided they didn't need or want a separate formal living room and family room, they were freed up to explore what became the solutions you see here and this room is so large, that it can be arranged into activity zones and meet many needs/purposes for the family.

Family Room- Looking toward Kitchen/Main House

Ultimately the new residents are doing the latest update to a rural colonial that has housed many families for over the past century by being added to and modified throughout the decades. This most modern iteration is vibrant and classy without being too tied to history. It allows for all aspects of the family activities- from mud boots and backpack storage, to working from home and homework project space, to hosting dinner parties, to relaxing with a movie or a fire or even a game of billiards. (notice the pool table stayed!) Like we tend to do in current designs, rooms were opened up to each other, lots of light was invited into the space, and storage space was given more of a priority. In addition, poor circulation layout was re-designed -as in the garage door moving out of the dining room and into a new mud room area by the front door- and the powder room access being changed so that flow was better connecting the family room to the rest of the house. Lastly, updated finishes and mechanical systems changed the look and, literally, the feel (temperature) of the space.

Before - Front of Home w/ Garage and Family Room Wings on each side

Before- Back Elevation of Family Room Section

Before - back half of room was dark with small, high windows and wood paneling

Before- Heavy Bottom Chord of Trusses effectively lowered the ceiling height

NHND to the Pond Framing Update

Front of the House - Screen Porch on left/west, Gable Roof for Front Porch

 

Lots has been happening at the New House Next Door to the Pond. The foundation for the garage is poured. The garage walls and roofs are framed. Forms are in place for pouring a large retaining wall. The front porch roof rafters and screen/sun porch roof rafters are in place. Some of the wall sheathing (which is insulated sheathing, offering continuous insulation - see former post HERE to read about CI) is being installed, as well as the roof sheathing to help keep it dry inside through all these summer thundershowers. (wall sheathing is green, roof sheathing is red) These solid surfaces help you see the shapes of the building more clearly in the photos while also starting to show the dormer design, window seat bump-outs in eating area and master bedroom, and window placement and size. You can see/feel how the light and views will be connected between inside and out as well as some of the intricacies of the massing. (exciting stuff!)

Back of the House - Dormer pops up in roof for stairway

Bump-out Window Seat in Master Bedroom Wing- Long Southern Dormer for Second Floor Bedrooms

Garage Wall poured and interior tamped down and ready for slab pour

Garage Walls & Roof Framed

Screen/Sun Porch- Looking toward Pond and Sunset Views

Stair Landing Window Frames Wooded View

Framing Continues at the NHND to the Pond

Passing up the 2x10s for the second floor joists

Early this past week beams and second floor joists were being installed at the NHND to the Pond. The end of that week the roof rafters and trusses started going on. Here are some photos showing all the sticks of wood that hold up this house.

Floor Joists (on left) make first floor Office ceiling and second floor - Beam to hold floor/roof load above (on right)

 

Large Pressure Treated Beams set in place to support floor, roof & walls of Screen/Sun Porch

Roof & Dormer Framing and Second Floor Walls are Framed

Roof over Master Bedroom wing is a scissor truss for vaulted ceilings

Standing in MBr and looking out future window seat windo

Screen/Sun Porch floor - looking toward pond

Raise the Roof

Trusses are great - they enable us to put a roof (or floor) over long spans so we can have large, open rooms, like this family space with a fireplace, TV, and billiards table.

The truss in the existing room, however, was oppressively low. This playroom was placed a couple steps down from the rest of the main floor level of the house, and to walk from the kitchen into the playroom, the bottom chord (horizontal member in b4 pic) actually encroached into the code-required head room. (Code requires 6'-8" vertical space- the height of all standard doors).

In addition to the code violation, it just felt yucky. Here you were, in a large space, with a not-flat high ceiling, but with those thick, dark beams cutting across the space at the top of the wall, you didn't get the benefit of that tall space- you felt squashed from above.

Old Truss Configuration w/ heavy, low bottom chord

Without changing the roof outside or ceiling inside, we modified the truss to raise the interior volume. Don't try this at home! A structural engineer was consulted and angled metal plates with specific bolting patterns were specified to ensure the roof loads were being carried. The low horizontal chord was removed (and some that wood re-used). New angled bottom chords and a high collar tie (the reused timbers) were secured to the existing top chords that follow the ceiling line.

New Truss Configuration

The result is a room that feels much different. We joked it seemed like a pizza parlor before. Now the feel is much more lofty. We also changed the small, high-silled windows to beautiful low-silled 9 over 9 paned windows with a classic molding profile; they let in lots of light and are much more appropriate from the exterior for this historic home. Removing the dark wood wainscot also contributes to this room's transformation. And installation of a new split system for heat and air conditioning means the unsightly baseboard radiator could be removed, allowing for cleaner wall to floor transition.

New windows (same door to kitchen on far left of both pics)

Before- Yucky windows - no light or view!

Take away: space is about more than just space.

New Room - trusses painted

Newly renovated, more classic exterior

The New Workshop Next Door

Work at the NHND is moving slowly now, getting the final fixtures installed and such.

But! Here on our property, we have started a new outbuilding project that's in the early framing stages and is moving fast. This building will be a two-vehicle car port and a one room wood working shop/studio space. (click here to go to first post about this project)

The foundation and site work is very low-impact by design. Piers reach below grade to frost and support a wood floor system. 2x4 walls support a scissor truss (higher in the middle) roof. The truss is also designed to perform well in terms of energy code, by having a "raised heel" to have more space for insulation above the wall (that spot is traditionally a weak link in the insulation/thermal barrier). The walls will be sheathed with continuous insulation, as well as insulated within the wall cavity. This 23'x23' space will be high, and dry, well lit and warm - all things DH's current workshop in the basement is not. Yay!

In terms of zoning and site planning design, this building was designed to meet the Village's codes and pattern book. Since the one end of the structure is for cars - although not a technically a garage, I located it back 20' from the front of the house, to keep it secondary - as an outbuilding should be. The workshop part will have a front porch facing the street, and our driveway became a circular shape, with two entrances/exits. There are always restrictions regarding how much of the site can be covered by building footprint, and we were careful to meet all requirements and presented our site plan to the planning board for approval last year.

Concrete pier foundation with wire, fabric & gravel under building

Wood framed floor system for workshop/studio space

Raising the last wall of workshop

Roof trusses