Designs Big 'n
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Designs Big 'n
Small to Brighten Your Life
The inaugural print edition of this article is in Grand County Living Magazine, Builder's Special 2014-2015.
The two page spread features the 8 items below as "Building tips you may not have considered".
Quick links to topics ...
#1:Courtyard ... #2:Windows ... #3:Stages ... #4:Counter Space ...
#5:Lighting ... #6:Horseshoe room ... #7:Cold Roof .. #8:Steps ...
New topics from 9 and beyond are on a separate page.
Use the index below to jump to any one of the new topics.
#9: Views ... #10: Fireplace versus TV .... #11: Railings ....
#12: Holodeck ... #13: Rock 'n Roll ... #14: ... imagine ...
Tip #1: Enhance your Great Room by marrying both indoor and outdoor design elements.
Make it function and feel like an interior central courtyard. Even though we have to enclose
and heat our living spaces, we can still adopt courtyard benefits and features that have
been a centerpiece of fine homes for centuries. Bringing Nature inside is a popular mountain design concept.
The example shown here is an architect's home for sale on Shadow Mountain Lake for $2,250,000.
At our website www.MountainLake.com you can tour inside fine homes on the market
with a wide range of amenities.
You can also look back to homes that have sold in recent years.
Use our extensive range of interior tours to help you
determine which designs are the best for you.
After ten thousand years, humans are still making up their minds on home design.
Click on the Great Room to see more of this fine home. At our website www.MountainLake.com you can tour inside fine homes on the market
with a wide range of amenities. You can also look back to homes that have sold in recent years.
Use our extensive range of interior tours to help you determine which designs are the best for you.
After ten thousand years, humans are still making up their minds on home design.
Tip #2: Windows and Blinds. Go easy on doing high windows where you have tall walls
unless you have a big budget for blinds to block the sun and don't mind cleaning both sides of the windows.
Consider using fewer blinds and automating them with motors. Say farewell to cords. A windowless high wall
area need not become dark at night as does glass. It can be artfully illuminated from inside (paint with light)
to display art and items you don't want to be bumped. It can be shelves.
Tip #3: Stages and Toys. Build in stages. You don't have to move a lot of chips at one time.
If you begin with an existing structure ... improve one room ... take time to dream ...
If you are fortunate to have virgin land, start with a functioning shelter/retreat ...
and let its wings come later. Your time getting to know a place will be pleasantly rewarded
with subtle design improvements as your dreams and needs materialize.
Build in stages to leave room in your budget for Toys and Grand County Living!
If you are coming to the mountains and love to be near water, boat ownership may begin with a portable hands-free kayak.
In our early days, we started with a blow-up raft from K-Mart.
You transition through the years with your toys, just as you should with your home, in stages.
For the price of two snowmobiles,
you can have the 4-season tracked vehicle shown here for year-round fun together side-by-side.
Life comes in stages.
Tip #4: Counter Space. Deep and Plenty. The standard 24" depth for kitchen counters
was set long ago for New York apartments. If you could have another 6" of depth,
you would never look back. Deep counters give you the opportunity to have extra-deep
cabinets overhead that can hold more than a dinner plate.
Counter space is not just in the kitchen. At each window, one can extend the depth of its sill
to create well-lit shelves for plants, art and cats. The cats will hopefully know what to leave alone.
Look beyond granite and into whatever is available -- maybe some new product -- or a hardwood
for counters and sills. With some windows, you can create an infinity pool-like effect with the view
extending beyond sills set at the same level inside and outside.
You want surfaces to have depth as light penetrates to different layers and is reflected back with its own patina.
The light coming to your eyes is simultaneously coming from distinct
layers, each with their own light absorbancy and reflection.
This liquid wet look is hard to achieve after your water or oils have dried.
Tip #5: Lighting. Sky is bright, Earth is dark.
Let your ceilings be light colored and your floors somewhat dark.
Diffuse light reflecting off of a ceiling is pleasant to be around.
Although builders have installed ceiling canned lights by the millions (maybe a billion),
these affordable lights leave ceilings dark and only do spot lighting;
it takes many of them to light up a room. These lights produce heat
that can compromise creating a cold roof (see #7).
Where you have high ceilings, use light fixtures that hang down and
shine up to illuminate a ceiling and give a room a reflected light as one gets from a sky with muted clouds.
If a bright room is adjacent to a dark room or hallway, consider using (privacy) glass
in the doors and/or having glass block up high along the interior walls
to send light from a well lit room to a windowless area.
Electrical outlets for sconces and picture lights give you the opportunity
to light up a high wall from the inside.
Skylights can work if they are sealed properly.
Clerestory windows are less troublesome; they bring in light
and create interesting roof and ceiling lines.
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Tip #6: Horseshoe room: U-shaped aisle with e.g. spacious his 'n her vanities on opposite sides.
At the back of the bath, the bottom of the U, is a shower or shower/tub combo by a window.
The photo below to the right is looking back out of the U from the tub.
Be sure to take extra measures to protect the tub or shower combo's window and seal out moisture.
A waterproof blind that is pulled down can be good, however, not everyone is going to lower the blind,
so the entire window area has to be sealed "like a boat". The lower corners of the U are deep walk-in closets,
or maybe let one be a shower. The U or horseshoe is at least 15 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
At its top center is a walled-in toilet/ water closet, with shelves or cabinets facing out into a bedroom
or a hall if this is to be a Jack 'n Jill bath serving two bedrooms.
The water closet has doors on each side of the U opposite each vanity.
Its walls across from the corner closets are angled to make it easy to round the bath's corner.
Walk past each vanity to get to the bath and/or shower. The paths along each vanity can lead one back into one or two bedrooms.
Notice how the angles on the
water closet mirror the angles for the walk-in closets in each corner of
the room by the shower.
The design here lets one have his and her sinks that are not just side by side.
Face it, her stuff doesn't go with his stuff, and s/he needs a lot of counter space you do not want to see.
The wonder bath design here is about 16 feet wide and 18 feet deep. It could be done in a 16'x16' space.
The larger dimensions include having two closets each for him and her along the bath's U-shaped hallway.
If you have been sketching plans for new construction, give this alternative design some thought.
The shower is attractively located in the back where there is a window. You could do a shower tub combo.
The walk-in closets for him and her use up the deep corner space on each side of the shower.
The extra depth allows for a second closet for each, plus also a wide linen closet in the skylit watercloset.
The 16 feet of width (counting wall thicknesses) includes 3' for each
hallway, 4' for the water closet and over 2' for each vanity and
side-closet's depth.
If you have been sketching plans for new construction, give this alternative design some thought.
The walk-in closets for him and her use up the deep corner space on each side of the tub/shower.
The extra depth allows for a second closet for each, plus also a wide linen closet in the skylit watercloset.
#7: Cold Roof Design. Icicles are pretty; however, they are a sign that your comfort heat
is getting directly to the snow pack on the roof. Snow should sleep on a roof
like snow on a mountain, waiting for spring before it naturally melts
as the air outside gets warm, not your living room.
A cold roof is not just a roof on a roof. It can be much simpler than that. It is part of
a whole roof's ventilation system, (not to be confused with the ventilation for an attic).
With scissor trusses and vaulted ceilings there are many details to consider.
To increase the climate zone separation between a ceiling and the outer roof,
one can advantageously drop down a ceiling and redirect the ceiling lines.
If the rafters and trusses in the attic do not directly create the
ceiling lines
you want, try reforming these lines using lightweight 2x6's or aluminum struts
supported by the upper rafters.
You can create entirely new slopes to put the focus inside where you want it.
A sunken room creates the opportunity to give it a truly vaulted ceiling.
These custom ceilings complement the cold roof design.
The sunken room of the seventies can come back with at least its vaulted ceiling.
Deep and extended eaves help to shed snow and rain away from your home and railings.
Anything to help with drainage around a foundation is good.
Chalet-like eve create a visor-like effect to reduce glare.
Allow for at least 24" of eave extension.
Insulate the eaves to reduce ice damming on the roof.
Home is where the family lives.
Bonus tip: closed-cell foam insulation from crawl space to upper rafters.
. . .
In modern homes, there are two more steps between floors than there used to be, or is that just me getting older?
#8: Steps and Elevators. We are not getting any younger, and even the young
can have injuries that make stair climbing a challenge. Although elevators are a rarity in homes,
one can plan ahead for the possibility of adding one later.
The trick is to stack large closets, one over the other,
even three floors high, so that the stacked closet space can be an elevator shaft.
While you are thinking of having your home open to visitors of all ages,
keep all doorways at least three feet wide.
Stairways are made grand and inviting, to take away from the work of using them.
Some families decorate the front face of each stair step with art to enjoy as you walk up.
Highlight edges so that they stand out for those with less than perfect vision.
Have your home easy to get around, even drive around with a small vehicle.
Have all doorways at least three feet wide
Stairways need lots of space reserved so that they are comfortable and yet do not intrude into the rooms they are serving.
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Let's build something! We have been inside and photographed a great many homes.
Just as Grand Lake community has no chain restaurants and no chain motels, each home
is an individual creation. Below we help you imagine positive strengths and features that
go into a mountain home that is integral to happy times in Colorado's high country.
The tips below are not in order of importance or what you can implement right away.
If you are fortunate to have virgin land ready for its first home, congratulations.
Being able to do new construction .... or anything new and away from the daily grind .... is a blessing.
Take time to get to know your property in stages while you happily let the dreams and needs materialize.
Here we give tips to for your hope chest and showcase designs
to encourage you to implement your own bold and intelligent designs.
Deep and extended eaves help to shed snow and rain away from your
home and railings. Anything to help with drainage around a foundation is
good.
A chalet-like eve creates a visor-like effect to reduce glare.
Allow for at least 24" of eave extension. Insulate the eaves to reduce
ice damming on the roof.
We are sharing the designs featured here
with the larger Pinterest
community where you can get more inspiration.
Let's build
something new, this year!
To start from fresh with virgin land, see our list of vacant
land sorted by price.
This is the best way to have everything customized for your family
with the latest and best materials.
A more affordable alternative, although not necessarily easier, is
to upgrade an already existing cabin.
Click here for » basic
cabins for under $200,000. Click here for a » full
range of larger homes.
Each home presentation has an inside tour with photos large enough
for you to get design ideas.
Soon we will add more links in this portal to excellent designs
that we have photographed.
Only a few of the designs will be from homes that are currently on
the market.
We hope to inspire vacation cabin seekers to see what they do.
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