Sized Just Right Home

This house is designed to be immediately comfortable – open and generous, but with some defined and private space. It is designed and detailed to be materials and energy efficient and to be easily built. A wood stove/functional fireplace will heat the house, if desired, with some room to room fans. A mini-split (ATA heat pump) will provide cooling and supplemental heating when the stove is too much or no one is there, and it allows for the HVAC to be easily zoned. The porch provides a place to relax or entertain on nice days/nights and is also a solar collector that is shut off from the house when not gaining in the winter (a thermostatically controlled fan makes it functional for gain when no one is there). It can be used as a cold frame/green house in some climates.

It is designed to be easily to built; with the bins in place one person could conceivably build the rest, to the point of habitability in one long summer, and finish it during the winter. The center bay is framed and can have an open floor using 6” wood decking with 5/8” spacing between the boards, making the whole house light, open and airy while being less expensive to build. The house is designed to be maintenance free for at least seventy years.

It is designed as a slab on grade but could have a lower level with a walk out and porch on a sloping site – say as a lake/hillside house. The secondary entry and bathrooms at “the back” are very conducive to this. Leave the material world behind and be a guest in your own house!

First floor 775 SF; Second floor 775 SF; Porch 290 SF; Total conditioned space 1550 SF