Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler The House That John Built (Part2 Pics)

John found a very unigue and very efficient type of fireplace, the column to the right of the fireplace is actually the chimney.
Above the fireplace is the loft area railing, in the background you can see the front entrance area, and to the right the stairs to the loft.
The main floor is all tile, no carpeting, which for me is the only way to go. One can always add area rugs, but I for one can never have to
much tile in a house. The door to the left of the frig is the bathroom door, with a bedroom on either side of it.


This is the great room, along with extensive tile, John has done as I would do and has used wood all through the house, giving it the feel of
a log or timber type home. The use and placement of many windows gives the house a very open and spacious feeling
This will be a great place to sit and watch the snow fall well enjoying the warmth of the fireplace.



This is a view of the loft stairs and the bridge to the loft area. Below the bridge is the entrance area to the house,. I can not take credit for
the loft bridge, but I would have done the same, its a great addition to the house. If you look out the the window, you can see the Jeep in the drive.


This is the left back corner of the loft, this is where the pics of John has the system set up. Once again, John done as I would have, going
with an all wood floor in the loft, making it feel warm and some place you don't want to leave.



This is the view from the loft, the great room below, and a wall of windows with another great view. For me, the loft is the best location in the
house, with two great views out to the woods. Once John has his system set up, and gets the dogs use to the space, I think he will have a
diffacult time leaving the loft area.



The view from the loft railing and one is able to view the great room below.



I have lost some pics of the bedrooms/bathrooms, my Sony camera did not like the cold it seems. Hopefully the pics and text will give a good understanding of the house, and all of the time John took in the desiging and decision making. For his first attempt at having a house built, my hat goes off to him, he has managed to construct a well thought out deisgn, very functional, and most important, a house that once you enter it you really don't want to leave.
I hope to be invited back at some point, and would even go back in the winter, I think his place would be a great retreat in the winter, and know he will enjoy it for many years. Also there is a full basement ( same foot print as the main floor) with several rooms and areas for future building. Even with having three differant levels, John has thought things out so the use of stairs is not an every day thing. The main floor is where one would live, eat, and sleep. The loft is a retreat for relaxing and doing nothing, and the basment can be used for wide variety of things, one that comes to mind of course is a HT area.
I want to thank John for having me visit, he is the perfect host and makes one feel like family.

>>but I for one can never have to much tile in a house.

This from someone who has sent me FOUR messages in the last couple of days complaining about having to carry 900 pounds of tile and grout into the house for another little project

Yes.....................but you were the smart one and paid to have it installed.

Very nice John.

What type of heat do you have?

With all the tile and no registers, I'm asuming radiant floor heat?

Very very nice John.
Looks like my dream house.

>>What type of heat do you have? With all the tile and no registers, I'm asuming radiant floor heat?

There actually are registers; they're just an icky dark brown that, I have to admit, does blend into the tile pretty well. Primary heating is a dual-stage 100K BTU forced air gas (propane) furnace. I can live without A/C but not all of my friends and family can (plus there is resale to consider) so I had to run ducts anyways. Once I was committed to ducts, forced air gas was the obvious $$ choice.

Secondary heat (primary when I'm around a lot) is a wood-fired masonry heater aka heat storage fireplace -- that big stone thing in the middle of the house. The idea is that you burn one or two big fires a day, then the heat is stored in the masonry mass and radiated out for 24 hours or so.

From some impromptu calculations last night, I figure the masonry heater should be able to provide about 50% of the heating requirements for the house. The masonry heater will store between 250,000 and 500,000 BTU and radiate at about 30,000 BTU/hour diminishing to ~15,000/hr over 24 hours.

With a 15F outside temperature and 68F inside temperature the furnace ran on low heat almost continuously, say 80% of the time -- 65K BTU/hr input x >90% efficiency x 80% of the time = about 50K BTU/hr average.

More alarmingly, the propane tank which cost $1000 to fill up to the 80% mark in mid-November is already down to 50% with the thermostat set to 60F most of the time. I was kind of thinking a tank that big would only have to be filled once a year or so

>>Very very nice John. Looks like my dream house.

Thanks !

The design strategy was essentially :

- look through log home magazines at all the multi-million $$ homes I could never have a hope of affording

- realize that if I owned one of those houses I would only live in a couple of the rooms anyways

- identify those "couple of rooms" and stick them together into some kind of coherent floor plan, leaving out all the other rooms I couldn't afford to pay for anyways