Engineers Unite!

September 2017

Is it possible to discuss something to death and not make any progress? That's the way it feels sometimes with this remodel. I believe we've turned the corner on stagnancy, though we may have only improved to a trickle of movement reminiscent of a sloth after naptime.

Architect #1 is old school, as in one-room-little-house-on-the-prairie kind of old school. He wasn't ancient but his methods were "classic". No computers, no lasers, no CAD drawings, no assistants. And he was busy. We met with him twice. He came to the cabin once to check it out. He knows his stuff. But the guy kept putting us off - "it'll be a couple of months" that turned into almost a year from the first meeting. He just didn't have time (or maybe it was desire) to work on our project - great problem for him, not great for us.

So through a recommendation of a friend, we met Tina, the Interior Designer that could help solve some of our interior cabin woes. Tina hooked us up with Brigitte, the architect that was interested in playing with our funky A-frame shape. Brigitte connected us with Jared, the structural engineer that can ensure the materials and construction methods will withstand the forces, snow, and wind loads.
Sounds a little like the Bible "begats", huh?
In any case, we signed the contract and planning has begun!
This is our official design team - Nitowski Design Studio LLC, FitDesign LLC, APEX Engineers, Inc.

Going into this I was naïve and thought things would move fast and not require so much talking. I think we've had at least 3 phone conversations with Tina and Brigitte, a site visit from them, one meeting with Jared, and a ton of emails.
We rejected an initial sketched idea we lovingly nicknamed the "Cadillac Option". It was almost double the budget we had in mind. (Lesson to you all - ignore your husband and make sure your design team knows your budget early on).
We've moved on to more realistic updates that should look more like a very long, 2-story dormer on one side to increase headroom and space in the kitchen, bathroom, loft, and new stairs. There's the possibility to add another dormer on the opposite side for the dining area. Nothing should extend past the existing foundation and thus costs are lowered. JD engineered-up and created a CAD sketch of what it might look like. Jared gave the thumbs up that it wasn't impossible nor a budget-blower, and we even had a few construction options in how to implement.

So this is the general idea we're working towards and we'll see if the budget allows for it all and how funky the A-frame looks when we pop those walls out.

The design team tells us that we are looking at November timeframe for construction documents & permit plans, possibly sooner since we already have mostly narrowed down the basic options for the remodel.

Comments

  1. Popping the walls out without adding to the foundation is brilliant. I wouldn't begin to know how to calculate whether the foundation could bear the weight of the new walls, roof, floor, etc., much less what happens when you add appliances and such plus PEOPLE! This is why Physics was NOT my favorite subject and I am NOT a structural engineer.

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    1. We'll see if it's brilliant when we get the contractor estimate on it. Fingers crossed!

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