Archive for October, 2008
VIDEO: Greening Up Your Home
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Sometimes you find tips on living a bit cleaner, and a bit greener, in the strangest of places! This little 2½ minute video comes by way of the Wall Street Journal, and was produced by a reporter from MarketWatch.com. It even includes a silly little family video to help get you in the right mood.
Technorati Tags: greening your home
ABS Wins U.S. Local Business Association’s Award
Sunday, October 19th, 2008WASHINGTON D.C., October 17, 2008 — Alternative Building Services has been selected for the 2008 Best of Trinidad Award in the Building Contractors category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA).
The USLBA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USLBA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.
Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2008 USLBA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USLBA and data provided by third parties.
About U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA)
U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USLBA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.
The USLBA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.
SOURCE: U.S. Local Business Association
Technorati Tags: awards, small business, associations, customers, local community
The Cove House: Semi-Final Design
Saturday, October 4th, 2008Finally getting time here for an update on the Cove House design/build custom home project. Since we’re now in the final drafts stage of the design phase, I thought post some pictures. Nothing fancy yet. When we get closer to being done, I’ll post some ray traced POV models. Just some simple top down floor plans similar to those you’d see in the home plan magazines.
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The image at right shows the left and right side elevations. As you can see, we’re building a three story house here. The ground floor is the basement area, and the living quarters are above. I believe I said in a previous Cove House article that the original plans the client wanted to start with called for an 8/12 roof. I had to replace that with a 4/12 roof in order to meet the height restrictions for the area the home will be built in.
In the original plans the house was also built on concrete pillars. You can see remnants of them in the drawing here as I haven’t yet gotten around to “skinning” the drawing with the beautiful stone facade that will be used for the fully enclosed walk-out basement.
But rather than simply forming concrete, the basement area will be built out of ICF’s. That saves time, concrete, and provides built in insulation for the basement level.
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At left you can see the basement floor plan. It’s been completely re-done from nothing more than a car port (complete with lattice work between the pillars) into a full walk out basement with a washroom and a shop.
We have stairs leading up to the first floor, washer and dryer hookups, a wash room (just a toilet and sink) off of a shop area on the left hand side. You probably can’t see it in this photo, but the rectangle at the foot of the stairs is a water softening system.
Below the stairs is the radiant floor central heating system, providing a nice even heat at much less cost than forced air. Since we’re heating water for heat, we’ll also use that hot water for the potable hot water supply.
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Serious changes have also been made to the first floor. In the original drawings the bedroom at the bottom right did not have a bathroom attached, and the stairs leading up from the basement did not exist.
I designed the new bathroom to be very handicap friendly, since the occupant of that room will be an elderly woman. Notice that all the facilities are arranged in “turns”: Toilet opposite sink, bath/shower stall opposite the door, which is a full thirty-six inches to facilitate easy entry at right angles with a walker or wheel chair.
Handicapped friendly bathrooms are not something many home owners think about when designing their retirement home. Mostly, I think, because we a) don’t like thinking of ourselves as handicapped (unless we already are) and b) because our use of that word (“handicapped”) is almost exclusively pointed at handicapped individuals, not the elderly. And while the two sets of needs are not a perfect fit (you may not need grab bars in a shower for an otherwise healthy handicapped individual, for instance), there is a great deal of cross over.
Also note where the stairs from the basement come out. I had wanted to match them up to the existing stairs headed up to the second floor, since stacking stairs takes up the least amount of space (and stairwells consume huge amounts of real estate. That, however, would have eliminated the little Powder Room you see beneath the stair well (across from the kitchen) — not an option for the client. So, in order keep the necessary overhead clearance, I had to trunk the new stairwell out into the living room a bit.
You can also see the stairs coming down off the side deck at the front of the house in this picture. Something practically invisible in the elevation.
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Not many changes have been made to the second floor. The whole left hand side is the Master Suite; bedroom at the front, bathroom along the back half. The yellow lines in the bedroom show the tray ceiling overhead, with two sky lights. The tray ceiling was part of the original plan, but I had to modify it when I changed the roof pitch. The sky lights are also new editions.
Also note the laundry room there at the head of the stairs. Yes, the client wanted two laundry setups. The tub you see in the master bath is to be an old cast iron claw foot tub, completely restored, of course!
Once the plans have been finalized I’ll skin them and give you a bit of a walk through prior to construction. So stay tuned!
Technorati Tags: design build, new construction, custom home
