The design

First of all, shoutout to Sketchup. I'm a pretty quick study on how to use software, and I was able to come up to speed pretty quickly with Sketchup Make. Very usefuly (in my opinion) for designing with actual dimensions and seeing the results. I tried a bunch of other home planning software packages. They were too limiting and simplistic for what I wanted. Sketchup gave me the perfect combination of flexibility to be creative while also allowing for detailed construction.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I started out with a much larger footprint. I'd wanted to have a lot of glass on the Northside to frame the view of Lichtenberg Mtn.  If I could have had my way, or more correctly put, if I could have afforded my way, I would have had a wall of glass, even with a glass corner. All the glazing is expensive and requires additional engineering to support the structure and the glass. 

I went from this concerpt to something that has a shed roof -- no eves, no valleys. Simple. 

I took this plan quite far, building the entire structure in Sketchup -- the foundation, the individual pieces of lumber, the floor and roof joists, etc.  It was good exercise understanding how the building would actually be constructed.  This was the plan of record for almost a year until I started to come to terms with the costs per square foot and the size of our lot. 

Finally, I had to confront the inevitable compromises of a limited budget. I shrunk overall dimensions down to 16' x 32' on the exterior. I exchanged the great room for 10' ceilings on the main level. I eliminated glazing on all 4 sides and limited it to the North and South sides only.  But there were a few things I wasn't willing to compromise on. It still needed to have a "modern" feel. At least 2 bedrooms. And all the standard amenities, including a bathroom on each level, a fireplace, a kitchen.

Just the night before I sent these plans off to our designer, my wife had the strong feeling we should move the staircase to where it's shown in the plan. It was a stroke a genius, but one that required a chunk of rework very quickly.  

Since committing these plans to actual schematics and designs, we've also planned to put a door on the downstairs staircase so that we can potentially rent out the downtairs and keep it separate from the upstairs.  We plan a small kitchenette downstairs as well.

In all, the total square footage is about 1500 square feet, split between 3 levels. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good. It's buildable. And I'm excited to build it.