A thought for a second floor

I love this idea for a second floor.  The only real issue is the eyebrow window.  What an expense.  My other issue is the wood.  I do like the idea of doing all the interior spaces with wood panels...basically just 1/4 inch hardwood veneer plywood.  But I could never live with the wood.  As I often say, I love wood, but the ambers and browns in a room just suck up the light.  I even wonder at natural wood trim.  Of course, if you have lovely hardwoods, figured woods etc., it is a shame to cover them, but I always default to Paint in white or pastels when possible.

A NEW PARADIGM

Do not think that we come up with these ideas out of the blue.  Just say that we see a good idea and we pass it on.  I am just lucky enough to be readying myself to do this for myself and can apply new ideas.


The "paradigm" or new way of thinking is a replacement for some commonly applied ideas.



1. It has been the practice of framers to frame the studs at 16 inches on center.


2. It is usual to build one of every pair of walls on a corner with a single stud at the left or right, and the matching stud on the next wall will be either tripled(three studs nailed together) or others, it is common to do two studs sandwiching pieces of a third stud together in the middle(I suppose that is what sandwiched means, but best to explain).  This tripling meant that there would be a nailing surface on both sides of the inside corner to attach interior wall sheets to at the corner.


3. The third idea is to build headers for doors and windows(especially if they are in load bearing walls) with a double 2x10 or 2x6 etc. with a slab of plywood in between to make a total of 3 1/2 inches thick to match the width of a 2x4.


The New Paradigm:

1. First the studs of a wall have very little insulating value.  So, the fewer the studs, the fewer breaks in the insulation and the fewer contacts of interior wall to stud connected directly to the exterior wall to transfer cold.  It is now believed that using 24 inches on center will do this, and the wall should be just as strong.  I, for one, will be using 2x6 framing rather than 2x4 so pretty strong.

2. The new idea is to make all your corners with a single end stud on each end.  On the outside lap of the two studs that meet at the corner at the inside wall flat against the wall.  Then a piece of 1x lumber or a wide strip of plywood or CDX etc., is attached on the inside of the overlapped end stud to face the room.  This becomes the nailing surface for the interior wall sheets.  This leaves plenty of wall cavity in the last pair of studs to fill with insulation and retain the structure.  Only the edge of one stud faces the room, so there is little to transfer the cold. This means that the entire cavity behind the corner can be filled with insulation.

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3.  The idea does not change in the basics for the headers.  You will still make the doubled 2x stock header with the sheet of ply in between(if you like), but since you are using  2x6 framing there will be room on the inside for rigid foam insulation  or if you prefer, other insulation.  If you feel as I do, that you may need nailing surface, just make up some of the 5.5 inches of cavity with another piece of plywood on the inside of the cavity and screwed through the foam and into the outside 2x header.  You could also use an adhesive that is compatible with the foam to glue the entire sandwich together instead of nailing through the foam.

 

 

These are all fixes that are supposed to help create a "net zero" house.  Well, these are good tips, but I absolutely do not approve of a net zero house.  When I was growing up, it was required that the air inside the house must be completely changed every 8 hours.
Reconciling our desire for energy efficiency with the ability to actually breath inside your house is difficult.  There are exchangers to warm up cold outside air so it can come into the house, allowing for combustion of gas, wood and other fuels...also breathing...and to help with moisture inside.  However, working off grid, this might be too expensive for most, and it is a little high tech for the typical off gridder.  Also using electricity for this is a no go.  I do not know if they do consume electric, but it would be a no go for me.

In my case I get around the fresh air thing by using fairly inefficient stained glass on some windows, with only a simple exterior plexi covering to shield the lead from harsh weather.  Also, I do little to close the gap under the exterior doors.  I can always put a bean-filled draft blocker down if necessary. Still, it is often necessary to leave a window open.  You could also do a tiny vent pipe that leads from outdoors directly to the intake of any heating device.  It was rare to hear of CO or CO2 poisoning in the 60s.

Also, I should be stressed that wood fires are a renewable resource.  At least that is true of responsibly harvested wood.  Wood is harvested burned and new trees grow in its place.  New growth ties up CO2 as it grows.




 

Lofts and cathedral ceilings.

I have to admit that I have two lofts and a section of cathedral ceiling in my tiny house.  I like the effect, and when you are living in a house that is only 7 feet wide, It might be oppressive to have normal ceilings closing in on you.  But even in this space that is so easy to heat, I notice that without ceiling fans(the one thing I will never have in a house...EVER) the floors get chilly, and much heat is wasted in spaces where you just don't live!
Drama is wonderful in a house and beautifully soaring vaulted ceilings with decorative beam work are pretty impressive.  But why would anyone with a practical bone in their body build one?
Heat rises, you have spent tons of cash building an envelope that can only be partially used, storage is limited...it just makes no sense.
Lets assume that all these preppers have a point, and society has broken down.  How long will it be before you run out of fuel to heat a space like that.  It will be a struggle to live, let alone the resources you will be wasting on that space.
Eight foot ceilings are fine for a normal sized house.  The tiny house with its limited floor space and tendency toward claustrophobia OK, but use the space you are paying for in all other houses.

The foundation

The first big hurdle in the planning of the house is what type of foundation to settle on.  There are many options as I already stated, but I think I have settled. 
I have decided to do posts with a footing under each, but first to consider is how to cover the foundation posts to exclude cold air(as much as possible) from the underside of the house.  I will have to put on a skirt.  It will be pressure treated plywood.  I do not plan to use pressure treated plywood for structural support.  But the skirt will last a long time in pressure treated.  The skirt  must be seamless from the sill of the house to below ground level.  This may be a problem if I put posts directly under the walls of the house.  There would always be some concrete footing protruding from the plane of the sills, as there has to be good pressure from the weight of the building on the center of the post.   So, there is one option to get around the bulge. 
If I make the posts(piers) in three or four rows at about 6 inches(just a random number) inside the finished perimeter of the house, then lay three or four beams on top of the three or four rows of posts to the finished length of the house perimeter(rim joists), and the rim joists and floor joists beyond the side beams to the finished width of the house and the ends of the building on the very ends of the beams, then there will be downward pressure of the house's weight from the outside walls that will sort of lever the center of the house upward a bit.  Basically I will be building like the old garrison houses where the upper story protruded a few inches and the levering up of the middle made the center of the house less bouncy.  Did I explain that well.  I will ponder a way to explain better.

In this image, the rim joist labeled overhangs the beam(coming forward toward you) by several inches.

 

 

Lets just say as a "for instance" that I put a row of posts to a total of 25 feet, a little shorter than the house.  Then place heavy beams on top of the posts to a total of 26 feet which is my final length of the house.
The three rows of posts will be a total of 17 feet apart on the width of the house which will eventually be 18 feet total width of the house.
The rim joists at the gable ends will be flush with the ends of the beams, and in the other direction the floor joists will rest across the three beams, protruding 3 or more inches over the beams and the rim joists on the ends of the floor joists will total the 18 foot width of the house.  The side rim joists will be almost floating beyond the beams below. The weight of the building would be on the floor joists.
Now, the gable ends are supported by the beams below,
The side walls may have a wooden post scabbed onto the side of the posts and support the floating wall a bit more than just the leverage.  This would also become nailing surfaces for the skirt.
Whew. 

 

 

This may need refining, for instance, I may bring the concrete posts just up to ground level and from there up to the beams use 6x6 or larger pressure treated to support the beams.
In every instance there must be a separation between the top of the concrete and the wooden components.  In this instance, the bracket sunk into the concrete does that job.
You could also run the concrete foundation all the way up to the beams, but I am trying to save money, and I believe that the 6x6 post will be cheaper than buying longer Sonotube and filling with concrete.
What is not shown here is a series of diagonal braces that must be put on every 6x6 post bolted from the base of the post to the beam and in the other direction into the rim joist.  There are metal strips that can be used for this, but it is common to use short mitered lengths of 6x6.
All instances of use of metal in the foundation assumes that there have been steps taken to assure that moisture will not affect the metal(good drainage and or ventilation in the summer).  A door can be put into the skirt and or vent grills(covered in winter).

Diagonal bracing is absolutely necessary because the wind or earth tremors, etc. can easily push the house to the side, and you could find your house sitting on the ground next to your foundation.(Timmmberrrr)

oil lamps

I have taken the plunge into Solar Electric.  I have  a small system with

 two batteries and an inverter.  I will cove the solar later.

In the meantime, I have lived for some time with candles and battery operated

puck style lights at three for 7 dollars at Home Depot.

I have a fabulous oil lamp from the mid 19th century, but I have had little luck finding

 a burner for it.

 

Good for special events on the dining table perhaps. but I just got a nice and very

early lamp and have succeeded in finding the rest of the parts.  lo and behold...

with lots of problems leading up to it, I have a working lamp.

 

 

This is from somewhere between the mid 1850s and 1864.

Plenty of light and less eye strain.

windows

In order to realize my dreams of matching the watercolor below,

 

 

 

I have realized that buying a customized gang of windows(five no less), I will need a much larger budget.  Also, by the time I cut into my 12 foot wide wall, there is not going to be much left to support my roof.  So, I looked at my options at Home Depot.  The American Craftsman line that they carry will do fine for me.  The white is just what I want, so I do not see how I can make a better choice in this situation.  They have horizontal glider windows that come in a number of sizes.  I looked the sample over in the store, and I fell for that size.  They are available at 36 wide by 48 high.  Two of them with a couple of 2x6s between will give me some of this effect.  If I become desperate, I can add a stationary single window in the center.  Not quite the same, but I can live with that.

The rough opening on these is half an inch additional, vertical and horizontal. and at 170 dollars, I can squeeze that out of the budget. 680 for all is not bad.  So, both south facing rooms on the first floor can have a set of these windows.

Ideally I might get custom casement windows ganged in the pattern in the picture...but I just don't see that happening.

 

I love stained glass.  It amazes me how much new windows cost for a little extruded PVC and glass. I can, however get antique stained glass panels from churches or homes and build a frame for the house to hinge mount the stained glass for half of the cost of a window, new, and when I am done, I have a work of art to look at in my house.

 

 

Both Bill and I wanted this window, but in the end it went for too much money.  At the time $200 seemed like too much...then I found out how much a new window costs.

Just one last comment.  Always use standard sized windows.  You are building from scratch.  You can choose anything.  If you were retrofitting, you would have to follow the old openings but you can use the less expensive standard sizes that are very likely already in the store and ready for pick up.

Why two story or story and a half.

One of the biggest expenses you will have in building a house is the foundation.  Building 600 square feet on the ground is quite a bit of foundation.  Poured foundation costs would be through the roof and probably more than I would spend on the entire house.  Cutting that figure almost in half is a giant savings.  If you are doing posts with a concrete footings, it cuts down dramatically on the time you will spend with a Post Hole Digger or a shovel, and on the number of bags of concrete you will have to mix.
Also, with a second story, you get to use your heat twice.  In the old days it was not considered necessary to pipe heat up to the second floor, just a grate in the floor works very well as heat rises.  I think that we should revive this practice.
As stated earlier, it is better to cut down on the square footage of building skin exposed to the elements,  A story and a half, with only a 3 or 4 foot upper side wall cuts down dramatically on the exposed skin of the building.  The roof is half the size of one on a sprawling building and heat is conserved.   

Well I Can Dream Can't I

 

When you are first planning a house or just one room, it is a good idea, now that we have these tools, to keep a diary of ideas you have taken a particular shine to.  Some will be possible,  Some will not. But even if they are out of your reach financially or beyond your skill level, you will eventually develop a style and preserve some ideas that you will kick yourself for forgetting when you see it again after you have committed yourself to a design.  In my present design, I will not have a basement. Under stairs space could easily be wasted.  In this case I have been dreaming of a reading nook under the stairs.  The problem is that there will be minimal lighting.

 

 

So, perhaps this will be a better choice.  On the other hand, we are talking about central New Hampshire here, and heating with wood which tends to have chilly  corners and recesses.  It might be tempting fate to have a blind recess with a big window in it and frigid winter temperatures at night. 

 

I suspect that I will have few visitors, but when I do, this type of nook might be wonderful for overflow sleeping accommodations.

 

 

 

I love the staircase in the photo before this, but it is a bit colonial for this space.  High end turned spindles will be very pricey. The Craftsman style above might be just the thing.  It is easy to do with a scroll saw and a drill, and would look great in white paint.  I suggest that you look at the interior of Henry Higgins' mother's house in "My Fair Lady" or to rent a copy of the "French Lieutenant's Woman" for a glimpse of the room at the end of the movie in all white to give you an idea of the look that I usually favor.  Don't get me wrong. I love color and wood, but in a house in the far north where lighting may be minimal as this will be a bit "Off Grid", can leave a space very dark.  Amber yellow. gold, orange and brown can really take the light out of a space.  White or very light colors just seem logical to reflect light.  Don't let your HYPER MALE neighbors deter you.  You must be practical first.  The tendency to fill houses with wood tones is not very bright...if you will forgive the pun.

I just redid a dark and dark painted guest room for a friend, in fern green with white woodwork, white shutters and white curtains.  It transformed a dark room into a light and elegant space.

 

 

 

This is not far from the size of the rooms in my planned house.  I love a library.  I have donated my entire, rather eclectic, book collection to a local library.  I suppose it is time to rebuild my collection.  My reading has shifted from non fiction to classic literature, local history  and classic novels that I am ready to re-read or read for the first time.   Having this space would be wonderful, but remember that book shelves greatly diminish space available.  A foot off all walls in a room is a lot of space. That is 46 square feet in a 12 by 12 room. 

 

 

Another library with fewer bookcases and a more open look would help the space to feel larger. (But oh, how I love all that woodwork in the previous photo.)  Notice the small windows.  This might be a solution for my desire to have wall space and light.  Outside, you can make false shutters to make it look like there are full sized windows to balance the design of the building. You could just set a rectangular frame in the siding and paint them a slightly different color.  Cream on white would do it. Gray on white would mimic glass.

 

 

 

Again, space gets sucked up with window seats and book cases, but would it not be wonderful?  Curl up with Robert Louis Stevenson on a cold, snowy but bright winter day, a snifter of Calvados or a cup of tea and a cat or a puppy on your lap!  No cats you fool, your furniture will be destroyed!!!  Perhaps I could add another two feet to the dimensions of the house?!

 I would paint the hot air register though.

You cannot have outdoor declawed cats in the far north as the first passing coyote would have a meal of a cat with no defenses.

 

As far as the kitchen is concerned, I found a rather wonderful photo of a kitchen in France.  the entire room is beyond my means (no matter how I moon over the picture) but the left hand wall has a series of cupboards that I love.  I have seen video of this same room with those cabinets face on.  Unfortunately this photo just acts as a reminder of cabinet trim that I like...also the colors.

 

 

 

 

Here is a close up view.  I love the pendants at the top and the bracket supports under the upper cabinets, making it look a bit like a Welsh cupboard, or in this case a French one.

 

 

Here is a different version.  They were eventually painted an historic yellow.

 

 

The First Order of Business

The first order of business is to decide what to build.  Square footage will dictate how much of an area to clear for building, but the style and shape will dictate the intended approach to the house,, where windows and doors will be best and a host of other issues relating to the style of house.
Most of my friends and I love Cape Cod houses.

The beauty of the Cape Cod is unparalleled in a country sort of way.   They are also very energy efficient.  The closer to square and low a building, the less surface area there is in the building and therefore there is less heat loss.  But in my case there is a basic drawback.  In order to build one accurately, there is a lot of wasted space in the middle with a central chimney, and there is a central front entry hall with rooms leading to each side to eat up space.

I feel that I can compromise without that loss of space and still keep the surface area pretty small. 
I have always loved Greek Revival houses as they appear in rural areas.  High style is not practical for a country house.  The same floor plans appear in Gothic Revival houses as they are roughly contemporary styles to each other.

The floor plan and general arrangement of the exterior facades recurs too, all the way up into the first decades of the 20th century. Scale and decoration changes dramatically, but the same general plan.

This is a larger version of my Greek plan

 

 

This similarity gives you a larger search to find the floor plan on the Internet.

Basically the house is rectangular.  On the narrow side of the rectangle, there is a gable roofline.  In classic Greek houses the pitch will be rather low, and in Gothic rather high.  In country styles, it will be roughly 12:12 on top of a stub wall to raise the upstairs ceilings a couple of feet.
Across this end façade(generally used as the front) there will be a door and two windows evenly spaced and the door to one side.   This sort of breaks up the symmetry that I like, but as you see in the house above, they helped that by making very tall windows.
Inside you generally enter the house facing the foot of the stairs.  The main living space is two rooms, one behind the other to the side of the stair-hall.  Behind the staircase and adjoining hall, there is a narrow room that  fills the space to the back of the house(often later added on to through this small room by means of an ell of some kind).
In my case, I plan to eliminate the hall beside the stairs, and make the narrow back room even smaller(narrower) to install an outer wall kitchen between the back of the stairs and the back wall.  This will be open to the back main room  with perhaps a decorative arch, and perhaps a wall of screens, or drapes to hide the kitchen if desired.

And another large version in New England

 

 

The first (front) main room will be living room.  The back space will be the dining room with the kitchen open to it.(this is because the kitchen will be basically only as deep as the width of the stairs enough room for the kitchen counter and basically you will be standing in the dining room to prepare meals in the kitchen).
Upstairs, the stairs will rise to a landing and turn to face the middle of the house.  Either the entire upstairs can be one room, or there can be a tiny room(Bath?) just in front of you as you stand on the stairs, and a room to the right and one to the left.  These two rooms will have one or two windows in the gable ends of the house.
The downstairs living spaces generally have windows all along the three sides of the house.  In my case, I plan to save energy by eliminating the two windows in the front gable beside the door, and the three windows generally at the opposite gable end.  I plan to put a large window or bank of windows on the long wall in each room. This plan will save energy and provide solar gain, being on the south side in my case.
I have always loved a watercolor painting by Swedish artist Carl Larson.  He painted a room with a bank of windows along one wall that had plants on the sills.  I may never be able to afford a whole bank of windows, but perhaps three in each room would be possible.
I rather hate the idea of losing the two windows beside the door, so perhaps I will relent if good windows can be afforded.  I also like the idea of solid wall space for that wall for display.

 

This might be a good place for window seats to sit and read in as well.

 

 

The gable end bedrooms upstairs would allow one to use one room as a library, guest room or den and the other for a bedroom.  One would get morning sun to wake you, and the other, evening sun to extend the daylight...you choose which is best for you.  I could do a dormer in each room, but they break the skin of the house and so become an energy waster, and add to the expense of the build.

Also, every break in the seamless character of a roof makes it vulnerable to failure.  Valleys, dormers, ells all compromise the seal of the roof....if not at first then as it ages.  I simply do not understand all the jogs and angles and additions to a house that seems the norm in modern construction and design.  yes, I love a Queen Anne house with all the turrets and dormers and jog, but they are endlessly difficult to maintain.  Leaks are always creeping up.  A simple outer skin to a house, like a Cape Cod or a simple single shed roof or gable roof will be easy to install and easy to maintain through the life of the house

 

If you need to add space in your house, add an ell at right angles to a wall and drop the roofline down to below the overhang of the main roof, either the gable end or a side overhang.  Alternatively, cover new space with a continuation of the old roof so that it is seamless and does not form an angle that will require a valley.  Obviously this is a recommendation, but take it seriously, don't test my logic by finding out ten years down the road that your roof is leaking. You do not want to have to tear off a whole or part of a roof that still has twenty years of life in it, and may not be still available so you have a terrible looking patch with non matching roofing.

 

The dimensions of the house are modest.  I have not quite settled, but have a good idea of them  I want inside dimensions to be about 16 by 24.  I had a living room that size and always loved the space.  That may be fine just building the house 16x24, or if the framing seems to take up too much space, perhaps 17x25 or 18x26 to end up with the same space as I planned inside.

This should give me just enough space for the furniture I have and keep it small to be affordable and easy to keep clean and repaired.

 



I do not have a penny to my name, so all this will be on the tiniest budget. Small and simple will make it possible to build myself, the only thing that will allow me to accomplish this.

My Friend's Adventure in Building

My friend Robert is planning a new home in New Hampshire.  As he has no computer, I will let him take over the administration of the blog for a time.  I may still post to it, as he is planning to spread this over a long time, He can relate his adventure in building to you.  I am of course all the way in my terribly unfinished house, with little opportunity to use the computer, so I guess this is the best of all worlds.
So, welcome Bob to the world of blogging and building.

Thanks.  I am planning to build here in New Hampshire so I can have a comfortable retirement home.  I already have a Tiny House, that is how I met Bill with a common interest before he went away to start over. 

I have always wanted a small house, but it is a little difficult to live in the tiny space I constructed.  I really do not mind the lack of space, but I miss all my possessions.  I got rid of most everything when I retired, but I have retained many of my best things that are sitting in storage here, not far from Conway.
I have purchased a piece of land that has a couple of sites to use for housing.  One site is not too far from the road, is easy to get in and out of and as it is already cleared and rather "park-like" will be fine for my Tiny House.  It will be a fine guest house when I am finished with my new venture. 

The other end of the property, on the high ground of a topographically diverse lot will need a great amount of work to site the house.  This is fine, as I will have to do a lot of saving up and preparatory work...basically finishing old projects...before I can build.  That is in addition to the fact that I have very little money. The tiny house consumed a lot of my ready funds, and now I will have to accomplish all this on my meager retirement income.  It will not help that I am paying roughly 40% of my income for the land.

 

I look at this as an opportunity to... Do it right... Slow and steady will be the watchword.  I hope that you will not get bored with my project as it will be at least two to three years before I finish.  Meanwhile, I must move and finish my current screen house in order to use it to store the furniture I have in storage.  That will free up some money to devote to the new project.

At the same time, I hope that doing this project so slowly and with so little money might inspire others to do the same.  You can do a great deal with just your two hands to drive a project forward.

Period Fireplace.

Some of the problems I am finding with the Internet have been terribly obvious this week.  I want to know more about building a period fireplace.  I search with every possible combination of words to find period designs, to find construction videos...anything really that will give me a clue as to how to begin. 
The problem I find is that first of all, no matter what I input, all I get is results of how to hire a local contractor.  It also offers ways to purchase fireplace inserts or mantle shelves or any number of ways to purchase something.  But the Internet and you tube is determined to be of no help whatsoever with design and construction. 
I would think that perhaps no one wants to be responsible for giving faulty advice and then be responsible for a fire in someone's house , but it is painfully easy to find ways to slap together a mud and stone fireplace that is so obviously dangerous that it is frightening.  I cannot figure out why this is so terribly difficult.
 So while I am still writing about period houses, I am going to make it my mission to provide the information that I can to help you out.  Now I am not a mason, and I cannot give full instructions on how to do this, but having lived with plenty of 18th century fireplaces, I can at least describe what I know 
So painfully slowly, I will add to this and the period house posts so that we can get a relatively comprehensive set of instruction for both goals.  So, be patient.

BUILDING A REPRODUCTION OF AN EARLY HOUSE

My main interest is in Federal and Georgian houses, both formal and country.  Many of the things I talk about apply to all old houses.  Later Victorian, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate houses, etc., have many similar issues, but I intend to speak about my first love here...all the rest may be treated as I have the opportunity to study the specifics. Early houses are familiar to me because I have had the opportunity to study and work on them.  Of course I grew up in a big Victorian, so I am not totally unfamiliar.

First you must understand that we are living in the 21st century, and building codes enforcement people do not have a sense of humor, or any sympathy for your dumb ass desires.

People in the 18th century were smaller.  That does not mean that the men were 5 foot 2, but the average was much smaller than today's average.  Also, they did not work with 2x4s and 1/2" plaster board.  Materials were heavier and thicker, so if you were doing 8 foot posts in your walls, your layers of materials that led to the finished ceiling mounted up, lowering the ceiling a bit.  Chairs were lower, so chair rails were lower....well you get the point.

Your codes people are not going  to let you copy a house from the 18th or 19th century exactly, in any location where codes mean anything to them.

There are locations in the world though, where it is unlikely that the city will give a damn.  I know of rural places where the codes people are only interested in whether you are wiring up to state code, and that you have a good and approved way to handle waste water.

They recognize that you can use a composting toilet to dispose of toilet waste, and that there are alternative methods of getting your water and getting rid of your water and that is just about the end of their interference.

If you can find one of these places then you can build one of these simple houses in the old way without too many compromises. 

If you cannot, then you will have to modify your plans to suit all modern codes. Your windows will not be made in the same way.  Your foundation will be different.  You will have to have higher ceilings, windows that will be a certain size and shape.  Materials will have to be of certain dimensions and you must use minimum R values in the insulation of the walls, roof and cellar.  Then they will be looking at your heating source.... and so it will go.

There are many rules that make good sense, but many are subject to alternative solutions...and that is what I like about rural and reasonable towns.

I love using candles and oil lamps etc. for my lighting.  I like composting toilets... If you want a traditional look, put your composting toilet in an outhouse with a solid floor.  I only use electricity to charge my phone and computer, and that is the way I want it to stay.  My carbon footprint is pretty small.  Over here, it is very common to shop for every meal and so refrigeration is a non-issue. and I only drive to a bigger town once a month or so.  Even my gasoline(benzina) consumption is minimal.

You may wish to make concessions for your comfort, like a gas stove or a modern heat source, but such creature comforts can easily be put into a back room or "ell" if you want your home to retain its pure design.

You really should insulate well, and that can be done without too many compromises.  If you do not, your feet will never be warm again in winter and you will sweat out every summer.  Fortunately there are plenty of modern insulation methods that should do the job efficiently.

In my little stone house in the mountains I heat to temperature in the morning.  It goes most of the day without heat.(unless I am sitting there for some reason)  Then I heat it well when I come home to read or sit with friends.  At bed time...which is fairly early now... I heat it up and turn off the heat till morning except in the bitterest cold.  Good insulation has served me well, even with poorly fitting windows.

That reminds me to mention something I have probably said before.  Before Jimmy Carter and the first great fuel shortage, it was mandatory to have a complete change of air in the house every 8 hours.  When prices went up, houses tightened up and mold started growing inside houses all over the country!

I like my gas heat...It needs air to burn properly and my loose, ancient windows serve me well, keeping be breathing easily.

The gas flame and the fireplaces all lend a beautiful glow to the rooms...flickering their light on the 500 year old chestnut beams and stone interior walls...the exterior walls have a thin insulation.

I used an old method.  Cellulose ground up and mixed with an adhesive was sprayed on the stone... smoothed slightly and spray painted. It will probably be a nightmare to remove, but who cares what happens to my successors!  Oops...I sound like a senator from a coal state or a CEO, don't I.

So, where do I begin....

Very early houses, my favorite being a Cape Cod, were as small as they could be to enclose a rectangular space.  A cube shape is one of the best...and a sphere is perfect, but neither will give you much period charm.

Capes were very efficient.  Most are not too terribly far off a square and the lowish roof contained floor space with the roof covering the square with few cubic feet to heat...Low eaves you know.
I like to build a roof with a 12/12 pitch, but there can be a lot of wasted heat in a high peak.  Tiny houses are no problem as they do not end up with that much headroom.

I love the ticket booth at Blithewold in Rhode Island, but I guess it would be impractical.

 

I guess the Cape is the best choice for maximum space and efficiency...so I will discuss that first.

 

Most 18th century houses...OOPS...all 18th century houses were POST AND BEAM...

The best frames were of oak.  But many regions have a serious shortage of oak, so, perhaps hemlock would do.  Many early homes were of pine, but if you must use a softwood, it might be better to use something that does not mind a little damp without deteriorating.  Cedar might be good, but I doubt if long floor or roof beams will stay very straight for long with gravity dragging them down.  More complex joist patterns might help this.

 

 

Local people might tell you what is traditional in your area, and search for tables on the Internet that tell you how long a span you can get from a certain size beam in various species..  Nevertheless, Oak is the frame of choice.  There will be those who will criticize various woods, but if you check what the spans can be, use what you can get, possibly cutting them for yourself.  (Members that will be inside the house with no possible contact with the weather, might be anything you want as long as they won't sag)

 

 

 

This frame has raised corner posts that give more headroom on the second floor...a later choice than my favorites. and a continuous top plate so probably stick built or front and back bents. probably a barn.

 

My early house in Maine had floor joists made of un-peeled(8-10 inch) pine logs 22 feet long, still in place after 235 years...they needed a little support in the middle, but they still held up.

If post and beam construction is not in the cards, just use modern lumber, and make false corner beam boxes, and use them to hide wiring, plumbing, air conditioning and heat ducts.

 

Post and beam construction might be built stick by stick to make the frame, but most frames were made in "BENTS".

 

Basically, the entire gable end of the building in a cape would be constructed in a single piece(minus the sill).  Then the interior walls would be constructed in a similar way, but with a configuration made to allow doors and rooms to pass through them.  Usually there would be four bents.  The gable, made with even the wall studs attached or notched into them, a bottomless pentagon with a point at the top.  Then one pentagon on the near side of the central fireplace/chimney stack.  Another similar one on the far side of the chimney(the stair hall, fireplaces etc., would be sandwiched between these two) and the far gable end pentagon beyond that.

 

Sill plates went all around the foundation(this could be field stone, or just a big stone under each post.) We might even substitute a rectangle of doubled, pressure treated 2x material, under the sill plate/beams. The sill plates would be the entire perimeter obviously(pegged together at the joints by tenons from the vertical posts of the bents), with two main beams crossing from front to back of the building under the two central bents.

 

Horizontal top plate beams would notch into each bent at the eaves and ridge(sometimes no ridge, but I think you would regret that) and fit between the bents as they are successively raised to vertical.

The vertical posts had tenons that fit into mortises in the sills.

 

A good book on post and beam construction will help a lot, but you would be surprised how different modern frames can be from old ones.

 

I have told you about it before, but I suggest you look for a book called: "The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay 1625-1725".  by Abbot Lowell Cummings which I describe in more detail elsewhere in this blog.

 

The very best thing about a post and beam cape is that you can build most of it completely alone till you get to the roof joists as none of the members are terribly long.  With a "come along" or winch or car and a pulley, you might even get those up alone.  The bents are terribly heavy, but if you do not have a winch, you can build the bents piece by piece standing up instead of lifting the whole thing up after assembly.  Again...you need some kind of winch. (piece by piece you end up lifting the top plates and cross beams and those are heavy, but you have the rest of the frame to help you to lift.)

 

If you have access to very long logs, build an A of two logs,(or a three legged tepee) chained or tied together(consult your boy scout manual from the fifties) and use that A to lift heavy loads into place with a winch. This is great if you do not have an over head point of attachment to lift heavy loads like a very large tree.

 

Your only tricky part in building piece by piece is fitting in the corner braces...more on this later.

 

 

It is tough finding very long trees suitable for sills and top plates, so the size of this house is limited.  The alternative is to join beams end to end with scarf joints to allow more length.  Building piece by piece allows for more length as well.  A house 40 by 36 was a pretty big example.  Also any larger made for a short squat looking house as the height of ceilings did not increase proportionately.  You do not want it to look like a toadstool just emerging from the ground.

 

Ceiling heights did  not often exceed 7 feet, and big Summer Beams(big beams that ran from fireplace bent to gable bent parallel to the front.  These were not always used.) might only be 6 feet 5 to 7 inches. early houses felt higher if no ceiling was applied to the joists.  The  bare skeleton gave more visual height though the dark wood overhead did not help.

 

Old houses rarely had a lot of exposed wood on the inside.  They were very practical people and knew that white plaster would reflect light and make for lighter rooms.  Later, exposed wood would be painted, sometimes in light colors as time went on.  Only wood of extremely high quality would remain exposed almost always at least painted.  As time went on, papers and colored walls were possible and of course lighting improved to help the dark rooms. 

Some paint colors were very elegant...Grays, peaches, forest and pine greens...but others could be real eye openers especially startling cerulean blues!

 

Many of the colors we think of as Colonial have been copied from colors that have been uncovered after being on walls for a couple of centuries...dirty, faded, greasy.  Mount Vernon corrected some of their colors and threw people into a tizzy when they saw them...

 

To be continued.....

Tips to keep you out of trouble

These days I am working with very old stone construction where I live...chestnut beams and tiles everywhere, But I have still to upload pictures of construction projects from the past.  Here is a bit of general advice when doing wood construction, till I can figure out a way to upload photos of other construction.

One of the happiest accidents I had when constructing the building so prominent in this blog is the overhang at one end.  This could have been over the tongue of the trailer or in my case over the rear end.  The benefit has been to have a window that could be open(mine is an outswing stained glass one but any will benefit.) almost anytime, that is very much out of the weather.  A pouring rain or beating sun have little effect on this window and the ventilation that it gives as it is recessed 20 inches or so under the roof and upper loft floor.

Use a framing square.  There are many times when you use a square, to make straight cuts on your 2x4s or on your plywood.  I am pretty sure that most people know those.  However, it is imperative to use it other times as well. When you gang several framing members together, such as when you add cripples to a framing member to support as window lintel or the bottom of a window.  You might think it is Ok to eyeball or use your fingers to determine if the bottom is level.  But it is so easy to run the ganged members uphill by just feeling that they are flush with your hands, and if you do it with one, several ganged together will really go uphill.  Use the square to make sure the bottom of the column is level.  This is true of corner posts as well.

When you put blocking between floor joists to make nailing surfaces on sheet goods or board seams, or if you put in blocks to keep joists from twisting, make sure that they are not too tight.  you can easily bow the entire joist out of straight by just forcing one block in that you have cut a 16th too long.  If you continue to do this, you can multiply the problem each time till you are way out of straight and no longer can match up seams going the other way.  The only remedy is to take the blocking out and start over, or sister new beams onto the joists so that the edge of the sheet goods land on a joist.

Don't allow a mistake to go unrepaired as you are doing the lower parts of a building.  As you work on the building, the mistakes show up as you try to fit the walls, and roofing together and they can get to be bigger and bigger headaches as you continue to work.  Take it apart when it happens even if it is difficult...correct it and start fresh.

Use the proper nails.  Get advice from the lumber yard.  Tell them what you are doing and have them advise you as to guage, length, material and special texture of the shank or head.  There are nails for decking, roofing, laying floors, shingles and clapboards.  Choose the right one.

Choosing between nails and screws is another personal issue for me.  When I am working where there is no electricity, it is hard to use screws, and I hate battery operated tools!
One thing I have to say in this age of sheet rock and similar screws, is that nails have great tensile strength.  They will take a lot of twisting, wind movement and walking over, before they will break.  Screws tend to be a bit more brittle when they are bent a couple of times.  When the wind buffets your hose a lot, it is not good to have metal fasteners fail from metal fatigue.  Nails do have a weaker hold when you try to pry members apart, but if you choose the right nail that is large enough to do the job, I find them better in many ways.

Use diagonal metal straps to help reduce sway and racking in your building.  This is essential....DO NOT OVERLOOK THIS... when you build with boards, even tongue and groove or ship lap boards.  Sheet goods such as plywood, Oriented Strand Board etc., will do much of this job for you, but it might be wise to do diagonal bracing anyway, in case metal fasteners or even the wood itself around the fasteners and on seams fail in time from repeated movement. Use the braces horizontally in ceilings, rafters, on roofs, floors, and vertical places like in all walls.  This is very true if you are using a purlin system for your roof

, like in metal roofing.  They are very cheap, and though they may prove to be redundant, it will not bankrupt you to be sure.  This is extremely important in buildings with very large openings in the walls, like screen houses, open pavilions and buildings with large windows and doors.

One thing you might not realize when working in these days of standardization.  You need to check your lumber before using it.
It is not unusual to find that your 8 foot long 2x4 is 8 feet 1/2 inch long, or 7 feet 11 1/2 inches short...so to speak.
Measure every piece of wood that you use.  Lumber is often a little long or short, and this can be a nightmare if you have constructed something complicated and find that that last piece of wood just does not fit, because three other pieces that you assumed were a standard length....WEREN'T.
This also goes for the dimensions of the lumber...your 2x4 is supposed to be 1 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches.  But sometimes this is not the case...again...to late to fix it after the construction is almost done.  I find this to be a real problem with pressure treated lumber that can often be much smaller than you expect.

Also, check your sheet goods....you may be planning on using a sheet of plywood only to find that it does not fit because it has tongue and groove or lap cuts.  Your piece may be 4 feet wide, but do you have to overlap or fit the tongue into a groove to make a slight difference, or it might be a bit wider that you expect. 

Gimme Some Air! Mold Problems

In the olden days,when I was young, there was a sort of rule of thumb that the entire volume of air in a building should be exchanged  or replaced every 8 hours.

  No one stood there with an instrument to check this out.  There were no such instruments. However, with the construction techniques of the time, it was likely that no seal against the outside air or sealing the inside air in would have been possible anyway.

The advent of vinyl and aluminum siding sealed many a house up and promoted wet insulation and mold growth. damp air passed through the walls into the cavities and was stopped by the siding. Venting the siding helped but did not stop this problem.

  There were no vapor barriers.  There were few sheet goods.  Plastic was new to the markets and unused when it was.

In the center of the photo you will see a trial spot where chemicals were tried out to remove the mold. Here is a building that I worked on.  It was clad in Aluminum, then later capped with a metal roof.  It was sealed up tight as a  tuna fish can.  Then the mold started as the basement was damp.

 

 

Walls were built of separate boards, and few would have bothered, unless there was a lot of money involved, with tongue and grove for sheathing.  Floors were rarely insulated, and many times the walls and roof were not insulated either.  Sometimes you used saw dust, which would get wet and pack down to the bottom of the cavities that they were meant to insulate.  Early houses had cavities that were filled in with brick and mortar, sometimes there were woven sticks plastered over with mud or plaster, sometimes left over from the first year where that was all there was for walls. Those too would develop cracks  and allow air to pass through.

 

 

I believe that where people were using the almost endless supplies of wood that were cut for fields and roads, they were much healthier than they might have been because of the exchange of air in rooms that had smokey fires.
 
Also, I think we were much healthier when there was this exchange of air even up to my high school days, when plywood and heavy insulation with vapor barriers appeared in houses.
With a space heater heating a small space, a gas heater, small wood stove, a gas range, etc., it is necessary to let air into the house.  First they need air inside to combust the fuel, and second, the inhabitants need air to replace what air the burning fuel consumes.  Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are not the only people and pet killers in a confined heated space.  Once a flame dies from oxygen deprivation and the fuel does not stop, there is the plain gas still coming in.

Of course we use gas and smoke detectors to warn us of these killers, but still, there is enough of these gasses in a small space to be uncomfortable, to be constantly smelling the air up and to make a very unhealthy environment, especially since we, too, exhale CO2 and consume oxygen. Our plants may love it, and provide a bit of oxygen, but it truly is not enough.

So you can choose to build lots of air leaks into your envelope, fill your house...literally... with house plants, smother in one of may ways in your small space or be constantly awakened by buzzers in the night.

I do not really have an easy solution to this impossible choice.  Bring outside air in with an air vent and use outside air to combust your fuel....but is this really enough to be healthy in a small space?
All of this became critical when Jimmy Carter was in office, and fuel shortages became the norm.  We buttoned up the houses at that time, and air simply does not easily come into your house anymore.
 
Another unexpected byproduct of this tightening, is MOLD!  Some molds will not exactly kill you, but they can be awfully unpleasant, especially if you are sensitive to them.  Spores go everywhere, and soon your walls and possessions are covered and often stained by the mold beyond recovery. Those few deadly forms must be promptly treated professionally, and can often put you in the position of having to find alternate places to go and burning or scrapping the materials infected and indeed, possibly the entire house.

Dehumidifiers will help. If you have no electricity, you can get the dryers that are available in grocery stores and hardware stores that attract moisture to a chemical.  Some drop the moisture into a reservoir and last much longer especially with refill crystals.

Wash mold with chlorine or chlorine based products immediately, and always be on the lookout for it in corners, and in blind spaces like cabinets and closets...We are so fond of these in tiny houses!

Drill decorative holes in doors...clover patterns are easy with a bit and brace or electric drill, hearts are traditional, as are flowers and their stems and leaves along the seams between boards, using the seams as the stem of the flower. This will help air to circulate a bit.  Leaving doors ajar will help as well.
 
Tiny computer fans that consume very small amounts of energy will help to circulate drier air into these spaces.
 
It is hard to pack these spaces with our possessions and still get air circulating to all the surfaces.  The Damp-Rid crystals will help. but may not be enough.

If you get a leak from outside, or have a corner where there is no air circulation, you are almost certain to get mold or mildew.

Another issue is absorbent materials.  Carpets in storage spaces are a real no no.
Clothing harbors mold, unpainted wood or plywood absorb moisture...Paint them.
If you do get mold and clean it off unpainted wood, paint it to seal it up. Cardboard boxes will absorb moisture and promote mold growth, but plastic will seal moisture in to a box and promote mold inside, even if it WILL keep mold from growing on the outside in a storage place. Let in all the air you can, but stop the water from coming in....now how do you do that????

You cannot make your house clean enough to stop mold!

Using those vacuum storage bags for all soft and absorbent articles will help immeasurably, but make certain that anything put inside is BONE DRY!

Do not cram your spaces full.  Allow air to circulate in all spaces.

Remember, that mold spores are everywhere...you cannot eliminate them in the air, the soil, on pets and on you!  You must be vigilant and watch for signs of mold and for places it may be starting, unseen.  Be aware of smells and coughing or stuffy noses in your house.
 
Gas heat is notorious for putting moisture into the air, as there is lots of moisture in the gas.  If you have it, or NOT TOO DRY WOOD heat, you must be doubly vigilant and should start the heating and cooking(steam trapped in the house from your tea water and the moisture from a composting toilet is pretty bad too.) season in your sealed up house is the time to start the drying inside the house.
 
Summer, as the mold grows above 45 degrees, can be awful, as the mold loves the warm and humid summer air.

If you live by the sea or a lake, make checking for mold a daily activity!

Mold is much like the barbarians on the borders of Rome....you may keep them at bay, but they will never be defeated.  The only remedy is constant vigilance.

When the tiny house was moved last spring on one of my trips over here.

A SMALL SHED I BUILT LAST YEAR

The dimensions of the base are 4 by 8 feet. the sills are made of 2 by 6 pressure treated.  You have to make two layers of sill with the corners interwoven for strength. Galvanized common nails are best here where moisture might be an issue.  Nail along the length as well as at the corners.  Make all the nails go in at an angle.  They are 3 1/2 inches long.  the angle will make them protrude less and they will be stronger.

 

 

I like nails because they are less brittle than sheet rock screws. Here is a detail of the interweaving.

 

Do not skimp on the nails but do not use so many that they split the boards into matchsticks.

 

When the sills are completed, run a scrap diagonal after squaring to keep them from going off square as you work.

 

 

I did the pressure treated floor joists by toe nailing from both sides.  This is pretty strong, and since the floor is small, it does not matter much as the decking will help to support it all.  you can use joist hangers if you like but this was the old way and it works without the expenditure.  you could put these in by doing one layer of sill, nailing through into the end grain, then adding the second layer of sill.  All are sixteen inches on center beginning at the outside corner.  This will work out to an even 8 feet.

 

Another detail of the joists.

 

Hemlock rough sawn is a bit thicker than normal and is rot resistant.  It also provides a bit of ventilation.  I am using common bright nails here because there will not be as much moisture.  Use galvanized if you like.

  Deck screws or nails work too.

 

The finished deck is set aside and the diagonal can be removed.

 

 

The back wall runs all the way from corner to corner.  All are at 16 inches on center.  As I am not finishing the inside, it is not necessary to double or triple the corner to provide a nailing surface.  I am nailing through the bottom and top plate into the end grain of the studs.

 

Here is the front wall with its door opening.  There are ripple studs and a header for the door and one small cripple.  I did not make an enormous header as the weight will  not be that great on this and the door will not likely fit tightly.

 

 One of the end walls. They fit inside the two long walls so the 16 inches on center begins at the corner not at the edge of this wall.  Notice the two side spaces  are narrower than the center space, but they are still 16 inches on center taking the corner into account.

 

The other end wall.  A window can always be put between the studs without special framing, especially with sheet goods.  I would not try that with a house though.

 

The four walls are framed, but it all works better if Harry is supervising.

 

The deck has been placed and leveled on blocks directly on the soil.  this could be put on sonotubes extending below the frost line.  This could also be on large pressure treated skids laid on the ground or on a prepared site with a deep gravel base.

 

Sometimes boards may not be straight.  Here I nailed the ends down on the deck and into the sills.  I used clamps to draw the plate into line with the edge, then nail it down.

 

Once the wall is up and leveled up, scrap boards hold the wall up and level as you build.

Always keep larger pieces of scrap lumber if you can for such uses.  Use common nails.

 

 

Notice the framing of the door. This is the front.

 

All four walls are up.  The corner studs are nailed to each other along the length of the stud.

 

As above.

 

a second layer of top plate is nailed over the top.  The corners are woven together and nailed to give strength.

 

Here is a finished corner.

 

Another view of the corner construction.

 

Still another.

 

Diagonals are left on the wall studs till permanent sheathing is installed, and metal ones may be used permanently.

 

I nailed boards to a sheet of sheathing to use as a template for the seven roof trusses.  I am sorry that I do not have a picture of a finished truss or their installation, the camera rebelled and it started to snow.   The trusses must be nearly identical, or the roof decking will not sit flat or cooperate when nailing.

 

There re three layers to the upper joint of the truss.  A cross piece added at the end forms the ceiling joist and keeps the rafters from spreading with snow weight. The first layer is a piece of sheet goods that will bridge the joint.

 

Next the joist is laid in place.  this would not lie level if there was not a scrap spacer at the lower part of the template to support the legs.  se a couple of photos below. 

 

The second leg is added to the template.   Aligning them properly is just as important as cutting at the proper angle.  These are 45 degrees.

 

 

Measure time and time to make sure that each truss is identical.  Width of the legs, length of the legs, angles fitting properly etc.

 

At last the tape is in the right place and the length is correct.  One nail is put in the top of each leg then the measurements are checked again. 

 

Nail in place with the one nail and check the measurements again.

 

Check every conceivable angle and measurement to make it come out right. 

 

As above.

 

Recheck!

 

When all has been checked then the top is nailed together from both sides.  The end gables may have all the sheathing for the gable instead of the little triangle.  Then the ceiling joist is nailed on and this will sit on the top plate which will be nailed down to the plate by several toe-nailings or there is a metal tie that will join them as well.  In this case the one side is nailed flush with one nail, then the opposite side is adjusted to fit the truss pattern and measurements.  Then the opposite side is nailed down and several more nails are added at each end to stabilize it.

 

Once it is nailed, adjust the saw to 1 1/2 inches deep.

 

Saw off the excess flush with the back roof rafter.

 

Again, I am sorry not to have photographed the assembly properly.  Here the finished trusses have the roof decking nailed down every six inches.  This is ADVANTIX, but new products will come out all the time.  Ask advice locally.  

 

This is a pretty tall and skinny shed, and might be susceptible to blowing over, but this will have the joists extended to the ground and the tails attached to metal posts driven into the ground.  The roof will extend to the ground and provide rough storage and attachment to the ground.  Metal screws can be driven into the ground and attached to the shed as well.

 

Here is a better view of the trusses.  The end trusses must have the brace attached to the side toward the center of the building.  Then a piece of 2 by 4 is nailed to the joist on the outside to provide a nailing surface.  See that it is double thickness here, and flush with the rafter above.

 

 

Another view of the end truss.  I used to small triangle here as I planned a small window on each end anyway to allow ventilation and to slide long things in on top of the ceiling joists.

 

The exterior sheathing is attached below the triangle and all the way down to the upper top plate to help join and seal it.  These do not have to fit perfectly at the edges as trim will cover it later.

 

This is T-111 or Texture 111  Many outside sheathings may be used some good along and others needing to have shingles or some other covering..  Here I was running short of material so I used two pieces.

 

The gable sheets are nailed to the roof rafters and to the top plates.  There is a flashing available to go under this sheet and over the lower wall panel.  T-111 is not terribly good when exposed to water, and this helps.  I will cover mine with wood trim instead in the Spring.

The finished frame without roof covering and sheathing, but the weather was threatening, so I decided to wrap it up and put my tools in it for the winter.  If I have a warm spell I will add the sheathing etc.

 

My cousin's husband had some left over sheets of commercial, special events tent material  I covered the walls with a couple of tarp like pieces and overlapped at the door for access.

 

I will just strip this off and do the rest of the work later.  Meanwhile the tools are inside.

To be continued later.  I will tie the whole thing down with ropes to keep from toppling it over then do what I planned to tie it to the ground with extended rafters.

 

 

This four by eight footprint could easily be used as a bunkhouse for simple shelter in the woods, as a hunting shelter or for winter activities.   This would heat with a few candles and a platform put halfway up would give you storage below and with a leg up from the doorway, you would have a sleeping platform for one or a cozy two people.,  There are tiny flat heater panels for anyplace that has electric available or a small space heater.  The Italians have heaters that burn vine trimmings and the like.  They are about the size of olive oil cans and mount on the wall with pipes that lead out to the rest of the area.  I bet a little research would find plans for a similar one in the lower level of this.  The eventual lean to back area would be a place to store an ATV or snowmobile under cover.