Nantucket Project Update

Nantucket-Style Home with 2-Bedroom/1-Bath and weathered shingle siding.

Nantucket Project

Here is a rendering of the Nantucket Project I am working on. I share progress drawings from time to time. So I thought I would place the most recent ones here. I still need to finish some details before it is available for purchase.

This is a 2-Bedroom/1-Bath Nantucket-Style Home with weathered shingle siding. A Palladian window in the front says there is more to this house than meets the eye. Quality touches like the beamed ceiling and wood floor continue this theme. The goal of this design is for you to keep finding details you love about your home year after year.

Some say "bigger is better." Larger home designs often have left-over spaces that a designer turns into a closet. Some spaces are rarely used like a formal Dining Room. Family sizes are smaller and average home sizes are Bigger. Affordability and maintenance can burden smaller families. A small house requires much more attention to detail. They are high-design opportunities to help owners live their best life.

Cabins and Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) 

This design is suitable for a small family but also is a get-away retreat, or even an ADU, Accessory Dwelling Unit. ADU or the granny flat are ideas the communities are opening up to and even promoting. It is a nice place for grandparents to stay while visiting the kids or if they need help and support from family nearby. It is also a great launchpad for your returning college students. Or it would be a great rental and provide extra income. Some real estate investors actually buy existing single-family homes knowing that they can add an ADU and double the income of a property.

Drawings progress from simple drawings at the start to more elaborate renderings toward the end.
The drawings in this picture were all created using the same software for an efficient workflow.

Here is a brief summary of the group of drawings above.

1. A 3D Section on the upper left shows the Dine-In Kitchen and the guts of the house. 
2. Next to that is an early design development watercolor style rendering of the front of the house.
3. In the upper right. The floor plan shows the slender arrangement of rooms to fit a narrow site.
4. On the bottom left, a technical pen and wash drawing of the entry porch.
5. The final rendering is the Great Room continuing the Nantucket-Style exterior on the interior with nautical design elements. 

If you notice the cutaway 3D section, I am specifying raise heel trusses to allow more insulation for more comfort in the home. More importantly, the insulation does not taper off at the roof edges. In the past leak conditioned air and sometimes causes ice damming. New designs have continuous insulation over the insulated 2x6 studs to wrap a blanket around the house. Another option to consider is double 2x4 stud walls with a space between them to prevent thermal bridging thru the studs. 

New Energy Codes

As I hinted at before, new energy codes are driving the AEC industry to make changes. Changes that are more than adding insulation. Adding the insulation is good but, it complicates how water vapor travels through the wall. The rules of thumb and even the improved construction of the last 2 decades may not yield the results we want. Building science is becoming more important and keeping up with the changes can be a full-time job or a career. Walls, roofs, and floors going forward may not be the same as it has been, just better.

This post covered a lot of ground very quickly. If you have any questions, please contact me at this email info@plan.house .

Cheers,

Erik