Welcome back to progress on the small house that I'm building. I finished the frame a week ago
and it is happily turning a golden brown color in the winter sun. It's gotten quite a bit of interest
from people driving by and seeing it in the yard, and I enjoying seeing it out the bedroom
window. I've spent the past week working on a general design of the exterior facade. Some
material decisions have been made. The roof will be eco star shingles in a multi-colored slate
pattern. They are made from recycled tires and have a 50 year warranty. The siding will be white
cedar shakes and the trim will be eastern white pine, painted red. The roof and facade will have
an active airspace between them and the SIPs envelope. Once the window and door layout is
finalized, I will produce working drawings for the SIPs company and they will cut the panels to
size, complete with all openings. The house will sit on piers which are capped by 12" square
granite blocks. Here is a picture of the frame and a few pictures of the proposed exterior facade.
As you can probably see, being able to model the building in 3D CAD is a very helpful tool in
making design decisions. I use Vectorworks Architect (software)for this.If you haven't been
following this blog, you can find pictures of the frame being cut and erected here.
