In our previous post we mentioned that one of the ideas we’re tossing around is to build a “compound of small (not tiny) houses”. What we’re envisioning is a cluster of 3-6 cabins between 400 and 1000 square feet. Each one would would have a full bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen(ette). They’d be connected by paths, some shared outdoor gathering places, maybe an outdoor fire pit, endless pool, and a pavilion.

We’d build these on a big piece of land so that they’d have total seclusion, and would have some kind of natural element to look at or play with- a great mountain view or a big loud stream possibly.

They’d be rented out individually, or could be rented all together by a bigger group.

With the rest of the land, we’d eventually get some trails put in and link up to anything that’s already existing (so bonus for any land that’s near or adjoining any of the existing trails systems).

In addition to being compact, these cabins would be largely off-the-grid, leveraging solar power and captured water. At least one of the cabins would be accessible, and the other paths and shared areas would be built with this in mind as well.

We looked all around for a place like this for our small (10 people) wedding a few years ago and couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. There was nothing small, modern, and rustic that could accommodate us.

Now what are you envisioning in your head?

We found these cabins, designed by Osburn Clarke of British Columbia. There’s 4 cabins with an identical footprint but slightly different layouts. They’re 100% off the grid. Lighting is provided by solar, water by the rain, and heat by the wood stoves.

They’re not designed for winter living. Instead, the doors and windows can be covered up by the rolling doors. You can see these doors and the tracks in the couple of pictures below.

The same people designed this house with a footprint of only 500 square feet.

There’s also a slew of cool projects designed by Balance Associates. The house linked is bigger than the cabins would be, but at 1600 square feet, it’s not unreasonable. The inside is more modern than what we like, but it’s not too far off.

As we enter the final stages of this house, we’re starting to look at options for the next project. We’re fully prepared for this one not to sell immediately, but we also want to have sifted through some possibilities so that we’re ready to go if it does sell right away.

Going back to the beginning, our original search for a “mountain house” began very small:

That’s 14 Finch Lane, a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom cabin in Cherry Log Mountain. It was small, simple, and rustic. It also had a noisy little stream in front of it. It’s major downside was that it was on a small lot, and located right off of the main road into Cherry Log Mountain, so there would be noticeable drive by traffic. The other downside was that anyone we talked to said “what if you have friends visiting?” This house didn’t have room for any guests.

The final house that we were this () close to buying was a new construction cabin with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. This one ticked off all of the boxes except for being secluded. The sellers (Sissons) were willing to sell us the adjoining lot at a decent and fair price, but as you know, that’s not the path we chose. It is still for sale. http://nathanfitts.com/homes-for-sale-details/L-540-CHERRY-LAKE-CHERRY-LOG-GA-30522/236754/260/

The point of this is to highlight that we built way more house than we personally need or want. Even the cherry lake house is bigger than the house we live in now! However, we do like to think that if we were to actually live in, or spend a lot of time in, a house up there, our friends would want to visit us. Maybe we’re delusional.

We’ve come up with a few things that could be the next project, and the list continues to grow. My main criteria are that it has to be at least marginally fun and profitable. We are all ears to ideas or thoughts from anyone, so let us know what you think! Here’s the top of our list right now, not in order:

• Rent out the existing house
  • This will only happen if the house does not sell by late spring/early summer. We do not want to rent this house out, but it would not be a bad problem to have. It would be a positive cash flow every month, but it would also mean that we have both a ton of cash and a mortgage tied up in a rental property, so it’s not the ideal scenario. It would also limit our ability to start another adventure. However, I think Brittany would have a great time furnishing and decorating it to get it ready for rentals. On the downside, we would need to put in a hot tub, which we have vowed to avoid.
• Sell the house and do nothing.
  • If we sell the house and have not found the right next project, we won’t start something new. Yes, “do nothing” actually means “Dave brainstorming, researching, iterating, and building financial models for 100 ideas”, but from an investment standpoint, this would be a break until we hit on an idea we like. This is not a probable scenario.
• Build on lot 12, 14, or another in River Escape
  • This seems like the easiest option. However, I’m not sure we want to build another $300,000 house. I struggle with building something that we (or our friends) wouldn’t or couldn’t buy. Everything else we’ve done personally has been to simplify things (including our phases of “yard simplification” and then “life simplification”), and a 2600 square foot vacation house doesn’t line up with that. The selling process for the existing house will affect this decision. If it sells quickly and for the asking price, it will be a lot harder to pass up the lot next door to do it all again.
• Small (not tiny) house compound
  • Yes, I love this idea. In fact, I love it so much that it’s going to get it’s own post. If this isn’t the next project, it will be a project at some point. I hope you can handle the suspense I just created.
• Bears Den Mountain
  • This will also get it’s own post after we visit the land again this weekend. This is a small tract of land that has already been divided into 5 lots. We considered it before, and it is still on the table. There are a few similar pieces of land that would allow us to do the same thing. We’d be committing to building at least a couple of houses. Ideally, we’d manage to keep things smaller than what we’re doing currently.
• Build OUR house
  • If we were certain of where we wanted to live, we could build a house to actually live in. Unfortunately, we don’t know where that is. We’re lucky in that we have the abilities to make a go of it just about anywhere, but how do you pick out of “everywhere”? The only way I see the next house being one we live in is if we decide to move to Cherry Log/Blue Ridge, but maybe we’ll have a revelation.

Thankfully, no the roof is not fire, but we’ve picked the metal colors so that hopefully it never will be!

Tim (the builder) and his sons were measuring the roof this weekend to order the metal roofing and gutters. They had no qualms hopping around the roof 30 feet up.

The roof will be charcoal gray ,and the gutters will be bronze.

You can see the other options and some examples at Jimmy’s Metal Roofing. There’s lots to pick from, and you could go pretty crazy, but I think we’ve picked something that will link up well with the rest of the house.

We went with the metal for a few reasons. We think it will look awesome, and will be something distinctive from the other houses nearby (although, biased, I do think it’s the most unique house in the immediate area!). Also, it will last a long time-about 50 years. Whoever buys this house won’t have to worry about the roof, and if they sell it in 10 years, those people won’t have to worry about the roof either. This is not a throw-it-up cookie cutter subdivision house that will need overhauled in 10 years!

The rest of the exterior will be underway in a couple of weeks, so it looks like everything outside will be done around the first week of December. We’re only about 8 weeks out from being completely done!

No, that’s the HVAC ducts. Got it.

The furnace and AC units are both in now, and there’s ducts snaking through the walls and ceilings.

Ducts need intakes and vents, and those have appeared in the floors, walls, and ceilings.

Another source of heat, the fireplaces and chimney pieces are also installed. At the beginning, we changed the location of the fireplace several times, moving it back and forth from the corner to the side wall. The advantage to the side wall was that it could be carried through and line up with the outside fireplace, and would also take up less total space. Ultimately, we decided that the would have more flexibility if the fireplace was in the corner. This also allowed us to put the outside fireplace on the outside of the porch, which I think makes the porch more enclosed.

Of course, your day is not complete without hearing and seeing a slight brag about the view from the porch. Mountains, leaves of all colors, and the river. Perfect spot to sit next to a fireplace!

There was quite a bit of progress this week on the plumbing. That will all be finished up in a couple of days, and then the electric will start. The weather didn’t cooperate for the tree trimmers, but the views were still better than they’ve been with the wind having cleared most of the leaves off of the trees.

The upstairs bathroom has a shower/tub. The downstairs bath will have a tiled shower, so it’s just pipes now.

The washer connections are also in place on the first floor.

Outside, the ac unit has been put in place. AC was the last thing we were thinking about as it was 32 degrees. It won’t get a whole lot colder than that here, so for November 1st, it’s a bit nippy.

One of the two windows that’s yet to be installed is the window for the closet turned office nook. This will be a small window similar in size to the one in the bathroom below it. You can see it framed out in the picture.

I forgot to get a picture of the front door last week, so here it is.

The outside won’t change now for a couple of weeks. The roof will go on in 3-4 weeks, and the framing crew will be back in a week or two to start on the exterior. Everything in the meantime will happen inside.

The porch is still the highlight for me. If you don’t like this porch, you’re just not a porch person.

If you’ve been following along, and love the house, it’s now officially listed for sale.

http://nathanfitts.com/homes-for-sale-details/13-RIVER-ESCAPE-DRIVE-CHERRY-LOG-GA-30540/243215/260/

Once it is under contract, we’ll start planning for the next one, but for now, the focus remains on getting the details right and continuing to learn as we go through this process.

The plumbing is expected to be finished this week, with the electrical work starting today or Monday. By the end of next week, we should have all plumbing and electric in place. At that point, most of the structural work is done and everything else is finishing.

The rational for listing it now is that it’s far enough along to see the floor plan, views, and overall structure. As we continue to progress, more of the finishing details will be chosen by us, so the longer our future homeowner waits, the less they get to pick!

The front porch is done and ready for some chairs. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking today.

What’s around the corner, you ask?

More porch!

The outside fireplace is framed out also. It looks plenty big enough to keep the porch nice and toasty.

Don’t forget to look up and see the 1×12 tongue and groove ceiling. This looks awesome, and runs under the entire porch, not just the big side porch.

The other news is that the doors and windows not only were delivered, but were installed this week. To continue showing off the porch, here it is from inside the living room through the doors. We debated having double doors or a single door with a window, and I think we made the right call. The glass definitely helps open up the room, and once the fireplace has rock, it will be a great focal point to draw you out to the porch.

If you look left from the doors, the inside fireplace has been framed.

This is the first picture showing the window we added in the upstairs bedroom (top middle window). It was a good addition, and completes that room.

The outside left of the house looks better with all of the windows in, and there’s still one more to add in the closet-turned nook upstairs.

Lots of windows means lots of screens. The scale is tough, but trust me that this is a big pile of window screens!

#curbappeal

Hi blog readers! This is a guest post from Rocky, the family mascot, child, and dog. I am here to report MY perspective of the new house!

First of all, the humans never go up to Blue Ridge without me in the backseat! I am great in the car. I love watching people and laying in the backseat. I never cry or barf (only when I was a really little baby).

When we get to the house, I love to get out and sniff all the other animals who visit there during the week. I can smell bears, deer, coyotes, mountain lion, tigers, yeti, and sometimes other doggies. I have a few fav trees to pee on, but that’s getting a little personal…

Mom and Rock selfie

This house has challenging me in ways I never could have imagined. I have risen to the challenge (literally) of jumping up two feet through the front door. Sometimes it takes me a few peaks over the edge to summon the courage, but I always eventually make it! As dad mentioned in the last post (thanks for callin’ me out, dad) I am still working on the steps. In my defense, I am LITTLE and there are big slits in the middle of the steps where my paws and fall right through. Good thing I can still make those puppy dog eyes and mom picks me right up and carries me. Blue Ridge is also the only place I feel comfortable jumping out of the back of the Jeep. Why jump when your parents pick you up like a prince??

Well, readers, I hope you have enjoyed my perspective on this new house adventure. Check back for more updates! And a shameless plug for my twitter: follow me @RockyDurkin.

Love, Rocky Durkin

Framing of the house is nearly 100% with the porches to follow in the next few days. The exterior framing is nearly all covered up, so the visible changes will slow down shortly once the porches are done.

We’ll mix things up a bit today and start inside (so don’t cheat and skip ahead to the end to see the outside! Seriously…we’re watching).

Walking in the front door, the house is fully enclosed for the first time. The ceiling here is 9′ until the edge of the kitchen, and then it’s super tall in the living room-about 30′ I think.

From the middle of the living room, you can see 2 of the bedrooms and get an idea of the overall layout. You can also see the awesome vaulted ceiling in the upstairs bedroom. This will be a tongue and groove wall when finished, but it’s cool now to be able to see how everything fits together.

From the other side of the great room, you can look up and see the barn door bedroom. The kitchen would be directly in front of you, and the doors to the left go out to the side porch.

You can get some appreciation for the ceiling height here, and see all of the framing for all of the bathrooms and closets.

I’m including this one because you can see the window layout and all of the framing. I think this is cool stuff, and I’ll assume that if you’re reading this, you do to.

The rest of you are probably more interested in what is happening on the steps.

Yes, that is Rocky making an appearance again. Except this time he’s not acting so tough. He’s not a fan of the open stairs right now, apparently believing that we’d let him fall 25 feet to the basement. Don’t tell the bears, deer, foxes, coyotes, and chipmunks that this guy is afraid of steps. They won’t be afraid of him anymore.

The view from the barn door bedroom hasn’t changed much, but know everything is closed in. It’s good there’s a huge window behind me to keep this room from feeling claustrophobic.

The other upstairs bedroom, which we have not given a fun name to, has a huge vaulted ceiling and a killer view. There’s still 1 window to be framed on the left, which will give this room 3 windows just like the bedroom on the first floor.

This pictures don’t do it justice, but the view is great. We’re going to have some of the trees trimmed now we can see where the best spots are, but we’re holding off so that we cut as little as possible. We don’t want it to look like we clear cut around the house.

To reward your patience in getting this far, we’ll give you a 360 degree tour of the outside!

Porch footers are visible across the front of the house here. Hint: they look like 4 little craters!

“Let’s build a little cabin in the woods.” I guess we drifted a little bit.

It looks a little cozier from the front!

We’ve had a lot of rain the last few days which has limited the progress. The forecast isn’t great this week, but when we do have clear weather, things have been moving quickly.

First, we made a few small changes to the upstairs.

Here’s the original plan:

The changes are marked with arrows.

The first change (A) is the addition of a window. On the original plan, the roofline dropped through this room, but now there’s a vaulted ceiling, so there is a nice tall wall there begging for a window. This is also the spot that I previously mentioned has a much better view than expected. This window will be the same size as the other window in this room.

The next change (B), is the another new window. This one is smaller. This is where you ask why there is a window in a closet!

The answer is change C, which is changing this large space from a closet into a reading/office nook. With no door, the window will give light (and a view) to the nook, as well as light to the upstairs hall and bedroom.

Finally,  D is not a change, but I wanted to point it out again- that’s the barn doors which open up the bedroom as if it were a loft. This will allow light from the large front window of that bedroom to get down into the living room.

The shape is now apparent with the exception of the porches, which from this side will make a big difference.

The only change to the outside that was made was to left side wall. The original plan had the main roofline continuing down. The dormer was altered a bit here so that the dormer roof intersects the main roof, and the dormer roof forms a vaulted ceiling for the bedroom. There will also be an additional window, which will be placed directly above the main floor window that you see framed.

This the same corner from the inside of the house.

The resulting high ceiling and additional window will transform this room. It will have the best view in the house, and will also have a tall but proportioned ceiling.

Stepping outside of that bedroom, you can look left and see the nook (formerly the closet). From here, you’ll be looking straight into the nook and out the new window. The door to your left goes into the upstairs full bath, and the second bedroom/loft is behind you.

This is the same vantage point, but a step further, and you can get a glimpse of the view.

Turning around, you’ll run into the other bedroom. This is the opening where the sliding barn doors will be.

This is the back of that room. This window is parallel to the sliding doors.Looking up from the living room, you can see where the sliding doors will be, and the window in that bedroom.