iNdoor design -- the Layout Room

We started thinking seriously about moving from the expensive California bay area to somewhere affordable back in 1996. Between 1996 and 2005 we looked at over 100 homes in the Sierra Nevadas, Oregon, Kansas, Illinois and Colorado. By the time we saw this house we had a very good idea of what we were looking, so when my wife deemed it her dream house I knew our search was over. 4 kids bedrooms together on the top floor? Check. Great kitchen and master bedroom? Check. Spacious entertaining areas and storage spaces? Check. A terrific space in the basement for schooling and kids play? Check. Wonderful setting? Check. Everything she could want.

Oh yes. It did have something else. What was that? Oh, a garage. Right, the cars have to go somewhere.

I'm kidding. She was very concerned that the house also had the stuff I wanted and I assured her it did. Beyond that to her the garage is like a trash compactor -- it fills a useful function, but is not essential, and the details don't matter as long as the exterior fits in with the rest of the setting.

Fortunately this had been a builder's own home, so while his wife designed all those cool things that my wife loves, he made sure the "guy" stuff wasn't neglected. The 4-car garage is very spacious, with tons of workshop room and storage room for the outdoor toys like bikes. Then he put an apartment above the garage for his office. Here is the diagram of the apartment:


I oriented this with the north at the bottom. I know that's going to cause some confusion, but the CAD drawing I have of layout was done in this direction, and I wanted this diagram to correspond to that one. I could reorient the CAD drawing, but given the large number of text labels that would need to be flipped and reset that would take a long time.

Otherwise, this gives a pretty clear picture. The 4-car garage is bisected by a stairway to the apartment. The stairway is neither too steep nor too narrow -- at 3' 10" it is easy to move large things up or down, or for two people to pass. On the north side the apartment is a simple room, about 19' 2" x 19' 8". The ceiling is slanted, starting at 4' 11", on the sides to accomodate the roof, and when we moved in there was a built-in desk installed in the corner. Here is a picture of the north room taken before we closed on the house:


You can see small window alcoves in the center of the east and west sides. On the east side this space is part of the bathroom, which includes a shower but no tub and no closet. Appropriate for an office space. Walls have been added to the south side of the apartment for the bathroom, to provide a closet and to provide a separate room. To a realtor, the south side room qualifies as a bedroom.

Here is a picture taken at the same time, from the top of the stairs toward the south room:


Note in the picture the diagonal support beam on the right. This was painted to look like wood but it is in fact covered with drywall and paper. It has since been repainted to match the rest of the room.

Here is a photo, again taken at the same time, of the south room:

You'll notice there was a window air conditioner. This has since been removed. We live at 7400 ft in a forest and it rarely gets hot enough to need A/C. On the few days when it does it only affects the top floor, so I get by with either a fan or move to another location in the house. I did leave the window A/C in the north room in place. That is a big 220 volt unit and I thought it might be helpful during summer operating sessions, but except for testing every year or so it has not been used either.

You'll also notice some electrical wires sticking out of the south room wall. These were all over the place, but in the north picture they were mostly hidden by the desk. The previous owner (not the original builder) had run a telemarketing business out of this apartment and had all kinds of ethernet, fax, phone, and security system wires in the walls as part of a complex office phone system. In these days of WiFi I simply cut them and closed up the walls. I have yet to dispose of the central phone system but don't use it, having re-routed the home phone lines around it. It's obsolete now but anyone who has a use for it can contact me and get it for free.

So, I finally had a train room. I was very excited. Yes, I would have to make some changes, but unlike some other houses I looked at the train room already had dry wall, adequate room lighting, electricity, heating, and even a dedicated bathroom. And the fact that my train space could be shared with my home office was another big plus.

In the next post I'll cover the design process.