It wasn’t long ago that the standard ceiling height for a house in America was eight feet. This was the height of standard wood studs and gypsum board (also known as drywall or sheetrock) came in four foot wide sheets, so abiding by the standard height meant less material waste when building. (By the way, drywall is installed sideways on the studs with the four foot dimension being vertical and the eight or twelve foot dimension running horizontally). But times have changed and the trend is toward higher ceilings. It’s rare to find even a mid-priced new house with ceilings less than nine feet high. And most high-end houses have ten foot or higher ceilings. (more…)

     Electric bills always seem to be going up. Wouldn’t you like to find a way to reduce your electric bill? To reduce our electric bill, we usually think of ways to use less electricity, which is a good thing. You can reduce your electric bill by making your house more energy efficient. You can reduce the wattage in the lights in your house. I’m not a fan of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, as I’ve written in an earlier post to this blog. But advances in LED technology are quickly changing the way we produce light and much lower electrical consumption. Although it helps, changing light bulbs is not the quickest way to reduce your electric bill. You can immediately reduce your electric bill by 20% to 40% by installing a Computerized Energy Management System.

     One company I’ve worked with here in North Carolina is Smart Energy Solutions. They have a computerized system that manages the big consumers of electricity in your house, like water heaters, air conditioners, dryers, and such. Here’s how it works. In the background, without any noticeable change in your daily living habits and convenience, this system prevents the big electricity consumers in your house from coming on simultaneously. The dryer might wait to start its heating element until the air conditioner is done with its cycle, for instance. This prevents peaks in your electrical usage from occurring and levels out your electrical consumption throughout the “on-peak” period. In most places, the “on-peak” period is usually from around 8:00am through early evening during the weekdays. (more…)

    I did a book signing yesterday at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. These events are good opportunities for people to ask me any question they like about house design and homebuilding. I have been designing all sorts of houses for many years. I think Lincoln was President when I got my architectural license. It was so long ago I really don’t remember. Over that long time, I thought I had answered just about every question anyone could ask about house design. But yesterday I realized I have been living in a delusional world. I got a question that literally left me speechless.

    A woman came up to the signing table, thumbed through my book, Designing Your Perfect House, and complimented me on it. Then she asked, “Do you design houses that protect people from radio waves.” My answer was the same as yours probably would have been. Total silence. I had no idea what to say. (more…)

    The days of “Living Large” may be numbered. House design is changing. We might soon be bragging that we’re “Living Small.” With the current economic conditions, we are seeing our dreams and desires in a whole new light. High energy costs, environmental concerns, maintenance costs and the cost of the house itself are strong motivators to reevaluate one’s needs and create a house design that responds to those needs.

    I think the best way to reduce your living space is to write out what we architects call a “program.” This is the first thing i do when doing a house design. This is a list of needs and desires plus a target size for the spaces you want. It’s a good idea to multiply out the areas of these rooms, include hallways, closets, stairs, and other small spaces and add them up to get a total. Take that total and multiply it by 1.15 to add 15% for the area the walls themselves take up. You’ll end up with the total square footage your house design will need to include all that you want. If this total is too much, go back and reevaluate what rooms and spaces you included. Trim out the excess. I discuss this process at length in my book, Designing Your Perfect House. A good, well thought out program will become your road map to the right sized house design. (more…)

Today, we awoke to a freak snowstorm here in Raleigh, North Carolina. I say “freak” because any snow is a rare occurrence in this part of the country. Snow in January is a novel concept in the southeast. Everything, and I mean everything was closed. We were crippled by Mother Nature.

 When the flakes stopped falling, we had about six inches of nice, clean snow on the ground. I put on my tennis shoes (I don’t have boots anymore since I moved south) and found my gloves (they were in my golf bag where I left them following a chillier than usual round a few weeks ago) and set out to clear the snow. I don’t use a snow shovel any more. I’m not sure I still have one. I use my leaf blower, instead. It works surprisingly well. It fluffs up the snow and blows it away almost without a trace. I cleared my sizeable driveway in a little over an hour. The best part is my back doesn’t hurt! 

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The birth of “Building Green” arguably happened in Austin, Texas in the 1970’s. There’s a good article in Ecohome about Austin’s sustainable building program and their continuing progress. But the trigger for Austin may not have been what you might have guessed. Here is the first paragraph of the article by Jeffery Lee:

Austin, Texas – the state capital and home to the University of Texas – has long been known as a liberal bastion in a conservative state, and the city’s residents are renowned for their environmental consciousness. But it wasn’t the community’s mind-set that led to the establishment of the nation’s first comprehensive green building program; it was a nuclear power plant. (more…)

     I was asked this question recently. How do I go about determining the likely cost of building a new house without having to go through the expensive and time-consuming task of completely designing the house and creating the final bidding and construction documents (drawings and specifications)? If the price comes in too high, the design and documentation process will have to be done all over again. That will add more cost to the design services and, by extension, reduce the construction budget. So, how do you get a feel for where things are going on cost at an incomplete stage in the design and documentation? (more…)

    I think that sometimes people are surprised I have done work in many states, including Hawaii. Unlike builders, architects do not have to be located around the corner from the construction site. It is easy to reciprocate my architectural license so as to allow me to practice almost anywhere in the world. This is a nice fringe benefit of working hard in school and getting all the proper credentials in order. Of course, I do a lot of my work nearby. It makes site visits more convenient and it helps to have several projects in the same vicinity for efficiency. But sometimes a very interesting project will come up and I’ll travel long distances to design it. I like the excitement of something new and different.

    Hawaii is over five thousand miles from my office. But when a relative of a previous client called me from Tokyo and asked if I would be interested in doing a project in Hawaii, how could I say “no?” I met the property owners at the beachfront site on Oahu and we agreed to work together. These days, with e-mail, digital cameras, the internet, and overnight delivery, moving information long distances is easy. I made many trips to Hawaii for design meetings, site visits, and contractor meetings, but the process went along in much the same way as it would have if it had been an hour’s drive from my office. (more…)

Are you planning on designing a new house? Or are you buying a house in a development and picking a house design and floor plan from the half dozen the developer is offering? Or are you searching for the right house design and plan from the thousands and thousands that are offered for sale? If you fit into any of these categories, there is one critical first step you should take.

Probably the most important thing must do before even looking for floor plans is to write a “program” for your new house. Before architects begin a design, we write out a list of the required spaces or rooms, target room sizes, and desired characteristics and features for each room. This list is called the program. It is essential your goal for your house design. Lesson Eight in my book, Designing Your Perfect House, we discuss how to do this properly and effectively. (more…)

    Designing stairs is more intricate task than many people realize. And it’s not just about how the stairs look. Proper proportioning is critical to comfort and safety. Set the tread and riser sizes carefully. For  I recommend 10″ treads with a one inch nosing. The nosing is the projection forward of the tread beyond the riser below. The riser is the vertical portion of the step. I try to keep the riser height under 7 1/2“, preferring to end up with about 7 1/4″ if I can. We’re all getting a bit older and the fraction of an inch can really make a difference in how a staircase feels. On a house with the now fairly common ten foot ceilings, 18 risers will give you risers of about 7 1/3″. If you have a situation where you want to further reduce the riser height to fit a particular situation or if you have bad knees, you can go by the old “Rule of Thumb” that said the riser and tread dimensions, when added together, should equal 17.  So 6 1/2″ risers would be combined with 10 1/2″ treads for maximum comfort. But there are always exceptions to Rules of Thumb, of course. (more…)