We have always wanted to have a breezeway between the garage and the pantry door so we can go between the house and the garage without getting wet if it is raining or snowing. However, as I have mentioned before, the current garage (and the replacement garage we will be building) is “non-conforming” because it is too close to the road. Because it is non-conforming, if we were to attach the house to the garage, the entire house becomes non-conforming and we would require a special permit (which is not guaranteed).

In the past, we believe that we had to keep a 10 foot gap between the house and the garage to avoid a special permit. So we designed the house that way, and planned on adding a breezeway in five years, which we believe allowed for enough time to establish the house as existing, and thus circumventing the issue.

However, it seems that when we change our plans to tear down and rebuild the garage in place instead of preserving it, the rules changed. Or maybe just the building inspectors interpretation of the rules changed. I am not sure. That said, the new rule is that we only have to have a 1″ gap between the house and the garage to avoid a special permit. However, that includes a 1″ gap between the deck and the garage as well.

So our architect came up with a design for a breezeway that met the requirements. The design pictures are shown below, but before I get to that I will go right to the punch line – the building inspector approved these plans and they have been adding to the building permit. Woo hoo.

This is a side view of what we are proposing. The garage is on the left, the house is on the right and the flooring between the two is the end of the deck. I have highlighted in yellow where we will have a 1″ gap.

This is a cut view from same angle. Once again, the gap is in yellow. What you will notice is that there is an overhang on the garage which will overlap the breezeway. This means that any rain will have to blow in sideways in order to get into that gap. This is, of course, will not prevent a cascade of water, but make it much less likely. Also, since the breezeway can not be attached to the garage, it has to be supported with columns.

And here is an isometric view of the breezeway itself.

Some other notes. We had another Wednesday design meeting, and this one was relatively short at only 2 hours. We decided on the lighter color for the accents in the siding (see earlier post). We waffled a little but ultimately approved the windows that had been planned for a while. We agreed to use the pretty standard Zip-R siding solution (which goes under the actual siding), even though it was not clear whether it would reduce the ability of the house to withstand a brush fire.

Work on the foundation continues. They are installing the french drain system and also the radon reduction system. (We do not believe we have any radon, but it is trivial to install it now and add a fan in the attic later, if necessary, to complete the system.) They are also filling in the base with gravel, which will then be covered with waterproofing. After that, they will frame and then pour the actual foundation.

As work progresses, I hope to have pictures and construction videos so you can see the progress.

This Saturday we visited the site only to see workman finishing up the foundation supports. Here is what the foundation supports look like as of this morning.

However, the main reason for our visit was to start planting trees. We planted four trees, three Allegheny Serviceberries and one Eastern Redbud. We are planting the small trees to avoid needing to dig out too much of the ground, impacting the surrounding trees. But also because they are more likely to thrive if planted when still small. Here is one of our new trees.

Of course, while I was there, I took the obligatory view of the river. This photo was taken from atop the pile of dirt that was excavated for the foundation. This is the approximate view expected from our new living room.

Finally, I have the last few days of construction camera video stitched together showing the process of putting in the supports for the foundation. This video was taken from the construction camera’s new location, which is not blocked by piles of dirt.

This morning they started to pour concrete into the footings that will be under the foundation. Here is a picture of the site just before the work started (people are standing around waiting for the concrete truck to show up).

And here is a short video showing the start of the process. I did not stay around after this point since I had to get to work (I still need to work to pay for all this activity).

The foundation work is likely to take around a month; this is just the pilings under the basement.

I have added another story page – The Wednesday Decision Making Process. This page talks about our decision making sessions with details from our beginning of April session.

Meanwhile, we are still trying to pick an accent color for the front of the house. Here are some choices. The blue is really a nod to the Conantum original architecture, which features sections of primary colors in the siding. Feel free to add a comment with your favorite.

The builder emailed this picture to me this afternoon. It shows them starting on the footings for the house. Concrete for the footings will be poured on Friday.

This work should all be visible from the construction camera’s new location (which is a tree near the top-center of this picture). I will try to get the memory card this weekend, if there is a break in the rain.

This is just the footprint of the house. The garage will be done much later in the build process since the old garage foundation is being used for access and staging. The deck and porch do not have foundations, just pillars. I assume those can be added later. The part that juts out to the right side is the front stoop.

Very early in the process, before we had even submitted an offer, I visited the Concord building department to ask some questions about the existing septic system. I remember, while I was there, the helpful clerk offered to calculate for me the maximum size house I would be allowed to build on the lot. I suspect she wanted to make sure that there would be no surprises when we designed the house.

Well, she looked up the zoning details and the plot plan and did some calculations. Then she proudly announced that the maximum size house we would be allowed to build would be 17,581 square feet. Well, that added yet one more constraint to our design process.

One of the most common questions I get asked by people when I tell them we are building a house is how big a house are we building. The problem is that there is only one real answer, and that is “it depends”.

The way I think of the house is that we are planning on aging in place and living on one floor. The main floor is around 2,500 square feet, which is generous but not ridiculously large for two people. But we also have a smaller second floor for guests and possibly live in help when we get older. The second floor is around 1,400 square feet. Those are the two numbers that are probably what people think of when they ask.

But that does not tell the full story. We also have an unfinished basement, which will be conditioned space. The basement is, as you would expect, also around 2,500 square feet. And then there is the garage. The main garage is just under 600 square feet, but we are adding a garage extension (“shed”) for another 120 square feet. Since the garage is also conditioned space, that means that we are heating and cooling a total of just over 6,000 square feet (which is now starting to sound like some type of mansion). Then there is a deck and a porch totaling around 820 square feet, but those tend not to get added into the total.

So if you ask how big a house are we building. The answer is it depends. Probably a little too big, but still keeping it comfortably under the 17,581 maximum allowed by the town. (By the way, given the restrictions due to setback and wetlands and height limits, it would probably be impossible to get anywhere close to the maximum. The reason that the maximum is so large is because the town counts the one acre of wetlands in the lot size, and the maximum is only based on the lot size.)

I should also point out that the septic system also establishes limits on the house size, not on the square footage, but on the number of rooms and bedrooms. Our septic system limits us to 3 bedrooms and a 6 other rooms (as defined by the law). As it happens, the house we are building has 3 bedrooms and 5 other rooms (living room, dining room, kitchen, game room, and the second floor family room ).

Over the last few days, the crew has been very busy at our build site. First, they removed the remains of the old house and its foundation. Then the surveyors came in to flag the location for the new house (you can catch them briefly walking around in the middle of the video). And then the shovel got busy digging out the sand for the new foundation. (Yes, the lot is sand, which is good for easy construction.)

They have to dig four feet out from where the basement walls will be to put in the drainage systems. They also dig down since there is complex foundation footings under the basement floor. The builder told me that they need undisturbed soil for the foundation footings, and in two locations, they had to remove footings from the old house which overlapped where the new footings were going to be places, so they needed to dig down further in those two spots.

Here is our sandpit as of mid-Friday morning.

And here is a sped-up construction video showing the work over the last four days. After this video was taken, I moved the construction camera so that it will now show a view more like the picture above. That should avoid blocking the action with big piles of dirt.

So this is all that is left of the original house on our lot. And even this will be gone before tomorrow. The garage platform will stay in place until the main house is framed to provide site access.

That big shovel was cleaning out the foundation of the old house. But it was also playing in the dirt as you can see in this brief video.

The next step is to have the surveyors mark where the foundation will go. Then the shovel will return to dig out the ground, including four feet past where the house goes. Then another round for the surveyors and then the foundation gets built.

I have added a new story page called And Then it Was Gone – Don’t Blink, which describes the demolition process and includes a number of videos.

As part of our agreement with the Concord Natural Resources Commission, we are required to remove invasive plants on our property. You can see the area in which invasive removal is mandated. (New house is at the bottom.)

Well, this Saturday, Daphne and I had our first hour-long session pulling invasives in a small section. We will be doing this every few weeks until it is done. For now we just piled them up, but in a few weeks the Concord municipal compost site opens up for the season, so we will cart them over at that time.

Meanwhile, there was also time for some bird watching. Here is Daphne at the rivers edge. Notice that the water level is very high, and it may go up some more since rain is in the forecast.