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The Roof Overhang Matters

The architect has added in a roof overhang on all sides of the house. Among other things, this keeps rain from going into the windows (assuming the rain is not falling sideways). But when we add in the roof overhang, we get into trouble with setbacks, and that pesky non-conforming garage.

There are two places where a problem has crept in. The first is the roof overhang over the front door. The town says that the roof overhang can not be closer than the 40′ setback from the road without a special permit. So we will redesign the front of the house a little from the last set of drawings to have a flat facade with only a small front porch. This removes 4 feet from one of the upstairs bedrooms, but that is not really an issue for us.

The second problem is that the required 10′ of separation between the proposed shed attached to the garage and the house is measured from the edge of the roof overhangs (not the wall of the house). To ensure enough spacing, we had to shift the whole house by 4″ (thankfully easier to do now than after the house is built). This small repositioning actually allowed us to slightly increase the size of the deck, which is a good thing.

A New (Un?)Healthy Addiction

In late 2016 I created an account at Audible so I could buy a couple of books by John Scalzi, starting with The Dispatcher and then The Collapsing Empire, which is the first book in The Interdependency series, still one of John Scalzi’s best works (in my opinion). In 2019, I subscribed to Audible, which meant that I got one credit for a new book every month, and access to many free books as well.

Up to that point, I had been listening to podcasts, but once I got books that held my interest, I started listening in earnest. My rule is that I only listen to audio books while walking, hiking, biking or otherwise exercising (not including swimming). If I am at home or camping and want a book, I use my Kindle instead.

I have been keeping track of audiobooks that I have loved and would recommend to others with similar tastes. My nominal listening rate is a little over a book a month. I get one credit from Audible once a month, and them supplement that with books on sale from Chirp Books.

Well, a few months ago I was in the market for another book and Audible had been harassing me for months to try a book called He Who Fights With Monsters, probably because I had listened to a few other LitRPG series before, and this was a popular book in that genre. Well, that may have been a mistake. In the last 41 days, I have gone through the first four books in that series. That’s 98 hours of audio, which averages out at over 2 hours every single day. Keep in mind that I only listen when exercising, mostly walking in this case. This is a serious addition, and not one that I would recommend.

First Look at the Second Floor

Along with the design of the massing of the house, shown in the previous post, we also have a first cut at the layout of the second floor. The second floor is smaller than the first floor, because the living space does not extend over the master bedroom or the gaming room.

This is the first real design, based on earlier discussions. There may be some further iterations. A key feature are the big windows in the family room which will have a better view of the river than anywhere else in the house. We will likely have some comfy chairs near the window, where you can sit and read or watch the boats go by.

As currently designed, the first floor is approximately 2500 sq ft and the second floor is approximately 1600 sq ft. There are three bedrooms, two and a half baths and eight rooms in total (which is important because that’s the room count limit based on the existing septic system).

A Very White House

Our architect has an initial design for the massing of the house, which she presented to us today in a Zoom call. Right now it is very white and has no windows. I assume those features will be downloadable content we can buy later.

Anyway, here is the rough proposed design for the house. The first rendering shows the front of the house, looking down from a drone hovering over the driveway.

The second rendering shows the back side of the house. The stairs are leading down from the deck. The upper-left part of the house is the porch off of the gaming room. That little section of the roof that sticks up is the second floor bathroom.

Working on the Massing

Our architect has been great and has moved the house design forward quite quickly, but this week we were reminded that we are not our architect’s only clients. So after a burst of activity (see Designing a House from the Inside Out), things have slowed down a little.

Right now the bottleneck is working on the “massing”. This was a new term for me, so I looked it up: Massing is a term in architecture which refers to the perception of the general shape and form as well as size of a building. And our architect is struggling a little with the massing, especially as it pertains to the roof over the master bedroom suite. Daphne should find out more on Friday, when she has a Zoom call with the architect.

Part of the problem is that we have imposed a lot of requirements, especially for that part of the house. High ceilings, no living space over the master bedroom suite, and a roof design that will not tend towards problems with ice dams. Nothing is ever easy, and we have not even gotten to the hard parts yet.

More Early Morning Pictures

So I have started to carry a more serious camera with my on my morning walks before boarding the shuttle bus to work. That gives me the ability to have more creative control over my shots, as well as teasing out better quality than my cellphone. I am still using a 12 year old camera (although I am eyeing an upgrade). And I really missed using a tripod or monopod, but a few of the photographs came out quite well.

You can see all my latest photographs from around town in this gallery. In the meantime, enjoy the following two pictures from yesterday morning.

Note: I have changed the on-click behavior – instead of taking you to SmugMug, it will just expand the picture. Please let me know if you prefer this behavior or the previous behavior (see the previous photography post).

Morning Pictures from Near Alewife

I took a few pictures during my Sunday morning walk around the Alewife Brook Reservation. Four more pictures have been added to the Photography page with the best two of them shown here.

I really need to start to carry around a better camera than my cell phone. At least I have figure out how to take RAW photographs on my Google Pixel 6 Pro, and how to download them to my computer. (Hint: use this magic link to access your uploaded RAW photographs https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_.)

Biking to Work with a View

In the warmer months, I will bike to work an average of two days a week. I leave home around 6am or as soon as it is light enough outside to be safe. Most of my route takes me along the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway. And every morning, I pass by Arlington’s Great Meadow’s.

Looking into the meadow from the bikeway, I face Northeast and often get some very interesting lighting since it is typically soon after dawn. I have picked up the habit of stopping to take pictures, if the light is particularly good that day. I only have my phone, but that’s better than nothing.

Anyway, here are two recent photographs of Arlington’s Great Meadows seen from the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway in the early morning light. Clicking on them will bring you to our photo site.

View of Arlington's Great Meadows
View of Arlington's Great Meadows

First Two Chapters Posted

I plan on documenting the process of building our new house on the Sudbury River, partially to warn people off the complexities that is home building and partially to entertain, but also to solicit sympathy for the stress of this process.

The story starts with The Search for a New House and continues with The Worst Real Estate Lawyer Ever, and both of these chapters have been published this morning. The next few chapters are still in the planning stage, but you should see them relatively soon as we catch up with real-time.

Meanwhile all of the story chapters will be accessible from the Sudbury River House page (accessible from the menu bar).

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