|
Welcome to Larry
Sauer Design Studio
Welcome to the inaugural issue of my residential
architecture newsletter! I'd like to
use this newsletter to share with you the trends,
questions and solutions I encounter most frequently when I'm working with homeowners
in Maryland, Virginia and D.C.
Please, call or email me at larry@lsdesignstudio.com with your thoughts, questions or requests for future
articles.
Larry
|
The Great
American Front Porch
Considerations, costs and materials to raise the
curb appeal of your home
Front porches are often considered a
quintessentially American design element, providing a
graceful and inviting way to link a home to the
landscape and to the
community.
Today, front porches are experiencing a revival among metro area homeowners and
architects. Their impact on a home's street presence is
often dramatic, as shown in these before and after
photos of one Northern Virginia client's front
porch. The homeowner, Judy, says, "My
only regret is that we didn't do this 20 years
ago."
How do you make sure your front porch enhances
the curb appeal and the style of your home - and what
could it cost? Because a new (or
remodeled) front porch is what the public and potential
homebuyers see first, the most important considerations
are proportion, scale, materials and detailing.
The first consideration is the style of your
house: you want the porch structure and columns to
look like they are perfectly married to the house, not
as if they were added on. The
goal is to take the best qualities of one's house (and
there always are some) and to extract them and improve
the whole image. I think Judy's house
above is a good example of marrying a new porch to an
existing, rather plain, house.
Ideally, a front porch should be at least 8 feet
wide for usability and should be properly sloped (about
a quarter-inch for every foot) to make sure rainwater
drains freely. Of course, checking
with zoning to make sure your setbacks allow for an
expanded porch is an important first step.
A porch is less expensive to construct than
indoor space:
- typically $70 - $100 per square
foot, compared to $200 - $300 per square foot for
indoor space.
- A
recent builder estimated a typical 8' x 30' front
porch for me at between $17,000 and $25,000 to
construct, depending on materials and
finishes.
There's no denying that front porches are
appealing. They connect our homes to
nature and to our neighbors, and they give visitors and
passersby a taste of what lies within our homes and who
we are.
|
Greening your home 
Seventy-five years ago,
homeowners witnessed an evolution in home building and
design, and many wondered if it was a fad or something
that was here to stay. Today, that
"fad" is mandated in almost every jurisdiction in the
United States. I'm referring, of
course, to indoor plumbing.
From the
groundswell of interest I see among today's homeowners,
I think that green home building and remodeling is this
century's indoor plumbing. In 20
years, I suspect that building codes across the country
will incorporate these principles.
Thus far
this year, I have had four major renovation projects
that were almost completely green. These families had fairly traditional homes in
Cabin John, Mount Vernon, Arlington and D.C., but they
incorporated green ideas that included:
- Bamboo and hardwood flooring from
managed forests
- Recycled materials (such as glass
tiles)
- Low VOC paints
- Icynene insulation
- Under-floor radiant heat
- Tankless water heaters
- Wood materials, sealants and glues
that do not offgass VOCs
- Light tubes
- High-efficiency windows
In this
article, I'd like to discuss health aspects of green
design, because it has such immediate relevance for all
of us. Indoor air quality is greatly
affected by products in our homes that off-gas VOCs
(Volatile Organic Compounds) which scientists have
determined contribute to allergies, asthma and other
respiratory and autoimmune diseases and possibly
cancer.
VOCs are
off-gassed by many paints, glues used in carpets and
tiles; plywood used for subfloors, sheathing, cabinetry,
millwork and shelving; calking; plastics in some
plumbing pipes and other building materials.
Today,
non-off-gassing alternatives to all of these building
materials are available and they are becoming more
widely used by green builders and specified by green
architects. (See end of the article
for helpful links).
Those of us
who don't plan on building a new home anytime soon can
use low-VOC materials for remodeling, maintenance and
repairs to improve the health of our homes, one room at
a time. Because of the growing green
trend, it is now even possible to purchase green
materials in Home Depot, and the selection should
improve all the time.
Stay tuned
- in upcoming issues of the newsletter, I will cover the
energy efficiency and environmental aspects of green
building.
For local
sources of green materials, you can Google any of the
ideas from the bulleted list above, or check out the
following links:
www.greenhomebuilding.com
www.eco-greenliving.com
www.buildinggreen.com
www.usgbc.org
|
|
|
Great Home
Book
Author and architect
Sarah Susanka's The
Not So Big House outlines great ideas on how to create
quality space in a home.
The principles can be used in
almost any home.notso big
house
Heating
and Cooling Difficult Spaces
A reasonable and effective approach
to heating and cooling a room addition for around $1500
(equipment only) is a split system heat pump like the Mr.
Slim fromMitsubishi. It heats and cools a space wi
thout expensive plumbing or duct work. You may have seen them
in enclosed porches at restaurants, but now they are also made
for homes. mrslim.com
Alternatives
to Traditional Oak Flooring
TerraMai is a source for engineered,
prefinished exotic hard wood flooring. It is on a new wood
substrate and can be nailed, glued, or floated over a plywood
sub floor. www.terramai.com
Extending the Seasons of a
Screen
Porch
In our
climate, it is possible to use a porch for most of three
seasons. If built correctly there are ways to heat your porch
to extend its use. For instance, in a new porch, stone or tile
can be laid over underfloor electric radient heat for as
little $12 a foot. (See WarmlyYours.com)
In an existing porch, ceiling
mounted infared heaters can be used very effectively. One
supplier of residential heaters is spaceray.com.
Author Carson
McCullers, Evoked the American Front Porch Experience, in The
Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
"The twilight was blurred and soft.
Supper was almost ready and the smell of cabbage floated to
them from the open hall. All of them were together except
Hazel, who had not come home from work, and Etta, who still
lay sick in bed. Their Dad leaned back in the chair with his
sock-feet on the banisters. Bill was on the steps with the
kids. Their Mama sat on the swing fanning herself with the
newspaper. Across the street a girl in the neighborhood skated
up and down the sidewalk on one roller skate. The lights on
the block were just beginning to be turned on, and far away a
man was calling someone."
Don't keep us a
secret!
Have a friend who might be interesed
in this adding to or remodeling their home? Use the
"Forward email" link at the bottom of this email and encorage
your friends to sign up from the join our mailing list
link.
|
|