This weekend more photos from the owner of the Cabin JohnEcoSteel3030 House arrived in my in-box. The house is really shaping up, although most of this is piping, ducts, wires all destined to be hidden but a needed step to completion. Some goodies though like handrails are under way.
The owner is installing this work with as much care as he has built the envelope. Ductwork has been placed precisely to nestle it in between the flanges of the steel beams. Plumbing is laid out carefully behind the coming finish work.You will see a carriage for a wall hung toilet - a nice touch more often used in commercial bathrooms here in the states. There are also additional exterior shots where the owner has upped the ante by customizing the standard EcoSteel details for a more minimalist and less industrial look. Photo browser of the most recent pictures after the jump.
We were very happy to receive an email from a customer that ordered their prints in 2007. We have not heard from them since and then suddenly out of the blue we were looking at photos of their completed Plat House.
The first thing I noticed was that they have finished their house with stucco. This is the first time I've seen a Plat House clad with stucco and I'm very pleased with how the design stands up to this variation. It looks great and the stucco is a good match for the Texas landscape their house sits in. Second thing I noticed is that they've built very close to the plans. there are some changes to the windows - a few were dropped, but overall the roof overhangs, the deck on the view side of the house, the extension of the porch roof past the ends of the house, are all done as designed and are some of the distinct characteristics of the design. Third, the owners have created their own garage with a design that works really well with the house. The Owners served as their own General Contractors, and did all of the general construction work from the slab up. The husband is a cabinet maker and all of the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room cabinets were made in his own shop.
The owners have been so kind to send us many photos. We have about 50 photos of the house as it is today, complete but not yet occupied. They have also shared over 100 photos of the house under construction - the most comprehensive set of construction photos we've ever received from a customer. The best part to me is the framing sequence. Here you can really see how simply the house goes together. If you find yourself trying to convince a builder that the house is not hard to build these photos can go a long way to that end. What follows are two slide shows, the first of the finished house, and the second of the construction photos.
I am beginning to work on the cladding design for the XHouse now, and I've decided to design and detail it for rain screen cladding.
There are two reasons I've decided to go this way. First of all this kind of "slatted" wood cladding has become very popular for modern houses and I must say that I like the look as well. Second, I've seen a lot of this being done in ways that I feel are technically incorrect, with either the wrong membrane behind the cladding, or with closed joints and improper venting of the back space of the cladding system. By incorporating this into the XHouse1 I am going to build a detail set for a good installation that can be reused on future plan sets.
In the meantime I need to dress the model with the proper look for the illustrations in the Design Prints. I'm playing with two textures right now. One with a rough and weathered wood grain, and a second with a very smooth and finished wood.
