A few days after the happenings of the last post, Slick opened up the empty ceiling space over the dining room. The kitchen question had been decided, but the dining one remained. In other words, the whereabouts of the kitchen-to-be had been resolved, but whether to have a cathedral ceiling over our eating area had not.

The eventual destination of the kitchen was to be, technically, over the area previously occupied by the toilet room. This satisfied council requirements regarding preexisting plumbing, while also allowing us to use the 'pink bedroom', or north eastern corner room for our eventual kitchen. (May I just add that we are all SO glad that this is the way it worked out. The abundance of natural light in that kitchen is such a joy.) A wall, it was therefore decided, would be erected basically where the original wall had divided the toilet room from the shower/vanity room, partially cutting off the kitchen from the dining room area. The stove would stand on the concrete slab left over from the toilet room.

Part our deliberations regarding the dining room involved our wish to work with the principle that different ceiling heights help subtly divide spaces and indicate their uses. The theory was that if we had a higher ceiling above the dining room, it would delineate that area as different and separate from the lounge room. Another aspect we were juggling was energy in the forms of light and heat. If you remember reading an old post on the ideas and plans (read 'Exterior Philosophies') we had in the early days, you will recall that we played with the idea of lifting the roof height all along the ridge pole and putting in a second story. Like so:

But by this time we knew we didn't have the time and money necessary to make this possible. We had not, however, ruled out putting windows in the gable to let extra light and heat through. We were already decided that the concrete floor of the dining/bathroom area was an ideal passive solar heat sink, so more windows seemed a good idea. However, several considerations had to be taken into account. The biggest was represented by the major beams running the nearly the width of the building. Structurally, a cathedral ceiling was impractical. We also worked out that not much usable light could be collected through the gable.

(Above and below): Slick opening up the ceiling over the dining room.

 

 

As can be seen above, the only remaining ceiling area is above where the toilet room was.

 

Home education within a home renovation.

 

The show must go on.

 

And then someone brought up the idea of an attic area, again. Why not go the opposite direction from a cathedral ceiling and instead drop the ceiling height over the dining room, granting just enough height for a legal (and maybe even usable) room above? This was a prospect most beautiful and dazzling to our entire romantic, space-starved family. In fact, the idea captured our hearts, but also made its discussion the more stressful. Some considered the idea just romantic, wishful, impractical thinking; most thought it wonderful and didn't really care about practical details as they essentially weren't their problem; others thought it a great idea and overflowed with creative ways to make it work (some of which were cause for some anxiety). The main problem with the attic idea was the necessity of access - ie, a staircase - and the distinct lack of floorspace. A spiral staircase was the most popular suggestion, but then where on earth would we put it? Put it underneath the attic and there would hardly be any floorspace upstairs; put it out in the lounge and it would majorly interrupt traffic flow and visual continuity. As principles, practicalities and personal wishes mixed within the key players, stresses mounted with each discussion. But gradually we worked it through and some decisions came to be made.

Firstly, we decided to scrap the cathedral ceiling idea and instead lower the ceiling to about the height of the top of (what was then) the current doorway beam. (See photo above.)

Secondly, we decided to frame the extended dining room (which would include all the previous bathroom area except the toilet room) with post and beams, helping to delineate that area as separate from the lounge and kitchen. This post and beam theme would also be used in framing doorways between the lounge room and other areas.

Thirdly, we decided to level off the floor surface of the dining/old bathroom area, transforming it into one room.

Fourthly and finally we decided to build in an attic above the dining room, accessed by a winding staircase to be installed at the end of the dining room, a space at that time occupied by the kitchen doorway. The kitchen/bedroom-to-be would subsequently be accessed through a door set in under the stairs (the family rejoices once more - are we not sad creatures?).

So there you go. Now you know how some of our most momentous decisions were made and a little bit about why they were made. Hopefully it makes some sense. Make sure you comment if it doesn't because I have many more posts ahead, and thus many more opportunities to explain things.

Our front fence as it was when we bought the property:

Dirty, boring and wobbly. Ridiculous from all angles - this was our fence. It had to change. Our resident designer (Mum) cleared the drawing board (found a space on the handiest scrap of paper), the resident carpenter ordered the materials and generally figured out how to translate the drawing into reality - while the remaining innocent residents waited to be transformed into resident laborers.

Voila! The laborers appear and the picket fence begins to disappear.

 

It was a jolly hot day.

Visitors. What a shame.

 

The First Panel.

The boards (old recycled fence palings) were cut square, lined up along the centre diagonal board, nailed on and then trimmed with a circular saw.

 

Notice the washing line in the distance? It was not going to stay there much longer.

Standing at the top of the kitchen stairs, in the doorway. The panel is three quarters done.

Success. The first panel is installed and the highland mist is rolling in.

Note the long, narrow trench: our plumbing according to laundry, kitchen and bathroom plans...

Sounds profound, doesn't it! What it refers to is the tortuous path we took to arrive at the exterior cladding and appearance of the house.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the appearance of the house was wrapped up in the shallow pitch of the roof. Being a romantic and heavily influenced by North American architecture, I prefer a 45 degree pitch most days of the week. This place didn't cut it.



In our original discussions, we planned to ameliorate the pitch by raising the centre third to a second story, with a gable running front to back and the existing roof line remaining to present a barn like structure.


Unfortunately, our resources wouldn't stretch that far. The compromise was a board on batten
effect which would draw the eye upwards on the front and back of the house. On the two shorter sides of the house, we played off a house 3 doors down which had corrugated iron running vertically on two of its walls. (The fact that Steve got a good deal on iron which was second hand - oops, recycled- may have had some influence on the decision as well!)


The colour scheme was the source of much despair. Having traveled through the province of Quebec and seen the wonderful colour schemes of their houses, my greatest desire was to paint the house a deep raspberry colour. We played around with some paint pots but most required a grey undercoat before the red was applied - and all the reds were a bit garish. We then turned to our store of mis-tints and tints we'd inherited or picked up cheaply. The brown and the grey/blue trim are the end results of our playing. I must admit that for me it was second best, but, in hindsight, my dream was probably not suited to the Australian landscape. Besides, I used red inside the house instead.

The end result was quite satisfying on the back of the house where it is level with the ground, but at the front of the house the exposed brickwork of the foundations caused a problem. Visually, there still seemed to be a squat house on high foundations - the house did not look settled into the landscape at the front. Two things eventually improved the situation. The first was the addition of an attic bedroom over the dining room; the 3 diamond pane windows under the eaves draw the eye up. The second was as simple as painting the brickwork a slightly darker brown (which only happened between Christmas and New Year '08). This removed the horizontal line across the house, It is amazing that so much discussion and angst could be summarised in such a short post!



The final efforts to connect the house to its location and provide a transition area between inside and out will be discussed in greater detail when we get to them.