Ambitious personal project….

Go on, work away…..

i’d love to see the design.

have you referenced any construction guides or design data literature?

decent model considering it’s your first effort. the floor plans would be a bit more useful, and the context the house is to sit in if you can. looks good though.

You are missing
dormer windows
victorian effect PVC bay windows
4 car garage
concrete eagle gate posts
scale model of the 5 lamps
50,000 tons of gravel for your drive

Also it is ridiculously small. What will your neighbours think of you?
I can’t see it ‘blending in’.

I think you did very wel. the form of the house looks good with the different massing and the materials look good too. The plans however when you look closely is a little under generous size wise. I would try to increase the size of everything a little. You’re walk in wardrobe doesnt look like you could get into it. Your bathdroom down stairs is far too small. The hotpress apprears to be off of the master bedroom and the utility seems to be tiny. i would also try to change the east elevation as the 6 windows looks a bit monotonous.
but its nice to see something other than bunglaow bliss
These are just my personal opinions and are not to be taken as criticisms
as far as getting planning stick to your guns-once you have good reasons and evidence to back these up the council will usually grant…even in wicklow
If you do alot of the work yourself you will save money.ie diect labour
however if you do not qualify under SS9 then forget about it
Good Luck

Nice touch Frank 😀

I think it’s a great scheme (the 3D drawings look fantastic – what the CAD package?) I like the simple shapes and sharp lines. The broad range of materials gel together particularly well.

You seem to have cut back drastically on the timber cladding in East Elevation Rev A (outline) drawing. 🙁 That’s a pity – it really did look fab, but you can’t have everything I suppose!

Hi Grif. Have you got a copy of Homebond’s ‘House Building Manual’? Drop what you’re doing and go and get one. 😀 It’d be a very useful resource for your project. Easons and the like should stock it.

The standard floor to ceiling height for domestic dwellings is 2.4m, so 2.6 is more than adequate. 2.4 is a standardised size that plasterboard panels come in. Breaking from these standardised dimensions will inevitably involve more materials, manpower & therefore cost as plasterboard panels will need to be cut to fill the 200mm gap. Hopefully someone will advise on the likely cost implications – I’ve no idea.

Having said all that though, higher ceilings will give a much greater sense of space – well worth it in my opinion, if finances allow.

Standardisation of sizes is common practice throughout the construction industry, as it simplifies the construction process for the builder, enabling them to construct things quicker & therefore cheaper for the client.

It’s common to find components that share sizes, or can easily relate to others, for eg, 100, 225, 300, 500, 600, 1000mm etc. In this example, (are you using blockwork internal walls?) the height of 11 blocks including mortar joints works out to be 2465mm which allows a 2.4m plasterboard panel to be installed (with a margin allowed for tolerance). This is something to bear in mind during the design stage!!

Floor thickness can vary, but you’re in and around the right mark. Typical joist sizes (is it a suspended timber floor?) taken from Homebond are 175, 200, 225mm. Your choice will depend on the relationship between the distance that the joists are required to span and the distance between joists.

I’d agree with henry that the East Elevation does look very imposing – are you trying to frighten away the local kids? I’d be terrified! 😉 I once stayed in a spooky old converted monastery in Mayo that had a monk’s graveyard below my bedroom window and it reminds me of its projecting gable ends on the front elevation. 🙂 (Lighthearted reminiscing on my part, not to be taken as criticism!)

Regards,

DJM.

As DJM said 2.4m is the min, and it is fine, but the 200mm (8in) in no harm. But if your going to go for a pre-fab timber construction for the main section (from earlier post). Then it would probably be alot cheaper to use their standard, but still look into it.

As for the floor thickness, the maxium span accross the dining room/kitchen is 5.4m. This is quite a large span and needs joists measuring 75×225. The spacing of the joists would be 300mm (with strenght class 14) or (400mm with C16). In the ground floor bedroom area, a more standard 44×225 jist can be used. You could use more shallow joist need for the short span, but it’s easier to keep ceiling heights the same.
So the floor thickness will be around 260mm including floor and ceiling.

If your updated floor plans have different spans in them let me know and i’ll revise the joists sizes.

Hi Grif.

Firstly, well done on this project. It looks very interesting. I don’t think I can be of much help, but I just had a few thoughts/questions.

Whilst in your renderings you have the house on what seems to be a completely flat horizontal plane, I am wondering what the surrounding landscape is like and how the house is to be situated within it? For me the landscape should be a primary consideration when deciding on your design. Don’t get me wrong, it looks good. I am just wondering how it relates to its surroundings.

I was also wondering if you are planning on installing any energy efficient sytems into the house? Any plans for solar panels, geothermal heating etc?

Good luck with it,

Phil