It’s NOT a Farmhouse
A few blogs ago, I “teased” that I had been working on a new idea for what looks like a farmhouse. If you are not the farmhouse sort, don’t worry, the general concept could work for you even if “country” is not your thing.
Let me say from the outset that at times I have gone down the planning road only to find a dead end when financing is not available for the project. Unfortunately, in order to see if something will indeed appraise out at the needed dollars, I must take the project through the full design and estimating stage. I DO have a pretty good feeling about this one, so here it is.
I am seriously looking into doing our “Hybrid Ranch“ (see first blog entries) in Richfield’s new Reflection’s Village development. This is looking like it may be a part of the big annual Parade Of Homes. This development has “miracle” written all over it! This is to be an old fashioned walking neighborhood complete with lots of amenities such as quaint shopping area, fishing pond, swimming pool house, community band shell, a park, and tremendous walking paths. What better place to have a ground breaking new design than this ground breaking new development in Richfield. I have the Hybrid Ranch design actually planned for inside the development in a prominent spot. The demands of the subdivision is that all architecture must look like something out of an old neighborhood, perhaps leaning somewhat victorian in style, but not required.
Just across the main street from the subdivision enterance is what looks like a poor, less than desirable parcel of land with a small building site possibility, on a somewhat busy road(Appleton Avenue/HWY 175). The backyard abuts up to existing/older backyards of other homes. In the middle of this lot, is an old farm silo and part of a buried foundation for a long gone barn. The roof of the silo is mostly gone. There is an old out house near the road on the front corner. It is NOT quaint. It is NOT private. Anyone interested in this lot? I thought not.
Despite it’s unappeal, I looked into what could be done to make this unattractive lot work. First, as in any design challenge, I wanted to identify the problems. The busy road could be overcome by designing a home that was long and perhaps “C” shaped with the open part of the “C” facing the backyard. The rest of the privacy concerns could be overcome by extensive landscaing with well positioned trees. I considered tearing down the silo (breifly) but the wild idea struck me as to how that silo could be used to be an asset. Since it was positioned on the lot about half way back, it was possible to have some kind of building in front of the silo. Instead of ripping down a bit more of Wisconsin history, I decided to see if it was possible to build a barn in front of the silo. Out buildings on such a small lot would make this barn seemingly impossible.
Not wanting to give up on a good wild idea without a fight, I thought of perhaps finding a way to attach this barn to a popular home design I had already previously designed , for which I had wanted/needed to build a model of that home. If you check out web site’s photo gallery(bottom of home page) of our 2009 Parade Of Homes “Little-Big House“, you will see why we are getting a lot of requests to see this home. Unfortunately, ( did I say UN-fortunatly?) the model was sold during construction and now we have to show other similar homes we are building for others. SIDE NOTE; SEE ONE IN JACKSON- Just finishing. The ideal model to have right now for us would be this “Little_Big House“. I would , however not want to idealy have it inside Reflection’s Village since I would want to show it with a simpler exterior than Reflections might allow.
The idea was to build a simpler , leaning -but not really-country-style/craftsman (Think Grandma Moses meets Little House On The Prairie , meets generation Y ….”simple“) model home then connect a 45 by 50 foot barn to the home via a breezeway/hall to the garage of the model. If done well, I can use landscaping to hide the fact that these two buildings are in fact “one” adjoined structure. This completely avoids the issue of having an allowable outbuilding. The barn can be done in such a way that it is not really a traditional barn in appearance , but rather a modern/simplified Generation Y barn done in designer browns and perhaps grays.
A single driveway will service both the “barn” and home’s garage sides with what appears to be a 35 foot wide separation between the two buildings. Both buildings (actually …err…it is ONE , connected building,… I forgot) have side entry garage doors which face each other. I have even designed a small bathroom into the 8 foot wide by 35 foot long breezeway that connects the two/one building(s). I hope you are getting the mental picture.
The visibility of this homestead would be fantastic and if you ever wanted to hold a rummage sale or sell items out of the home OR work out of the home OR have a great workshop OR build the interior to act as a guest house (dare I even suggest duplex in usage for the right situation), or just have a few boats, campers, or “toys” to store or work on, this is the perfect house to do any or all of that!
As for a model, folks can easily see the normal house model and the extra storage can be used for a few years by myself to eleviate some of my warehouse storage space needs , saving me monthly storage payments. Since it is right outside of Reflections, home /lot shoppers can’t miss seeing this home. If done with good taste, it could be a landmark home for the area and a nod of respect to Richfield’s farming past. A way to preserve.
Do you want a bigger storage building than allowable on your lot due to outbuilding restrictions, this could be your answer. If you want to see the concept on paper, just drop me a line for your own private “sneak preview”.
I can’t let tonight pass by noting that yet another fine client family was added to our happy Miracle “family” just an hour (or two) ago. I got to know this family a little when we went out to dinner last week. Last week was a record breaking sales week for our company. A sales period that saw 7 sales in a period of under 10 days. I have not seen that happen since the housing market took a sudden decline about 4 years ago! Today, we had another happy thing happen. We have just re-hired a staff member who was s superstar with us for many years but left to pursue other passions . Times change and we are thrilled to have him back . One of my happiest moments of the day was , while I was diligently working to design a 5 bedroom version of a T2500 for a client, I heard children loudly , gleefully, playing in our office’s video arcade room. I know it is hard to believe, I know it sounds fake to say this, but I truly like making( or seeing) people happy , more than anything I can think of. The desire to make folks smile is why I wake up every morning. I don’t always succeed (that is for sure).
Thanks for reading the blog. Please e-mail or call me with any of your questions or comments. Until my next WILD idea ,…..
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
