The day was spent visiting client homes we currently have under construction. If you know the wonderful feeling it is to see your own home being built, (trust me, if you have not had that experience, it IS wonderful), then you can imagine how I must feel looking at multiple homes we are building at any one time. One of these today was a home we are building on Ochauchee Lake .  This is actualy the second home we are building for these nice people. This one has a 12 foot high basement where the concrete floors were just poured yesterday.  I sure love seeing progress and making notes or suggestions as to how we might make each home a little better.  In this case, I am particualrily happy to see a lake house that was not as custom as some we have designed.  In this case, these folks took an existing simple design we had and modified it so it works and looks great but only costed a fraction of what a scratch-custom would have.

       In my last 2 posts I have talked about creating outdoor spaces that are as nice as indoor spaces, or at least TRYto make them as preferrable as indoor spaces when it comes to simple, after-work relaxation areas. As I mentioned previously, my years of attempting to achieve the perfect outdoor living spaces have been a journey of discovery. That is, I build them in a model, then observe the public reaction, then observe if the new owners actually use these spaces. Sadly, creating an outdoor space that rivals the indoor couch/T.V. combo, where you can control bugs, noise, privacy, and temperature, is tough to do. Who wants to come home after work and relax outside only to find it is too hot, bugs are flying around your head, and the neighbors are outside forcing conversation when you are tired from the day? 

      I wrote how I tried to tackle all (or most) of these challenges when I designed my perfect outdoor front porch, complete  with weather enclosed television, couches, screens, even a built-in fireplace and refrigerator. But creating great outdoor spaces are more than amenities, they must also be “user friendly“. This is to say, that if access is available only by walking up or down a tall flight of stairs or walking outside the home using an unnatural path, you can have all the frills and amenities you want, but the area will NOT be highly used in everyday living.

     The perfect example of this is the family who builds a large dedicated home theatre but then only really uses it for special occasions or weekends. The basement location for this theatre was simply not “user friendly” to the kitchen or living room and took an effort to get to that theatre area. To avoid such placement issues, a wide set of front double doors can open up the entire front porch or patio to the rest of the home. But, what about the bugs and air conditioning escaping or entering through the wide openings?

     One device which is used in commercial operations is called a wind screen. A wind screen actually creates a wall of air flow (wind) that starts at the ceiling and blows in a sheet of wind to block the outside from the inside even with doors open. The next time you go to  a theme park like Great America , or Disney, look at the many door-less shops they have that still mange to stay cool inside on hot days. That cold air is being (mostly) held inside with these invisible walls of wind.   With a wind wall, you can easily walk from inside to outside without worrying to much about getting small bugs  or cold air conditioned air outside, or inside  the home’s interior.

     Another way to keep the bugs out is to simply use screens, but that requires opening and closing screen doors and will not keep the temperature inside the home. On the perfect weather day, or if you use a nice system of cieling fans to keep air moving, you can make screens work.  If you are planning to really use exterior “rooms” in your everyday living and don’t have a wind screen system, try designing the home so the great room(Kitchen/seating/eating area) is all in one area and is zoned so the rest of the home is on a separate heating/cooling zone.  If you have the great room zones so you can turn off the air conditioning without turning off the rest of the homes air conditioning, you must also have a way to door-off the rest of the home. Designing in doors that close off the bedroom hallway are not difficult to do IF you have the forethought to do it.

     The patio area or backyard area of the current design (again it is my “Hybrid Ranch” design and , AGAIN, you should read my first blog entry to see more on that exciting development) I am working on , approaches the idea of creating the perfect outdoor “rooms”.  In my ideal world, this area would be more than an oasis or get-away, it would be all the rooms you need to live in, but outdoors instead, AND, doing things you ould only do outdoors. Here’s how I am doing this.

1. I wanted to have multiple rooms enter/exit onto this lower (walk out basement) patio area. The two guest bedrooms, the upper great rooms (via stairs to lower level), and the lower great room (rec-room) all enter/exit onto this backyard area, making it accessible to many.

2. There is a brick paver pattern and concrete pattern that are curved and curve right into the home’s interior. The brick/concrete patterns actually flow through some main doorway so that the pavers come nto the home. The effect is to make a statement that these outdoor areas are the same as indoors for use. We want folks to not step from carpet onto concrete which instantly tells them, “I am now outside”.

3.  Since it is hard to live outside without having a kitchen, a kitchen was created around the idea of the cook-out, or grill area. Today, some new style kitchen cabinetry , that you would swear are luxury wood cabinets, are being amde of resins to be weather-resistant exterior cabinetry. In the future, don’t be surprised to find complete wood-styled kitchens outside along with exterior grade appliances! My small efficiency outdoor kitchen will have hot and cold running water and a refrigerator. I am designing it to have a commnon wall touching the home so hot water is not problem and inexpensive.

4. The outdoor living room needs to have pleanty of outdoor furnishings (again) that look like indoor furniture styling. Most important, we will have a 60 inch flat panel television set. To make this feasible, I am taking a simple large clear glass picture window and putting it into the home’s main body looking out onto the patio living room.  This window is sized to the size of the television screen. The television (here’s the tricky part of my little invention) is actually not outside at all. It is inside and it faces out of this window so it is seen only from the outside!  I will use exterior grade surround sound speakers and exterior grade sub woofer speaker ( some in the shape of rocks and others attached to the home)to have a sound that will “rock” the backyard for everyday living or an awesome garden party where you can invite Jimmy Buffet or whoever you wish on concert DVDs.

5. For eating areas, I have designed several areas ALL with fans overhead to keep bugs away. Some are on dry land areas and some of these tables are in another one of my inventions I call the “flooding patio”

6. A flooding patio is something you could only do outside and I have done several of them before. They are a concept where you have a portion of the main patio(in this case, 18 feet by 22 feet) sunken a step or two or three below the main patio.  When dry, it appears as though you have a sunken living room on your patio. It is a conversation pit look. When the days or nights get hot, you can flood the patio area to fill with water. You can mingle your feet in just an inch or two of cool water or you could choose to have as much as 12 to 24 inches of water for a great kid’s wading pool or floating around the patio on an air mattress or tube.  In the homes I have built them in, visitors are instantly attracted to these shallow fun pools and in moments remove their shoes, no bathing suit required. Some folks have issues with bathing in a hot tub with others, or swimming at a party, but no one I have met has had any qualms about sitting on the (non-rusting aluminum framed) furniture while splashing their feet. What fun!

7. This outdoor living area series of “rooms” are separated visually by plantings or outdoor art paintings suggesting walls. As for a ceiling that may protect against sudden rain storms or such, one of the big features has the home’s main roof structure covering most of this oasis. A system of screens can be rolled down to enclose most of the backyard rooms.

8. As for the bedroom or bathroom outdoor “rooms”, I needed to address this as well. If  a bathroom was needed, I wanted to design a fun compact “yacht-style” bathroom which was both adjacent to the outdoor rec areas, as well as being available privately to the outdoor bedroom area.

9. Did I say  outdoor “bedroom”? Yes I did. What it appears to be is a covered gazebo or cabana which is pool-side(flooding patio side, that is) . The entire cabana is sided in french doors and hide-away screens.    When you wish, the area can be used to lay out on the covered outdoor queen bed/futon  or sit on a few chairs. When the temperature is too hot for some but right for others, this cabana’s doors can be shut and air conditioning from the home fills the room. Both the bathroom and this bedroom touches the main home only on one corner and (at a casual glance) appears to be separate from the home. In  Winter, this room can be a cozy guest cabana with attached bath. Your guests would have to walk outside to get to the cabana but the huge main room over the rec area does give cover going to and from the main house.

10. The shape of the home and the extra landscaping gives total privacy from any neighbors who would desire to see you in your outside rooms.  We even have, of course, the outside fireplace in a perfect area to give heat to the living room on cold nights watching the outdoor television.

     If this sounds interesting to you, please contact me because I am looking for all of the feed-back I can have for this first-ever concept. I hope , with the kind cooperation of the bankers of course, that I will be able to unveil Wisconsin’s first indoor outdoor home. I have never seen anything like it anywhere and…that makes it all the better and fun to do!

     I hope to unveil it at the 2010 Parade of Homes , this year, in my home town of Richfield.  At that time, again, I will sit back and see how people accept and use these outdoor rooms.  Once again, I am sure I will learn form my latest plan and go on another day to re-think and re-design the perfect outdoor living area.

I am also building a throwback to the age of farm houses and I will talk about what I am doing that no farm may have ever done.  I hope you will visit this blog again to join me for more wild , creative ideas.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

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