Cumberland County has a new building inspection department and I sent them all the information I had on Freedom Yurts. They didn’t think they would be able to approve the permits. So back to the drawing board only this time I signed up for a free Home By Me account and spent March 2024 learning the program and learning how to design a home from scratch. I was going to have to pay to upgrade to the Home By Me version which would let me export to DraftSite to create a CAD. I didn’t like the look of Draft Site so . . .
In early April I downloaded a free trial of Chief Architect and after a week purchased their $59 a month subscription to the “beginner’s level” version called Home Designer Pro.
Home By Me had 3D images of animals and plants and people and all kinds of furniture. Home Designer Pro has a “library” catalog, but many items I wanted are EXTRA – $5.99 and up. So I Googled to see what others had done and I discovered a video where the lady said she uses 3D Warehouse where you can download THOUSANDS of free 3D creations and import directly into Home Designer Pro! FOR FREE.
On April 9, the infamous Eclipse Day, Jerry Lee Young came for lunch. He owns and operates the Jerry Lee Young Idaho Heritage Museum in Hollister, Idaho north of Jackpot, Nevada and south of Twin Falls, Idaho. I put most of my antiques on consignment in his museum.
During our visit I learned he’s a general contractor and his son is an architect! And that catapulted me into spending every chance I got to learn what’s called CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software so I could generate a Permit Drawing to submit to Jerry Lee’s son to see if I made any egregious mistakes. Next, get the mistakes fixed, assuming I made any, and then send the files to Field’s Engineering Consultant Services, LLC in downtown Crossville, so they can conduct a site analysis, and submit the CAD to their architect to generate a stamped permit drawing to submit to the new building department!
And this is what I have created. A courtyard house on a slope with an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) aka Guest House with a kitchenette and full bath and two walk-in closets on 4.3 acres surrounded by a farm. The main house has one ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) wheelchair accessible walk-in shower bathroom and a powder room, one bedroom suite, an office which if you added a closet in the future could be turned into a bedroom, a library/piano room, eat-in kitchen with a walk-in pantry, a laundry room with a walk-in broom closet, a powder room, which in the United States is a room with a toilet and a sink for guests, and a mechanical room in the courtyard for the water heater, furnace, and electrical fuse boxes. In the back there’s a retaining wall, and I fenced the property in and added an above ground pool to represent the FitMax pool with a deck.
Floor Zero is the foundation. This will be the tricky part because of the slope although several builders now have told me it’s not that steep.
Both the guest house and the main house are only one story, although the guest house could have a second floor, if there’s enough money in the budget. Both buildings have a front door facing due East, as recommended in Feng Shui and in Vastu. I eliminated the foyer and made it an alcove, as per Ännie Schade’s recommendation, to open up the space. There is an exterior fire door from the garage into the alcove area and glass door from the garage into the courtyard. That might have to be changed per local codes. All the windows and doors will have Hurricane Shutters. Crossville doesn’t get hurricanes, but it does get high winds and Category E1 tornadoes. There’s no option for adding aluminum bahama shutters, but I will find some roll up system for residential homes.
And now for the design!
I put a small wood burning stove in the east wing in the living room, so if the grid goes down and never comes back up, this part of the house will have heat. No air conditioning nor electricity, but it will have heat. I put another wood burning stove in the office on the west side for the same reason. There is enough wood on the property to keep the both structures warm and to cook food. I plan on having well added, in case the city water system fails. I am expecting the United States to collapse like the Soviet Union did, like Rome did, like Athens did when Pericles died from the plague, and like the First Kingdom in Egypt did. Maybe Atlantis, although that was a real downer!
It was very easy to walk around inside Home By Me. A 3D image of a man could be moved, or you could pretend you were walking inside. To create a walk through, Home Designer Pro makes you do a kind of Clamation video (Ännie thought of that one. I was just frustrated because you have to aim the camera and mark off a path – see tutorial – click on the image and you’ll see what I mean.
I think I’d like to teach how to design your own house – a simple one. Not this one. Definitely not this one.
TWO Million dollars just to construct – not finish, not the land, just the foundation and the structure. OMG! And it’s in BLOODY AUSTIN, TEXAS – a hot humid hell hole of a city!
P.S. In March 1998 I was the lead speaker on virtual reality at the Computers in Libraries Annual Conference held in Crystal City, Virginia. Two months later I would be working as the head of the government documents library department at the state college down by Atlantic City – one of the most toxic workplaces one could ever hope to describe. I celebrated my 44th birthday at a restaurant on the beach. The college was a den of backstabbing and a vipers nest. My research got tabled and in October 2000 I moved to El Paso, Texas. Now all these years later I can FINALLY use the skills I said would one day be common place.
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF you are an architect, foundation expert, concrete expert, framing expert, new construction electrical engineer, new construction plumbing contractor, environmental engineer, drainage engineer, or an expert in home design decor. If you have constructive (pun intended) comments, please post.
Librarian's Guide to the Multiverse! 