One of the smaller houses that I have designed was a cottage-sized dwelling with a footprint of 800 sq.ft. Despite the apparently small size, the house had three bedrooms, two baths and ample living & storage space.

Having lived in +/- 400 sq.ft. on several occasions myself, I find that can be plenty of space, if you don’t own too much ‘stuff’ . An open plan will increase the apparent living area. Extending the living areas into the outdoors by means of decks, porches or balconies also adds to the sense of space. Even more appealing is attractive surrounding outdoor property.

In this case the client had a rural property with river frontage, so the whole property had the feel of a casual cottage setting suited to outdoor living. The client planned to have friends help with the construction, so the building was to be simple & straightforward. The house shape decided upon was a rectangle - almost a square actually, which is the most efficient area (has the least exterior wall area). One-and-a-half storeys with a simple gable roof would allow for a usable attic with half-height pony walls on the sides & full height in the center, almost doubling the available floor area. The main level was to have living, dining, and kitchen areas, three-piece bath, laundry/utility room, and a bedroom, as well as the stairs to the attic level. A wood stove on the main level was to be the main heat source for the entire house. The attic would have two bedrooms and a full bath.

The rear of the house faced the river so the rooms were to take advantage of the views and access.

Any vehicles would be parked outdoors. Even a single-car garage easily requires 300-400 sq.ft. –a lot of money to spend on constructing shelter for an object, rather than for people.

How did all this manage to fit into the building footprint? Stay tuned for the interior floor plans.

Previously I presented a series of options for a porch design (see earlier post). I had intended to follow up sooner but my computer was in the shop!

The option chosen by the client was H: the gable roof porch with a small Dutch hip roof at the bottom. Here is the finished construction.

I actually would have chosen a different option, probably E (see drawings below): the porch roof as a Dutch hip across the whole front façade, for a few reasons:

• that version would have fully integrated the porch with the remainder of the house, as if the porch was not an add-on but part of the original construction.
  
• normally I would not choose to have gable roofs with two obviously different pitches on the same side of the house (though a different pitch might not even be noticeable if on another facade) The porch roof height was limited by the sill of the upper window, so the pitch had to be lower if a gable was used.
• a secondary benefit of version E (perhaps difficult to see in the small drawings) is that the overall porch roof & fascia height would have been higher, enough to allow an additional decorative trim (lattice or trellis work) spanning from post to post of the porch while still allowing a bit more light into the lower floor windows. This decorative element could have added even more heritage character to the house.
  

The gable chosen does create a central focus & emphasizes the entry point. This choice also avoided disturbing the existing house roof in order to tie-in to the porch roof.

Materials on the exterior were also changed, with the addition of shingles on the upper wall to match the porch gable, and natural stained wood trim around the existing windows & fascia to match the wood porch structure. This gives visual unity to the whole building – repeating materials and colours.

Next I will look at the design of a small cottage-size home and then the subsequent process when an addition was needed.