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Designing Your Log Home
By Mercedes Hayes, Fri Dec 9th
Every Log Home magazine has a section dedicated to floor plans,where the aspiring owners start their search for the perfectdream home. I did it too, and dutifully ordered piles of planbooks, while starting my comparison shopping based on the beautyof the photos. Little did I realize - until later - that whatwas really drawing my attention was the third dimension: theroof lines, the porches, and the soaring great rooms. At the beginning, we think we need to choose a manufacturerbased on their floor plans, but once we realize that we candesign our own custom home with any company, things startgetting interesting. After all, interior wall partitions can bemoved at will, and the log home company really doesn't carewhere you put the bathroom. How many different ways can youconfigure an open floor plan? What really requires thought is the interaction between thesecond floor and the roof lines. The first floor iscomparatively simple; you've either got a cathedral ceiling, ora regular ceiling. However, once you go upstairs, there's awhole new set of considerations. First of all, what kind of roofdo you envision? The simplest (and most economical) roof line isone long ridge from one side to the other. The angle and heightof the roof slope determines how much floor space you are goingto lose because of the pitch. There's a good chance you don'thave as much useful space as the second floor plan indicates,unless you're two feet tall. Once the log home architect turnsyour plans into real drawings, he will "gray out" the deadspace, but it'll save costly revisions to be able toconceptualize the third dimension ahead of time.
For instance, I wanted a 45-degree angle in my roof; this is a12/12 pitch (in other words, the roof rises 12 inches for every12 inch horizontal run). I have a 28 foot-wide house and Iwanted the slope to go all the way to from peak to floor in myloft. The peak measures about 14 feet from the second floordeck, and I lose 6 feet of floor space to stand upright, if Iwere 6 feet tall. (I'm speaking in broad generalizations here -not precise measurements.) My loft extends halfway into thegreat room, so this leaves me about 8 good feet of width in theloft - not the 14 feet my homemade floor plan shows. How do I increase my living space? By adding a dormer. The widerthe dormer, the more space you regain. This adds cost to thewhole project, but it's well worth it. Some narrow dormers dolittle more than add light, while a shed dormer widens the wholeroom. Your choice of dormer will be determined by the look youwant on the outside. Or, you can add a gable and create anAlpine-look, which will give you a big triangular-shaped wallinstead of a slope. A third option would be to add "knee walls",thus raising up the whole roof. However, if you want the samepitch, this means the peak will be correspondingly higher fromthe ground. The
roof pitch was a huge factor in the placement of mystaircase. The stairs run along the wall. I wanted extra squarefootage at the base of the steps, but to do so meant that thetop of the stairs would emerge dangerously close to the ceilingslope. I would bang my head every time I went upstairs! So thestairs had to be situated so that they reached the loft in - ornear - the middle of the house. Or, I could have added a landingand angled the stairs to keep them in the center. I opted totake a notch out of the loft and shift the stairs a few feetforward, calculating how much head room was left over. Still, Iwasn't sure how far the staircase would extend... that thirddimension again! In the end, I had to sacrifice the potted plantI intended to put in the corner at the base of the stairs. Therejust wasn't enough room to do it all. Another difficult visualization is trying to see just how bigthose plate-glass windows really are. If you want a ranch withbig great room windows, you may have to shorten the panes ofglass to fit into a peak that only rises 14' from the deck. It'shard to fit a large window set in a small wall. Most of thebeautiful windows in magazines take up well more than twostories - more like 24'. Perhaps a ranch with a loft is the bestof both worlds. I made the mistake of ordering windows so large that I cannotreach the center of the glass to clean it by hand. I certainlydon't want to rest my ladder in the middle of the window! What Ididn't learn until later is that if you order a window that'stoo large (say, 6'x6'), the glass will bow ever so slightlyunder its own weight. This may cause the thermal seal to break,like it did after one year in my house. You're better off usingsmaller, divided windows to create the same wall of glass. The last thing I want to mention is to try and look at your rooffrom a bird's eye view. How do your ridges line up? Do you havedisconnected angles pointing in every direction? That willgreatly increase the cost of construction. If you have a gablein the front and a gable in the rear, do they line up? Or couldyou line up a gable in the rear with a porch in the front? Themore complicated the lines, the more costly the building. The most amazing thing about building your log home is having towait until it is nearly erected before you actually know whatit's going to look like. On a regular house the frame goes upfirst and the shape is defined. But with a log home, it can be along wait before you get the whole effect. And once the roof ison, the effect can be almost magical. About the author:Mercedes Hayes is a Hiawatha Log Home dealer and also a Realtorlicensed in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She specializes inlog homes, both new construction and pre-owned homes. Articlesabout the log home she designed and built have been written forLog Home Living and Town and Country Hunterdon County. If you'dlike to learn more about the Delaware Valley and Log Homes, goto www.MercedesHayes.com.
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