House to Home, Volume 8 - The Game Plan

Before we get too far, let's talk about the end goal.  A few years ago (early 2017), when I started seriously thinking about replacing the trouse, I knew I wanted to add a second structure that mirrors the 20' x 24' stick-built house, the part I actually live in.  Same size, same shape, same roof line because I want the old and new to be cohesive.  It would be an oversized single-car garage on the main floor and a master bed/bath above.  I needed a way to connect the two rectangles and one day I suddenly knew I wanted to achieve that using a grain silo.  Well.  Didn't THAT send me down a Google rabbit hole.  I saved *so many* images of grain silo houses:

My sister whipped up some images with her Punch home design software and she came up with the idea of using the silo as the entryway on the main floor and art studio up above.  It was going to be weird, but oh so cool.  Here's her rough design from the backyard:

I wanted to keep the cedar shake detail I already have and carry it around to the other sides, plus swap out my white vinyl for barn red board & batten.  Here's the silo interior, main level and art loft:

The elevation of the lot made me think any new addition would be several feet lower than the kitchen door, hence the quarter landing.  At the time I was also convinced the existing house was 20' x 20', which is ridiculous since it is very obviously rectangular.  I should know this.  I live here.

Turns out grain silos are not easy to come by in my neck of the woods.  Which ends up being fine, because building out a round metal structure would probably cost big bucks.  So back to the drawing board (PIVOT!) and one day I noticed a building downtown from a different angle, like in this older picture stolen from the interwebs, and I thought huh.  That's got grain bin vibes.

Probably because it WAS a grain bin - the Charles R. Page Feed Store was built in 1872 at this location right along the soon-to-be-arriving railroad tracks.  Now I'm thinking I could get sort of the look I wanted with a square "tower", but clad it in corrugated metal like a grain bin.  And squares are hella cheaper to build than circles.

In the interest of being self-sufficient, I bought the same Punch software my sister has and Could. Not. Figure. It. Out.  That's hours of my life I will never get back so (PIVOT!) I found the free version of RoomSketcher and here's what I came up with:

That's my current stick-built house on the left (the part with the nice wood floor) and everything else is new build.  Note my classy landscaping.  And that I gave myself a Vespa.  I am making a couple of changes to the existing space - demo of a tiny closet and the addition of a sliding door, both in the dining room.  Here's the second floor of the new build - I didn't bother adding my current house since that space will have no changes:

These jpegs are dated September 19, 2019, and I'm guessing they are what I gave the architect at our first meeting.  Along with seven hundred thousand notes about what I do and do not want.  This was a photographic reminder for him that there is ZERO wiggle room where the new build needs to attach to the old - right here between my kitchen door and the window:

I also gave him this photo of a house down the road that I was using for window inspo (you may have seen it on my vision board):

And here's the photo I found online for siding inspo:

I've had my heart set on barn red board & batten with corrugated metal from the get go.  At some point late last fall, tho, I switched to possibly a sage green T1-11 and maybe a dark metal, then back to lighter metal and semi-transparent dark brown stain, and now we have settled back on board & batten.  But not red.  PIVOT!  PIVOT!  PIVOT!

I won't bore you with all the architect nonsense because I'm still pissed about it.  He's a very nice guy, but I wouldn't say I'm a satisfied customer.  Here are the "plans" I got from him in January:

Not a lot of difference from my original design, but the elevation drawings take it to another level.  Suddenly this project is legit.

Remember it is important to me that the entire final building look cohesive.  I'm limited by what I have to start with so some things won't match (example:  the windows in the original house have black trim and all the new ones will be white, but I did make sure the size of the new windows relate back to the old).  We re-oriented the stairs from my original design, and Greg added a couple of good features.  I'll give him that much.  Plus he's a nice guy.  But I didn't even realize these aren't "final" plans until my contractor told me a couple months ago.  I shall be eternally grateful that he can probably build from a sketch on the back of a paper napkin; we've been making changes on the fly and so far so good, no napkin required.