Zoning Limitations

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Zoning-limitations

Zoning-limitations

The City of Denver has some fairly complicated and restrictive zoning requirements, limiting lot coverage as well as designating the area where you can locate the house and garage. The open space requirement and location of the structure(s) on the lot creates obvious constraints for this small narrow lot (37’ x 132’).

Initially, our goal was to build a 2400-2500 sf home, but once we designed the house we were at 2800 sf. We knew we were exceeding the open space requirements (62.5% of the lot is required to be open) with the initial first floor layout. After going over the zoning requirements once again, we realized that we needed to make serious adjustments, both in terms of square footage reductions, as well as adjusting the placement of the house on the lot.

Reducing square footage at this point was a significant challenge for us. The City offers a lot coverage incentive if you detach the garage. In other words, we can have more house with a detached garage, so we detached it. Sacrificing the benefits of an attached garage was difficult -- but once we accepted that and made some further square footage cuts (specifically eliminating the guest room/kids playroom, we are now at 2500 SF! Depending on the pricing, we may rough in for a future guest suite in the basement. In any event, we will have more outdoor space for play and sun.

Exterior Finishes

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Through a quick series of sketch overlays, we've been exploring exterior finishes.

Demolition Day

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With some sadness we demolished the old crumbling house.  Now we own a small  patch of dirt.  It finally seems like we are making progress with the project, and look forward to the next phase.

Interior Lighting Studies

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We are now beginning to look at interior lighting schemes.  The challenge is to move beyond a sea of recessed “can” or track lights and arrive at something a bit more interesting at a reasonable price. In the quest to control energy consumption, the wisest choice would be compact fluorescent fixtures.  However, we are still having a hard time getting over their start-up behavior, light color, color rendering, and a “lack of brightness”.

There are trade-offs to think of with can light sizes too:  six inch and up are readily available and cheap.  Most smaller sizes, which are nicer and more subtle are more expensive, have limited wattage, and require more fixtures. Although low voltage would be a choice to get smaller fixtures with bright lights, we want to avoid both the cost as well as the sparkle and glare that they give off.

For more images, check out our renderings on Flickr

Current Renderings

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We’ve been refining and fleshing out the plans for a month now.  There are still ideas we want to explore, but they will have to wait until after the pricing set goes out.  We need a reality check on how this project is shaping up financially.

Current Challenges:

  1. Closing off the basement at the stair in a creative and subtle way Still struggling with the entry/foyer area--we need storage and some privacy from the street
  2. Window placement and size at the kitchen--it’s going to be directly across from the neighbor, but Nancy wants some visual access to the outside from the counter 

For more images, check out our renderings on Flickr

Structural Considerations

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Structural-considerations

Understanding and implementing structural framing is where reality sets in on a project. The expansive open spaces we have poses challenges for shear (keeping the building from wracking) and spanning those distances with conventional wood is hard to do. We will take another hard look at the second floor to see if all the walls can “stack” above the first floor for ease of structural support.

A column or two will also be placed in discreet but critical locations to carry the upper floor’s load to the basement.

Exterior Studies

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North elevation med

The most recent development over the holiday has progressed rather slowly...there is a lot of snow in the mountains, and even more here in Denver at the moment! Lots of work still to do on the exterior. Right now it’s pretty much a blank slate...

Saving the old: Deconstruction

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Earlier, I spoke about our dilemma regarding saving the old house that exists on the lot.  The size of the new space would completely cannibalize the 700 SF house.  In the end, we decided that the old space could not possibly be well integrated into the new scheme.

We have found a better solution in deconstruction.  Nancy has been discussing options for salvaging whatever in the project is worth the effort to remove it.  Doors, windows, wood floors, and possibly some of the brick appear to be salvageable -- but at a cost!

Local outfits that do this include Resource out of Boulder. This will add to the cost of the demolition, so we need to evaluate this carefully.