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| | philandjan | 36 | 1 | 0 | 0 | | Thursday | |
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This journal has been viewed 742 times.
Posted to Seaton-Station by Bryan in Siloam Springs, AR
on 3/10/2010
Stephanie and I are finally in a position where we can consider building a home on a hill in rural Arkansas on some family-owned land. The property is currently covered in trees and on top of an 1,100 sq. foot hill with views of rolling pastureland for 360 degrees, if the trees were removed. The home is going to be located here. We've gone back and forth on how many of the acres we wish to buy from Stephanie's mom, but are leaning towards 9-12 right now.
Stephanie and I sat down and listed a few of the things we wanted in our new home. We wanted the home to be energy-efficient. Projections of energy costs rising dramatically over the next decade seem both likely and frightening to an accountant such as myself. I believe paying up-front for energy efficiency can help hedge against the financial risk that energy costs are going to rise significantly and increase my monthly variable expenses substantially. We're currently strongly considering using SIPs for the roof, the floor, and the exterior walls, with a crawlspace foundation.
We also wanted a home that more accurately reflected our more-modern sensibilities, took advantage of our great views, and had a large enough great room/dining room/kitchen to host a large family gathering or party comfortably. Stephanie is an awesome cook, so we anticipate the kitchen being a focal point for entertaining. Some of our other preferences... I want a kitchen island with bar stools around it, which is just a design and seating preference of mine (that's possibly related to my bad back). We also need a dedicated office space, since Stephanie works from home.
The house is going to be about 1,500 feet away from any utilities, so we're going to have to pay for the electrical hookup, but will probably eschew the natural-gas hookup (which would likely cost thousands) in favor of propane. Stephanie thinks we can get the propane tank buried, which would be cool. We only really need it for starting our fireplace and grill, since we'll be using electric for our hot water and induction/electric for our cooking.
We finally found a plan that suited our needs (with some adjustments needed) here. We particularly like the upstairs master suite with multiple rooftop decks, including one that just seems made for a hot tub.
Using this, we went out to the home site and stepped off and taped to get a general idea of the likely layout of the house. Here's the pictures of the site...
Photos
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| The house will sit at the top of this hill. |
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| Here's our best effort at taping off the home site. |
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| This would be the view of the back yard from the courtyard. |
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| Here's the view from the back yard facing South. Again, clearing a lot of the trees out would make it a lot more impressive, but I bet it would look good from the rooftop deck even now. I might have to take a ladder out there and see what it looks like. |
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