I’ve been going back and forth on house stuff. We’ve got a floor plan we’re pretty happy with and I’ve been working on beams and joist arrangements and it just felt too complicated. I needed lots of beams to get everything working and then needed some tie beams to create a support for the ridge pole…all in all, a bit of a mess.

Then, this week, I kindah sat back and looked at it and wondered why exactly I’d done it this way. Why exactly do we need a parallel support system on each floor, neither of which line up with the ridge pole? It all goes back to our original plan of building a timber frame structure and trying to keep that manageable. Since we’re not doing that anymore (we’re just going to have timber frame accents), I tweaked the frame a bit to make life easier.

We only had minor changes to the floor plan (rooms just changed dimensions a bit) and I decided that the laundry chute had to go (just too much work to keep it in), but it opened up the downstairs even more and I think it will help us better delineate the spaces.

I’ve created a new site to host our plans and ideas. The plans are interactive after a sort to highlight the areas, our intended use and other notable facts.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

I’ll be posting notes on the blog whenever there’s anything notable added/updated.