Country House Designs & Custom Home Plans From

This house was featured in the September/October 2001 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. The architect has always seen this house as an island in a sea of woods or fields. In the clients' case it was a second growth spruce and cedar forest a bit inland from the Maine coast. With no commanding long distance views, it was designed to be a centrally planned house that would create its own place in a somewhat undifferentiated landscape, a house that would become an island of order that would order the landscape around it. This is an old idea in architecture, but it usually is done with a bit more boasting than this unpretentious cottage.

In this plan the bedrooms and bathroom are attached around central eating, living and dining spaces. These areas have open views to the east and south -east as opposed to west because the approach is from the east, giving the kitchen a command of the approach. And with lots of glass on the morning side, the house is able to soak in the morning sun and start warming the house. Late in the day the western sun tends to cause overheating, which makes the west side an ideal location for the screened porch. It is in the afternoon that one is likely to have time to sit and enjoy the mosquito-free comfort of a screened porch.

The outside deck augments the living space with easy access from the screened porch and the dining room, affording a lot of casual coming and going from deck to inside. It's important to use the relatively inexpensive space provided by decks and screened porches to augment the limited interior space of very small houses. The deck here is around 500 square feet, about half as big as the first floor area of this house, which is 1,132 square feet.

A unique feature in this house is the kids' bedrooms (two and three) which are only 65 sq. feet. Tiny as they are, they work because lofts were designed above the floor up under the roof. You can see them as a dotted line. The kids climb up to their beds (or play areas) via ladders. There is even a small door (optional) that connects the two loft spaces. The lofts use all the volume under the roof as added floor.

The parents' houseguests get the loft space over the entry area; this has a ship's ladder to get to it. The fireplace and woodstove act like an anchor that holds this centrally oriented assemblage together. It creates an entry foyer on its north side and a hearth on its south side, and holds up the guest loft. The dining room off to the southeast projects like a peninsula from the house so that it gets the sun all day long. It has the feel of a sheltered part of the porch when the big double hung windows are open in the summer.

The house was designed for summer use, where it works well for its family of four. Living there year round, one might consider bumping the kids' rooms out with bays like the master bedroom.

Foundation Info
This house was originally designed to have a crawlspace foundation. However, if you prefer a basement or slab foundation, these are fairly simple and inexpensive changes that your builder can often make for you.

Please Note
Due to licensing agreements, this home may not be built in Hancock County, Maine.