Landlady came to the Lair for coffee this morning, as has become our Sunday-before-leaving tradition. Before coming to the door she took a turn around the yard, exclaiming over the new woodshed. I showed her the simple drawing I’d made of the proposed layout for the new bedroom.
“I like coming to your yard,” she [paraphrased]. “Things are always changing.”
I thought about that for a minute. “A lot of the first stuff consisted of mistakes,” I said. “I scrounged too much, made some foolish assumptions, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know that I didn’t know what I was doing. A lot of that needed to be fixed.”
“But if I’d waited till I had all my ducks in a row, all the knowledge I needed, all the money and material I needed…”
“…I’d still be waiting to start on the day I died.”
So yeah. I’ve relaxed to the Lair being a perpetual work in progress. I’m always fiddling with stuff, and that’s okay. It’s not like I’ve got anything else going on, anything better to do.
Every day’s an adventure, and if I screw it up – and I do – I’ll know to do better the next day. In the old days the events of every day were pretty much predetermined, and life was an ordeal. Now I’m rarely quite sure what’s going to happen from one minute to the next, and you know what? It’s kind of fun.
Well maybe you shouldn’t wait until all your ducks are in a row. After all, you ain’t got no steenkin’ ducks now, do you?
Perchance you could just wait until all your chickens are in a row. But then you’d probably need another Seymour to make that happen. I doubt that LB would cooperate in such a venture…
}:-]
LB could make all of Joel’s chickens calm, very very calm. In that state, once laid in a row they will tend to remain that way. At least, until the scavengers show up.
Joel, are you ready to share that drawing?
It’s pretty rudimentary, but you can see the current concept here. The entrance from the lair proper is the opening at the lower right corner. The closet is 4X8, leaving 8X12 for the bedroom proper. That’s only 16 sq ft more than the current loft, but it’ll be laid out more usably and it allows vastly more storage space.
You’re right Joel, life should be treated as a hobby that you learn form because learning is evolving. It took me years to wrap my pea sized brain around the fact that as you age you will make mistakes and from those you will learn. When you stop learning you stop evolving and when you stop evolving you start dying.
An “accordion” door for the closet might allow you to heat less space in the winter.
Actually I’m going to do the opposite of that. I’m going to build a partial wall between the closet and the bedroom – not all the way to the ceiling – because there’ll be a window on the south closet wall for passive solar heating. Worked great in the bathroom, and it’d be a shame to waste the opportunity in the bedroom.
Thoughts in no particular order:.
I agree that some sort of closet door is called for. That means less area to heat, plus the closet becomes part of your insulation system.
I agree with the 12 volt lights, but don’t neglect 120 volt wiring.
I’m delighted to see the outside door..
There will be significant space for storage over your bed. Preferably cabinets, but at least shelving.
Building your bed on a pedestal rather than using springs will give you even more storage, plus insulate your floor a bit more.
If you are going for solar heat gain with the wall not going all the way to the top have you considered the wall also not going all the way to the bottom so the heat can circulate. Come to think of it, could you use the Venturi effect to actually pump the heated air out of the closet space?
That’s an interesting question. If I vented the bottom of the wall, I wonder if I could get circulation that way?
Solar heat gain is a great concept, but that room needs heat mostly only at night. Right?
I’d think real hard about the air circulation concept. I was gonna mention the “partial wall” thing but then it occurred to me that the little “room” is a CLOSET and will likely be full of stuff hanging on hangers and/or piled on the floor and/or arranged on shelving, so the closet side of that wall will have to be arranged to suit storage, which is one of the two or three reasons for the addition in the first place (first place, eliminating the climb into the loft). If you can arrange to leave a clear “path” from the window to the closet doorway, that’s about the best you can do air circulation wise. With windows in north and south walls, you should at least get pretty good cross-ventilation in moderate weather.
It’s fun designing somebody else’s house. 😉
If you vented the wall, I wonder if you could get packrats that way? Bet they’d love nesting in the pockets of your garments without having to make a nest of their own…
}:-]
Pretty sure it won’t affect the packrat situation if I vent the closet wall, Mark. Make for an entertaining series of posts if it did, though… 🙂
Pretty sure Joel is referring to venting the interior wall between the closet and the bedroom . . . not an exterior wall.
Woodstores as a hobby…
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=norwegian+art+of+wood+stacking.
D’oh, the link doesn’t go straight to the image search, it’s worth a look.