Architecture

      I haven't had a great deal of professonal contact with architects. I have however done a lot of archeological surface survey reports and quite often I was reporting to an architect.
      I wanted to build an "English Library" for my wife. She needed a"neat" place that would give her relief from my constant clutter! I was doing an archaeological survey for a local architect and got into a conversation with him about it. He offered to come to our home and discuss it and give us a bid for the plans and the permits!
      He came, talked and gave us a bid and we accepted.
      After several sets of plans it finally occurred to us that he really hadn't "listened" and was designing something he would like, not what we would like. This may be a rather common practice among architects. I expect there to be more about architects later!
      So, I gave up, threw his plans away and got out my T-square and triangles. I had had three and a half years of engineering drawing in high schoool and college including a quarter of what was called Descriptive Geometry, now called Projective Drawing I believe.
      Our lot is irregular and we had covered a good bit of it already. We had an area in the SW corner that had a sixty degree angle. I had to stay five feet away from the side fence, the greenhouse and the house. I also had a six foot setback at the rear. I put in these parameters, and then remembering that plywood comes in four foot widths I made the wall along the side fence twenty-eight feet long. I wound up with around a 500 square foot room of a somewhat irregular shape.
      I submitted it to the city and as usual they bucked it back with about ten comments, most of which were no problem. One however had a problem I didn't understand and I was told I had to have it engineered. Until this ridiculous encounter was ended I thought this had to be done by an engineer. Actually (and this is important) an architect can sign it off just as well if they wish to. It seems that the two thin walls on the south end were the problem. I went to an engineer and paid $275 for the most asinine structure you could imagine involving 6x14 steel I-beans and welded 4x6 welded steel tubing. Another architect when he saw it gasped, "That will cost you $15000". I went home, called my favorite blacksmith, Mr. Fred Ratliff, described what I needed and he said he could probably build it on site for $600. Moral: go to the right source!
      By this time, my time for the permits was running out so I submitted and got approval. There were two unacceptable conditions, I had to pour the footings and the slab at two different times. I could not do a monopour. And the ground inside the footings had to be 100% saturated before I could pour the slab. I told them that I would be changing that.
      I went to an engineer and told him that I thought the ironwork was a ridiculous answer to the problem and asked him just what was going on. He told me that the two foot wide, nine foot high walls violated the 3 1/2 to 1 rule. The heighth divided by the width was 4 1/2 to one. I couldn't widen the wall or I couldn't get a sofa in the "bay window". I had 6 x 12 beams supporting a ten foot ceiling. I asked if we could move the end 6 x 12 down to seven feet and he said that would do it. So he gave me a statement which the city approved and all I had to do was sheath the walls with plywood on both sides!
      I went back to the drawing board and changed the floor to a wood one and they approved that. However, they did make me raise the whole structure about 18 inches off the dirt!
      There are three words that are unknown in California, attic, basement and storage. They use trusses for roofs which destroys any possible use of that space. No one has any space for storage so everybody's garage is full of junk (they can't possibly throw away!). I decided to make great use of my opportunity so I decided to use "Balloon Framing". I had a ten foot ceiling but I used fourteen foot studs. This gave me four feet at the eave which gave me about eight feet in the middle using 2x12 rafters. This is a huge attic and I was not taxed for a two story building!       I love walnut wood so (with the help of a furniture maker friend), we put in 27 feet of six shelf bookselves. The bottom three shelves have eighteen leaded glass and walnut doors. The upper three shelves are open.
      There are stained glass windows over the two double doors. Walnut crown moulding that I made goes around the ceiling and wall. The ceiling is supported by eight 6x12 Douglas Fir dark stined beams. The three longest are 20 feet. I should mention that the lumber yard ordered them in full dimension. And when I asked for them to be delivered, they planed them down to 5 1/2 x 11 1/2 the day before. They came to me pristine, not a scratch, not a stain! My wife sanded and stained them.

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