House design

I have been playing/working with the HGTV program for designing  a home and landscaping it as well. Since we will be moving to New Mexico in October, we have been trying to decide on a home. We had mom and dad's house torn down and hauled off. It had come into such disrepair over the last several years, it would have cost more to remodel than to destroy and start from scratch.

First plan was to go with a modular home. That is one that is built at a factory and then delivered and set up on a foundation much like a mobile trailer house but the axles are removed and it is considered a stationarty home.A modular home has a perimeter frame. Mom wanted us to make sure to have a basement under the house and that became the sticking point. The builder could not find anyone to put a basement in that they could place the home over. With this company, I could design the home and their engineers would go over my plans and adjust as necessary for structure and stability. So that plan was dropped.

The second plan was to go with a double wide mobile home and have it placed over a basement. The company we were going to deal with was Solitaire. Since Mike set mobile homes up as an occupation back in the late 1970's, he knew about the various companies and their products. Solitaire has an outstanding product that is actually better built than most "stick-built" homes as they have to be structurally sound enough to be towed hundreds if not thousands of miles. Again, the issue was the basement. First they said they could place over a basement "IF" 1) we got an architec to design and submit the plans for the basement, 2) their engineers approved the basement design, 3) we  were willing to sign a void to all the warranties that would usually be in place, 4) we could find a crane operator that would lift the home off of the axles and onto the basement. So that choice was also dropped. We are not that thrilled about paying more for the setting up of the home than we pay for the home. We did find a couple of floorplans we really liked at Solitaire.

The next option, the one we are currently working on has run into a couple of snags also but we are not giving up quite yet on the house with a basement idea. We want the basement to be able to build a secure full room gun safe. We also plan on using part of the basement for storage and guest rooms when needed.

The builder we are currently talking to said he spoke to the people at the cement supplier in Grants and they told him that there were several basements in the area that had been abandoned due to having too much water seeping in when getting to about 6-8 ft. deep. I personally find this hard to believe. There was an old well pipe in the back yard that was 252 feet. It was bad water, high in alkalai content. Though there was good water at 90 feet just about 1/4 mile south of the old house. I do not know of any water being only 6-8 feet deep in the area.

The criteria I am trying to include in the drawing on the HGTV program include on the main floor:
a garage 30'X30'
large kitchen
moms bedroom to have a 1/2 bath inside of it
masterbedroom and master bathroom
guest bathroom
guest bedroom
large living room with corner fireplace
plenty of outlets
windows that can easily be secured with decorative iron
I actually find it fun designing the house of my dreams. I have already designed 10 or 12 and each is a bit different. The position of rooms and the views from those rooms are somewhat important. Though there are great views towards every direction, I would like to have my bedroom or kitchen windows facing Mt. Taylor NNE. and the fireplace in the SSW corner of the living room.