Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Modern cabin in the woods

[ctvoiss]

Hey All,

I've been lurking around for a few years and am finally at the point where I get to do some work on my own garage! Seeing all of the great builds has given me a ton of inspiration, especially for the detached garage we are going to build in the future. For now we are starting work on our 28' x 26' under house garage where I like to do a little wrenching on my car, and my wife and I refinish furniture together.

Anyway, we purchased our house October of 2020 and have done quite a bit of work over the past year or so, all of which has been to the living and outdoor spaces. We fell in love with the property when we saw it, but the house was a harder sell. It needed a ton of work as it had been a rental for the last 10 years and clearly not taken care of. Here's what we were working with in the beginning:











Looking past overgrown grass driveway and all the work needed, the house kind of had a modern cabin feel which we really liked. The property itself is not huge at a little over 1.5 acres, but it backs up to conservation land as well as a state park so it really feels much bigger. We started off by clearing out all of the overgrown shrubs and trees, then graded and put in a gravel driveway (going to be asphalt after we build our detached garage). We then painted the house, built a fence for our dog, and replaced the roof with solar tiles. After all the work we've done this is where we're at now:




So now we're finally ready to start working on the garage. The garage under the house is a decent size at 28'x26' the only downside is that the ceiling height is low at 7'6" (even lower where the HVAC runs through).



The plan right now is to get some real light in there with full glass garage doors. Then we're going to refinish the floors, paint the parts of the garage that are drywalled, add some cabinets for workspace and storage, and get some really good lighting in there. Hopefully by the end of it we'll end up with a clean modern look. Then we can move on to the real fun when we build our detached garage.



I'm looking forward to being able to contribute to a forum I've followed along with for so long.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[samb]

Awesome house, this is going to look great. Love the glass garage door idea too.

 

[billconner]

You've done very well. Sounds idyllic.

 

[Klokwerk]

Wow! That's a very impressive transformation!
How are you liking the solar tiles? Those work well where you're at?
Also, digging the e36 M. Nice. Kinda hard to tell what color it is in those pics. Cosmos black or Daytona violet?

 

[ctvoiss]

Awesome house, this is going to look great. Love the glass garage door idea too.

Thanks! I've done some photoshopping and am excited about how it's going to look. I think it will go well with the house

You've done very well. Sounds idyllic.

Thank you

Wow! That's a very impressive transformation!
How are you liking the solar tiles? Those work well where you're at?
Also, digging the e36 M. Nice. Kinda hard to tell what color it is in those pics. Cosmos black or Daytona violet?

Thanks! The solar tiles couldn't be better. We're in New England so we end up overproducing in the summer and then getting a little help from the grid in the winters. It seems like it should work out pretty evenly in the end. We also experience multiple power outages every year where I'm at so the powerwall has come in handy a few times already. It's crazy you don't even know when the power goes out other than getting a message saying you're off grid power.

The M3 is cosmos with dove interior. She's also got a little twin screw supercharger for some extra fun

 

[Juiced06GTO]

Interested in the solar tiles you went with, is it the Tesla system? I can't seem to find much info on systems installed, cool to see one right here in Mass. I have been discussing solar for my barn with Boston Solar, just waiting on Nat Grid to finalize getting power to me and approving things on their end!

 

[ctvoiss]

Interested in the solar tiles you went with, is it the Tesla system? I can't seem to find much info on systems installed, cool to see one right here in Mass. I have been discussing solar for my barn with Boston Solar, just waiting on Nat Grid to finalize getting power to me and approving things on their end!

Yeah, it's the Tesla system. We knew we needed a new roof when we purchased the house with so we had looked at a few different options. In the end, the price for the Tesla solar tiles ended up being just slightly higher than replacing the roof with asphalt shingles and adding solar panels with a back up battery system. Cosmetically we liked this look much more so the small amount of extra money was worth it to us. The only downside has been the timeframe, our install date was just over 9 months after putting the order in and we're still waiting for PTO with Eversource. We love the outcome though and the whole system with the powerwall has worked flawlessly. We've gotten some comments from neighbors that it almost looks like a slate roof.

 

[jbrentd]

Well done on the house updates! The difference is night and day. I look forward to seeing what you do to the house and garage(s).

Couple questions. Does that room in the garage make the left bay un-useable for parking a car? It looks pretty tight, but hard to tell from the pics. Also, is that room off the garage a workshop? If so, that would be awesome to have.

 

[captain14]

I’m interested to see the work you do In the basement garage.

 

[ctvoiss]

Well done on the house updates! The difference is night and day. I look forward to seeing what you do to the house and garage(s).

Couple questions. Does that room in the garage make the left bay un-useable for parking a car? It looks pretty tight, but hard to tell from the pics. Also, is that room off the garage a workshop? If so, that would be awesome to have.

Thanks! The left bay is pretty much unusable for normal parking. That wall is about 16' back from the garage door. We sometimes squeeze my wife's small suv in there for bad weather and stuff, but she generally parks outside. Once we get the detached garage built, my car will be out of the right side bay, and that will change to her spot.

That back room is our mechanical room, unfortunately we have so much stuff in there that there's not much room for anything else. The plan is for that left bay to kind of work as a workshop/storage area when all is said and done.

I’m interested to see the work you do In the basement garage.