Step Three, Update Survey

View Larger Map

My goal is to "walk you through" the complex process of creating that perfect smaller dwelling for yourself or loved ones. For this blogger, the opportunity has arisen where it's time for my parents to downsize.

Since I was a little kid, I've been fascinated with the creation of personal spaces. Like many youngsters, the urge to manipulate space or to begin the practice of dwelling, starting with blanket "forts" in the play room and tarp draped picnic tables. I've taken it a bit further, spending entire nights a quarter mile from home, in little hand made shacks down by the barn, when I was no more than seven, and tearing down the family garage and building the best tree house in town at maybe ten or twelve years old.

By the end of eighth grade, my brother and I had constructed "The Cabin", complete with glass windows, shingled roof, a wood stove and bunks. A front porch lent an air of sophistication that most kids could only dream of. I had my senior portrait taken there, the place was part of who I was and am. (See Oak Grove Coburn's "Oval" 1976)

After my freshman year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's "Masters in Architecture" Program, I joined up with a local design builder outfit in our new hometown, Jericho, Vermont, and subsequently designed and built Dave and Sue's (first)Dream House, a reproduction colonial salt box. Fourteen some odd years later we renovated a charming old village house that was only about two winters away from complete and utter dis(un)repair. Another twenty years have passed and it's time to go at it again, dividing their little village plot as best they can, and building the ultimate little cottage, (more on that later). If you've been paying attention, you may even have glimpsed the preliminary design sketches. (See 132VTRT15 Prelim Design Post)

The parcel has been recently re-zoned from a one acre single family minimum to 1/4 acre. This dramatically increases it's value and is a wind fall for them, the community and the sustainability revolution at large.

It's time to document the actual size of the lot to determine for sure how it may be divided. Because it was created before any zoning came to be, it's not necessarily a full acre. Bring in the surveyor. Dave and Sue accepted the proposal ($2,900) to establish property boundaries, one foot topographical contours, with buildings' footprints and first floor elevations. We also asked for buildings and their floor elevations on adjacent properties as well as tree heights. The plan is to create a SketchUp model of the site so that the project can evolve with 3D digital manipulation....Stay tuned for that!