Cniss, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe all you'd lose is the bottom left closet in the bedroom where the one closet is (which could then become bookcases under the eaves there) and the lower right corner in the office. You wouldn't lose all that much space.

Cp that's true. We're reaaally hesitant to get rid of that closet.

I think part of why everyone may be sticking with the side gambrels is because it appears the structure is such. Really these gambrels are not part of the overall framing structure. They were kind of tacked on and are not necessary. Here is the roof design to show this idea

You mentioned you have an architect. Can he provide an elevation?

Flip the closets to the opposite side. You wind up with a larger closet and the bed can go in the corner where the second closet was. Only difference would be I'd then flip the bathroom so the toilet is on the opposite side.

One question? How are you planning on venting the dryer since it's on an interior wall?

The roof plan is full of errors. The idea that the gambrel roof form is tacked on to the face of a 2 story box is what got you into the hollowed-out skimpy gambrel look in the first place; you need to let go of that idea.

If the first 4 feet of each end of the house were to be a true gambrel frame, the slope of the lower part of the roof would only intrude into the floor plan about 2 ft and dressers and shelves fit nicely. I've done it many times. The gambrel is a good idea for a height challenged house although your designer was only using it as a cosmetic stick-on feature.

What haven't you shown us? The 2 end elevations. And if there is a 3D computer model why not show us more views of it?

This thread (and the previous one on the same design) are both getting bogged down between the OP asking for help and advice, the pros here responding, and the OP saying she "can't do it"...

IMO the best looking elevation would feature strong 12 in 12 pitch gables in the Shingle Style to better hide the big box aspect of the low main roof pitch. The floor area lost would be a little larger than with a gambrel roof but well worth it IMO.

I think the side elevations would be easier to resolve too.

If she is paying an "architect", why are these even being discussed on a forum to this extent?

We're much cheaper and faster.

Not every architect is as good as what we have on this board millworkman.

She may not be getting any good ideas from her architect.

I really love the "shingle" style 12:12 pitch that JDS sketched 100x more than the gambrel look. But that's up to OP for what look they want and what else is in their neighborhood

JDS " We're much cheaper and faster. & to I love red... " Not every architect is as good as what we have on this board millworkman". Ahhh you guys don't know the half of it...so very very true, ask me how I know. Lol. How fortunate to have these pros available. Big question, why do you all provide your awesome services...? Hey mayb I'll start a new thread on this topic. Don't want to hijack OP thread.

Sections thru an authentic gambrel design would look like this:

At first 4 ft+/- at each end, under the steep slope of the roof, 3ft would be lost and 1 ft could be a built-in bookcase for a net loss of 12 s.f. of useful floor area.

At the simulated "dormer", there would be no loss of usable floor area.

For an 11 in 12 slope regular gable (not shown) the loss of floor area would be doubled.

The loss of usable area at the ends of the gambrel design can be made up by deleting the little gambrel gable on the front and pulling the main gable out more. It is essential that the break in the gambrel roof slope occurs above the "dormer" eave as shown in the sections above.

You can't make the house any simpler than this:

This is how a Shingle Style gambrel should look.

There are no "volunteer" gambrels growing out of a corner of the big gambrel. The dormer cornices are lower than the break in the gambrel roof. The rake trim is projected so the shingles can flare at the bottom.

So much good advice here! I think part of the issue is that the OP can't see how giving up 2-feet on either end of the second floor of the front elevation transforms the house into appealing architecture, instead of a manufactured home look.

Hi all,

This is Mr. cniss20 posting on my wife's account...Thank you all so much for your truly amazing insights and your generosity in sharing them. We are not professionals, and this is our first time building a house (and I am sure the last). My wife has not been able to post during the day...busy with baby and now dinner, but she will post the side elevations a bit later. The left/front perspective 3D posted on another thread is the only 3D view of it we have.

JDS- thanks for your amazing sketches. I like the red/blue shingle style sketch but I don't know if it will work with the floor plan. We are trying to see how to implement your initial gambrel sketch (all the way up top posted by naf_naf, thanks also to mark bischak for clarifying with the roof sketch). And thanks cpartist for your idea about moving the closets. So we are ok with the loss of floor space in that room...and we don't care about loss of floor space in the right front room.

Here's one reservation I had- and feel free to tell me this is not an issue...adding the true gambrel element on both sides pushes the 2nd floor windows centrally so they are no longer centered with the garage and bay window below....not as noticeable on the side view, but I have not yet tried to see how this would look head on.

Also, the true gambrel is not possible on the right side in the back, as JDS figure out above...and on the right in the back it also creates a layout issue. Since we are really doing this for front elevation aesthetics would it make sense to keep the gambrel "false" in the rear of both sides?

Thank you all so much for your invaluable input.

One more thing (for now)-

Interesting what was said and shown above that the gambrel break/change in slope should change to be above the adjacent eaves. Is this a rule? Is it purely for aesthetics? I agree that it does look nicer.

We currently have a decorative ledge running across the gambrel with the plane above the ledge projecting out 6". The ledge was supposed to be in line with the adjacent gutters and possibly trim....I found an example of a similar "double gambrel"- is the gambrel break and ledge at a different level in the large and small gambrels? Or is that an optical illusion?

I can't directly answer your questions, but that house's gambrels seem to kind of overwhelm the porch and front elevation . . . . I'm not sure I'd look to it for inspiration.

There is no reason to align the second story windows with the garage doors or the bay window; its not something that you should be thinking about. The dormers and their windows should relate to the roof shapes which are symmetrical to the house unlike the first floor doors and windows.

Incidentally, if you want to make a garage door look like an old fashioned doors you should create the appearance of 2 panels not 3.

In the rendering you posted the left corner of the pediment trim of the smaller gambrel should align with the big gambrel pediment because the other 2 points align; its just a mistake.

I can think of no reason to align the bottom of such a pediment with the cornice of an adjacent dormer. The cornice of the little windowless dormer in the rendering doesn't align with the big front gambrel. The hipped roof of that little dormer is what your designer proposed for yours although he/she was unable to draw it correctly on the roof plan.

This rendering is full of drawing errors. In a pediment topped design it is customary to flare out the shingles to the face of the rake trim at the bottom of the pediment and at the bottom of the entire gable above the portico. The artist got it right on the left side but forgot to do it on the right side. The absence of a flare in your design makes the gambrel shapes look stiff and tacked-on.

In the above rendering the smaller gambrel is centered over the portico so it has a clear purpose. In your house design the large gambrel is centered on the house and on the portico but the small one is centered over the entry door. Because the large gambrel and portico dominate the design, the relationship between the small gambrel and the entry door is lost making the small gambrel look like it was added to make the design more interesting which IMO it fails to do; it just clutters up the design. I would delete the little gambrel and let the big centered gambrel be the dominate element.

IMO pediment trim would look forced on your gambrels even if you softened the stiffness of it with the traditional shingle flares.

Here is your old old rendering for reference.

JDS- I see what are you doing with your drawings of the single central gambrel but if we stick with gambrels, we do have a personal preference for the nested gambrels. Nested gables are common in my neighborhood and we were trying to do a play on that. Also, a few other reasons including that it breaks up the massive look of the big gambrel, the foundation is already poured and the front door and second floor above projects out slightly. Last, the single gambrel sets up more of a perfect symmetric look but the left side of the house is just a bit wider than the right which bothers me a little....

We have been trying to work with your other ideas for revising the nested gambrel which I think everyone agreed was a big improvement (and avoided the need for the little decorative gables). Below is a rough edit I made to the 3D using powerpoint - please let me know what you think as compared to my previous rendering you posted above...

Also, here are the other 3 elevations and uncorrected roof plan. You were of course correct about the faux gambrel in the rear on the right

Honestly Cniss, I prefer JDS's single gambrel to the secondary gambrel stuck onto the first one. With his, the emphasis is on the entry and the porch vs the emphasis being on what's above the porch. It's like having one too many pieces of jewelry on.

When I look at JDS's version, I see the front door. When I look at yours, I'm not sure where to look.

Nested gables are common in my neighborhood and we were trying to do a play on that.

There's lots of less than stellar design around, but doesn't mean you need to also do it too.

Your house is not that big. Keep proportions in mind. I agree with PC.

Please make the changes JDS is proposing. You are going to spend a LOT of money here, and I have been struggling with how to verbalize what I am feeling about your front facade. I've struggled before posting this because ou seem so married to some of the things that I think are causing the problems - but, at the risk of being harsh...

I think it already looks dated, and has a strange barn like facade look to it like you'd find at "Wild Bill's Western Store" that's located in a strip mall. Barn, not Dutch Colonial.

The design also looks "inflated" - mostly because you are trying to maximize the interior square footage (good) but the design looks like the square footage is trying to bust out of the shell. And the scale of the adornments look like it's trying (in vain) to contain the square footage. The slight overhands and the low profile additional gables look mobile homey

Your house could be VERY lovely and I hope you take this feedback in the manner it's intended. You are about 90% of the way there - but that last 10% is really make or break for your design.

Nested gambrel gables crowd the windows and look a little odd but its possible..

Trust me I know how frustrating it is to hear this and then the other problem is trying to figure out how to convey it to the designer. I've been through it and the frustration but don't give up. In the end you'll have something so much better.

It is a very frustrating process for us but we definitely do appreciate all of your input!

This is what JDS proposed in a prior thread, and everyone seemed to love it. We also agree that it is a significant improvement and like it a lot.

JDS, I appreciate your humoring us and drawing up that double gambrel option. The only problem is that the change in slope of the gambrel (which brings the shoulder higher than the eaves of the adjacent shed dormer) results in a very short and funny looking gable for the smaller gambrel. We will discuss with our architect but we have seen some nice gambrel houses where the shoulders of the gambrel are even with or below the adjacent eaves, which means that the front gambrel is lower than the side gambrel...it seems like people are not liking that though...we will discuss options with our architect. One option is to try to lower the eaves relative to the shoulders, but that raises other issues.

Regardless of the above, we like JDS idea of making the central part of the house symmetric (with 3 equally spaced columns and the center column under the gambrel peak). However, the reality is that our house unfortunately is not symmetric, and the foundation is already poured....If we consider the house to be 4 columns, A, B, C and D from left to right, A is wider than D, and B is wider than C.

A= 15' 11" , B= 12'10" , C= 11' 11", D=14'4"

Conceivably, foundation for porch (B) can be expanded slightly more in front of the garage by 1'7" so A can be made symmetric with D, if that has any value. (Due to an error we may need to adjust this foundation anyway.) But B and C cannot be made equal...in fact, right now they are only slightly unequal which might make the middle column (meant to frame the door along with the right column) look accidentally off center. Perhaps expanding the porch will take away that problem, with the fringe benefit of equalizing A and D. But- will we still be able to fit a 12' garage door in 14'4" which includes the 10" foundation wall? Or will it look to tight? I guess we can reduce the garage door width to 10' since it is a 1.5 car garage anyway. I don't know if that will be proportional (house is 55' wide). This would also narrow that part of the driveway by 1'7" which is not ideal.

Any thoughts on the symmetry question?

I love that I can use this forum as an outlet for the OCD I have been developing during the course of this process...

Sorry for so many words, but since you folks have been so helpful and so intimately aware of the aesthetics of the house, perhaps you can help with some unrelated questions regarding the windows, which we are simultaneously trying to resolve.

First, JDS- why did you change the twinned double hung windows to be separated by 6" post? Is that to take up more room and less bare siding on the sides?

By the way, we hadn't posted it since we didn't update the elevation, but we had changed the skinny triple window in the porch to a window the same size as other windows on elevation, flanked by 2 skinny windows as shown below... this was meant to continue the triple theme of the first floor in a way more similar to the bay windows (unlike the previous 3 skinny windows). Middle window coordinates better with 2nd floor windows and central bay window. Having a double window is a little more boring and also makes the bay stand out more as different (in a bad way to me).

Another question was regarding height of first floor windows. The current windows are set to have the top line up with the doors at about 6'11" and the windows are 5'5" so the bottom is 1'6" off the floor. My builder tells me the top of the sill will actually be closer to 1' 8.5" with double hungs. Nice light and nice look, but in the living room the lower part of the window will be blocked by a couch, which to me looks bad from the inside and outside and may make the windows hard to open. Might also be an issue for study (on porch). Definitely an issue in the family room.

Now in the family room we can easily make the windows shorter in isolation so they start higher from the floor. But changing the living room side window height may set off a chain reaction requiring changing height in living room bay windows, study and dining room side and back as well. Either we live with the furniture issue in the living room and maybe the study, or we shorten everything maybe just by 8" so the couch doesn't block quite that much? What is the usual height off the floor on the first floor?

Thanks!

If I had known you were in construction, I would not have offered such extensive design advice. Not only is there unlikely to be enough time do do it right, you may have already built some of the drawing errors into your project.

A week ago I gave you a marked-up roof plan indicating that the right and left front dormer walls needed to align. If they don't align, either the right and left dormer roof slopes will be different or the eaves will not be the same height. Was that discrepancy poured in the foundation? If so, it needs to be corrected in the framing drawings if there are any.

I've shown you why aligning the gambrel break and the dormer cornices is a mistake and shown you a way to correct it. Mark provided a drawing of it too. You can't use a gambrel profile others have used because the zoning height restriction prevents it.

I didn't expect you to fully understand these issues but your designer should have understood it immediately unless he/she is a designer/draftsman. Where are the revised drawings and who is drawing them?

Tidbit of information to help achieve classical architectural design:

Way back before even I was born, double-hung windows had counterweights that were concealed in the wall on each side the window. Whenever double-hung windows were placed right next to one another, a certain amount of wall had to be between them to allow space for the counterweights to hang. Modern technology has been developed in double-hung windows to eliminate the need for the counterweights, so they can be placed closer together. To achieve a classic look in a new home with double-hung windows, I provide at least 4 1/2" to 6" between double-hung windows to provide space for the non-existent counterweights.

How far along is this house in construction?

I just put two studs between a pair of windows.

One of the major difficulties in trying to offer design advice on this forum is that drawings must be posted as JPEG's which cannot be printed to scale and the files are often at too low a resolution for the notes and dimensions to be understood. That leaves drawing over different size prints with no way to know if the elevation elements even align.

You boys have certainly earned your fees on this one...

Here is the evolution gambrel profile from the original design (133 deg. shoulder) to a raised shoulder (125 deg. shoulder) to a softer more traditional shoulder (140 deg.) that shows more of the dormers.

Amazing JDS! I was trying to figure out last night how the side gambrel would work with a 4/12 slope...regarding construction, we have already poured the foundation. Framing to start in a couple of weeks. Not too late to change things but trying to stick to foundation as poured. Regarding the asymmetric setback of the right and left front facades (by 10"), I didn't think that would make a noticeable difference in the roof slope but I could be wrong. If really necessary, we could cantilever the room forward over the garage by the 10" but I have no idea what that entails cost-wise.

What exactly is your "architect" providing in the way of service? And how is he with adapting all these changes at whats amounts to on the fly since construction has started?

I could be wrong (it's happened), but I guessing his "architect" is no architect...

The gambrel scheme would require a week of intensive design work that is probably beyond the capability of those who are helping you. As a fall back to avoid the unfortunate original design I recommend using regular gables as tack-ons at the sides and a real cross gable on the front and rearranging the front rooms so the windows work. Flaring the front gable shingles over the windows and at the bottom would add a great deal to the design. The house should have shingles and no corner boards. I would consider trim colors other than white.

You might be able to dress it up a bit with more gables but the framing would be slightly more complicated.

cniss20 -

You owe JDS several beers after this is all said and done. He is really 'saving your bacon' on the exterior design of your house.

Several dozen cases of beer is more like it...

I am always so awestruck by the generosity of the pros and others on this forum, unbelievable, help, information, support and the list of advice offered is limitless and priceless.

Definetly makes the world a better place (:

Betcha this house ends up with (inappropriately scaled) shutters, too.

Worthy you crack me up.

Home of Mr. and Ms. Flintstone...gotta love the half-scale little shutters.

So sorry, haven't been able to post for a couple of days! P House had it right- we are constantly amazed by the ingenuity and generosity with time and expertise of people in this site, and in this thread particularly JDS. We have not been able to meet with our architect this past week but will be this week, and we'll see what changes can still be made. So thank you all and especially JDS so much!!