Living in a small home, Part 2

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single house in possession of occupants, must be in want of plenty of closed storage space.* Although the house has a relatively small footprint, we’ve found the cabinets and closets provide just enough storage space for the two of us (just enough = everything we moved to the house fits, with a bit of room to spare). The house was designed with attention to storage space; there are three closets (bedroom, broom, and 24” wide freestanding wardrobe), and cabinets in the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, swing space, and loft.

Bedroom and swing space

The cabinets were designed and built by students. They’re painted white, which provides uniformity throughout the house, and without any hardware, the cabinet doors have a clean, sleek look. In a way, the beveled edges on the bottom of the cabinet doors in the kitchen and swing space are the hardware; the edges are easy to grasp and pull open. The soft-closing mechanisms mean they are quiet. The cabinet doors (and drawers) under the kitchen counter and in the bedroom have beveled edges too, but they’re opened and closed by spring action. Pressing on the corner of a door releases a spring, and pressing the door on the same corner back into the cabinet housing compresses it.

Beveled edges and spring

While unpacking, it became clear we’d have to come up with some storage locations and strategies that were different from how we stored things before. The bathroom has one cabinet under the sink with some small shelves next to it; before, we had several cabinets and drawers. New strategy: daily use items stay in the medicine cabinet and under the sink, and the occasional items stay in the drawers of the freestanding wardrobe. The bedroom closet has one hanging rod; before, our closet had two different rod heights, so both shirts and pants were on hangers. New strategy: shirts and dresses hang in the bedroom closet, while pants are stacked horizontally in bedroom cabinets instead of hanging vertically. Other solutions were made for the kitchen and swing space too.

Bookshelves in the loft

Adapting to the storage space here as it was designed to be used, and organizing our items to fit within, has meant thinking about space in a different way. And, it means being conscious of what we bring into the house, not filling cabinets just because there’s room.

*With apologies to Jane Austen.

USGBC Tour

Before talking about the latest New Norris House happenings, I should introduce myself. My name is Eric Bennett, one of the Graduate Research Assistants for the New Norris House. I am currently in my final year of the Master of Architecture program at UTK. I received my undergraduate degree in architecture from Clemson University in 2007 and I was able to get a few years of professional experience before returning to school last year. This is my first semester being involved with the New Norris House and I will be specifically working to interpret all of the energy data that is being monitored in the home. I will also help lead several tours through the home.


Last week, the New Norris House hosted a tour for the local USGBC members. It was a great learning experience for the tour attendees as well as a test for the New Norris House team to answer some specific questions from well versed local professionals. The USGBC members were led through the different phases of the project's development, from the historical precedent of the Norris community, preliminary design, off-site and on-site construction, landscape design, and through the current Phase IV, energy and water monitoring programs.

While all of the tour guests were very impressed with the overall sustainability aspects of the home's design and systems integration, the greatest compliments were aimed towards the excellent craft of construction. With all the credit going to the "newly skilled" UT students involved with the project, the New Norris House was referred to as "a beautifully conceived and executed work". So to all of the current and past students involved with the project, your hard work and dedication is being recognized, well received, and will hopefully pave the way for more design-build projects to take place within the University. I am sure that the experience gained by working on the New Norris House will have an immeasurable impact on your future career. I am excited to be involved with such a great project and I look forward to sharing what we learn.

Living in a small home, Part 1

View out picture window in kitchen

I made my first visit to the Norris House in June, at the end of the build part of the project. Finishing touches were happening inside—assembly of the bed platform, installation of bathroom shelves, sewing of slipcovers for the furniture cushions. The floor was still covered in paper to protect it from dusty footsteps, tool boxes and ladders occupied floor space inside the house, and students were in and out finishing up their work. The house felt open because of the high ceiling in the living area, but it also felt… small. At 768 square feet (not including the loft), the perception of “small” is relative, but that was my first impression. We were living in a 1,200 square foot condo with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a 1,350 square foot house with a garage before that, so it was obvious we would need to do some purging and rent a storage unit for things like furniture and larger items, and some miscellaneous boxes.

View from kitchen through bedroom window

My original perception of the interior has changed after living in the house for several months. With the floors uncovered, the furniture in place, and only two of us here, it no longer seems small.

High ceiling and view to the backyard

There are windows on every side of the house, allowing light in and views out. I can sit at the kitchen table, look across to the living space, and out the doors and window into the trees out back. The window in the kitchen between the counter tops and cabinets might be my favorite window in the house. Sitting at the kitchen table, I can look out the window to a direct view of the sky and trees and birds.

A favorite view

Without the high ceiling and skylight, the house would certainly still feel small, but the open space combined with all the windows gives the feeling of living in a house that is larger than the plans say it is. It wouldn’t be difficult to live in a house this size after our time here is over (the time saved on cleaning a smaller house is a perk). For now, we’re enjoying the views and the light.

Rainwater System

Our rainwater harvesting, treatment, and distribution system was put together by the BRAE rainwater group out of North Carolina. As part of our ongoing partnership, BRAE released this promotional video a few days ago describing the rainwater system as installed in the house.

Enjoy!

BRAE Rainwater Harvesting
www.thenewnorrishouse.com

Phase IV Water Monitoring

Now that our water systems are up and running, it's time to begin the monitoring and analysis process. My task as a graduate assistant is to formalize a sampling and analysis protocol for testing water quality on both the supply side and the waste water side.

A little about me: My name is Valerie Friedmann and I am in my third year of studies as a graduate student in landscape architecture at UTK. My role in the New Norris House project began as a landscape architecture student consultant in the spring of 2010. I began by refining the conceptual landscape design, and continued working on the project to see it through the construction and installation phases. Last summer, I worked with a group of UTK students to finalize construction documents, order materials, and construct the landscape elements. Now that our landscape system is online with the home's rainwater overflow and greywater discharge systems, I am very excited to determine the efficacy of the landscape systems in mediating the quality of the greywater and the flow, velocity, and erosion potential of the rainwater.

Back to the monitoring process:

On the water supply side, our design includes a rainwater harvesting system that collects rainwater from the roof of the home and stores it in a 400 gallon cistern. The water is filtered and treated with UV and used for non-potable sources in the home. We have a temporary permit to allow rainwater to be used in the home, and we are testing to compare the rainwater composition pre- and post-treatment to the City of Norris municipal water supply.

Our goal is 01) to learn if the rainwater quality we are collecting and treating would produce water that is safe for use as a potable source and 02) how the water quality compares to the city's water quality. The City of Norris revised its ordinances to allow the systems to work and be plumbed as such in the New Norris Home while UTK owns the home. Results may allow extension of the permit to a future owner, and perhaps other town residents. A second test we are interested in concerns the greywater. We have designed and installed a greywater treatment garden, and we would like to sample the greywater as it leaves the house and at various distances from where it enters the greywater treatment bed. The goal here is to see if pollutants from the greywater are successfully being mediated in the bed. We currently have a temporary State Operation Permit from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) that allows us to collect, treat and release greywater in the beds; this will expire after three years or when UTK sells the property. TDEC has been very supportive and is interested in the results of the study and its potential to effect future state policies.

Image Credit: Ken McCown

We are currently working with TDEC officials and UTK professors from the Department of Biosystems Engineering to develop our testing protocol for both rainwater and greywater analysis. I will be posting updates on our process and results throughout the semester, so stay tuned!

Meet the Residents

Greetings from the New Norris House residents! We’ll be living in the house for the next year, and want to introduce ourselves to you.

Who we are ---
Ken McCown and Mary Leverance, married for two years. We moved to downtown Knoxville almost a year and a half ago, and to the New Norris House this summer. Ken will contribute photos for our blog entries, and I’ll do most of the writing.

What we do ---

Ken is Chair of the Landscape Architecture Program in the College of Architecture + Design at UT Knoxville. He has a Master’s of Architecture and a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I’m a graduate student in the School of Information Sciences at UT Knoxville, where I take classes in the evenings through the school’s Distance Education program. I have Bachelor of Science in Geography from Arizona State University. I currently telecommute part-time to a job based in Phoenix, AZ.

Where we’re from ---
Ken and I met while living in Tempe, AZ. While in Tempe, Ken was an associate professor in the School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture at Arizona State University, and I worked full-time in the GIS/mapping division of a commercial real estate company. Ken has lived in Virginia, New York, Kentucky, Illinois, Florida, California, and Arizona—for a total of 32 different residences (!). I’ve lived in Wisconsin, Arizona, and California.

Why we’re here ---
Our schedules and backgrounds fit with the ideas of sustainability and efficiency behind the house. The Norris Dam was constructed in the 1930s to generate power for the new community of Norris. My energy use for telecommuting and taking classes from home demonstrates that living in a modern and efficient way is still possible, 75 years from the town’s beginning. And, because I don’t have an architecture or design background, I’ll provide a different perspective on the house’s design and functionality.
Ken has lived in and maintained a university property before. While in California, he was an assistant professor at Cal Poly Pomona and the director of the Richard and Dion Neutra VDL Research House II in Silver Lake, CA. He gave tours, maintained the property, and raised revenue for care and preservation of the house. Ken's background, along with his interests in sustainability, urban design, and historic preservation will give a design perspective on the Norris House.

Miscellaneous ---
On the weekends, we’re reading, watching college football and The Amazing Race, or taking walks in the Norris Lake area. We both enjoy traveling as well.

We’re looking forward to our time in the New Norris House, and will be sharing our experiences here on a weekly basis. See you next week.

Sponsor Spotlight: Overhill Gardens

Our friends at Overhill Gardens provided the native plants in the New Norris House landscape. This Saturday Overhill Gardens is hosting an open house where you can tour their nursery and learn more about the benefits of gardening with native plants.

Fall Equinox

September 23rd marked the first day of fall for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. With the change in seasons comes one of the most exciting aspects of landscape design: planting for multi-season interest.


Landscapes, and the plants we find in them, are evolving milieus that reflect the changes in atmospheric and ground temperatures, duration of daylight, and amount of precipitation among other things. This becomes most evident to us as the seasons change, and natural things begin to ready themselves for the months ahead. The gardens at the New Norris House all serve an ecological function, whether it is to filter rainwater, remediate greywater, or reduce heat island effects. However, plants were chosen not only for their functionality, but also for their year-round beauty. The planting design reflects this as different species were grouped and located in relation to each other based on when they bloom or have interesting foliage.


The uppermost image shows the changes in the landscape palette at a conceptual level, while the above chart provides a monthly sequence of interest. An example, the below image shows two native grasses. While both grasses have a cool green to blueish tint in the spring and summer, Panicum virgatum 'Shenandoah' (in backgorund) develops burgundy streaks in the fall. When Schizachyrium scoparium 'The Blues' (foreground) is planted next to Panicum its airy, golden blooms form a fantastic complimentary relationship that is only evident in the fall.


Anyone want to go on a plant walk?