3-D views, June & December

The designer, Eric Hughes, just sent me these cool, beautiful drawings. Actually he sent me a Google Sketchup file that allows you to fly around and look at the house from any angle! These are screenshots showing how it will look at noon in June, when the sun is at the highest angle, and in December, when the sun is at its lowest angle. (Click the images for a bigger view).
June


December

You can see the effect of the awnings and roof overhang on the passive solar heating. The skylights in the sunroom will have shades to block the summer sun. The sun angles were figured using information from Google Earth for the precise site.

Kitchens & 3-D tools

Sent some kitchen ideas to the designer so we could get more bids on cabinets. There are a couple of fun tools for doing 3-D drawings of these.
Google Sketchup (free download at http://sketchup.google.com/) allows you to build just about anything in 3D. It takes a little learning to get the hang of but you are only limited by imagination and talent.
Ikea's kitchen planner is easier to use, but has some limitations -- there are some things you can't do. You can pick the finishes of the cabinets, yellow countertops, whatever, and it will show cabinet interiors if you want. Then you can view it from different angles. It compiles a price list too. You can save a copy on the web and go over it with one of their kitchen consultants in the store.

This is a mockup of the kitchen using the Ikea kitchen planner. One thing I can't do is put in open shelves above the sink, or the post to the left of the sink ... it's hard to add bits of wall in the middle of the room, and their open shelves are not long enough.