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I’m definitely not an artist, which is one reason I didn’t become an architect.  An architect needs some artist ability to create buildings that are more than just a combination of gray squares and rectangles.  You know, the whole form versus function thing.  Fortunately, KM Designs was good at this part.  In fact, during one of our meetings with them, I made some suggestions to which KM replied, “That’s nice, but I don’t design ugly houses.”  Put me in my place I suppose.  One of my good friends, also an engineer, had the same problem when designing his house.  It was a very functional rectangle.  His builder had the same response.  It needed some help with the curb appeal. So engineers are good at making things work, but not so good at pretty.

Now we needed to select exterior finishes for the GarageDominium.  Turnkey Builders sent samples and pictures of stone, roofing, and doors to review.  An interesting thing is that lighter colors for roofing and windows are much less expensive than dark colors or black.  Light colors are our preference anyway.

The next steps in the process were interior design and detailed foundation design.  On April 5-6, 2021, we met Turnkey in San Antonio to visit showrooms.  We looked at tile, carpet, countertops, sinks, lighting, and appliances.  It was a lot to review in two days, but we had already given them some ideas and each showroom was prepared and the interior design consultant was the best.  We were able to get most of those decisions made, but there was still some back and forth via email to complete them.

To prepare for the foundation design Turnkey did a survey of the lot to determine siting and elevations.  Before heading to showrooms on April 5, 2021 we met the surveyors at the lot.  The lot is not as “ideal” as we imagined.  The lot has a gradual slope down from the street to the back.  When looking from the street to the back of the lot, it looks like a very gentle slope.  When looking the other direction, from the back of the lot toward the street, it is obvious that there is quite a bit of slope.  However, with the grass, weeds, and trees the slope still looks minor. 

The house is quite deep, and survey measurements show the house will be about 8 or 9 ft above grade at the back of the house.  This would require a tall foundation and steps from the patio to the yard.  Ideally, we want to walk off the patio on to the yard with no steps.  We can make this happen by grading the lot such that there is a small hill at the front of the house and use the dirt to build up the back.

In addition to the survey, soil sampling was done.  Given the plans, survey, and soil info, GE Reeves designed the foundation.  We decided that a post tension system would be the best compromise between cost and strength.  We also specified that the garage floor must be at least 6” thick to accommodate the car lift.  This is well above the car lift manufacturer’s concrete requirement of 4.25” of 3000 psi concrete for a 4-post lift.  The foundation design work started around the end of July and after a few iterations we had the completed design on September 10, 2021.

One issue to contend with on the foundation design is sloping the garage floor.  Normally a garage floor is sloped toward the door to let water run out.  The GarageDominium’s depth will create a large elevation difference from front to back if the slope is maintained over the entire distance.  It would also create a step up into the house since the door between the garage and the house is near the front of the garage.  We do need some slope but will need to work with the concrete finishers on sloping just the front area.  Even more design details will be covered in the next post.