universal design

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Lighting Design

Although lighting and electrical design can be, or should be,  intimidating (because if you screw up you can electrocute yourself or burn your house down), there are some important design and planning aspects which a DIY’er can accomplish. These revolve around things like placement and functionality, as opposed to detailed design such as number of circuits, wiring requirements, distribution panels, and component specifications. The detailed design is best left to professionals. Even if you’re SURE you know what you’re doing, you still should get some professional advice. More on that later. First: Lighting Design!

Lighting design is important for an age in place home because as you get older, your eyesight diminishes. Besides the inconvenience of  fumbling around in the dark for the light switch, older people are endangered by unseen trip hazards. Remember, if you fall when you’re older, you may lose your mobility, and that is a death sentence. Lighting can also be a very aesthetic addition to the home.

There are three types of lighting: (1) Ambient (or General) which is used to provide light to a relatively large area, (think garage overhead lighting); (2) Task lighting, which is directed over specific areas where people do work, such as over the stove or kitchen counter: (3) Accent lighting which is used to draw attention to specific areas such as wall wash lighting for a picture display or outdoor foot lights on the sidewalk. Lighting design can get pretty involved, but a good place to start is the American Lighting Association website that has a lot of good resources to investigate. Another good resource is the California Title 24 Residential_Lighting_Design_Guide. This has some nice plan views to help visually show some of the options. A great resource, if you have to deal with California Title 24 lighting requirements, is the UC Davis California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC). Hey, even if you don’t give a rip about Title 24, this is cutting edge stuff.

So, I went through the house and imagined where I would want light for going from place to place (general), seeing what I was doing when I was cooking and washing my face (task), and highlighting our family picture wall (accent). I then drew up some plans and did some rendering to see what it might look like (here). A short word on rendering. It takes a bit more effort to understand computer rendering. But if you have a good 3D  model, you’re over half-way there. It’s actually pretty cool to see your virtual creation look like a photograph, and it’s possible for not too much $$ if you’re willing to take the effort. Kerkytha render is a free program, but you have to jump back and forth from SketchUp, which for me, is a PITA. A better program is Twilight Render, which at $99 is a real bargain. It is integral to SketchUp, and you can produce fantastic photorealistic renders. In any case, I did a few renders and walk-throughs, and came up with a lighting design.

Kitchen 4

Kitchen Lighting

Another aspect of lighting design is how you’re going to hook up the lights and control them. You want to be able to control certain lights from specific, convenient locations. Many times, you’ll find that it will make sense to control a group of lights from different locations, such as hall lights with a switch and the beginning and end of the hall so you can turn them on and off as you move through the space. That’s where the electrical hook-up comes into play, and we now are getting down into the nitty-gritty of the electrical design.

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Kitchen Design

Now that I had the house drawn up. It was time to start thinking about the re-design. A good place to start was the kitchen because it’s my favorite room in the house. I happen to be an avid amateur chef, and before I started this remodeling project, I was the food King. Meaning that I did all of the menu planning, all of the food shopping, and all of the cooking. And I’ll probably want to pick it back up afterwards because I’m going to have a great kitchen to work in! These culinary experiences and interests give me a particular viewpoint on how a kitchen should be designed. I had some concepts and constraints in mind when I approached the kitchen design. In addition to having a good physical and experience-based idea of what I wanted as a cook, I also wanted to have things easy to clean, easy to access, durable, attractive, and inexpensive. There were many features of my current kitchen which I really liked, and in the end, I kept the same basic design. Yes, I tweaked some things, and yes, I came to the conclusion that I would have to re-do the cabinets and the island, which gave me the opportunity to put my woodworking skills and tools to good use, and incorporate some additional features. Let’s face it. Every dedicated DIY fanatic ALWAYS is in search of the next “project”, so here was yet another opportunity. And in continuing my research, I found that the original design was actually a better design than I thought. One of the things that I noticed about most of the model homes we visited during our “Love It Or List It” period was the fact that most kitchen designs suck. I mean really. Most of them look great if you just want to hang out and eat, but cook? Refrigerators across the room from the ovens. Islands too far from the other countertops. Backsplashes made of expensive material that looks nice but will be a bitch to keep clean. Storage that’s clumsily arranged and hard to get to. No concept of workflow (storage to preparation to cooking to cleaning). And my pet peeve:  a microwave over the stove.  So I started with that, and then went down the list of things that I didn’t like, but keep the stuff I did.

  1. Get rid of the microwave over the stove. These things have almost zero fan power and don’t extend far enough over the stove top to trap the oils and particulate that are a part of your cooking.  So all of that junk gets embedded in the wood of your cabinets and the ceiling above. Impossible to clean. Plus, the heat from the stovetop kills the plastic and fries the electronics. And the house gets all stunk up when you’re creating yet another culinary masterpiece that you will decide is too hard to ever do again. (Why do I keep doing that?) Replace it with a good vent hood that is designed for the purpose.
  2. Resize the island to make it closer to the sink so I could easily step back and forth, and farther from the refrigerator so people could go in and out of the kitchen with the refrigerator door open. Relocate the microwave to the island. Having the microwave in the island is a universal design concept that allows easy access to somebody who can’t reach high, but is convenient for everyone.
  3. Make pullouts for all of the shelves in the base cabinets, island and pantry. Another universal design feature. As you age, it’s more difficult to get on your hands and knees and look in the way-back for this pot or that bag of flour. Come to think of it, it’s a Pain-In-The-Ass (PITA) at any age. (If I didn’t spell it out, you would have thought I was talking about some kind of bread.)
  4. Redesign the island countertop for 2 levels. One at 36” for standing work, and one at 30” for seated work. Another universal design feature.
  5. Make the inner carcass of the cabinets around the dishwasher and sink out of pressure treated plywood. The current particleboard is coming apart.
  6. Integrate beverage storage/liquor cabinet into the island design.
  7. Lower the “spice rack”. My current island has an area between the work surfaces and the “bar” where I keep all of my baking and cooking essentials (spices, flour, sugar, oils, seasonings, baking power etc.) When you’re in the midst of cooking, this arrangement is extremely helpful in streamlining your workflow because you’re not constantly going in and out of the pantry to get the next ingredient. The only downers are (a) the tops of the containers tend to accumulate detritus — hopefully solved with the vent hood, and (b) it was placed too high to conveniently see the football games being played in the den. The new design corrects this problem.
  8. Provide a place for all of my cookbooks so I would have to ferret around for them (too much, anyway).
  9. Have a pull out cart for the mixer (a king size kitchen aid) that also serves as a supplemental work surface. More universal design.
  10. Provide increased task lighting and general lighting (universal design).
  11. Make the backsplash out of white porcelain tile with a decorative glass inset. Looks nice, easy to keep clean, and inexpensive.
  12. Have a white quartz countertop on the upper top of the island. The purpose is to be have a place to roll out pastries and cookies without having to lug out a slab of marble (which isn’t big enough anyway).
  13. All other countertops will be white Formica with a decorative oak rub rail. I did this on the first remodel of this kitchen about 12 years ago, and it still looks pretty good. Yes, it needs a refresh, but these tops aren’t that hard to make and they aren’t very expensive either so occasional replacement is no big deal. I guess I’m not a big fan of these stone/granite/marble/glass composite/concrete countertops. I mostly don’t like the look because it’s distracting when you’re trying to cook because it’s not a clean background, they’re hard surfaces so stuff breaks on them when you drop something, and they’re so dang expensive. They seem to be pretty popular, but I wonder if any of the designers/builders/owners of these are actually serious cooks. One question: Have you ever seen granite countertops in a restaurant kitchen? I think I prove my point. AND, I have the best restaurant in town. If you’re lucky, I’ll have you over for one of my dinner parties!
  14. Laminate wood flooring. I know what you’re saying – this stuff has a funny sound and is not as warm and inviting as real wood (or engineered wood). Here’s the deal: It’s inexpensive, has good traction (universal design), durable, and EASY TO KEEP CLEAN. Did I mention that it was easy to keep clean? Hey a bucket of water, a greenie, and a squeegee and you’re good to go. No fancy waxes, dirt in the grout lines, peeling varnish or gouges (like linoleum). I installed it in my last kitchen remodel 12 years ago and the only defect is when my King size kitchen aid mixer fell off the counter while kneading an extra large bread dough recipe and made a divot. It has filled up with dirt over the years so I’m GTG.

Here is a rendering of what the kitchen will look like.

KITCHEN REMODEL

KITCHEN REMODEL

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a SketchUp model of the island. If you know about Dynamic Components, check out the microwave, the drawers and doors, and the cart pull-out.

You’ll have to download a free copy of SketchUp to see it. Why resist?

This program is extremely powerful. And fun I might add. It has probably 90% of what you get in the pro version, and if your aim is to model, or do some small scale projects, this might be the ticket. BUT… if you want to DIY like a pro, well, you need to consider the pro version. More on that later.

ARCHITECTURAL
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The Design — A Systems Engineering Approach

When we first started thinking about remodeling our house, our thoughts were just to fix things that were old and in disrepair. However, the more I thought about it, I started to think about a more comprehensive approach. There are many books and websites that provide information about the design process, but the more I read, the more I came to understand that the design process for a home is the same as the process for any other design. That means that I could (should) use my experience as a systems engineer.

So, what is systems engineering? In a nutshell, it is the process by which you (1) define performance requirements, (2)  break down these requirements into sub sets that ultimately result in tangible design characteristics, (3) develop alternatives, (4) analyze the alternatives and choose the optimum approach, (5) perform detailed design, (6) construct from the design, and (7) test the design to validate that it meets performance requirements.

So, to be more specific, my wife and I sat down and had a discussion (actually a series of discussions) about what we wanted in a home. We came up with the following top-level requirements:

(1) Age in place. Since this would probably be the place we would live in for a long time, we wanted to make it such that we could stay here as we became older and make it safe and accessible.

(2) Have a modern home infrastructure that would allow for accommodation of new features.

(3) Maximize the energy efficiency of the home.

(4) Eliminate chronic maintenance problems and fundamental architectural design flaws.

(5) Pay off the house in 15 years. (No house payment when fully retired).

Having these requirements agreed upon, we considered two alternatives: Selling the place and moving to a new home, or remodeling our existing home. We then took a look at the relative advantages and disadvantages of each approach and compared them.

Attribute New Home Remodel
Age in place None that met requirements. Would require retrofits. Easily incorporated in the design.
Modern Infrastructure Most new homes have sufficient capacity for expansion Would have to upgrade the electrical system and add data/video/security systems.
Energy Efficiency New homes are energy efficient by code. Remodeling would trigger incorporation of energy efficiency code requirements.
Maintenance problems Minimal risk in a new home Would require redesign of the roof over the front porch to fix a chronic rainwater leak.
Pay off house Not likely. Likely if the remodeling budget were kept to less than $100K

So, after visiting a lot of new homes, and finding that the cost would be too high and that we would have to change them to meet our age in place requirement, we decided to proceed with a more detailed design for our home.

To set the stage for the detailed design, I looked at each high-level attribute and studied what kind of physical attributes would be necessary.

1. AGE IN PLACE: I learned that the best key word for this is “universal design” which is a term that implies design for accessibility without making the place look like a hospital. The Center For Universal Design at North Carolina State University is an excellent resource , as is the book Universal Design for the Home by Wendy Jordan, and Universal Design Ideas for Style Comfort and Safety by Reed Construction Data (my personal favorite). Design attributes that comply with universal design include curbless showers, ADA complaint fixtures (toilets, sinks, faucets, shower fixtures), countertops of different heights (30″ and 36″), wider doorways and passages, elimination of trip hazards (e.g., steps), and… LIGHTING. No kidding, I didn’t realize that lighting was a big deal until I thought about it. As you age, your ability to see becomes less. So you need more light to see properly. If you don’t see where you’re going, then you may trip and fall. This is a big deal because if you trip and fall, you’ll likely break something badly and lose your mobility. And when you’re older, that can be a death sentence.

2. MODERN INFRASTRUCTURE: There were a few things that I noticed about the new homes that I felt would be good to incorporate into my remodel: (a) air conditioning (!), (b) increased electrical capacity, (c) automatic fire sprinkler system, and (d) smart home infrastructure. Each of these required some additional research to come up with a design, and I will detail these in future posts.

3. ENERGY EFFICIENCY: California Title 24 requires that all remodeling projects comply with  performance requirements based on an energy analysis computer program. Being a geek at heart, I found this really interesting, and I took the time to properly model the house and understand the program so I could make some tradeoffs in how I approached the remodel. For example, I found that the energy savings for replacing my single pane windows with fancy double pane vinyl windows was not very much compared to the cost. Plus I found that the reliability of the vinyl windows sucked, so I decided to refurbish my existing windows. Again, I will have a separate post dedicated to energy efficiency.

4. ELIMINATE CHRONIC MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS: The primary one that had to be addressed was a leak over my front porch. This was kind of tough to figure out by myself, but fortunately, some of the other houses in the neighborhood had come up with a fix that looked pretty good, so I adopted that. More on that later as well.

5. PAY OFF THE HOUSE: We really couldn’t see how we could accomplish that if we moved based on the value of our existing home and the features we wanted in the new home. We set a remodeling budget of $100K and would plan on a pay-as-you-go approach to the maximum extent possible.

With that part of the systems engineering process complete, it’s on to the detailed design!