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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2983 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 29, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Homeowners of The Motte -- what would you differently if you could do it all over again?

I plan on building a house in the next 12 months on a lot about an hour away from the Gulf of Mexico America. It's going to be a two-story 5BR house with porches on the front and the back, built in a traditional Southern style.

I'm a bit overwhelmed as I don't even know what I don't know about building, and I want to avoid making costly mistakes that I'll have to pay to renovate later (or worse, be unable to fix at all). Happy to hear both from people who built and people who bought.

Specific random things, because most things are going to be covered by smarter guys than me:

  1. Plan one entrance to the house with no steps. Almost nobody does it, because it's difficult to handle the architecture/landscaping to make a ramp look good, but you totally can if you plan it from the start. Elderly people fall on steps all the time, and often hurt themselves. Also convenient for heavy stuff in general. If you plan for it now, you'll have it forever; if you have to rerig it later it will look bad, especially if it's at a time when you yourself are older/less capable.

  2. Anywhere water comes into your house will eventually leak. Plan for that now.

  3. That's a big house, think about how you're going to use the rooms. A lot of people end up with a big house with four rooms that are all variations on "couch and we watch TV in here;" or they all started as bedrooms and got adapted.

  4. Think of the repair guy. Don't put anything in a place where it will be difficult to extract when (not if, when) it needs to be serviced or replaced. Make it easy to reach the air handler, the water heater, the septic system, etc.

  5. Take pictures of the inside of all the walls before you close them up. Write notes and measurements. Store them in multiple places, hard copies, in the home, for the future.

Plan one entrance to the house with no steps.

Specifically, in accordance with ICC A117.1 § 1104.2 and ch. 4.

That's a big house. Think about how you're going to use the rooms.

Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction pp. 40 and 46–48 have some nice diagrams of bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, home theaters, and home offices, including typical furniture dimensions and clearances.

Take pictures of the inside of all the walls before you close them up. Write notes and measurements.

Or just keep a copy of the construction/as-built plans!

Or just keep a copy of the construction/as-built plans!

Redundancy is key! Don't keep just a single copy, and don't keep it in a digital format that might be difficult to access later. Don't count on others to keep them.

Because the house will be up for thirty or fifty years when you have a problem you need to deal with.

What is this place?

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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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