James, thanks for your reply. We were wondering about the chimney too. It vents the dining room fireplace and the hot water heater. We installed a 90% efficient furnace when we moved in, so that vents out the side wall of the basement, not out the chimney. I'm expecting that the architect will have to incorporate the chimney in the design and we may have to have it built higher to meet code. Yes, that's a gambrel roof on the far side. This house has a nice mishmash of architectural features. No one has ever really touched the original design which makes us cautious and nervous -- the original condition was one of the main attractions to us when we first saw the house. Our architect is an old house owner herself, so that should be a good sign. We are hoping to step the addition in on the left side (looking from the back) by at least a foot. My husband was trying to sketch a possible roof line that would join a smaller hip into the existing hip. His sketch looked pretty good. I was just hoping to see where someone had done something similar. I'm not sure yet what the architect envisions. I guess I need to be patient and let her do her thing. : ) Here's a picture of the side with the gambrel:

Great Question - two reasons really. #1 - Aesthetically there are no other curved lines on the entire front elevation and we were attempting to keep with that theme and remove any radius from a curved copper radius. #2 - Neither my wife nor I are big fans of the color of copper when it's new (for this application) or when it ages and creates a new patina (you can't really control the color nor the end product appearance) so we'd rather go with a spot-on color match to the windows/flashing/gutters, etc. because over time the color scheme of the front house stays just like it was when we first build it. Hope this helps shed some light on our reasoning. Thanks and like I mentioned previously, any additional commentary is invited. Regards, Andrew

Katieebs: A good design solves ALL design constraints so there's no having to choose between, for example, the plan and the exterior design as you are doing. Both would be accommodated. In lieu of copy and pasting the thing let me just point you here: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3178541/question-for-architectrunnerguy-or-others?n=24 Look at my post 11 posts down, not the one at the top with the colored drawing. Read the part about internet plans (spoiler: Very helpful) and the part about bags of $100 bills on the table. Sometimes I think I take the owners hard earned money more seriously than they do! I only point you there because since posting it, I've gotten some private notes, none of which I'll be doing the designing because they aren't local but all of which are looking to spend some six figure number of their hard earned money the best way possible in an endeavor in which there are no "do overs". Especially when that huge amount is weighed against the fee for a morning of conceptual design work by a creative thinker. So there has to be some interest there and may be you might too in getting someone creative that's local to look at improving the design. But good luck! EDIT: My crude red box was meant to illustrate a diagramitic concept (moving house FORWARD of garage), not moving those exact spaces IN the box forward while leaving the kitchen where it is. Sorry, that's me thinking conceptually!! No, the kitchen would relate to ALL other spaces the owner wishes. That's what separates great design from average design, both of which cost the same.

There are two criteria you have mentioned, a [1] vault/cathedral and [2] exposed rafters/beadboard. These need to be approached as different thought processes: [1] A complete cathedral ceiling following the roof rafters would not be a good solution with this steep roof pitch. If you reference @Jon Alan's 3-D drawing (thank goodness he did that!), you can see you have a very shallow 14' depth of footprint combined with an upper wall that needs to be present to block seeing the existing roof. That would create a large, cavernous out of proportion space with a tiny length of ridge at the top. Add to that the slanted hip roof converging with the straight vertical attic wall, and the darkness up there, it would look nothing like any of the inspiration pictures you have let alone the functionality of cleaning cobwebs. Many might say use a gable roof instead of the hip. However, I do not think that would be a good solution for the same reasons. The footprint width is 24'-8" and a gable would spread that width at that steep pitch. So you would be left with a similar cavernous out of proportion cathedral ceiling at only 14' deep. Not to mention the gable end wall would be very high (though maybe filled with windows?) and would probably dominate or not fit with the existing house roof and proportions. Again cleaning those windows and high ridge point and seeing that huge blank attic wall. [2] Exposed rafters and beadboard can be donein any case of roof, whether following the roof rafters or on a false ceiling. The beadboard can actually be "faux," meaning it does not have to be on the outside of the rafters, but added later as a finish in between the rafters. __________________ So, it seems to solve the proportion dilemma for a vault/cathedral, you have 2 choices: [A] lower the pitch on the roof (whether hip or gable), or [B] create a lower false ceiling inside (whether that ceiling is a tray, hip, or gable): [A] Will a lower pitch than the existing roof blend well with the house? Will a gable look out of place? [B] When building a false lower ceiling, which of the 3 styles would lend well to being exposed adjacent to an enclosed flat ceiling, and remain proportionate to the 14' depth x 24'-8" length? __________________ Realize if your footprint were rotated and was 24' deep and only 14' wide, then that would lend better to an exposed hip or gable cathedral roof, and it would look like most of your inspiration pics.