Seriously? Post at least an elevation of the house. The question is mystery meat. Do you have an architect? Or is this some online thing you are jamming onto a site not suited for the attempt? : )

The more important consideration is the site, and where you want your views to be.

There are these people that are educated, trained, and licensed to design buildings on all different kinds of sites . . .

Is that a great lake lot or a Great Lake lot?

Hi from Ontario.........one of the H.O.M.E.S Huron ( ) ......Michigan, Erie. Superior........

Oliver Had a Heap of Apples. Sine, Cosine, Tangent....

Does the side of your house look odd? If it does, then the view of it from the road will look odd.

LOL - I learned Oscar Had a Hunk of Apples.

Where did Superior go?

It's a biggie .........

a nicer day below lol

We were taught “Super Mario Hates Eating Oreos” so you can label the Great Lakes left/west to right/east as you would read!

That's a millennial update of "She made Harry eat onions". I'm old and still use it to remember which is where (well, except Michigan, I know it's a mile from my house.)

Purdue cheer from the 40s:

"e to the x, dy dx, e to the x, dx

cosine, secant, tangent, sine

3.14159"

The only way I could remember pi, and could only take it out to the 5th place. Also, realized that for general purposes, you don't need the decimals. If I'm doing a 6' mulch circle around a tree and want to buy edging, 18' is close enough...but edging comes in 20' rolls at the hardware store so who cares about the decimal.

Centigrade to fahrenheit conversions: do I need a sweater or not, that's all I need to know. Double it and add 30. 32 if you're feeling ambitious.

Design the house so it works on the site.

Back to the issue at hand . Please at least post a drawing of the house from all sides and if possible a floor plan. IMO a plain looking house from the street on a lake lot seems to be quite normal since all the houses are actually facing the lake. Add some nice landsacping for the front. But i would like to see the elevations.

To take this a little more off-topic. I grew up in California, and our geography classes must have skipped the Great Lakes, because aside from knowing they were "up over there" in the US, I probably couldn't have named more than Superior and... well, maybe just Lake Superior. I was out in Cleveland for work, and they wanted to take me to some fancy restaurant. As we are all driving along, I see a big lake and said "Oh, wow a lake. What lake is that?" One of my co-workers said "Really? It's a great lake". My thought: "Wow, they really like their lake... It's nice but I wouldn't call it 'great'." Some one says, " No, really, its a Great Lake, Lake Erie." My only excuse was that I had a public school education in California. So while I couldn't identify the Great Lakes, I did know where all 21 of the California Missions were... :)

@ floral :-)

Bpath, I think I remember my dad saying that (Purdue 50 BSME) along with talking about his log log duplex slide rule! Go Boilers!

I have to look up when Dad graduated from Purdue, around the same time, CE. And yet, for some reason he liked playing the Notre Dame fight song on the piano. Well, it is rather rousing.

For the provinces, I use BASMOQ (just to remember the order of A, S, and M; Yukon and Nunavit I remember) but the maritimes are cast adrift. Any good mnemonics for them?

You do know the OP will never come back - you're all nuts and she's scared!

(carry on.... personally I love derailed threads)

Lake St.Clair (between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario) is the not so Great Lake. People at Houzz remember it by remembering "HOMESS".

Erie, not Ontario. Some Michigander you are. We drive around it to Marine City.

Oops! I should have said Erie. Technically it is between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, but my geography was a little off.

lol love derailed threads too, not sure about the op though

OP, if you are still around, as others have said, you will need to post much more information before anyone can respond with anything useful.

Its only been a day relax they actually might have a life. But really we need more info.

A good architect will design a beautiful house with you.

Don't go for any variances. Based on my experience.

@Mark Bischak, why do you advise do not go for variances?

This should help explain why going for a variance may not be a good idea.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5703466/how-to-determine-building-height

If your opinion about variance is contained in a half-hour's reading, I guess I will have to forego it.

I have acquired one variance for myself and some for others. They were all based on NECESSITY. If they hadn't been granted, it would have caused some unamerican-like hardship.

What one is gaining by a variance is relief from blanket regulations that are often created by people whose reasoning does not extend to great depth. I have participated in such committees on a local level and am astounded at what people want to regulate. Unfortunately, a great number of them have the mindset that, "Well, if anyone has a problem with it ... they can just get a variance." But on the variance-granting-end of it sit people in power who think, "Well, we can't just grant variances from regulations that wouldn't have been put in place if it wasn't for good reason" ... even though they don't exactly know what the reason was! Nevertheless, they protect every erroneously written word with every fiber of their being because it is the written word.

Well...everyone has and is welcome to their opinions about zoning, planning and design review.

The reality in a great many jurisdictions, however, is that variances are very, very hard to achieve if at all.

For the lurkers here, it's a much better strategy to do one's best to comply with the regulations, whatever they may be, than to try to file for and obtain a variance. Really.

The ultimate Catch 22 of zoning boards in CT. Some investment company bought a property that was not a proper building lot for a residential home. They applied to the zoning board for a variance based on hardship. They had invested $XX in the property and now could not build a home; ergo their hardship. Opposition to the variance (all the neighbors within a 2 mile radius) was based on the fact that the buyers, now owners, of the property had put themselves in the hardship state when they knowingly bought the non-standard property. The zoning board granted the variance saying that the cause of the hardship was irrelevant, only that a hardship did in fact exist.

I don't disagree at all that the BEST strategy is to try to comply with the regs. so as not to have the burden of fighting their overseers. Sometimes, though, when necessity is involved, as it was in every instance when I sought a variance, one does not have a choice and must fight. Also in every instance I was told "you're not going to prevail because (from nearly anyone involved) we (or they) don't give variances!" "You'll never get it." It is definitely a situation where I would not have bet on the outcome. Still, sometimes reason prevails. It is only good and reasonable to seek a variance when one has NEED, especially when no other solution can be had ... not just want.

Sorry, but in my experience often what the property owner thinks is "hardship" or "need" is often simply personal preference, rather that attempting to design and build according to the existing regulations.

Certainly, there are exceptions, but the example of "hardship" in Lisa's post above is a perfect examply of someone who planned all along to purchase and develop property not in accordance with local regulations. Cause of the hardship is very relevant...hard to believe they were awarded a variance under such circumstances.

If everyone who applies stipulating hardship is given a variance why have the regulations?

The best strategy for lurkers is to always make every attempt to design and build within the applicable regulations.

"If everyone who applies stipulating hardship is given a variance why have the regulations?" It is not the act of "stipulating" hardship that determines whether a variance is given. It is an evaluation by others as to whether or not a hardship actually exists, and if there are any other options for resolving it, and whether it is caused by the person stipulating it, or is outside of their control. I'm merely pointing out that the creation of laws and regulations is not perfect. There come instances where a person can get royally screwed in the use and enjoyment of their own property on account of people who came years before who could have had no idea of said person's peculiar circumstances. Thus, the variance process must exist for that SMALL percentage of persons who actually NEED it. Those persons are not the ones who create their own problems through a lack of foresight or carelessness. In those cases, there is no reason not to use it.

I'm not in disagreement that people should plan according to the regulation so that they don't need to use the variance process. But when a peculiar circumstance causes a need that cannot be resolved within the regulation, and deviating from the regulations CAUSES NO ILL EFFECT OR HARM TO ANYONE ELSE, then the variance process is a legitimate route to using one's own property in a manner in which it should be used. Virgil Carter, we're in agreement on "best strategy." Where I'm not in agreement is someone saying "Don't use the variance process ever, even if you NEED it, and it makes reasonable sense for you to to have it, and it doesn't cause any ill effects for others." That's exactly what the variance process if for ... not frivolousness, thoughtlessness or carelessness.

One town board meeting here, to discuss the variance, allow all the parties to sound off? That will CURE you of variances forever. I do mean forever .........because that neighbor, that ninety year old lady who sits on the town planning board with nothing else to do? Yup......it will definitely be your last "ask".

@Jan Moyer, I'm sure there are different experiences with different places. Earlier in the conversation I remembered one variance I obtained for a pieces of property, but didn't remember until now that I had also obtained a variance for a second piece of property. When I sought the first variance, every person along the way suggested that a variance was not obtainable ... as in they are just "not given." However, I made my case, it all made sense and was reasonable, and no one objected to anything. In fact, some neighbors came to speak on my behalf, in favor of the variance being granted. And it was. For the second piece of property I recall less details but don't have any recollection that there were any problems. In the situations where I was aiding others, the variance request was just as reasonable, but there was a much greater sense of skepticism in the air about its being granted. It was heart throbbing actually. But no neighbors came to present objections and the variances were granted. So in a period of more or less a dozen years I sought 4 variances total (2 for me and 2 for others) and all were granted. I did not come away thinking, "NEVER do this again!" I thought instead that I wouldn't want to do this any more than I absolutely had to and would try to avoid it if I could.