Projects of a house with a mezzanine. House with a mezzanine: project of a Russian estate. What are the advantages of a house with a mezzanine?
(Artist's story)
I
It was 6-7 years ago, when I lived in one of the districts of the T-th province, on the estate of the landowner Belokurov, a young man who got up very early, wore a vest, drank beer in the evenings and kept complaining to me that he was nowhere and does not find sympathy from anyone. He lived in an outbuilding in the garden, and I lived in an old manor house, in a huge hall with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on which I slept, and also a table on which I played solitaire. Here, even in calm weather, there was always something humming in the old Amosov stoves, and during a thunderstorm the whole house shook and seemed to be cracking into pieces, and it was a little scary, especially at night, when all ten large windows were suddenly illuminated by lightning. Doomed by fate to constant idleness, I did absolutely nothing. For hours at a time I looked out my windows at the sky, at the birds, at the alleys, read everything that was brought to me from the post office, and slept. Sometimes I left home and wandered somewhere until late in the evening. One day, returning home, I accidentally wandered into some unfamiliar estate. The sun was already hiding, and evening shadows stretched across the blooming rye. Two rows of old, closely planted, very tall fir trees stood like two solid walls, forming a gloomy, beautiful alley. I easily climbed over the fence and walked along this alley, sliding along the spruce needles that covered the ground here by an inch. It was quiet, dark, and only high on the peaks here and there a bright golden light trembled and shimmered like a rainbow in the spider’s webs. There was a strong, stuffy smell of pine needles. Then I turned into a long linden alley. And here too there is desolation and old age; Last year's leaves rustled sadly underfoot, and shadows hid between the trees in the twilight. To the right, in the old orchard, an oriole sang reluctantly, in a weak voice, probably also an old woman. But now the linden trees are gone; I walked past a white house with a terrace and a mezzanine, and in front of me suddenly unfolded a view of the manor’s courtyard and a wide pond with a bathhouse, with a crowd of green willows, with a village on the other side, with a tall narrow bell tower on which a cross was burning, reflecting the setting sun. For a moment I felt the charm of something familiar, very familiar, as if I had already seen this same panorama once in childhood. And at the white stone gate that led from the yard to the field, at the old strong gate with lions, stood two girls. One of them, older, thin, pale, very beautiful, with a whole shock of brown hair on her head, with a small, stubborn mouth, had a stern expression and barely paid attention to me; the other, quite young - she was 17-18 years old, no more - also thin and pale, with a large mouth and big eyes, looked at me in surprise as I passed by, said something in English and became embarrassed , and it seemed to me that these two sweet faces had been familiar to me for a long time. And I returned home feeling as if I had had a good dream. Soon after this, one afternoon, when Belokurov and I were walking near the house, suddenly, rustling through the grass, a spring carriage in which one of those girls was sitting drove into the yard. It was the eldest. She came with a signature sheet to ask for fire victims. Without looking at us, she very seriously and in detail told us how many houses had burned down in the village of Siyanovo, how many men, women and children were left homeless, and what the fire-fighting committee, of which she was now a member, intended to do in the first stages. Having given us to sign, she hid the sheet and immediately began to say goodbye. “You have completely forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovich,” she said to Belokurov, giving him her hand. “Come, and if Monsieur N. (she said my last name) wants to see how admirers of his talent live and comes to us, then mom and I will be very glad.” I bowed. When she left, Pyotr Petrovich began to tell. This girl, according to him, was from a good family and her name was Lydia Volchaninova, and the estate in which she lived with her mother and sister, like the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. Her father once occupied a prominent place in Moscow and died with the rank of Privy Councilor. Despite their good means, the Volchaninovs lived in the village all the time, summer and winter, and Lydia was a teacher at the zemstvo school in Shelkovka and received 25 rubles a month. She spent only this money on herself and was proud that she lived at her own expense. “An interesting family,” said Belokurov. “Perhaps we’ll go see them sometime.” They will be very happy to see you. One afternoon, on one of the holidays, we remembered the Volchaninovs and went to see them in Shelkovka. They, the mother and both daughters, were at home. My mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, was once apparently beautiful, but now damp beyond her years, short of breath, sad, absent-minded, tried to keep me busy talking about painting. Having learned from my daughter that I might be coming to Shelkovka, she hastily recalled two or three of my landscapes that she had seen at exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I wanted to express in them. Lydia, or, as she was called at home, Lida, spoke more to Belokurov than to me. Serious, without smiling, she asked him why he did not serve in the zemstvo and why he had not yet been to a single zemstvo meeting. “It’s not good, Pyotr Petrovich,” she said reproachfully. - Not good. Ashamed. “It’s true, Lida, it’s true,” the mother agreed. - Not good. “Our entire district is in the hands of Balagin,” Lida continued, turning to me. “He himself is the chairman of the council, and he has distributed all the positions in the district to his nephews and sons-in-law and does what he wants. We have to fight. The youth must form a strong party, but you see what kind of youth we have. Shame on you, Pyotr Petrovich! The younger sister, Zhenya, was silent while they were talking about the zemstvo. She did not take part in serious conversations, the family did not yet consider her an adult and, like a little girl, they called her Misyus, because in childhood she called her that miss, your governess. All the time she looked at me with curiosity and, when I looked at the photographs in the album, she explained to me: “This is uncle... This is godfather,” and ran her finger over the portraits, and at that time, childishly, she touched me with her shoulder, and I saw closely her weak, undeveloped chest, thin shoulders, braid and thin body, tightly tied with a belt. We played croquet and lawn tennis, walked around the garden, drank tea, and then had a long dinner. After the huge empty hall with columns, I felt somehow at home in this small cozy house, in which there were no oleographs on the walls and you spoke to the servants, and everything seemed young and clean to me, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misyus, and everything breathed with decency. At dinner, Lida again talked with Belokurov about the zemstvo, about Balagin, about school libraries. She was a lively, sincere, convinced girl, and it was interesting to listen to her, although she spoke a lot and loudly - perhaps because she was used to speaking at school. But my Pyotr Petrovich, who from his student days still had the habit of turning every conversation into an argument, spoke boringly, sluggishly and at length, with a clear desire to seem like an intelligent and progressive person. Gesturing, he knocked over the gravy boat with his sleeve, and a large puddle formed on the tablecloth, but no one except me seemed to notice this. When we returned home it was dark and quiet. “Good upbringing is not that you don’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice if someone else does it,” Belokurov said and sighed. - Yes, a wonderful, intelligent family. I have fallen behind good people, oh, how I have fallen behind! And all the work, work! Affairs! He talked about how hard you have to work when you want to become an exemplary farmer. And I thought: what a heavy and lazy fellow he is! When he talked about something seriously, he would say “uh-uh” with tension, and he worked the same way as he spoke - slowly, always being late, missing deadlines. I had little faith in his businesslike nature, simply because the letters that I instructed him to send to the post office, he carried around in his pocket for weeks at a time. “The hardest thing,” he muttered, walking next to me, “the hardest thing is that you work and don’t find sympathy from anyone.” No sympathy!With a mezzanine, which has become a symbol and decoration of St. Petersburg country villages and the Russian hinterland, they may be of interest to romantics and lovers of retro style. Houses with mezzanines were traditionally built by wealthy villagers in small towns or suburbs of the capital of pre-revolutionary Russia. The mezzanine, today undeservedly forgotten and a thing of the past, was a successful replacement for the attic.
Country houses with mezzanines have unique advantages. Despite the fact that the mezzanine is not a full floor, but rather a half-tier, the living space in it significantly expands the total area and convenience of living.
In addition, the mezzanine looks beautiful and respectable. The house is immediately perceived not as a small wooden one-story building, but as a small two-story mansion. The architectural feature of the house with a mezzanine is the symmetry of the main and courtyard facades, as well as porticoes in the center of the building, windowless side walls and a hipped roof.
Since the mezzanine is often designed and built with a balcony, this creates additional comfortable conditions for residents. A room on the mezzanine with a huge window and a small open terrace-balcony where you can have breakfast in the fresh air or drink tea in the evening and admire the garden will become your favorite place in the house. At the same time, the construction of such a house with a mezzanine, per square meter, will cost less than with a full second floor.
Foundation- prefabricated monolithic, strip (monolithic reinforced concrete base, FBS blocks).
Base- facing with porcelain tiles.
Exterior walls- blocks of cellular concrete B3.5 D600 with a thickness of 380-400mm. with facing ceramic bricks on the outside. (cellular concrete blocks can be replaced with any other building material, taking into account the thermal properties of the external walls).
The material and thickness of the insulation depends on climatic conditions and wall materials (indicated in the project, taking into account your region).
Internal load-bearing walls- sand-lime brick M100
Partitions- cellular concrete blocks / brick / porous brick.
Interfloor ceilings- hollow reinforced concrete slabs.
Roof- pitched. The covering is at the discretion of the customer, the rafter structures are wooden.
Porch and balcony fencing- wooden.
Ladder- individual production according to the “metal stringers, wooden steps” scheme.
Sheathing of protruding rafter structures (eaves, wind board)- profiled sheet with polymer coating / siding.
The following wall materials can be used to build a house according to this project:
cinder block, gas silicate, foam concrete, aerated concrete, wood concrete, twin block, ceramic block, expanded clay concrete, silicate (construction) brick, ceramic brick.
The thickness of the insulation, and therefore the thickness of the foundation walls, may vary depending on the type of material used.
We will make all the necessary changes to the foundation and perform thermal engineering calculations depending on the wall material you choose and taking into account the climate of the construction area.
House with a mezzanine, what is it? This question is often asked by people who plan to build or buy their own home. Some people get confused. The designs have common features, but, in essence, they are not the same thing. The mezzanine was originally intended for living space and has... The attic is rather one that can also be improved.
Mezzanine - what is it?
People who are far from knowledge of architecture often ask the question: mezzanine, what is it? This topic, in the most accessible language, will tell the reader about the design features of houses with mezzanines, the advantages of such buildings and possible layout options. A mezzanine is a superstructure above a house, most often it is located in the center, but has its own roof.
From the room located on the mezzanine, there is usually access to. This structure can have different shapes:
- square;
- rectangle;
- hexagon;
- cylinder;
- polyhedron;
- cross.
But most often the mezzanine is made in the form of a regular square. The built-on floor is usually functional, however, it can also be decorative. Despite the fact that houses with mezzanines belong to the category, they have significant advantages over standard one-story buildings. So, what is a mezzanine? The photos below will best answer this question.
What are the advantages of a house with a mezzanine?
A house with a mezzanine has many advantages, some of which deserve special mention. In order to have good draft, the length of its chimney must be at least five meters. The mezzanine superstructure allows you to place a long pipe in its space, which does not require additional bracing.
It will cost the owner much less to insulate the area above which the mezzanine rises. In turn, this lightens the load on the foundation, which extends the life of the entire house. To erect the superstructure, scaffolding is needed only in two small areas; all other structural elements are mounted from the attic level.
Excessive area, which is characteristic two-story houses, is missing here. Accordingly, costs are reduced. If there is no need to use the superstructure during the cold season, so as not to waste coolants, it can simply be temporarily closed.
If one of the residents needs privacy, there is no better place than a room on the mezzanine. There is no fuss or noise here. This environment is favorable for mental work and good rest.
Advice. Since the extension area is independent of other rooms (the staircase to the second floor is usually located at the back of the house), the mezzanine can be rented out to tenants. And the current tax system classifies a house with a mezzanine as one-story building, which makes it possible to save on taxes.
Attic and mezzanine - differences in designs
Some people unknowingly confuse mezzanine with. These architectural elements have common features, but still they are not the same thing.
What distinguishes an attic from a mezzanine?
- the attic is inclined, while the mezzanine is straight. For this reason, staying in the attic for a long time can cause discomfort.
- The main purpose of the attic is the attic. And it is not always converted for living. Mezzanines are erected after the house is ready. Their main function is living space, although sometimes add-ons are made solely for decorative purposes.
- The roof of the attic is also the roof of the house, but the mezzanine has its own roof.
- The walls of the mezzanine go vertical up to a certain level, and then smoothly turn into the roof.
The difference between a mezzanine and a simple attic is also good natural lighting. If, during the construction of a superstructure, the masonry of vertical walls is raised, the window area can be increased due to an additional vertical frame, which is a continuation of the original window opening. Thus, a figured window appears in the interior.
In addition to their visual appeal, non-standard windows let in significantly more light than conventional rectangular window systems. Natural lighting in the superstructure is no worse than in the main rooms of the house.
In the 19th century, all noble estates were equipped with a superstructure located at the top of the house. In fairness, it should be noted that recently more and more people are becoming elite.
Thanks to the mezzanine, the usable area of the house increases significantly and is used more efficiently. This design is especially in demand in houses with high ceilings. To build a superstructure, the home owner does not need to obtain the appropriate permit, which simplifies the procedure and reduces costs.
Today, mezzanines are popular for creating warehouse spaces in which it is convenient to store any materials and cargo. A multi-storey warehouse mezzanine system allows cargo to be sorted into categories, making it easy to find.
Roof design options
The roofs of such houses can have different configurations - from primitive flat or gable, to original and fancy. The most common is a gable roof installed using hanging rafters.
However, this design is not without drawbacks. The small height of the vertical fence requires the construction of side walls to add on. In this case, a significant part of the attic space (that which is located behind the sidewalls) remains unclaimed. It can be used to arrange miniature storage rooms, but it is not suitable for housing.
In luxury houses, inclined rafters are used for built-on floors, and the roof is usually made of a pitched roof. Sometimes they resort to a combination of single- and gable roofs. Due to the presence of a bay window in the structure of the house, which is the basis for the superstructure, it can be completely placed under one slope. Under the hipped and half-hipped roof, the rooms are spacious and comfortable. For owners of small houses, roofs with a broken configuration are suitable.
“The House with a Mezzanine” is one of the most famous stories by the master of short prose Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The work was published in 1896. It describes the love feeling that arose between a bored artist and a young landowner’s daughter, and also touches on socially important issues of the plight of the Russian peasantry and possible ways to change the current state of affairs.
There are 5 main characters in the story “The House with a Mezzanine”:
- Artist(he is also the narrator) is a bored intellectual who came to the village to unwind from the bustle of the city, but in fact continued to be bored, mope and lead an idle lifestyle;
- Belokurov- a landowner, a friend of the Artist, the narrator came to his estate to stay;
- Ekaterina Pavlovna Volchaninova- landowner, neighbor of Belokurov;
- Lida– Volchaninova’s eldest daughter, a beauty, an activist, an ardent fighter for change, an adherent of the “small deeds” method;
- Zhenya(for family Misyus) – Volchaninova’s youngest daughter, a dreamy, cheerful, open person, the subject of the Artist’s ardent passion.
The main character writes watercolors, he is an artist. True, art has hardly inspired him for a long time. Nothing excites the main character, no persistent emotion or strong experience resonates in his soul. To change the situation, he goes to the village to visit his friend, the landowner Belokurov. The latter does not lead a more active lifestyle. He spends all his time on his estate. Due to his idle lifestyle, his speech acquired a kind of drawling character. Belokurov is even too lazy to get married; he is quite content with his cohabitant, who, according to the narrator, is more like a fat goose.
However, Belokurov is not tormented by such a life; he is quite happy in his blissful idleness. But for our Artist, idleness is painful. It's like he's doomed to do nothing. Existence in the village began to merge into one long, long day. But one day the guest met the Volchaninov girls, and everything changed.
There were two of them. Both are very beautiful, but each in their own way. The eldest, Lida, was thin, fair-skinned, stately, with a shock of thick brown hair spread over her shoulders. This beauty was dissonant with a thin, stubborn mouth and a stern expression on her face. The second, Zhenya (at home they called her by the cheerful nickname Misyu, that’s what little Zhenya called the French governess), thin, miniature, like a doll, large-mouthed, big-eyed. It was these open, sincere eyes that delighted the Artist. Misyu watched the stranger with an enthusiastic, curious gaze, but Lida barely glanced at the man.
Soon the Volchaninov neighbors invited the Artist to visit. During the first visit, it became clear who was boss. Already from the threshold, Lida’s loud voice could be heard, giving some orders. Mother Ekaterina Pavlovna was timid in front of her daughter, but Missy, like a child, agreed with any authoritative decision of her older sister.
From the very first visit, love arose between the Artist and the charming Missy. It was as if he had woken up after a long sleep. This little white-skinned fairy awakened him to life. But the more the Artist became attached to his younger sister, the more intense his relationship with his elder sister became.
Lida Volchaninova was a member of the zemstvo, an ardent fighter for active reforms. She initiated the opening of pharmacies, libraries, and schools for the poor peasantry. “True, we are not saving humanity. But we do what we can, and we are right.” The key “and we are right” best characterizes the self-confident Lida. Lack of flexibility, self-criticism, and the ability to listen leads Lida to a long and, alas, fruitless ideological polemic with the Artist.
“She didn’t like me,” the Artist noted. “She didn’t like me because I was a landscape painter and didn’t depict people’s needs in my paintings, and because, as it seemed to her, I was indifferent to what she believed so strongly in.”
With each new dispute, the gap between Lida and the Artist widened. In the end, the domineering sister sent the younger one, first to another province, and then abroad. Misyu could not resist Lida's will, and the Artist turned out to be too inert to save his love.
main idea
In the story “The House with a Mezzanine” two plot layers can be distinguished: love and ideological lines. If we talk about the love line, here Chekhov first of all emphasized how often people do not value their happiness. Anton Pavlovich wrote: “... people look past it so easily, they miss life, they themselves give up happiness.”
And here you need to look beyond the love story of Misyus and the Artist, because in essence “House with a Mezzanine” is a story about three failed happinesses. The happiness of the Artist and Misyus did not work out, the landowner Belokurov vegetates in the wilderness, and the active Lida, who decided to put her life into serving the people, also abandons personal happiness for the sake of an idea that has completely taken possession of her.
The ideological line can be traced mainly in the disputes between Lida and the Artist. It is a mistake to attribute to the author the side of one of the characters (traditionally, Chekhov is identified with the narrator). The author did not set out to discredit the theory of “small deeds”; he only showed two types of a person’s attitude towards life. So, Lida is convinced that we need to start small: open pharmacies, libraries, schools. An intelligent person simply cannot sit idly by when there is poverty, illiteracy, and death all around. According to the Artist, all these “first aid kits and libraries” will not change the situation. This is just a deception, a semblance of activity. When someone sits on a chain, it will not become easier for him if this chain is painted with different colors. At the same time, the Artist does not offer any specific plan of action. He, like most idle philosophers, is too lazy to take on the challenge of changing the destinies of the people.
And, finally, the main thing is that an idea (whatever it may be) should not have power over a person and cannot run counter to his interests and the interests of those around him. So, Lida became obsessed with her “small affairs”, providing help to distant “others”, she did not notice that she had become a tyrant for her loved ones.