Timber Frame Shop/House 2nd Iteration

This is the second iteration of the timber frame shop/house with some major revisions. In my initial drawing, I had used a scissor truss system for the main building roof. Due to the width of the building - 36 feet, the engineer didn't feel that the scissor truss system would work very well. In its stead, he proposed using a double ridge beam that could be used to better transfer the weight and stresses of the roof directly into the foundation. This double ridge would allow use of lighter weight and much smaller rafters - a definite benefit when working at these heights. This has a major advantage for me, it reduced my reliance on longer timbers which are much harder to find. The first rafter would run from the the top plate to the ridge beam and a second shorter rafter from the ridge beam to the peak.

In addition he suggested increasing the distance between bents from 12' to 14' for at least the middle bent. This increased the width of each of the two smaller bedrooms by 1'. Not such a cramped feeling. I then suggested we do the same to the other 2 bents, so all bents are 14' on center. This helped out with a bit more space in the kitchen - 20" more space and obviously more space into the dining area.

We were also advised to figure out what windows and doors we want to have. He advised that we needed to have width of 16' of unbroken sheathing from the foundation to the roof which could be done in 2 sections of 8'. I'm unsure of whether that was on all faces of the building, just the ends but either way it was important to figure out what windows and what size windows we needed for each area and see how this lays out. I assumed 16' on all 4 sides of the building but in reality it didn't really matter because with the exception of moving 2 living room windows a little more toward the corners, it seemed to work out naturally.

I redrew the model so I had a better understanding of the structure with all these revisions. Attached are the images - the first set are just the frame - note I spent more time on the front porch this time. Though I would like the roof to overhang on the sides, just unsure how to go about that - short purlins that hang out 12-18" off the side of the rafter??

In order to save time, I did not model all the wind braces, so the side view does not contain any, which is very inaccurate.

In order to get at least some ideas on window sizes, I went to Lowes and got them to quote me on several windows in the Pella 450 series windows. I got a sheet from them that shows the available widths and heights for at least double hung windows. I assume that we can get picture window with 2 double hung (one per side) in a similar size - for the master bed and living room. Similar for the kitchen area but if we have to we would go with 2 double hung there and in the attic area. The upper window in the great room (in the open cathedral area) is going to be a picture window I believe. 

Here are the renderings with windows, I just did them in the open frames because I needed to see if they fit within the wind braces. It wasn't an issue on the side views at all so I didn't add the braces for speed purposes only.