Plans Have Changed

So, ever since we moved in and realized that the side door was now the front door, we've been trying to figure out where the heck to put the washer and dryer. We don't want it in the entry portion of the house, but where else to put it? We've had a few ideas, but none of them really felt right.

Well, the 4th of July was our Independence Day from packed front hallway nonsense. We took the day and redid our floor plans.

The original plans were posted on May 17, 2006 (over a whole year ago).

Here's the new phase 1 plan (no additions necessary):

What we've done is turned the hallway into closet space. This necessitates us pushing into our den space a bit, but we have plenty of room to do so with the installation of our new beam. We realized that once we did that, we could move the beam far enough to the north (right, as you look at the drawing) that the fireplace would be visible from both rooms, which would add a nice atmosphere and make the two rooms feel more connected. Plus then we'd have dedicated coat closet space in the entryway, which would become just an entryway and not a part-time laundry room. Hooray! Turning the hallway into utility/closet space also increases our storage, which is something severely lacking in the house. We also took string line and measure out how far we'd want to bump out the bathrooms into the guest bedroom. We think it'll still leave plenty of room in the guest room if we do so, and it'd be really, really nice to expand that hall bath (not to mention put a bathtub in the master bathroom). We also made a bump-out for the fridge so that its door doesn't stick out in front of the cabinets and gives us a bit more room to walk through, and we switched the oven to be away from the wall, which should also work out.

Then, of course, you have phase two of the building plans.

This is what our actual goal is. This floor plan allows us to have good closet space in all the rooms, have a nice great room that's living/dining/den area, and a good-sized spare office/guest room. We think that this plan works best, and we're really excited about the whole thing. Now we just have to find the money to do those additions...

In the meantime, we worked on putting in the second beam this weekend, which I'll post pictures of later this week. We want to get the beam in, and we're going to replace the eastern window in the nook so we can re-side that side of the house before winter. We've been researching insulation, electrical stuff, etc., but all that pales in comparison to the true prize: shopping for a front door. Mwa ha- I'm really looking forward to finding the perfect front door for the little rat hole, and since we have to redo the entry way this fall anyway because of the rot, there's no time like the present.