House Plans

Other than politics and Preshy's growth and development- these days the transformation of 311 N. Molter is consuming both Nick and I's every waking moment. 

Creativity. Ideas. Daydreams. 

Last night right about 10:30pm lights were out and we were in bed. 

It was pitch black besides the master bathroom Scentsy (linger - maybe my all time favorite scent) and the faint glow of my iPhone. I was reading Mockingjay - book 3 of the Hunger Games series which BTW is so good I can't think of doing anything else. I am obsessed with Katniss and Peeta...can't even handle how it is going to turn out. I have 100 pages to go!

Nick was supposed to be sound asleep when he totally startled me, sat straight up and preceded to tell me what type of furniture would work best in our new living room.  

This happens all the time - totally stemming from working with our architect, Ryan from RnD Designs. 

The initial meeting happened in November. Ryan came over to the house, received the official house tour, sat with Nick and I to hear our thoughts/plans/ideas and took some pics. After coming back a couple of weeks later to take measurements of the entire house and waiting one more week....we finally received our first set of plans!!

I can't wait to show you our house plan progression! 

But, I should warn you that since November there have been 3 sets of plans due to many "I don't like that!" or "That doesn't work for the space." or "Well, since we are doing that, we may as well do this." or  "OMG, why didn't we think of that!?" or "Ryan, can we do this?"

AND lastly I am SO proud of Nick and I because we came up with most of the ideas on our own. Many hours spent touring real estate, watching HGTV, scouring magazines, walking into home improvement stores and re-model experience have made us 100% confident on our style and the types of things we HAVE to have in our dream house. 

We do have one more drawing to go before the top floor addition is complete and we move on to the exterior drawings but boy we could NOT BE HAPPIER. 

Without further ado I present to you 311 N. Molter in its current state. This is our current floor plan - what we are living in right now. 

Much better than my house tour series, right?? 

Here is house plan #2 - the first initial drawing:

So as you can see we are doing two HUGE additions. One in the back of the house - extending 8 feet. And the other to the Master and garage - also extending to give us more room for Nick's shop and for our new master bathroom and closet. 

There were quite a few things with this drawing that we really loved (new open kitchen and sliding glass wall) but also quite a few things we didn't (raised kitchen peninsula bar, kitchen appliance "triangle", master bath lay out, laundry and basement stairs) so back to the drawing board. 

Here is house plan #3:

Ahhhhh getting THEERRREEEEEEE.

Love the basement stairs, patio/pergola/fire pit, master closet.

Didn't love the layout of the master bath, the fact that the prep sink is on the wrong side of the range, the location of the fridge, location of the washer/dryer...

After writing out list of things we both loved and didn't love we talked to Ryan and sent him off for round 4. Here is what he came up with and we are in LOVE (well minus a few MINOR details).

New entrance/foyer, new master bathroom layout, a new pass through bar area via an extension of the current laundry room, changing the location of the fridge slightly, adding a 8 foot by 4 food window to the kitchen, extending the glass wall (out WOW feature) another 7 feet and moving closet space in the master to create a slightly bigger guest bath and walk-in closet for bedroom #2.

Like I said earlier - only two minor changes to this set of plans and we are finished with the interior. By the time we are done we will have added usable square footage (this doesn't even include our 1,500 sq foot basement) and dramatically changed the look and feel of the house.

We won't actually start phase 1 until late spring/summer. Until then we have to finish the exterior plans, secure permits, gather bids and most importantly save money.

This ain't gonna be cheap. But, so so so so so worth it.

Every day I pinch myself that we get to live here. In a great location, great established neighborhood - minutes away from the park, the school, the lake, the farmers market...Starbucks. :) I finally love my house and more importantly that Nick and I get to go through this together and make our dreams a reality.