The best laid plans of mice and men
Actually, I’m not sure what the mice are planning, but they always seem to be up to something in this house.
The men and women, however, have a plan. And here it is (click for enlarged image):
Main Level Plan
This isn’t going to be very useful to those of you who haven’t been in our house, and it might not even be useful to those who have.
It’s a drawing of a remodeled back three rooms of our house: Dining room, kitchen, and family room on the main level. “But I thought you were refinishing your basement!” you say? Yes, we are, but we realized that we wouldn’t even be able to get lumber or sheet rock into the basement, because the entrance to the stairway going down is to cramped with turns. So, we need to blow a hole in the family room wall to get a straight shot down the stairs (Stacy’s been wanting to do that since we moved in).
So, we thought we should decide what that hole in the wall could eventually be part of. We spent less than two hours with an architect, David Wagner, from SALA Architecture. It was time well spent. He pulled all of our ideas together and solved some problems that we couldn’t figure out. He sketched the plans you see here.
I think the mice will be happy.
Tony on 19 Sep 2009 at 11:06 am #
Which way is up? I can’t figure out where the current house sits in this plan.
dave on 19 Sep 2009 at 11:29 am #
I thought it might be a bit confusing. The top of the sketch is north. The three main rooms that you can see in the sketch are the current dining room (bottom), kitchen (upper right), and family room (left, with the table drawn in it).
Some of the lines in the drawing aren’t walls, but are lines of symmetry or flow patterns. The thick squiggled lines are walls. The drawing also includes new back steps (at top) and a “mud room” which would be cut off from the current family room.
The kitchen has things moved around. The stove (with x’s for burners) is opposite where it currently sites. The fridge (labeled with an “F”) is moved to the north wall. The goal is to open up one wall (west) to the new dining room.
And there are still plenty of details to work out.
Adrienne on 20 Sep 2009 at 6:44 am #
Isn’t it amazing what others can see?? Who wudda thot of moving the butler’s pantry or using the back entry room as a dining room? Love it!
Ray on 20 Sep 2009 at 7:43 am #
I hope the archietec looks at the stairs going into the basement as they really need to be higher and perhaps wider if the basement is going to be accessed frequently/ Especially for a tall family and/or sheetrock.
Wendell on 21 Sep 2009 at 11:17 pm #
I’m sure your architect is brilliant, but I know someone who could’ve sketched that up for you. Beer cheap. And used blueprint paper instead of a napkin. We’ll just see if I ever bring my t-square over to your house again!