January 10, 2007

and let the drawing begin

happy new year all

it's time to look at plans,
we had our 3rd meeting with our architect this week
and things are moving along

there weren't any drawings of the house when we bought it
so here are the basic floor plans:

after our first meeting, this is what he came back with:

starting with the ground floor on the left:
the front 1/2 of this floor is g/s work space which he will be taking on at a later date, so there is not much going on there
the back 1/2 is my studio; this will incorporate what was the ground floor kitchen with the new extension
the stairs that you see on the right wall currently go from the basement to the garden. they will now be inside my studio space allowing easy access to my storage area in the basement
on the left wall in the center, is a simple kitchen and bath; which will serve both our work areas.
the kitchen (aside from being necessary to keep a 2 family designation) will allow us to minimize the size and number of appliances in the main kitchen by giving us a second oven and an extra fridge downstairs.

the parlour floor:
very little is being done to the living room aside from restoring pocket doors and dealing with the ceiling which we still haven't uncovered, but expect to find in similar condition to what we exposed in the dining room

the bathroom that was on the left back wall will be incorporated into the dining room to create an open kitchen/dining area. what you see above is appliances on the left wall, an island and a dining room table
double doors will open to a deck that will be on top of the studio extension.
in order to maximize natural light coming into the studio, there will be skylights on the right and left of the deck and then along the back end.

the top floor:
we are leaving the front (blue) bedroom as is and putting in a guest bath (with tub) where the 2nd kitchen was.
the middle (yellow) room becomes a dressing room/closet that opens into the bedroom (the orange room).
we will take out the tub in the existing bathroom (along the back left wall) and replace it with a large enclosed shower to create the master bath.

after this week's meeting, here is where we are at:

ground floor: no real changes except that there will be an open coat closet along the left wall when you walk in. finding a place for this was kind of difficult, i had originally envisioned it on the parlour floor, but it really doesn't work there.

the parlor floor (detail):

is that flying saucer????
no, that's the new island;
ovoid and able to seat 6 (counter height) on one side,
it will be the primary kitchen counter surface on the other
it will have 2 round shapes incorporated into it:
a little sink at one end (for washing vegetables)
and inserted into the surface will be an ovoid cutting board
i am thinking maybe blue for the counter top (but no one really knows that yet)

after much deliberation, we nixed the idea of having a formal dining situation.
unfortunately, one of the few things that we didn't sell when we moved was a great table (3 leaves) & 8 fabulous chairs and now i am not sure they'll fit in...
but the reality is that we always eat at the counter, and the bulk of our entertaining always seems to be centered in the kitchen.
we will need to have a table that can seat at least 12 for those big dinners, but i am thinking it might be something with a drop leaf that can go against a wall
or hell, my sister-in-law does incredible formal holiday dinners on 2 folding tables

we have also decided to add some sort of light transmitting (to my studio below) detail as a transition between the original house and the new extension, but this is not quite fleshed out yet
the stairs leading down to the garden will be straight, not circular

top floor/bedroom (detail):

in the second round of plans we had the bed centered in the room
(which does not mean centered with respect to the 2 windows)
oriented to be looking out the windows into the garden
it was going to be up against a 3/4 height wall that would act both as the partition between the bedroom and closet area and as a headboard
unfortunately, the room is not wide enough to allow both ample walking space AND end tables. now we are thinking of moving the bed on center with the windows which will create a wide enough passage way on the left side and eliminate the walk-through on the right.
with the next set of drawings, this should be clearer.
we will also have a version with the bathroom moved to where the yellow room is now, creating a bathroom-to-dressing room-to-bedroom flow
and allowing us to open up the bedroom to the full width of the house

Posted by neene at 9:17 PM | Comments (6)
Categories: house