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"What If" New Home, Old Lot
The other day, I asked my roommate if money were no object, how would he fix up the house we're living in, expecting to hear about updating the electricity, adding space to different rooms, that sort of thing. What I heard was that there's no fixing this place, and what is needed is to start from scratch, with a few suggestions about what he'd like to see. Alright then, I took what he said and came up with something.
To start off, here are details about the house we currently live in:
Basically, it's a 1,204 square foot home, 4-bedroom, 2-bath, on a 6,565 square foot lot (65 feet by 101 feet). Just to get a bit of a feel for the size of the rooms, mine is about 10 feet by 11 feet. Oh, and the bathroom off of my room is so tiny (no tub but a hole in the wall shower.
Okay, here's what I came up with. Just keep in mind that I'm still not finished with it (no lighting, I haven't customized much of the furniture, no roof, and I haven't done much work on the outside). I left the boundary walls as they currently are (or as close as I could get it) as well as the tree placements (although they aren't the same type of trees).
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
I've taken pictures of the rooms as far as they are done, using the "Add ceiling lights" on, so some of the rooms are way too bright. Some of the furniture have been customized, but not many, so distinguishing between some of the bedrooms isn't easy.
The Living Room and Dining Room as seen from the Front door. The stairs are visible as well as part of the kitchen. The stairs I used unfortunately can be seen under and that's not what I was wanting but it is what it is.
The Kitchen. One of the doors to the Laundry room can be seen as well as the hallway.
The first bedroom, to the right of the stairs, which I'm claiming as mine.
The small Office, to the left of the stairs, which my roommate requested. The wall that's covering a good portion of the left of this room is to the Half Bath which I didn't take a picture of; for one reason it was way too bright, and for another nothing was visible when I tried taking one.
The second bedroom, down the hall near the garage, which I've claimed as my sewing room.
The Laundry room taken from the door to the hallway. The door visible to the left is into the Kitchen.
The 1-Car Garage.
Now up to the first level.
Top of the stairs looking towards the Family Room.
The third bedroom, to the right of the stairs near the Master bedroom, which I've designated for my roommates' youngest.
The fourth bedroom, to the left of the stairs near the Main bathroom, which I've designated for my roommates' oldest.
Main bathroom.
Master bedroom, which I've designated for my roommates.
Master bedroom Walk-In Closet.
Master bathroom.
Family room.
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
I've made a few revisions, added lights, customized some the furniture, and repainted some of the walls. I still haven't worked (much) on the outside but that'll come later.
I don't know why those two pictures are so out of focus...
Main Floor
First Floor
Attic
Living Room/Dining Room; no change except for the lighting, and the couch.
Kitchen; no change except for the lighting.
My bedroom; no change except for the lighting and customizing of the furniture.
Roommate's Office (see paragraph below for additional information).
My Sewing room (see paragraph below for additional information).
My roommate didn't like that I'd had this room designated as a fifth bedroom, so I renamed the room in the file, took the closets out, and added some additional furniture (wardrobe, crafting table, bookcase, and a second filing cabinet). In so doing, I realized that this room is HUGE, yet I was only leaving him with a TINY office; it made me feel claustrophobic it was so small, and I'm not usually prone to that. So, I moved the Half bath closer to the garage, cutting into the Sewing room instead of his Office which allowed room for a second bookcase. I was still unable to take a decent picture of the Half bath because of how small it still is, even though it is a little bit bigger than before.
Laundry room; no change except the lighting.
Garage; no change except the lighting and I darkened the paint on the vehicle.
The stairwell; no change except for the lighting. I don't know what to put here, if anything, seeing as it is rather bare and that there is quite a bit of room to put... something...
Roommates' youngest son's room; no change except for the lighting and customizing of the furniture.
Roommates' oldest son's room. I did add the lights, and customized the furniture, but I also added a computer to the desk. In doing so, I couldn't keep the same desk with the hutch since there wasn't any room for the monitor.
Main Bathroom (see paragraph below for additional information).
Master Bedroom (see paragraph below for additional information).
Master Bathroom. The toilet is to the left, in front of the shower. See paragraph below for additional information.
Walk-In Closet. I flipped the corner closet unit so its long side is on the left instead of the right.
Family Room (see paragraph below for additional information).
My roommate also thought that both of the full bathrooms were too big, so with the Main bathroom I narrowed it, adding the space to the Family room. In so doing, I had room for extra some bookcases (the "Full bookcase" from the basic library), an armchair in the corner for reading with a floor lamp to read by, an extra window in that same corner, and adjusted the position of the foldaway stairs to the attic. As for the Master bathroom, I just kind of squished it, rearranged the furniture inside, and making the wall in the Master bedroom even (instead of as it was before) which helped moving the queen bed under the window.
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
I think that I have figured out why my aerial pictures were rendered so blurry; I had the lens set to "Depth of field". I don't know; I may be wrong.
Anyway, after a while a few things about my design was bothering me, so I saved it as a separate file in order to keep the original idea as well as these new changes.
I realized that since my bedroom is on the main floor, and the closest bathtub was on the first floor, I would have to travel up the stairs and down the hall to get clean. Nope, not going to happen; quite inconvenient and a bit embarrassing. And my roommate also mentioned that he thought that the second living room (ie. the Family room upstairs) was a bit much. So, I decided that I'd move my bedroom upstairs in place of the family room, leaving it in the same dimensions and furniture as it was downstairs. In so doing, I was able to widen the bathroom back up, put back the double vanity, and added a water closet. I was even able to add a linen closet at the end of the hallway.
Downstairs, to fill in the gap from the now upstairs bedroom, I moved one interior wall to the start of the stairs, moved the dining room floor to cover that space, expanded the living room as well as added a window, additional end tables and lamps, and created an attached shed/utility room with access only from the backyard.
I also went into my backyard and measured the North and South walls (the longer walls) in order to get their correct measurements; I then took this information and now have the fencing in the exact placing in relation to the house that I and my roommates want so that there's much more backyard space. Because of these changes, I ended up narrowing the chimney as the small wall would've ended up going through it.
I did not make any changes to the other rooms, so I didn't need to take any additional pictures of them.
See? Much more clear.
No, the walls are not white; they're actually in a color similar to the floor tiles (the lighter, larger ones). And the cabinetry is in the bleached wood. I also realize that I forgot to put tile in the shower area... I've fixed that as I write this, but I'm half asleep as I write this and would likely be unconscious waiting for a new picture. This picture will have to do for now.
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
I've done some work on the outside (of the newer version); basically added some roofing, painted the outside and made a few changes to the porch covers. I wanted to add some visible roof beams in the backyard roof overhang, but I couldn't find something that was basically half of what I'd used at the peak of the roof. All I can say is to just imagine something similar in that space.
I'd found a nice blue stucco texture online and used that on the exterior walls, but I'm not sure if I need to do anything more design-wise...
Should I add more outdoor lighting near the roof? I do know that I haven't done anything with furnishing the back porch, so I think that I will of course add lighting there when I get around to it, but is there anywhere else that I might have missed?
Since adding the roofing, I've taken new pictures of the upstairs hallway and my roommates' bedroom, since they're the most affected by it. In my roommates' bedroom, it's the amount of sunlight coming in through the window that has been affected.
I haven't added any lighting in the attic space yet (I'm sure that that's visible from that hallway picture), so I haven't taken a picture of that space yet.
And with having the roof the way that I do, the porch covers (pergolas, or whatever word works for those) were raised in the back so that they look like they support the one side of the roof. Since doing this, it's visible from both my roommates' youngest son's bedroom and the upstairs hallway.
I still haven't come up with an idea for what to put in the open space near the stairs...
Well, that's what I've got done so far.
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
After posting that, I added a light to the attic.
And I wanted to show what I meant about the visible roof beams that I wished to add to the backyard roof overhang. It was something that I did in the front entry, but wasn't very visible from the aerial view that I'd posted. So, I took a Virtual Visitor view from the street.
That picture also shows just how dark that front area under the roof is. Should I add a hanging light in that area?
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
Thank you, VeroniQ.
I'm sorry it's taken me a few days to reply, but I was working on another house. I was thinking what if the city doesn't give permission for a two-story house what would we build here instead? I couldn't think of anything but I did find something on a house plans website that was workable.
I rotated the house so that the original front of the house faces north instead of west. I could have kept it facing the way it was originally designed, but my roommate wanted all the uncovered ground in the backyard (they're very much into having a private food garden). In so doing, I had to actually change the shape of the garage (took 3 feet off the one side, moved the garage door to the west side, and lengthened the west wall so that it's even with middle section); instead of a 2-car garage, it's now a 1-car garage with extra space for our bicycles, laundry and storage.
Level 0 floor plan
Level 1 floor plan
Other changes I'd made were first to the Master Bathroom. I didn't like how much unused space there was in there, so I exchanged the double vanity for a single one and moved the toilet to the empty wall which gave me room to move the bath tub in. In so doing, I moved the Walk-In Closet and hallway over, which helped me add square footage to one bedroom (my bedroom), making it 121 square feet as opposed to 97 or so square feet. Now that bedroom is large enough that I think I can also fit in some of my sewing stuff in there. I also took some of space from the Master Bedroom so that I could add some square footage to the other two bedrooms. I moved the laundry out of that closet between those bedrooms and into the garage, putting the coat and linen closets into that space, which gave me a bedroom closet as big as the other ones. Also, I flipped the positioning of the sliding doors and double windows in the Living room so that we could still access the backyard.
I think those are the changes I'd made from the original.
Aerial front (west side of the house)
Virtual visitor from the street in front of the driveway.
Because of the different heights of each of the roof pieces the eaves are not even, but just imagine that they are. Also, I haven't yet downloaded the solar panel file from 3DWarehouse again, so you just need to imagine that the largest roof sections are covered in solar panels.
As I look at these pictures, I'm wondering if maybe I ought to remove the standing mailbox at the front of the driveway and replace it with a different mailbox on the wall near the garage door...
Aerial north side.
Aerial back (east side of the house).
Aerial south side.
Virtual visitor with the small brick wall behind and looking towards the backyard.
Bird's eye view (straight down).
The rest of the pictures are from inside the house.
Inside the front entrance.
Inside the sliding doors.
My bedroom.
My roommates' youngest son's bedroom.
My roommates' oldest son's bedroom.
Main bathroom.
Master Bedroom (my roommates' bedroom).
I did not take a picture of the Walk-In Closet).
Master Bathroom.
Garage, two different angles. I did have a car (Ford Edge, just like what my roommate drives) but for some reason it was rendering horribly, so I took it out for the pictures.
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Re: "What If" New Home, Old Lot
I think Mike53 is correct, that I'm likely to never actually be finished with any of my designs, and here's another example of that. I went back and made a few adjustments to both of these houses. And I've got a large number of pictures included.
*** For the one-story version, I made three basic changes. First, I took out the angled shelving in the hallway, added a couple of walls to cover that and then used that space for extra storage in my bedroom. Secondly, I moved the toilet in the Main Bathroom from the wall between the sink and bath to the opposite wall (also with swapping the towel rack), more like in the Master Bathroom. Finally, on the outside I took out the mailbox post and put it on the wall between the garage and porch area.
Level 0 floor plan
My Bedroom. Not only did I rearrange the furniture, I also added a sewing machine and the "rug" is actually the plastic cutting board that I use for my sewing.
Main Bathroom.
Outside front views. I also added some extra lighting on the porch.
*** Now for the two-story version (the second version of it), with more than just a few changes.
(1) I took out the back porch. Kind of silly, yes, but remember that one of the conditions was that we had more backyard space for gardening; in my opinion the porch was taking up garden-usable space, so out it went.
(2) I thought that the linen closet that I threw into the end of that hallway near my bedroom just seemed more like an afterthought instead of practical, so instead I took that out and expanded my bedroom; now my bedroom is almost as large as my roommates' room, and I gave myself a full size bed instead of the twin. I also added a window in my room where the linen closet had been.
(3) I took out the door between the Kitchen and the Laundry room, and put in a pantry there. (If you're wondering what those two black rectangles are next to the sink are, they're trash cans.)
(4) I removed one of the storage cabinets in the Laundry room and added a laundry sink as well as a floor drain.
(5) I removed one of the storage shelves in the garage and added a door to the remaining back porch area (the part that's under the roofing), which I'm using as an extra storage area (trash bin, recycling bins, green bin, and bicycles... and now that I think of it I could've put a grill on wheels there too).
(6) I've also made a few additional minor changes like: rearranged the living room furniture as well as moving the dining table closer to the living room area so that there's more room between the table and the storage, put a desk and bookshelf in the large stair area in the upstairs hallway, changed the storage in the main bathroom so that it has the glass doors instead of exposed shelving, changed the paint in my roommates' bedroom, mirrored the walk-in closet so that I could move that door, and switched out the round windows in the attic with triangular gable vents.
Level 0 (Main floor) floor plan
Level 1 (Top floor) floor plan
Level 2 (Attic) floor plan
Living Room/Dining Room
Kitchen
Laundry room
Garage
Upstairs hallway/stairwell
Roommates' youngest son's bedroom. I didn't make any changes in this room but the lack of the back porch cover was visible from this room so that's why I included it.
Main bathroom
My bedroom
Roommates' room
Attic
Front
Back, and now that I'm looking at this, I should've added some sort of lighting in the backyard...
But there you go.
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I went back and made a few adjustments to both of these houses. And I've got a large number of pictures included.
