From Graph Paper to SoftPlan

When we started thinking about the actual design of our future home, we had some specifics in mind. The home design will revolve around the function of having potentially four kids, and being able to host family and friends - we need some major open space - but we want to keep the home within 2800 square feet to try and stay in budget. Wish us luck!

Main Floor

We want the kitchen, living room, and dining area to all be connected in an open concept space. We cook a lot, and would love to entertain more (when we have the room). Currently, prepping dinner for the two of us is pretty tight, so lots of counter space and a large island is something we really look forward to. We want all of these areas to be connected for a few reasons:

• We want to host friends and family and have everyone be able to share the same space whether near the food or watching the game,

• We want whoever is preparing the food to be able to join in on the fun and conversation, and

• We need to be able to watch the kids when they're playing and we’re cooking or cleaning.

Above: inspiration for our open concept layout. Photo from Pinterest.

Kitchen

The kitchen is something I look forward to most in this home. We’re looking at having windows along the South facing wall, which would be the view of the back yard. We won’t be having any upper cabinets along that wall, so we want to create a large island with lower storage, as well as have a walk in pantry to make up for lost storage space. I love the idea of a large island not only to sit around, but to be able to put food on - whether it’s buffet style meals during holiday dinners, or treats for birthday parties.

Above: Inspiration for kitchen windows along the sink, no upper cabinets. Photo from HGTV's Fixer Upper.

Above: Inspiration for large island. Photo from @house_sprucing on Instagram.

Living Room

The living room is another room that I am really looking forward to seeing come together. We decided we would like to vault the ceiling if the plans will allow us to do so, and as of now they do! It will help create the illusion of more space, and give it the feel of a ‘great room’ without the extra square footage.

Above: vaulted ceiling example. Photo from @house_sprucing on Instagram.

Between the living and dining area is where we’d like our patio doors to be. The view out the back is amazing, and we’d like to capture as much natural light as possible. We are going to do 12 foot sliding glass doors that walk out onto a covered porch. We are going to have either couches or a patio set out there, along with our barbecue of course! Nobody wants to be cooking or eating out in the rain.

Kids Room

We have a kids room located off of the living room, which will mostly house a mess of toys and chaos. But at least it can be hidden behind closed doors! In our current space, were living a life full of neon clutter, and gradually less and less adult looking things in our home, so it will be nice to have a designated kids space. Obviously this doesn’t mean we will never have toys out of their room, but at least we will be able to contain the mess and put things away when we want to do adult things, as well as grab a midnight snack without stepping on a mega block.

Above: our first draft by Your Own Design.

Garage

The double bay garage will be for my car on rainy/snowy days when I have the kids or have to bring in loads of food for the family, but mostly it will be Mitch’s much anticipated workshop! He can’t wait to have a space to make noise, a mess, and cool projects! He’s going to make sure it’s heated so we can work, paint, and stain things out there properly and comfortably. We’ve got two doors on the front, and one door that goes through to the back yard. The back door will be used for ventilation and getting some more natural light in there on the nice summer days. We wanted to make sure we had a rear facing door so that we could work in the garage with a door open but still have privacy from the road and any neighbours.

Mudroom

From the garage, you can enter the mudroom, which is essential in a ‘farmhouse’. There is also an entrance to the mudroom from the covered porch out front. As you walk in, you’ll be able to access a three piece washroom. This washroom has a toilet, a sink, and a shower. We were really back and forth on whether or not a shower was something we wanted on the main floor, but the more we thought about it the more it seemed like a necessary thing. When you live in the country - and even in the city - kids are BOUND to be muddy, dirty messes when they play outside. Not only the kids, but the dog as well. Burke loves a good mud puddle. We figured instead of having to haul any dirty kids or dogs upstairs or spray them down with a cold garden hose, they can just jump in the shower off of the mudroom to rid themselves of the mess they made. We also have a walk in closet off of the mudroom to house all of the jackets, shoes, and work gear we’ve got.

That pretty much sums up the downstairs - and as of now we think it’s pretty darn functional for our needs.

Bedrooms

For our hopefully growing family, four or five bedrooms upstairs is where we want to be at. We’re thinking due to space, three bedrooms and a master is what we will end up with. We want to have a spare room for guests closest to the washroom, as well as two fair sized rooms for kids. We would likely make one of the three rooms larger than the others so it could eventually have two beds in it if we need that to happen.

Laundry

We want to have the laundry on the second floor for easy access to bedrooms, especially with so many people potentially needing laundry done. It would be more than enough of a workout to have to haul a few laundry bins up and down stairs each day - as if chasing after a baby and a dog isn’t exhausting enough! The laundry room is currently a laundry / craft room. It's going to shrink in size to save some square footage. We've got a basement that we're leaving unfinished that can be home to arts and crafts for now.

Master Suite

Our master suite needs to be a good size, but the bedroom itself can be a fair space. We have a king bed, two nightstands, a TV unit, and a blanket box we need to fit in there, so not a ton of furniture.

We’re looking to have a large enough washroom that we can both be frantically getting ready and not be bumping in to each other. The washroom is also going to have a separate little toilet nook for privacy. It never fails when we’re getting ready for bed, washing faces and brushing teeth, and someone needs to use the washroom. It just adds some privacy in those not -so-flattering moments of being seated on a toilet.

Our closet will be a walk-in. We both work early hours, so the walk-in will give us a space to get ready without having to wake each other up by turning on lights and opening drawers. We will both have dressers or built ins in the closet so we won’t have any clothing in the bedroom.

Exterior

We’re really torn about the colour to do on the exterior, but we really do want to use HardieBoard lap siding. The more we look into homes with white siding, the more we notice how dirty they can look. We don’t have any Arctic White lap siding in our area, so the white homes we’ve been looking at are vinyl siding. We’re not sure if the Hardie product will hold up better than the vinyl over time, so if anyone has any insight on this that would be amazing! The other options for colour are a light grey, and we’ve been digging the deep not-quite-navy blue as well. We just find it hard to see another colour that would bring out the characteristics of our lot like the classic white look would.

Above: example of white siding, black windows, + steel roof. Photo from Pinterest.

Windows

The windows are all going to depend on the colour scheme we choose for the siding. Right now we’re really leaning toward the black windows - however if we do a darker siding it may look too much like a dungeon.

Roof

When we got the first draft of the house, the roof was designed as a hip roof. We changed the roof line to be a gable roof instead. We thought it looked better as a farmhouse style, and we’re really happy with how it works for the vaulted ceiling in the living room, and how it compliments the symmetry of the windows where they’re currently located on the draft. We’re still unsure about the gable over the garage, it may turn to a shed roof dormer - but I really do like the look of the gables. We're going to do a steel roof - colour to be determined by the siding choice!

Above: our first draft by Your Own Design.

Above: Our changes to the main floor.

Above: Our changes to the second floor.

We're really looking forward to getting our changes back and seeing how we made out with saving some square footage, and what it does to the exterior look!

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