Floorplan Changes

Remember my previous post? The one about redoing our floor plan? Well, I've changed the files to jpegs so that I could post them all here (I do not have a pdf writer for some reason).

If you need to see it a bit better, click the image to get a larger one.

First of all, our current floor plan on our main floor (I am not including the upstairs... that is already finished).

Looks nice and big, right? Well, the spare room is not used at all right now. It's practically empty. The doors all in one space by the entrance does not make for a useful entryway. And the living room has no windows. The patio door in there leads into the workshop. There was a patio there at one point, but previous owners turned that into a hot tub room, so no outside light comes in from there anymore. It's the darkest room in the house. Serious. The stairs you see have basement stairs directly underneath them, and there is a door to the basement in the entrance area as well. You get the idea. Therefore, 6 doors in that little area alone... to the office, the spare room, the outside, the basement, the closet, and the bathroom. There is a step down into the spare room and living room. These rooms do not have basement under them, or a floor above them, so they are 'taller' rooms than any in the rest of the house.

On to the 'plan'.

The closets in between the living room and new bedroom will have to be changed a bit if I want to keep a utility closet of sorts. The tiny one would be for that. If we decided to turn the bedroom into a Master, the closets would all be 'turned' towards the bedroom instead of having a living room closet (because there are enough living room storage options available anyway). There would be only 4 doors in the entrance area... the bathroom, outside, closet, and basement... which makes WAY more sense. The living room area would make sense as a living room since it is the brightest in the house and has the deck off of it. The office door would be in the kitchen/dining room area, which is the busiest area of the house, and it wouldn't feel so separated (like it does right now). This room could also be turned into a bedroom if absolutely necessary, and the office space could be moved into the 'closet' in the living room, or into the basement even if we wished. But... I like it as an office. I also did a little rearranging in the kitchen, basically just changing the island we currently have (or... I guess it's more of a peninsula) so that it contains storage (right now it is sort of like a table) and the cabinets it is attached to into a set of deep drawers that roll out for pots and pans (like at Ikea... sigh).

Another thing I was thinking we could do is change the current wall unit... which is the oldest most annoying thing ever (you can only have paperback books on that thing... DVDs stick out 1.5 inches, as do larger books, and even videocassettes that have the 'larger' cover... our TV is on the floor, and there is a portion where you can see through to the dining room, which I don't mind, but it is so dated). I would just turn it into a half wall, or maybe a 'bar' table of sorts (so that the hallway below isn't so exposed). I would hang candles from the ceiling... sigh. I would also make it thicker and turn it into storage of sorts. Perhaps a low bookshelf, or something with sliding doors that would allow access to coloring books, games, puzzles and the like. I only show it at 6" thick right now, but I may change that eventually.

Next up is the basement. This basement is NOT the same size as the rest of the house because it is much older. The house was built in the 70s or 80s. The basement I believe was built in the 40s. I'm not completely sure (nobody really is), but it was already here when they put the house on. The stairs in the top left corner line up with the steps on the main floor... only where the top was the north end of the main floor, the top here is actually the south end of the basement. Turned you around enough yet?

Currently, the only 'finished' space is... well... none of it. The bedroom that is there is not to code as there are NO windows in it. The closet holds the electrical panel. I love my huge pantry, but that is where the love ends. The rest of the basement... over half... is a utility room. Seriously. Complete. waste. of. space.

My first idea utilizes the floor the way it is. There is a sump hole in the top right corner that is a bit annoying. My way to cover that up would be to have a rollover closet item that could pop out of the closet if we needed to access it at all (which is close to never at this point). This new bedroom would have a nice sized closet and a window. It's not the biggest room, 9feet by 10, but it isn't tiny either... especially considering the rest of the basement is basically this person's 'zone'. A closet would be located at the base of the stairs, and the utilities would all be moved from 'spread across the one wall' to the small area at the end of the room (found out that this is totally doable... just take the pipes and reroute them north instead of south... even the way they are right now makes no sense since they start in the middle of the basement). The thin wall you see would be movable... because I'd like to have a finished looking laundry, and a movable wall would allow that look to be achieved while still giving access to the utilities. The big space you see to the bottom left would be a den of sorts... bookshelves, TV, couches, etc. I would shrink the pantry a bit as well, since the back wall is all that has shelves on it anyway. I was thinking I could rearrange the walls to come right up to that post and make the door to the bedroom on a 'corner', but it was difficult to show in excel, so I figured this did a good enough job of showing what I want anyway. Oh... and I didn't add the deep freeze. I think that would just go by the staircase, or perhaps we'd adjust the pantry a bit and have it in there.

The second idea is much the same.

The only difference here is that IF we could re-pour the concrete and IF money allows, I would like to move the sump hole to be next to the pump (why is it on the opposite side of the house anyway?). I also changed the washer and dryer over to the one wall instead, to get a different look at that room. I like it better. I can put a countertop all along that wall (since my washer and dryer are front load) and cabinets up on top too! Ooh... so excited! I wanna do this right away!

There you have it... a not so short description of the changes I wish to make on the house. Of course, if they never happen, that is fine too. We'll make do. But I think it would make things so much nicer if they could! Especially that basement! Having a usable basement would make me so happy! Now to find the money...