Rob and I have been looking at houses for fun, for years. We like to visit the Parade of Homes, as they are known in Utah, or the Cavalcade of Homes, as they are known in Illinois. We've been talking about what we like, what we want, and what we need. I will be honest. This house goes way beyond what we need, but meets most (if not all) of our wants. Every other day I feel greedy and wonder if we shouldn't have settled for a smaller house that would have met our needs, but then we get up to the lot and start walking around and planning things and I get excited for the possibilities.
We had such a lovely home in Aurora and when we first started planning and designing this house we didn't want to lose any of the facets of our previous house that we really loved.
I enjoyed collaborating with Curtis, the draftsman at Visionary. He listened to my suggestions and ideas and found ways to make them work. We had several good meetings as we worked to customize one of their basic floorplans and tweak it to fit our wants.
Every other day I get a little freaked out about the size of the great room. It seems REALLY BIG to me. But, as Rob reminds me, when it is time to host the entire family for holidays and celebrations, we will all fit. And that was one of our wants. Room for dinner for two (most of the time), dinner for five to ten (a couple of times a month), dinner for up to twenty (once every other month, or even a little more often), dinner for forty plus (once or twice a year, or more).
I am excited to see how the piano is going to fit in the niche we created for it. The fun thing about the niche is that it also created a nice little sitting area in our bedroom. Once upon a time we were going to extend the deck all the way across the back of the house and have a sliding door from our bedroom out to the deck, but common sense prevailed and we decided that was a very good place to save some money and simplify.
The laundry room is really my project room, my work room, my "do" room. I'm still looking for the right name. I'll craft, sew and scrapbook in there, work on my computer, do laundry and iron. By the way - we'd love some suggestions on a good name for that room so please leave a comment with your name ideas. (of course, you can leave a comment any time you'd like - it lets me know people are actually reading this)
Downstairs is Rob's office. He is excited to have such a nice place to work in and nice views out back. I'm a little worried that he is going to get lonely being downstairs all by himself. He's so used to being able to pop in and out of his little room here in the duplex. Or maybe I should be worried that he'll enjoy having that room (and the rest of the basement) to himself and I'll never see him again. We may have to get an intercom system. Oh that's right - we text now.
What I like about the way the family room design worked out is the tv viewing area will be in the dark corner. Rob asked me to hang dark wooden blinds in our last family room so he could get the best picture on the tv. He was right, but it was a hassle to open and close the blinds. Since there are no windows in this corner of the room that will no longer be an issue.
Our thinking with the two bedrooms is that one will be a dedicated guest room and one will be more of a bunk room & play room for the grandkids. Over the last few days I've been wishing we added one more small room that we could use for our exercise equipment. Rob thinks there will be plenty of room for it in the family room. He's right, the room is big enough, but I'm not so sure I want that equipment out there. I don't want to worry about little children playing on it and getting hurt. I don't want the lingering ODOR haunting the family room (although I don't know why I am worrying about that - the odor won't bother me, but I do worry that it will bother our guests and I'll be clueless). ... ... ... Maybe I'll have done such a good job purging and downsizing that we can turn the storage room into our exercise room. (HAHAHAHAH - I really shouldn't blog when I'm tired - I get SILLY)
I got the idea for a second laundry room from Brian and the bathroom layout is very similar to the bathroom the kids shared in our home in Naperville. With the two separate rooms someone could easily be taking care of business, and leave the sink open for washing hands or brushing teeth.
I've never had a cold storage before. I'm intrigued to see how we end up using it. Maybe I'll start canning. It would be a great tornado shelter, IF we still lived in Illinois! Rob says it would be a great safe room! (yeah, IF we lived in a movie)
:) Great post! You make me laugh!
ReplyDeleteJames said that your laundry room should be called the "Situation Room".