Mike incorporated mostly all of the edits that we had given him and the house is really taking shape. The mudroom reduced significantly in size, although still feels too large and open. However, he was able to add in a door from the front of the house, something I love and think will get a lot of use. The laundry room was expanded by reducing the size of the pantry. The pantry size is now much smaller. Our thoughts were that we really have a lot of cabinetry in the kitchen, so we really will only store food items in the pantry. This is more than enough space to do that. I’m not sure if you noticed, but the previous pantry design had a fridge in there. I love that idea, and it would be so handy, but realistically, I’d rather use the space for a laundry room and put an extra fridge in the garage. The garage is so close to the kitchen anyhow that I doubt it will be a huge issue for us.

The informal dining area in the kitchen was only bumped in a foot on each side. At originally 19 feet wide, this space was too large for our main family eating area. I wanted the room to be bumped in 2 feet on each side which would reduce the width to 15 feet. However, if we did bump it on by 2 feet there wouldn’t be enough room downstairs in the guest room to move around the bed. So, we were only able to bump it in one foot, bummer!

Preliminary Design V4 – Main Level

The downstairs didn’t change too much, besides getting resized due to the rooms on the main floor changing in size. The great room still feels too big and we’re not really sure what to do about that. Mike felt the boys bathroom was large enough for the boys. I’m still disagreeing abut that and want to see it expand in size. The downstairs feels so large and to have such a small bathroom feels like a mistake. I’m betting that both boys are going to be over 6 feet tall in high school and since we don’t plan on moving I definitely don’t want it to be cramped in there. We’ll need to see some other ideas that he has to increase that space.

Preliminary Design V4 – Lower Level

Today I spent most of the day at my parents’ house where my mom and I spent a long time checking out the plans and making some changes.  They still live in the house I grew up in which is 3,200+ square feet.  Since it’s difficult to imagine the sizes of the rooms in our plans, we took the dimensions of our house plan and measured them against my parents’ home.  This really gave me a great feeling if each of the rooms were big enough or too small.

As we’d measure out each room we’d also make changes in CAD to the size/shape as well. This really didn’t affect too many of the rooms, but we did cut a foot out of the dining room.  I’m still not sure if this is the right thing, but I’m pretty sure that an 11’ wide dining room will be enough space.  I’ll measure a few other people’s dining rooms before settling on that I’m sure.  What I like about taking out a foot from the dining room is that it also takes a foot out of the great room and in return a foot out of the downstairs.  That really does save some space in two areas that are likely larger than need be.  We also took a foot out of the entryway – but that might end up being too tight…we’ll see what Mike says.

We also rearranged the laundry and mudroom area.  The mudroom seemed too big, so we’ve made it more of a hallway and added a door to the front.  That’ll be nice for friends & family to use when they come in.  Plus, as the boys get home from school it will be nice for them to get into the house using that door instead of either opening up the garage door or going through the front.  I really like that change!  The pantry shrunk quite a bit in size since the last version.  Although I would LOVE to have a huge pantry with an extra fridge as Mike had shown, I’d rather have that space in the laundry room.  I figure that we can put an extra fridge in the garage, which really isn’t too far away from the kitchen anyhow.  And for an infrequent as we’ll use it, I’m sure that will be just fine.

One of the other things we did is bump in the informal dining area in the kitchen by 2’ on each side.  This is something that Mike had suggested, so I definitely can’t take that credit.  I had mentioned how I thought it was pretty big and he said that if we bumped the walls in to the width of the counter on each side your eye won’t even know that you did it.  And actually, my parent’s kitchen/eating area is the exact same way.  And he’s right…neither my mom nor I had ever noticed that!

We shrunk down the space outdoors for the covered BBQ area.  Mike feels strongly that we need a great outdoor entertaining space, especially covered given the weather in the Pacific Northwest.  The feeling of, “if you build it, they will come” for the outdoors.  And I do agree with him; however, I still made the space smaller – and just for the bbq area.  I figure that the deck off of the main level will create a great covered area downstairs.  We still haven’t settled on anything so I’m sure that will be a discussion we’ll get more into later.

Preliminary Design V3 Markup – Main Floor

For the downstairs, I felt that the boys’ bathroom was sort of tight and with Joel being 6’2” and both of the boys in the 90% percentile for height, I thought they may need more room.  In doing so, the toy storage closet downstairs was moved and I’m not sure how I feel about that.  We’ll need to see the cost implications of what we’re proposing.  Definitely need to talk with a builder about that one.

I didn’t make any edits to the downstairs great room – it’s really big, and maybe too spacious.  Do you know how when you’re in too big of a room that it doesn’t feel comfortable?  We really want the downstairs great room to feel casual and comfortable.  We’re really not sure what to do about that though.  It’s difficult because the shape of the downstairs is really dependent on the shape/space of the upstairs.  And we really are really loving the upstairs!

Preliminary Design V3 Markup – Lower Level

Mike was able to quickly turn around our comments on version 2 in just 2 days!  Although we’re in no hurry to get the design done, I always love seeing the changes from Mike in an updated design.

Mike was able to remove the hallway near the kitchen which cuts down on square footage.  That made us gain a butler’s pantry so access to the dining room from the kitchen is easy and convenient.  It also pushed the pantry closer to the kitchen which is perfect.  Working with Mike is great because he’s able to take my ideas and improve them.  For example, I originally had drawn the pantry to be accessed from the butler’s pantry.  But it definitely makes more sense how Mike drew it.  The door to the pantry is closer to the garage so we’re able to take groceries straight from our car and into the pantry if needed.

He also moved the powder room over by the office and rearranged the office shape to create less wasted space in there.  When I first saw the placement of the powder room I wasn’t sure if I liked the door to be “around the corner” in the little alcove to the office instead of off of the main hallway.  But the more I look at it, the more I love it.  The door is hidden and as people walk up the stairs from the lower level they’re not staring into the bathroom.  I’m able to hang some art or family pictures on the wall instead.  Definitely a huge improvement!  Mike has such great ideas.  It’s surprising how little changes like the orientation of a door can really make a home feel either perfect or awkward.  Take a look at the changes below.

Preliminary Design – V3 Main Floor

The basement has a lot more detail than it did last time too.  The boys’ recreation area was added near their bedrooms along with a closet for toy storage – we can always use that!  And the guest room was reoriented so that the bathroom was outside of it.  Perfect!  Mike also added an unheated space for beer & wine.  Joel is really getting into different types of microbrews, so having a space to store them in a cool temperature is definitely someting that he wanted downstairs.  This also should be pretty inexpensive since the only real cost to us will be the addition of a door and maybe some electrical for lighting and/or an outlet or two in there.  Nothing fancy for sure.

Preliminary Design – V3 Lower Level

Based on all of the edits, I discussed in my previous post, I sketched up the main and lower floor plans to send to Mike.  I’m really not sure how most people send edits back to Mike, but I thought this was the best way since I wanted to shift rooms around.

I removed the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room and created a butler’s pantry, which also moved the kitchen pantry closer to the kitchen which I like.  The mudroom and laundry room still need some work – the mudroom seems big, but that’s for Mike to figure out.  We thought that by removing the hallway that the old location of the powder room was too close to the kitchen (nothing worse than that), so I moved it over by the office.  This change affected the master closet so that will have to be finessed into the best space.

V2 Sketch- Main Floor

Downstairs I shrunk down the size of the boys’ bedrooms to create a little play area outside of their rooms.  That way their toys are spilling all over the downstairs.  I really wanted our guests to be able to use the bathroom that the guest room uses, so pulled the bathroom out of the guest room and created a little hallway.  That way, when guests are there, they feel that the bathroom is theirs, but ultimately it’s accessible for everyone.  Finally, I changed some of the downstairs into unfinished storage area to use up some of the space down there.

V2 Sketch- Lower Level

Today we received the latest design from Mike Blondino, and the house is really starting to take shape.  We wanted to focus on the floorplan before we start editing the exterior since the outside is really built upon what the floorplan is shaped like.  In addition, the main floor really drives what the downstairs is like.  So you’ll see that there is a lot more detail and thought put into the upstairs and a lot less in the downstairs.

He took into consideration all of the edits that we had and this is what he came up with.

Preliminary Design V2 – Main Floor

We absolutely love the kitchen!  It’s really starting to become the space that we want.  Extra large for cooking and family gatherings since everyone always seems to end up in the kitchen, a prep island and an island for serving and barstools.  The informal dining room seems pretty large to me.  Right now it’s bigger than the dining room.  We also think that the pantry is too far from the kitchen.  We use our pantry a lot to store all of our food, so to have it separated by a hallway seems too far away.

The dining room placement is perfect though.  Near the kitchen and the table is able to extend into the great room when needed.  The bump out is nice for a vintage buffet or built-in too.

Mike gave us an outdoor kitchen area which is something that we hadn’t thought about, but absolutely love.  And the backdoor from the mud room is perfect for the dogs accessing the dog run area during the day.  I’m not sure if I mentioned before, but the mud room will serve double duty – a place to drop shoes and backpacks and also a place for the dogs to stay inside during the day with access to the outside for them to do their business during the day.

Preliminary Design V2 – Lower Level

The downstairs seems pretty big and open – the lighter gray area is what’s included in the square footage calc.  Oh yes – the square footage…much too big right now.  We’ll have to keep working on trimming that down for sure.  Back to the basement though.  The main thing I don’t like is that visitors downstairs would need to use the boys’ bathroom or cut through the guest room to get to that one.  I would rather have people use the guest room bathroom since it won’t be in use very often.  And I’d like to have the same doors to the backyard downstairs that we’re having upstairs for consistency.  This is definitely a space that will need more thought as we’re getting pretty close to figuring out the upstairs.

Last night, Joel and I attended a two hour class presented by the AIA Seattle Custom Residential Architects Network entitled “Home Design 101” and the course description was as follows:

“Dreaming about a project and not sure where to start? Trying to figure out how to make the most of your budget? Curious about green design or how to plan for your family’s changing needs?

Whether your project is a small remodel or new construction — or if you are just curious about the design process — AIA architects can help. Join us for an information-packed seminar on an overview of the design and construction process including budget advice, tips for hiring the right contractor, what to expect, and how you and your designer can work together to make the most of any project. This will be an   interactive workshop so be sure to bring your “napkin sketch!”

It sounds great, right?  I thought so too.  I signed up for the class immediately when I saw the email.  Boy was I wrong!  This class was the BIGGEST waste of time!  It felt like we were sitting there for two hours while two architects gabbed about how great they were at everything and why you should hire them to be your Architect.  I of course love home design so I sat through the entire presentation with ease, Joel on the other hand wanted to get out of there as soon as it began.  He said that it reminded him of what he thought a timeshare presentation must feel like.

The gist of the presentation went through the design process which includes the following steps:

1. Pre Design/Programming

2. Schematic Design

3. Design Development

4. Construction Documents

5. Bidding & Negotiations

6. Construction Administration

Granted, it’s good to learn about those steps, but when each step is basically the two presenting architects discussing why they are so great at each step and how they’re fabulous at everything it really doesn’t give you much detail about the design process.  Even worse, when I asked a couple of questions they completely skirted around the answer.

Needless to say that is the last time we’ll be attending a presentation put on by AIA Seattle!

The only good thing that we got out of the presentation is realizing that we’re so extremely lucky to have found Mike Blondino and to be working with him.  I can’t imagine working with an arrogant, conceited architect like the two that we spoke to last night.  It’s amazing to me that people hire them to design their homes.  I’m sure glad that we didn’t!

If you are interested in learning more about the design process, there are fantastic books and websites available.  One of my favorite books is “Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect” by William J. Hirsch Jr AIA.  It covers the entire design process and gives great tips and ideas for designing a home.  I would highly recommend reading that book instead of attending a seminar like we did.

Mike really gave us a great start for the first draft of our house.  The basic idea and room placement I think will be pretty close to what we eventually end up with.

As you can see in the marked-up version below, we do have a few changes that we want to make though.  For starters, we want the entire house to be reversed and for the garage to be at a 45 degree angle.  The angle of the house will follow the contours of the property on the south side which will require less cut/fill and ultimately save on construction costs.  We also aren’t loving how the kitchen is currently laid out (this was my original concept for the kitchen).  The island with the barstools feels like it’s in “no man’s land” and not truly a part of the kitchen.  We talked about making the two islands parallel with each other and changing the shape of the kitchen.  The nook area is something that I love, so we’ll have to see how that plays out in the next round of revisions as well.  With the angling of the garage, the laundry & mudroom will need to change in shape and will reconfigure the layout a touch.  I absolutely love the laundry room as is, but the mudroom needs to be changed a bit.  It currently doesn’t have a great space for a dog bed and the coat closet is much too small for us.  We have a ridiculous amount of coats, and I also want the closet to hold the vacuum and other cleaning supplies.

Mike already added in a bump out in the dining room for us, but that meant that the guest room shrunk in size, so that’ll need to get fixed with the new layout as well.  I’m actually not even 100% on having the guest room on the main level.  It will be the least used room of the entire house so I’m thinking that it would be just fine to have it in the lower level.  We might end up with a few iterations of exactly where that suite will be placed.  If we do keep it on the main level, we’ll likely end up combining the guest bath with the powder bath.

Our markups/comments for the main floor.

For the lower level, I didn’t really do any markups, we’ll focus more on that in the next round.  My major concern is that the boys’ rooms are under the deck, which I dislike.  They need to have great windows, which may mean putting them underneath our bedroom.  I’m still not sure how I feel about that though.  To be honest, the boys’ rooms have really stumped me.  Although there’s ample room for them on the lower level, I definitely don’t want them under the deck and I’m not sure that I want them under our bedroom as well.  I’m going to wait to see how it all shapes out after this next round of revisions, but we may end up building a ½ story above the kitchen/garage to put the boys.  That of course adds quite a bit of expense, so hopefully we’ll be able to keep them downstairs.

The markups on the lower level are pretty general.

The front exterior elevation is beginning to take shape.  My main comment is that it’s SO MUCH ROOF!  This is especially true for the roof above the guest room/dining room.  I realize that most single level homes have a lot of roof, so I’m not sure how to fix that.  My other comment is that the look I want to go for is really a Nantucket beachy cottage type and right not it’s feeling a little too French country.  That might have something to do with all of the hipped roofs, where the Nantucket style is based more on shingle-style homes which typically have gable style roofs.  I think Mike will really need to innovate on the exterior for version 2!

Below I doodled around and made changes to the exterior of the house, but I really have no business whatsoever in changing roof lines, etc.  I honestly have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to the exterior of the house, so really they’re just more ideas than anything.  But hopefully it conveys what I’d like to have the house end up looking like.

I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to roof lines, but I made changes anyhow!

Speaking of version 2, we waited on providing all of our feedback to Mike so that we could really mull over the plans before Mike gets started on the revisions.  Mike had a couple of other projects that are in the works as well, so we’ve asked to wait two weeks before he gets going again.  This not only worked out well for his workload, but gave us time to really digest the design and for us to think more about the direction that we want him to head in.  In addition, that gave us time to get friends and families opinions about the design as well!

This weekend Mike Blondino emailed us the first version of our preliminary plans.  When we had visited him last month I had showed him an idea of a house floorplan that I came up with – which definitely needed a lot of work.  So he used the design I came up with as a basis to begin his work.

As you can see in the attached plan, it’s really a great start!  It has a large great room open to the kitchen.  The kitchen has two islands (our dream), and the dining room seats 10 to 12 with the option to extend the table into the great room when we have large family gatherings.  Holidays for our family typically have 30 people all at one long table.  Which is fun, but definitely requires a large space.  The office is near the entry so that when we work from home we can see who’s arriving and keep an eye on the house, and the master has a large walk-in closet.  We requested a mudroom that attached to the garage but also opens to the backyard.  The mudroom will be where we keep the dogs during the day, so having access to the backyard is key for their daytime play and pottying.  The mudroom also needs to be able to hold all of our coats and have a space for the boys to drop their school bags.  With the slope of the lot, our house will need a downstairs with a walkout to the backyard.  We want the space to be inviting and absolutely not feel like a typical “basement”…so tall ceilings and ample light are a must.  Right now, we’re trying to design the house with the boys’ rooms in the lower level of the house, as well as family room.  Mike spent his time focused on the upstairs, because that’s truly what’s going to shape the lower level.   There’s plenty of room down there to have a family room and the boys’ rooms and that layout comes secondary to the upstairs.

Preliminary Design Version 1 – Main Floor

Preliminary Design Version 1 – Lower Level

The exterior front elevation is really starting to take shape as well, check it out below.  There’s no detail yet for different material types or colors, but it does give us a good idea of what it’s starting to look like!

Preliminary Design Version 1 – Exterior Front Elevation

I already know of a few edits that we have for version 1, but we’ll need to spend a few days to really get those nailed down!