Dream House Inspiration

So I promised you that in this edition of Remodelog we’d have a look at a few of the floor plans I’d come across that give me ideas about the layout that might suit our Remodelling project.

While I'll admit there's a little bit of self indulgence and desire to document the journey of our remodel, the main reason I'm writing it all down is so that you can get a sense of what goes on during the design stages of a remodelling project and I can tell you all the tips I picked up on the way so that it's relevant to your own remodelling or building project.

The main take-away points from this installment are:

Keep pictures of floor plans you come across that might be useful to your design process.
Actively go looking for floor plan inspiration, not just pretty pictures of interior decor. You can look on house plan sites or real estate listings or even measure your neighbor's house if they'll let you.

Childhood Home Inspiration

I grew up in a 1940s house in the UK. I don't have a floor plan of it. I have one in my head - maybe I'll find a minute to sketch it out. It's more about the feel than the floor plan. The rooms are about the same size and ceiling height and I was very happy in the home I grew up in and my husband considers it a home from home so I think happy memories of my childhood home have been a big inspiration for the house we ended up buying and the feel we'll try and create with the remodel.

You can read a little about how your memories of home can influence your design taste in the House Plans Designs Workshop, particularly the pages that deal with meaning in the home.

Art Deco Inspiration

Before we bought ‘the house’ we nearly bought another art deco / art modern house. Here’s the floor plan.

You can compare it with the floor plan of our house that you'll find in the first two installments of remodelog. Ground Floor First Floor

You can see some pictures of the inside on Remodelista.

The most striking similarity is the stairs winding around the edge of the hallway and the way the living room is in the west of the house (on the right of the hallway) with the dining room in the middle and the kitchen to the east. That room all the way over on the right in the west is a billiard room. We don't have one of those in our dream house and it's not on the wish list.

So I've kind of given it away that the back garden faces south. Read more about how a house sits on a lot. I really liked the portico which is a covered open space at the back of the house.

There's plenty of utility space and I also like the way the garage has a generous opening onto the back garden.

The rooms to the North at the front of the house are good for snugs or studies.

Just going back to the billiard room again one thing that I found interesting is that it was accessed via the living room or via the study. I like the idea of saving a bit of space by using a ‘room to room’ arrangement rather than having corridors which would work well if there isn’t too much foot traffic going through a room that’s meant to be quiet. But then again it’s possible more practical to design so that every room is accessed via a corridor. What’s your preference? ‘Room to room’ or corridors?

Venturing upstairs the bedrooms are all a lovely size. The family bathroom is on the small side and I like the fact that there's a separate toilet.

I find the layout of the master bathroom and dressing room a bit peculiar and I'd want to change this but the house is Grade II listed, largely because of the marble features in the master bathroom so not much chance of that!

Real Estate Listing Inspiration

Real estate listings are a great place to take a sneak peak at other floor plans to see if you can find anything that can inspire you with layout ideas.

This floor plan was inspiring for our project because it's long and thin. Notice again that on the ground floor the garden room and study are accessed via the living room rather than being off their own corridor.

The garden room and the study are in the same position in the floor plan as our garden room and garage so I can feel a conversion of the garage in to a study coming on!

I also like the fact that there are attic rooms. Our roof pitch is too shallow to make compliant rooms but we hope to finish it anyway. We'll use the space for something.

I don't have any pictures of the inside but it's a little bit irrelevant because it's the layout we're really concentrating on here.

So that's it for now. Until the next Remodelog when we'll be talking about our search for an architect.