My Dream House - First Floor

Last time in Remodelog, I introduced you to my dream house. Today it’s all about the first floor. Or is it the second floor? Up one flight of stairs. That’s what I mean.

We'll take a look at the first floor plan with furniture on it. I really find that having furniture on floor plans is a must for figuring out how well the space will work.

Then we'll move on to talk about the potential of the space. I've included photos of the interior. Please ignore the decor!

The take-aways from this installment are the same as the last one:

Get an architect to have a look at the home before you buy if you're planning to remodel.

You'll get to know the initial layout of the ground floor of the home, which you'll need to know to make the later articles on the design progression meaningful.

So here's that floor plan...

Master Bedroom

At the moment we are using the bedroom over to the west as the master because it has the most built in a wardrobes and a more or less ensuite bathroom.

Here's pictures from 3 of the corners to give you more of an idea of the layout of the room.

I like the little window above which means there's light coming into the room from two sides.

The door swing is all wrong (it swings out into the room), but it's nice how the door comes in at the foot of the bed. It makes the room feel cozy somehow.

The plan for the master suite in our future is to have a sequence of three spaces:

Master bedroom
Dressing Room
Master bathroom

The main reason for wanting 3 separate areas is that we tend to get up and go to bed at different times. I want to be able to tip-toe out of the bedroom (yes I've just given away that it's me who's the early riser), use the bathroom and get dressed without having to go back through the bedroom. I want to be able to come in at night (yes - burning the candle at both ends) and use the bathroom and get undressed without disturbing the other half more than necessary. This boils down to wanting a sequence of spaces where you don't have to go through the bedroom to get to the dressing room or the master bathroom.

Master Bathroom

So let's look at the current master bathroom. From the floor plan You can see that the built in wardrobes in the bedroom take a chunk out of the bathroom. Maybe they were an addition at some stage which would go some way towards explaining the bizarre shape.

Maybe the idea behind the toilet being out there on a limb was to make it more private. I don’t know. As is it's a horrible layout - twists and turns all over the place.

Other Bedrooms

The bedrooms are all really nice proportions and the ‘ins and outs’ around the chimneys provide a bit of charm, or a place to slot in a built in wardrobe. The two bedrooms on either side have light coming in from two sides which makes them really light and bright. One of my boys who spends hours drawing has a desk in the bay window of the middle bedroom.

Central bedroom

East bedroom

Family Bathroom

If we take a look at the eastern bathroom it’s a bit the same story as the western one. Was it ever a standard shape? Perhaps the heater was added after the fact and what’s with the weird lobby space at the entrance?

Attic

I grew up with a bedroom in the attic so I have a real soft spot for attic spaces. Whenever I've rented I've often gone for apartments in attics so that every room was in the attic. The attic at the moment is unfinished but if budget will allow we'll be refinishing it.

The only shame is that the pitch on the roof is quite shallow so there isn't enough height in the attic for the converted space to be 'compliant', which is to say that a certain percentage of the floor area of the room has to have a ceiling height of at least 2.4m. We could never call a room up there an 'office' or a 'bedroom' when we come to sell it. It would have to be labelled a 'store'. So we'll be building our extra bedrooms on the first floor level. Anything in the attic will be a bonus.

It was the architect that we brought along to have a look at the house before we bought it who noticed that the attic wasn't quite tall enough. It was really good to know about this before we bought the house.

Until the next time on Remodelog where I'll be talking about my sources of inspiration for thinking about what to do for our remodel.