Just like our first house floor plan and our current house floor plan from years ago, a lot of readers asked for a new floor plan of the house — so here it is. Floor plans are helpful for visual people who want to see which walls are where and how rooms flow into one another. We created this layout using Floorplanner, a free online tool. One big difference from the earlier floor plan posts is that this house has a second level. Who’s thrilled about stairs? This girl.
When we shared a video tour of the new house, reactions were split: some people thought it looked much bigger, while others said it seemed smaller. That’s understandable because room size is hard to judge without furniture. The house is empty right now and still has blue trim and wallpaper, which can be misleading. In reality, the new house and our current house are almost identical in square footage — there’s literally only a 20-square-foot difference. The new house appears larger from the street because you can see a second story, whereas the other place has a hidden 1,000-square-foot addition off the back that’s not visible from the curb.
Here are a few initial ideas for changing the layout and improving the footprint:
- Convert the large triple window in the eat-in area of the kitchen into a set of French doors that open onto the deck, creating a better indoor-outdoor connection.
- Remove several doors on the first floor that currently interrupt flow between rooms (for example, between the dining room and kitchen and between the kitchen and foyer) to open things up.
- Tear down the wall between the living room and kitchen, and add built-in bookcases on each side with a large central opening — similar to the built-ins in our current dining room, but possibly with glass doors and lighting.
- Renovate the broken-up bathroom and adjacent sink nook to create one cohesive space with a double sink and a soaker tub.
- Eventually finish the unfinished storage area at the end of the hallway. Right now it’s raw, with exposed beams and ducts, but we could add flooring and drywall later to create a movie room or bunk room for Clara, a potential future child, and their friends. Update: to clarify — the stairs shown in the unfinished storage area lead to the attic, but the unfinished storage itself is on the same level as the bedrooms (no extra up or down to reach it).
The video tour of the new house helps illustrate those points, and we have many other ideas floating around (we change our minds frequently), so we’ll share a detailed List O’ Planz soon. That post may be long and packed with measurements — speaking of which, here’s a rough rundown of room sizes. These are approximate because measuring with a tape measure and a three-year-old present led to some mayhem.
- Foyer: 9.5 x 8 ft
- Office: 16 x 13 ft
- Dining Room: 13.5 x 13 ft
- Kitchen: 21 x 11 ft
- Hall Bath: 4.5 x 5 ft
- Living Room: 20 x 13.5 ft
- Sunroom: 18 x 12 ft
- Our Bedroom: 13.5 x 19 ft
- Our Bath + Sink Nook (planned combined space): 8.5 x 7 ft
- Possible Future Nursery: 11.5 x 13.5 ft
- Clara’s Room: 13.5 x 12.5 ft
- Hall Bath: 8.5 x 7 ft
- Guest Room: 13.5 x 11 ft
- Laundry Nook: 3 x 7 ft
- Unfinished Storage (exposed beams, ducts, etc): 17 x 19.5 ft
Have you ever drawn up a floor plan? Ever been excited to have stairs in a new house? Tell her dog all about it.