Just like our first house floor plan and our previous home’s layout, a number of you asked to see the floor plan for the new house — so here it is. Floor plans are a huge help for visual thinkers: they show where walls sit, how rooms connect, and how the flow of the house works. We created this one using floorplanner.com (a free floor planning tool) and, unlike the last two houses we posted plans for, this one has a second level. Who’s excited to have stairs? This girl.
When we shared a video tour of the new house, reactions were interesting: some people thought it looked much bigger, while others thought it seemed smaller. That contrast highlights how difficult it is to judge a room’s size without furniture or familiar reference points. The house is actually almost identical in square footage to our current place — there’s only about a 20 square foot difference. The second story makes it read larger from the street, whereas our previous house had a large single-level addition tucked behind the facade that isn’t visible from outside.
Here are a few early ideas for changes to the layout and footprint — nothing is final, but these are the directions we’re considering:
- Replace the large triple window in the eat-in kitchen with a set of French doors that open out onto the deck, creating a stronger indoor-outdoor connection and improving access for entertaining.
- Remove several doors on the first floor that currently interrupt flow (doors between the dining room and kitchen, and between the kitchen and foyer) to create a more open, connected layout.
- Take down the wall between the living room and kitchen, but install built-in bookcases on either side with a generous central opening — similar in feel to the built-ins in our current dining room, but possibly with glass doors and integrated lighting for display and storage.
- Completely rework the fragmented bathroom and adjacent sink nook into one cohesive primary-bath space with a large double vanity and a soaking tub.
- Eventually finish the unfinished storage area at the end of the hallway. Right now it’s raw, with exposed beams and ducts, but in the future we’d like to add flooring and drywall to convert it into a cozy movie room or bunk area for Clara, any future siblings, and visiting friends.
Update: due to lots of questions, a quick clarification about the stairs in the unfinished storage area — those stairs lead up to the attic, but the unfinished storage itself is on the same floor as the bedrooms. You don’t need to go up or down to reach that space from the hallway.
If you want more context, the video tour of the new house shows these spaces and the sightlines better than words alone. We already have a long list of projects and ideas in our heads (and we change our minds often), so we’ll be posting a more detailed “List O’ Planz” soon covering everything on the agenda — paint, layout changes, built-ins, and renovation priorities. Expect a long post when that drops.
Here are the very approximate room measurements we took with a tape measure (and an enthusiastic three-year-old underfoot, which made precision challenging):
- 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 (first floor): 4.5 x 5 ft
- Living Room: 20 x 13.5 ft
- Sunroom: 18 x 12 ft
- Primary Bedroom: 13.5 x 19 ft
- Primary Bath + Sink Nook (combined in the future): 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 (upstairs): 8.5 x 7 ft
- Guest Room: 13.5 x 11 ft
- Laundry Nook: 3 x 7 ft
- Unfinished Storage (exposed beams and ducts): 17 x 19.5 ft
Have you ever drawn a floor plan or renovated to improve flow between rooms? Ever been genuinely thrilled to have stairs in a house? We’d love to hear your stories and tips — tell us all about it.