So, I’m told that normal people spend a lot of time looking for a house plan to start building when they purchase property on which to build a house.
So, this is yet another way that the Woodwards are not normal.
Instead, we took down a 100-year-old-barn and rebuilt it with plans to live in it. And then we put in a driveway. And we also planted some trees and other plants. We bought a gator, a tractor and a skid loader. You know, the important things.
Hm … something is missing?
The thought of picking a house plan was not something to taken lightly. And it was just so dang overwhelming.
But the next things that HAVE to get done before we can move onto the property is well and septic. The well digging is happening sometime soon. (Insert money signs here.) Our septic guy won’t even give us a quote until we have a house plan and location so we can make sure it’s in the best/right location. So, we sort of need to know where we want the house. Which means we need to sort of know what house we’d like.
Nothing like doing things in the correct order, right?
For months (probably closer to a year), Ryan and I have been house plan searching and dreaming. We’ve made lists of must-haves. We’ve searched to the end of the Internet to find the perfect thing.
The biggest thing we want with this house is the feeling that it could have been there forever. We love old houses and the character that comes with them. We had no desire to build something that looks out of place. We want people to be asking themselves, is this a new house? Because it looks like it could have been an updated farmhouse.
In truth, it’s much harder to find a house plan that’s (in my mind) simple and modest.
And in the end, there wasn’t anything that was exactly perfect without major modifications. (If you are interested in some things that caught our eye, check out our build it Pinterest board. We were actually originally considering more of a Craftsman-style home design.)
But, then I spotted this house in a recent issue of Country Living. It stopped me in my tracks.
(Farm House via Country Living)
I mean, seriously. I love this house. My heart beats faster when I see this house. It’s a new(er) build, but it looks like an old farm house. I love the simple roof line. I love the symmetry of the windows and doors. I love the centered double French glass doors for the entry. I love the trim work. I love the 1 1/2 story.
I was sold.
Ryan liked that it looked relatively simple to build. (As simple as building a house could be.) He also liked that I liked it.
He was sold.
So that gave us inspiration, but I wasn’t able to find a similar exterior aesthetic with a floor plan I liked. I didnt think our wants were out of line, but that’s life. In case you have any interest, here are our wants:
- A modest 1 1/2 or 2 story home with an open main level floor plan. (In case you’re curious, our idea of modest is a 1,000 to 1,400 square foot home, not including an unfinished basement.)
- Lots of big, tall windows to allow for natural light (this is something we don’t get in our current house. We have tons of windows, but they aren’t facing the right direction. And then large trees, houses and our front porch block the great light we could get.)
- An old farmhouse aesthetic from the outside.
- First-floor mudroom space with room for the dogs.
- Attached garage that isn’t overtaking the front of the house. We’d prefer it to be hidden as much as possible.
- 3 bedrooms. (Ryan’s comfortable with 2 since there will be a basement that we can eventually finish plus the barn space. I’d prefer 3.)
- At least one bath on every floor.
- Exposed basement.
- Some sort of a large back outdoor space for outdoor dining and grilling.
I swear, my “wants” didn’t seem so strict in my head. They look a little more strict in writing, don’t they?
So, we finally determined that a plan from the web wasn’t going to work for us without serious modifications. And we began researching home designers and architects. Finaly – a few weeks ago, we met up with a local home designer who came highly recommended. I brought the picture above and tons of floor plans and inspiration images we’ve found. (Thank you, Pinterest.)
We weren’t sure what to expect. We were afraid it was going to be way out of our budget to do this. But we knew that we needed to get a house plan that was the right one for us. We’re planning to be here for the foreseeable future.
After a two-hour meeting, we left feeling energized. Our designer has a lot of experience and truly asked the right questions (many we hadn’t even considered). He also really listened to what we wanted. And some of the things we wanted weren’t even really things we realized we wanted.
Some examples:
- Neither of us want a master bathroom. (I know, you can all gasp.) I don’t want to clean another bathroom. I don’t want to take up more room from an already tight upstairs. I would much rather have one larger shared bathroom.
- We had to communicate the desire to utilize as much of the upstairs space as possible, even if it meant we’d be working with sloped walls from the roof.
- We also discussed the need for the exterior aesthetic versus interior practicality. For example, I strongly wanted a centered double front door (like the inspiration image). He shared some possible downfalls (like the fact that the doors will open into the main living space. And also that there are some pitfalls to double-opening doors). In the end, I decided that the symmetry was pretty important to me and that I was totally find with a French door where only one door opened. (This would give us much more flexibility with the living space, save us money and avoid potential leaking.)
He also gave us some tough love. I was adamant about having three bedrooms upstairs. In the end, to get an exterior look like my inspiration (without dormers), I may have to live with two upstairs bedrooms and one bedroom downstairs. I am okay with that compromise (although I’d be thrilled if he could make my dreams happen).
Ryan and the designer also spent a lot of time talking about how Ryan wanted to build it – trusses and such. To be honest, I have no clue what was discussed. But Ryan was impressed with his knowledge.
In the end, we learned that the cost of using a local home designer over a web-bought plan will actually SAVE us money. Plus we feel more comfortable knowing the person and communicating with him in person. So, in a few weeks time, we’ll have a home plan that’s designed for us with our inspiration and needs in mind. From there, we’ll communicate changes/adjustments and then he work to get us the full plans and elevations. It’s amazing that within a month or two, we’ll know where we’ll be living.
Then, all we have to do is build it.
No big deal, right?
What do you think about our house plan progress? Any advice from those who have been there?
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Shannon says
This is so freaking exciting. Like, my hearty started racing a little bit reading about it. I’m so excited and proud for you guys. This inspo house is pretty much the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen and I looooove the idea that you want it as old-house-ish as possible…not that I’m surprised. Edge of my seat waiting to see what the designer comes up with!!!
Amy Cox says
Hi Kim! I have been right where you are. My husband and I decided to design our own house too. Everyone said our house looked like a barn till the outside was finished. We have an open main floor with a master bed/bath. The upstairs has a loft, bedroom, and design studio. Unfinished basement with more possible rooms. If you’d like to see some pictures we have a link on our adoption blog… http://www.gavinandamyadopt.blogspot.com
Oh and good job on your Silhouette post! Its so fun to see what everyone is doing!
Kim Woodward says
I LOVE your house. Thank you so much for sharing. Love seeing how yours turned out.
hlofromcello says
Tim and I might have to buy this house plan from you if/when we take the plunge. I think I told you we were looking at building last year. Everything is too BIG!! Your new house sounds like exactly what we want. I can’t wait to see it!
Kim Woodward says
Stay tuned. We could start a home building revolution in the QC>
Jenny@AnythingPretty says
I love the inspiration house! It must be so refreshing to have some direction and vision coming together. I am overwhelmed just thinking about scrolling through pages and pages of possible plans. I can’t wait to see how this process evolves for you guys. The finished product is going to be fabulous and I am sure you will love it for years to come!
Kim Woodward says
I’m feeling better and better with every decision that’s being made. Thanks for the comment!
Emily @ imperfect says
I’m super excited to see what the designer and you guys come up with! It will be wonderful.
Kim Woodward says
Thanks, Emily. I’m hoping so!
Kenz @ Interiors By Kenz says
Man… building.
It is such a stressful pain in the bum. You would think I could have learned that from Amber Williz. Aaron and I are crazy. I’m glad we were able to find a floor plan we liked, as quickly as we did.
I’m really excited to see it come together for you and Ryan. And basically, when are we going to hang out?
Jandee Jones says
Love reading all your progress on this, you guys are amazing! Also I love how your “needs” are so tailored to you instead of just what the going trend is in home construction, when Jordan and I were shopping for our current house I had three big things on my list — a nice big porch for porch sitting, a nice big fireplace, and a kitchen with a lot of light. I thought they sounded pretty simple but its amazing how honestly it eliminated 90% of the houses we looked at (especially the porch bit, people don’t appreciate porch sitting here ). Good thing we lucked out with our current reno because I don’t have the gumption for a new build.
Kelly @ View Along the Way says
Oh man, this whole house designing process is freaking FASCINATING. I hope you’ll share every single detail as you go about how you guys plan the layout, how things affect the exterior, all that. I’m totally living vicariously! Super fun!!
Amber @ Wills Casa says
So very interesting to see you go through this first step! I feel like you are/were lightyears ahead of us going into the process. You’ve really thought it out!
Kristen says
Kim – this is so exciting! I’m seriously swooning over the inspiration house! Can’t wait to follow along 🙂
Julia@Cuckoo4Design says
Oh I love that house! It’s so romantic and special. I hope all your house dreams come true
Jenn in Wisconsin says
I’m right there with you with the older style of homes. I don’t like new-new. I like things with character. I also don’t want a huge house. We have a small ranch and with just a touch more space it would be perfect. Love your inspiration photo. Thanks for sharing our design experience. I kind of thought that this was out of our reach but I guess regular folks can have their home designed too 🙂
Victoria says
Love your ideas and inspiration. The inspiration house is beautiful and classic in form. Have you ever thought of doing a large french door with large side lights or dormers for more upstairs head room? We live in a beautiful little antique farmhouse and I love my sloped ceilings, but at the same time wish we had more headroom for furniture. Although as with all old houses there’s never enough closets if any. Can’t wait to see the future floor plans and the evolution of the final product. Sounds very exciting!
Kim Woodward says
French doors instead of windows? I’m not sure what you mean about that, but I like the idea. =)
As for dormers, we prefer to avoid them because we like the roof lines really simple. (At least for this style of home.)
Thanks so much for commenting. We love the sloped ceilings, too. That’s something I feel really strongly about.
Gretchen@BoxyColonial says
Exciting! the inspiration pic is such a sweet little house….are you thinking you’ll do cedar shake like that, too? so Cape Cod 🙂
Kim Woodward says
We actually purchased a wide wood composite siding on clearance – so we’re going with that and painting. Cedar shakes would probably not blend in well in the Midwest.
Katja @ Shift Ctrl Art says
When I saw the house you liked, I immediately thought: Wow that looks just like the house we built in Denmark except ours was built with brick. But that roof pitch and 1 1/2 story. Our house was a tiny bit larger – 1700 square feet, but we had three bedrooms upstairs, one bathroom and even room for a little walk-in closet. Downstairs we had a guest room and a guest bath, open kitchen, dining living. And a pretty big laundry/mudroom with pantry. Also we had a pretty big hallway to greet guests. I have posted our floor plan in case you are interested although we had our doors along the long side, not at the gable end like in your picture…
http://shiftctrlart.com/Blogpost/uju8/Memory-lane–the-house-we-built-in-the-90s–40-photos
Can’t wait to see your plans 🙂
Kim Woodward says
Katja – OMG Ryan and I are DYING over here. The upstairs layout is exactly what we were trying to communicate with our home designer. He just wasn’t sure that it would leave enough usable space in the small bedrooms. But I love it so much. And I”m going to share it with him. I’m also LOVING that big upstairs bedroom and all the skylights. We definitely want skylights along the roofline like that.
Thank you so much for sharing the link with me. I love it. And the faux french door idea is brilliant.
Kelly @ Corner of Main says
How cool!!! I can’t wait to see it all come to life.
Jessica @ Run Your Mutt Off says
Kim, This is SO exciting!! I think it’s really cool that you’re going to get exactly what you want. I’m sure it’ll be a fun process getting there too. Don’t be afraid to make changes along the way to suit your needs. A little extra time or a few extra dollars will be worth it in the end. Best wishes, can’t wait to see how things go.
Kim Woodward says
Thanks for the encouragement!
Kristi says
How exciting! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. I would love to build a custom home some day and it is good to know how you are doing it!
Rebecca says
What an awesome house design!
We went a different route. We were originally planning to build on 10 acres we owned at the time, but when then proved unrealistic due to distance we sold it and bought a fixer upper on a smaller parcel close enough to work and still build our dream. I love our old farmhouse and wouldn’t change it for the world, but part of me still misses not having the opportunity to design our own place from the ground up.
Congratulations, and I look forward to seeing come together!
Emily @ DavenportDIY says
Awesome!!! I love love love that style of house- every time I go to Massachusetts for work I drool over that style of house, because there are so many of them up there. That’s so exciting that you get to work with someone local. And knowing Ryan and his work ethic, he’ll have the house up in a week or two- right?? ha 🙂 Congrats on making this big step!!
Kim Woodward says
A week or two. yeah. Totally. At least, that’s my expectation. Too high?
Sarah says
Wow, Kim. You guys are rockstars. 🙂 I am SO looking forward to witnessing this project. And I love the home you chose. 🙂
cassie says
oh my gosh i love that house design! adorable!
Heart and Haven says
I love the inspiration pic you found, and glad to see you are going with the double door entry {swoon}. I actually like the idea of 1 bedroom on the first floor….you can have it be an office or playroom. When you get to retirement age, it can be the “master bedroom” if you don’t want to tackle stairs, and the kids/grandkids can have their spaces upstairs for when they visit 🙂
Can’t wait to see the ideas you have for the interior layout.
Since you aren’t doing a typical master bedroom…another idea is a “jack & jill” bathroom for the 2 upstairs bedrooms. Each room can have it’s own smaller vanity area with shower/toilet area in between. This would also work well if you have a boy & girl, then they each still have a space to get ready.
Are you going to have a laundry room in the house or garage? It would be kinda awesome to have a laundry chute from the upstairs bathroom down to the laundry room (depending on where it is)
Jenn in Wisconsin says
I totally agree! You can always use it as a den, playroom, office, or bedroom when you are older and don’t want to take the stairs. I think it is great idea!
Kim Woodward says
I actually don’t hate the idea of a downstairs bedroom, but I’m concerned about that closing up the floor. Because it’s not a huge house, I want as much of the first floor open as possible, and there are such great views, that I want to hoard them all for the living space.
But, I do like where you are going with an office/playroom idea.
I also really like the Jack and Jill idea. Thanks for sharing. It’s something I hadn’t thought of.
My ideal laundry situation would be to have it upstairs in the eaves (we had this in our first house and I LOVED it. Never had to carry laundry up and down the stairs)> I’m also okay with it being downstairs in the mudroom, but the designer is going to try to get it upstairs for me.
Thanks for your comment!
Trina @ Let's Just Build a House says
Do a double check of closets and storage spaces. we forgot a linen closet upstairs and i’m forever annoyed with ourselves. But a big dresser or shelf will still do the job i suppose!
We basically found 3 house plans we LOVED and told our designed what we wanted from each, and she did a great job and bringing them all together for us. Our house has room to grow, and that’s what we need in our life right now. Since this will probably be your forever home, make sure you give yourself options for the future too!
Kim Woodward says
Great tip – thanks! We have ZERO downstairs closets in our current house. Because we are brilliant, clearly. Never will I do that again.
I totally know what you mean about growing into a home, but I really hate the idea of having something huge ever. The full exposed basement gives us the option to expand a lot if we need it, but makes me feel better about the living space we have now, too.
Katrina says
I’m so giddy with excitement for your family!! And so so picture your home in my head and I’m dying to see plans!! And I hear you on added bathrooms – i’m fine with just cleaning two anymore than that is just too much time devoted to cleaning toilets so not my thing lol 🙂
Kim Woodward says
We seem to be in the minority about the bathrooms – people think I’m nuts.
Ashley@AttemptsAtDomestication says
Gah! That is so exciting Kim! I can’t wait to follow along with this journey!
We went to the Homearama here in Richmond over the weekend and toured a bunch of show houses, it really gave us ideas for when we build our dream home, some day in the distant future. 🙂
Kim Woodward says
Home Tours are so fun, but also overwhelming!
Meredith says
I love the exterior inspiration you chose, Kim! It is going to be such fun watching your home go from paper to reality. I hope the design comes back even better than you imagined!
Amber Miller says
I am so excited to see this plan come to life – Love that you are sharing the process with us. My dad is an old-school architect (still uses paper and pencil – gasp!) and the process is amazing. Glad you found a wonderful, open designer who is willing to make this house your home. Such an exciting time! 🙂