For the final two days, I’ve not been in a position to focus on something apart from the brand new plan for our home. After canceling our addition that we’ve been planning for years now and deciding to primarily work inside the footprint of our present house, including on only one room, my thoughts has been in overdrive. I’ve been at my laptop for hours transferring issues round on the ground plan to give you the right association for every little thing that we want. I’ve been strolling round the home with a tape measure in hand, measuring nearly each wall and opening in the home. So I gained’t hold you in suspense. We’re constructing a kitchen addition!
It took me a number of tries, a number of consideration about our particular wants (particularly Matt’s wants), and plenty of transferring issues round and tweaking completely different concepts, however I’ve the ultimate flooring plan. Right here it’s.
Probably the most thrilling half is that the brand new plan is clearly the kitchen addition, however fairly actually, I’m so enthusiastic about all of it!!! So let me clarify my thought processes for all of those selections, and I’ll get to the rationale why I made a decision to make that new room within the kitchen.
First, let’s begin in the master bedroom. Since we have already got the grasp lavatory accomplished, it simply is smart to show the bed room subsequent to it into the main bedroom. As soon as the remaining partitions left over from the closet, areas are taken down, this room might be fairly a bit bigger than the room we’re in now. And we desperately want a bigger bed room, so it will work out completely. It’s undoubtedly not as large because the one we had deliberate for our unique addition, however this one might be spacious sufficient to maneuver Matt’s Hoyer raise round with out me continually operating into it, hitting my head on it as I attempt to stroll previous it, or tripping over it, that are all frequent occurrences in our present bed room.
Since there isn’t a room contained in the precise bed room for a closet (a closet in that room would make that room the identical measurement because the bed room we’re in now, and that’s simply not doable for the long-haul), I’m going to be turning the present visitor bed room into an enormous walk-in closet/train space/storage space for Matt’s tools. I’ll lastly be capable of use IKEA Pax wardrobes and have an enormous, lovely, organized closet on one facet of that space. And because it’s actually the scale of a bed room (as a result of it’s a bed room) and I don’t have almost that many garments or footwear, there might be loads of room for the important train tools that we wish to hold, in addition to loads of flooring area within the center to maintain mats tools (Hoyer raise, bathe wheelchair, and many others.) when he’s not utilizing them.
It is going to be the right large, open area that we want for all of these issues. I might be closing that room off to the hallway, however I additionally determined to go away the present door in place (it’s a pocket door) and simply drywall over it. That approach, if a future proprietor desires to show this again right into a bed room, will probably be so simple as drywalling over one doorway, and eradicating the drywall from one other doorway, after which, similar to that, it’s a bed room once more. And it’ll have already got a door.
Now let’s speak concerning the music room. Each single time I deliver up flooring plan concepts, most individuals appear to wish to put the music room on the chopping block. However I actually can not stress this sufficient. The music room can’t be modified, can not have furnishings added to it, and can’t be utilized in some other approach. Whereas it’s not used as an precise music room (sadly, I simply don’t have time to play the piano proper now), this room is at present one of the crucial used rooms in our home, and it’s a room that we can not reside with out.
To start with, simply from a visible standpoint, I actually just like the view from the entrance door by the again of the music room. I actually don’t wish to put something in there to hinder that view.
However even when I needed to alter that room and do one thing else, like flip it right into a eating room, that might simply be not possible. That may make life so troublesome for Matt as a result of that is essentially the most excessive visitors room in our home all through the day. With Matt in a wheelchair, I regularly have to consider visitors circulate and never placing issues in his approach in order that he can get by the principle areas and to all the exits in the home. And as you possibly can see, with the music room proper in the midst of the home, it will get a lot a lot through-traffic that the present association is essentially the most excellent solution to make that room look fairly, and completed, and purposeful, whereas additionally maintaining it open for Matt to get by simply. I simply couldn’t even think about what hardship I’d create if I attempted to show that room into the rest.
That can also be the realm the place I switch Matt to and from his wheelchair utilizing the Hoyer raise. It’s the one room in our home that has sufficient area for me to place his wheelchair simply the best approach, after which pull a Hoyer raise proper as much as it. So if I have been to go and put a eating desk or the rest like that, in that room, it will destroy its very precious performance for us. So whereas the identify “music room” is a bit deceiving, this is without doubt one of the most functionally helpful rooms in the home simply as it’s. There’s no approach I’d change something concerning the music room structure.
Now let’s speak concerning the enjoyable stuff! The brand new kitchen addition! I thought-about so many choices for that space together with making the brand new room a eating room, making the brand new room a laundry room, and even making the brand new room a TV room. So why did I determine to lastly make that space a brand new kitchen? Due to the potential of home windows and pure gentle straight within the kitchen!
One in all my least favourite issues about our home is that the present kitchen is correct within the center, and has no home windows with direct daylight truly within the kitchen. I’ve opened it up in order that it could get daylight from the adjoining rooms, however I’d love a kitchen with a number of home windows and pure gentle.
So after I was attempting to show that space right into a laundry room, and including all these great home windows, it dawned on me that that needs to be the kitchen! I may simply think about having a sink with large home windows over the countertop. That’s the start of a dream kitchen for me! And within the final 24 hours, I’ve checked out so many lovely and inspirational galley kitchens that my thoughts is spinning! I’m so enthusiastic about having a light-filled galley kitchen!
As soon as I spotted that the brand new room was an ideal place for a brand new kitchen addition, every little thing else form of fell into place. If the brand new room goes to be a kitchen, then the position of the present pantry doesn’t make any sense. Plus, this new kitchen might be greater than my present kitchen, which just about eliminates the necessity for a pantry anyway. So if I modify the place of the doorway into that room, that’s the excellent place for a laundry room/utility room!
After which, with the doorway into the present pantry/future laundry room moved, that strong wall can now be the TV wall in what’s now the TV room. I didn’t understand till yesterday, as I used to be strolling round and measuring every little thing, that the present sitting room is just about the very same measurement as the realm of the entrance room that we use as the lounge. However what makes the sitting room really feel so small is the association of the furnishings as a result of I’ve to go away that stroll approach by the room open. However with the present doorway to the pantry closed off, and with turning that wall into the TV wall, the rearrangement of the furnishings will make that room really feel a lot greater. Plus, there’ll now not be a kitchen peninsula making that room really feel so closed in.
After which that leaves the right room for a eating room. With the brand new kitchen addition, that implies that the present kitchen will turn out to be my eating room. It’s the right place for a eating space, proper between the kitchen and the TV room and the lounge. It’s prefer it was meant to be! And I can have a desk and chairs in there with out blocking the visitors sample by the room.
I’ve given this a lot thought, and a lot time, and I’m feeling virtually 100% assured that that is what we’ll find yourself with. In reality, I really feel so assured that I’m able to get began instantly! Which brings up the problem of timeline.
The primary precedence is to maneuver into the larger bed room. So with that aim in thoughts, we have to get that bed room prepared. Which means demolishing the ground and the subfloor, putting in new subfloor and flooring, eradicating the remaining closet partitions, and making a doorway from the brand new bed room into the present visitor bed room. Our present breaker field is correct the place the brand new doorway must go, so that can must be moved additionally. As soon as that’s performed, I’ll shut up the doorway from the present visitor bed room into the hallway and start turning that into the closet and train space.
After that finish of the home is completed, then we are going to begin on the kitchen addition, in addition to turning the pantry into the laundry room. I’m actually hoping I can reuse most, if not all, of the present cupboards that I constructed for that room.
So I don’t know precisely once we will begin on the brand new kitchen, however that’s the order wherein we wish to do issues. And Matt has additionally mentioned that he desires to construct my woodworking workshop on the similar time we’re doing the kitchen. So we’ll see how that goes.
I’ve determined that I’m going to let different individuals do the work within the bed room for me, as a result of whereas they’re doing that, I wish to end up my studio and studio lavatory. And I additionally hoped to do the makeover on the hallway lavatory earlier than getting began on the foremost stuff. But when I don’t get to the hallway lavatory earlier than the bed room, I do no less than wish to end up within the studio and the studio lavatory earlier than transferring on to one thing else.
That’s the plan! Over the past week, I’ve gone from indignant, to unhappy, to upset, to intrigued, to excited, to utterly giddy. 🤣 It’s been a heckuva week!
Right here’s yet another comparability. Right here’s what we now have now…
Right here was the unique addition plan..
And right here’s the brand new, a lot smaller plan with only a kitchen addition…
Notice: Y’all, I’m so sorry for all the typos, improper phrases, plentiful use of random commas, and many others., on this unique submit. I believe I’ve all of it mounted now. I wrote about two sentences on this submit and the keyboard on my laptop computer stopped working. Simply stopped! It’s been giving me hassle for the final couple of months (the W and L keys don’t work, so I’ve to actually copy and paste any time I wish to use these letters), however now it has give up working fully. (I HATE getting new computer systems and having to switch/replace every little thing, so I put it off so long as attainable.) So I ended up having to put in writing this submit on my telephone. And since I didn’t wish to sort all of it out on a tiny display, I used voice recognition. Effectively, not solely does voice recognition not perceive my Texas accent at occasions, however it additionally loves commas greater than I do! 🤣 Anyway, all that to say that I believe it’s all mounted and readable now. I hope. And I assume I would like to move out this afternoon and get a brand new laptop computer. Ugh.
Addicted 2 Adorning is the place I share my DIY and adorning journey as I rework and enhance the 1948 fixer higher that my husband, Matt, and I purchased in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do bodily work, so I do the vast majority of the work on the home on my own. You may study extra about me right here.
