Nearly everything in our new house will do double duty. For instance, our dining table will have clever design features so we can place it against the wall, parallel to the refrigerator and at counter height for additional kitchen workspace. With a drop cloth over it, it will make a fine painting studio work table…
OK. We’re back. After two and half months of meetings, waiting for replies and researching options – all in an effort to stay the course of building small and staying within budget – we are surprisingly calm and feeling that all will fall into place in the best possible ways. The deadline of June 30th…
Perhaps you’re wondering what’s been happening with our project. It’s been a while since I’ve posted. During this time, we’ve been sourcing building bids and investigating prefab versus site-built options. To enable this information gathering comparison of apples to apples, we’ve needed to play our cards close to our chests. This is still the case,…
My lighting plan is complete and not likely to change very much from now until the end of construction. Deciding what to light and how to light it was, for me, the easy part. Deciding which light fixtures to use, proves to be not quite so easy. In my everyday role as a Lighting Designer, I’m on the outside, not emotionally…
Appliances. Over many years, we’ve thought about features we’d want in a new refrigerator or cook stove and, since the purchasers of our last house wanted our appliances, our imaginings of modern appliance features opened up to becoming reality. While we were shopping around, comparing features and prices, we had the good fortune to meet Dan at Leon’s in…
Budget Clarification and Trimming. Met with Architect Vincent and his Architectural Technologist, Dan, today. We looked at the numbers again and realized that we weren’t exactly comparing apples to apples on Sunday. My calculations were a little off, so here’s how the numbers really break down to dollars per square foot: Angie’s 18′ x 20′…
On this snow-stormy Sunday, I turn my attention to the ‘B’ word – no, not blizzard… budget. Michael and I are still in a daze after Wednesday’s budget meeting with Architect Vincent and Builder Nick. Last night was our first opportunity to talk openly with friends about our budget, plans, goals and compromises to our dream home to-date. It…
Lets head upstairs for a look at the upper level floor plan. An excellent design technique for building small is to create rooms which serve more than one purpose. This ties in directly with being very honest with yourself about how you really live. For instance, do you seldom have overnight guests? Then perhaps a guest bedroom…
Design touches are what make a home your built-for-you home. In this post, I’ll introduce our lower level house plans with a walk through of a few of the design features. Let’s start with the exterior: We dream of achieving minimal outdoor maintenance and maximum outdoor living and here are a few design elements to take us there: Planting…
With only 3 to 4 months to go before building starts, we’re beginning to feel a little pressure to get all our choices made and quotes in so we can finalize our budget. I’ve completed the lighting plan, including budget, and received two thumbs up from both Michael and Architect Vincent. We’ve made our decisions on…