Our new home...in the beginning

 

We want to share our progress with the new house as it goes and we think we are finally at the stage where we have something to show. This has already been a very slow and somewhat painful process and we haven't even broken ground yet! The house will be situated on five acres to the southeast of my parent's home and face northwest, with the pond siting on the northeast corner of the property. This weekend, we signed a contract with our builder stating that we are finally satisfied with the interior layout and features as well as the exterior look and elevations. We also agreed on a budget, not that we were satisfied with this aspect, we'd love to pay a whole lot less, but turns out building a home is a rather expensive venture, even if it isn't anything too fancy!
What you see above is our basic front exterior. We are going to have Hardiplank siding (this link has pics of homes built with our color) in mountain sage (aka green) with stacked stone trim by Centurian in some sort of beige-ish color. Below is a 3d rear elevation. As you can see, it is a ranch walk out with a partially covered deck and small concrete patio below. One of our favorite parts is the large wall of windows which should give great views of the woods behind the home.

Above is a view of the garage side of the home. We are going with a basic two car garage... three might have been nice but we will be lucky to able to afford two cars after we build this house!

 Above is our main floor plan (click any pic to enlarge). The house will have three bedrooms, although one will double as a guest room and office. We chose a split floor plan (this means the master bedroom is on one side and the other bedrooms are separated by the main living space) in hopes of some privacy- of course that means Kieran will actually have to start sleeping in his own room! The master has its own bath and a walk-in closet (still don't know where Rick will keep his clothes!) and the two other bedrooms share a jack-in-jill bath (this means there is access to the bath from both bedrooms but no hall access). We did this in hopes of keeping Kieran's mess contained and hidden from the main living space. There is a half bath between the entry and garage hallway, next door to our laundry room. I am soooo excited to be able to do laundry without going up and down rickety wooden steps and ducking to avoid bumping my head!
We opted for an open floor plan in the main living area so that we can all be together while meals are being prepared and we eat. There is a small eating nook in the kitchen as well as eating space at an island. There is also a dining room for when my mom passes the holiday torch to us and I have to start serving all those great, big meals ;) The coolest feature of this part of the house is the two-way fireplace that sits between the dining room and the living room. The linving and dining room will have cathedral height ceilings but the rest of the house will have 9ft ceilings with trays in the kitchen and master bedroom.

Above is our future basement plans. We will not be able to afford to finish the basement at this time, but we have some big plans for it! We will, however, finish the first room one enters from the stairs for a rumpus space for Kieran. This will be pretty basic- drywall and maybe some of those carpet squares that are cheap and can be easily replaced when they become damaged or stained. This is also the room that will have doors to the patio below the deck.

Above is a 3d of the entry way and two-way fire place between the living and dining rooms. This is not a 100% accurate rendering as we have now changed the door to a standard rectangle with an arched and paneled inset and there will be sidelights on either side of the door. Also, the fireplace stone will be the same type as seen on the exterior of the house (stacked) and will be another food taller. The wall colors are not set yet, but the architect chose these based on images of our former home. And of course this isn't our TV (we don't have one yet!) nor our furniture. As you can see we will have a mix of hardwoods (actually bamboo) and carpet in these rooms. The bamboo will be in the entry, garage hallway, dining room, kitchen and master bedroom hallway. The living room and bedrooms will all be carpeted. The baths and laundry room will be ceramic tile.

Above shows the wall of windows and cathedrial ceiling in the living room. To the left is the kitchen with bar stools at the island and the bayed nook eating area.

Above is a view of the living room and kitchen taken from the bedroom hallway. You can see the pantry door as well as the master bedroom door in the back.

This is a view of the living/dining rooms from the kitchen. We have not yet chosen our counter colors (or material) nor any of our light fixtures.

This shows a view of the wrap around fireplace. Again, the stone will be the same stacked look as the exterior of the house. Also, there will be no trim around the arches so there won't be trim on the stone. Apparently, this is simply a CAD (computer assisted drafting) glitch. From this view you can see the bedroom hallway and the one wall in the living room. This wall hides the stairs to the basement. We decided against an open stairwell for safety and also to give us at least one wall for a TV.

This is the fireplace on the dining room side. Obviously, this is not the chandelier that will hang in our home- a little much don't you think?! We decided against a mantel or hearth in this room to save space for seating.

This is our very bare master bedroom. To the right is a second door (the other is off the eat-in-kitchen area) to the covered portion of the deck.
Below is the master bathroom. We will have two seperate vanaties, one to the right of the tub and the other across from the tub. It is hard to tell in this pic (another CAD glitch) but the wall between the tub and shower is actually glass. There is also a toilet closet in the bathroom- yay for added privacy! The walk-in closet is off the master bath as well as a small linen closet.

 

So the next step will be to take these plans, the budget and the deed for the land to the bank this week. We have been through some of the underwriting process already but still need to have the house and land appraised- this will determine our next step. Assuming there is enough equity in the land, excavation will begin this month! We are on a 7-8 month time frame but it's hard to know for sure how things will turn out. As the process moves along (so far it's been at a snail's pace) we will update the blog. We are looking forward to sharing this experience with everyone and hoping we can make it through with our marriage in tact and the shirts on our backs!