It's the Plan, Stanley

Next step: foundation.  I've been driving by the house every day (OK, several times a day), and steady and totally necessary progress is being made toward pouring the foundation for the addition.  (FYI, the house is only about five blocks from the apartment where we're staying during the renovation, so I can easily make a pass on my way home from wherever.  Yes, we're staying in an apartment.  Not a good plan to wrangle an active four-year-old and six-year-old while living in a construction site--stitches and broken bones, at least, would be abundant.)  Having sampled the drug of Superfast Progress when the house was totally demo-ed in a few hours, I've definitely been going through a wee bit of withdrawal experiencing the real pace of renovation.  I'm working on appreciating the time that's being put into preparing stuff correctly, and I'm looking forward to GIANT CEMENT TRUCKS POURING CONCRETE EVERYWHERE!

Dirt, fence, half a house.  Pretty boring.

Luckily for you, I can talk about my house EVEN when nothing is really happening with it.

I was thinking perhaps you'd like to see our architectural plans.  So, as I may have mentioned before, we started this process almost TWO YEARS AGO.  That's not a normal time period for the design phase, I don't think, but we're deliberate folks who like to think way too much about things, and we wanted to make sure we were doing it right.  To be honest, we actually contacted our architects two years before that, and spent some time making concrete plans, thinking about houses and just doing some living.  All that is to say that these plans are a pretty amazing fit for US.  I think some people will think some of the choices we've made are odd, and I think some Houstonians may drive by our house and spit (more on the why of that later), but we made the choices that make the most sense for a house we hope to live in forever.

We told our architects that we wanted to keep the homey feel of our house, but expand it so that it would have enough space for the four of us as two of us get bigger (every single day!).  We wanted a functional laundry room, a reasonable pantry, master bathroom, flow to the outside, and reasonable separation between the public and private areas of the house.  And a fireplace.  They gave us all of it!

Here's the first floor.  So there on the right of the picture, you can see the existing part of the house.  The east porch is the front porch, and it'll be bigger after it reclaims that big closet in the former master.  The living and dining room are pretty much staying the same, and the guest room/study will be where the master used to be.  We're adding a stand-up shower to the bathroom so our guests no longer have to fight The Battle of Wet Showercurtain and that little hall will give the guest bed and bath some privacy, but that part of the house is staying pretty much the same as it's been forever.

Then comes the part where I get everything I ever wanted.  My pantry, for the past 8 years, as I mentioned, has not been my favorite place.  Inefficient.  Hot. Annoying.  Small.  My new pantry is NONE of those things.  It's giant, well-laid out, and right off the kitchen (between the kitchen and the dining room.  It's actually the part of the kitchen that's still left in the house after they cut it in half last week, and I really haven't spent enough time twirling around and singing in that space yet because it's so nice to think about (notice I didn't say I haven't spent ANY time twirling and singing in my future pantry.  Yep.).

So. Much. SPACE!

The new kitchen goes from the pantry to where the back of the house used to be, it's open to the family (tv-watching, of course) room, and there's a happy little breakfast nook, a functional mud room next to the back door, and lots of sunshiny windows.  Have you noticed that's something I like A LOT? So many windows.

We also have a nice roomy garage with access to our alley, and the back porch is between the house and the garage.  It has a roof, or really, part of the house, above it, and buildings on two sides, which is not usual for bungalow porches, but I've really grown to love the idea of that porch.  I like it first because it has our fireplace.  Not terrifically useful in a place where it's at least 80 degrees nine months of the year (ok, you're right, ten), but the heart wants what the heart wants.  This heart wants some fire.

I also like that it's a dog-trot, which while it doesn't belong to the bungalow, does belong on a traditional-style southern house because it's useful in the heat, more than anything.  I hope that my porches will be useful places where people actually sit and hang out, and it seems like a little shady breezeway, with a cool, polished cement floor (and a fireplace!) and flanked by steps down into gardens could be a great place to chat, enjoy our temperate climate and share some hospitality.  Come visit when we're done and you can tell me if it works.

Then it's upstairs to the second floor with all the 21st century fixins.  We lived in the house with the "old" stuff long enough to respect it and know that we love technology, so picture all this new stuff and hinting at the history of the house while being fully, awesomely modern. Lovely large utility room with big windows and countertop space for my sewing machine, big bedrooms with a bathroom for each kid, master bedroom with closets and schmancy bath.  The kids' rooms are above the family room and kitchen, and the master suite is above the garage.

The "library" is a neat space that evolved as we considered the design.  At our first meeting with the architect where he had drawings to show us, we were appalled at how big everything was.  We were more than doubling the square footage of our house, and it just seemed kind of outrageous and unnecessary.  He showed us, though,  that to get the things we really wanted, and to do it well, we had to take up some space.  His first idea for the space between the upstairs hall and master bedroom was just for a long, lovely hallway with lots of windows, and as the library evolved, it kept that character.  Both the north and south walls of the library are pretty much all windows, but there are shelves beneath the windows on one side and around the doors on both ends.  Though it will be stuffed with books, more than a library I think of it as a "morning room" like the Edwardian gentry would have had or something (I know.  Forgive me.).  We'll probably someday have some comfy chairs in there, and it will be a bright, peaceful room to have a hot drink and read, which is pretty much my idea of heaven.  That and a private bathroom with modern plumbing.