The Early Design..

After an initial payment, my architect came out and measured the existing home, created it in Chief Architect, and scheduled a meeting to start the design process.

Now what I wanted on my initial wishlist was..

• 2nd story master bedroom with a view and lots of windows towards the nearby mountains from both the bedroom and bathroom
• master bath with 2 sinks, stand alone tub, stand in shower for 2 w/bench, enclosed toilet area
• large master bedroom walk in closet
• redo the floorplan to incorporate a great room with lots of windows towards the rear/mountains
• open up the floorplan
• all bedrooms should have walk in closets, not regular closets
• laundry room
• pantry
• coat closet near entrance
• good sized deck area in back with pergola
• craftsman style

My town is rather strict with it's rules and regulations and worse yet, my home was considered historic since it was built before 1940. That meant that there would be restrictions around what I could or couldn't do and the town architect would ultimately need to approve the design. The perception was that I had strong limitations to what I could do with the existing front of the home.

The initial designs were rough going, trying to accommodate what we presumed would be the town's wishes. How do you preserve the historic nature and look of the house while slapping a large addition and even a second story on it (short of putting it all underground - you don't!)? The front presumably had to be kept similar to what it already was, meaning I couldn't mess with the roofing (hip roof) or porch or windows much. That made for some ugly early designs after incorporating my wish list..

On our second visit we decided to move one of the bedrooms on the 1st floor to the 2nd to create some better symmetry and balance. We also spent some time on the interior spaces, cleaned and opened up the front porch a bit more, and put in a fence along the property line to show relative size. If you look closely, the front porch fence was altered to more of a fence style and the roof was raised to give better visibility to/from the windows.

the great room looking through the kitchen towards the front door

The great room looking towards the back of the house. To the right is the dining room and to the left is the family room with fire place.

Things were coming along but we were not yet ready to submit anything to the town for approval. The symmetry still bugged us and we felt the outside of the house was still too ugly when viewed from the front..