a peek inside the fishbowl

10 Sep, 2011

Reno post #13 – final ground floor plan. i think.

Posted by andrea tomkins in: Home/reno

We’ve pretty much nailed down the floor plan of the new ground floor. Click the image to embiggen.

revised-groundfloor

We decided to make the addition a couple feet larger. I wasn’t convinced there was enough space to move around the (as of yet) non-existent furnishings in the family room. :)

A few things of note:

  • On one hand I’m wondering if the kitchen island is too big, but I can’t ignore the fact that will also have to serve as some major storage for us.
  • I would like a kitchen like this one. Sigh.
  • Notice the little rectangle sketched overtop the island. That space is for a group of two-sided cabinets with glass doors (in other words, accessible from both sides) that hang from the ceiling. We need the storage and I think this might do the trick. I think it will keep the “open” feeling of this area and give it some definition at the same time. (Make sense?) I’m hoping to connect with kitchen/storage experts at some point because I don’t want to go through this whole thing and find out we don’t have room for our pots and pans. Gah. I’M LOOKING FOR A STORAGE MIRACLE.
  • Re: the mud room. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it will become the main entrance for our family. The “built in” marked on this plan is a big wardrobe for all of our coats and gear. Although the diagram shows other closets I have other plans for this space. (We might lose the little walls here, not sure yet.) One side of the room will be a bench and the other will have hooks and a boot tray in the winter.

Next reno post will be the revised second floor! And maybe exterior views (with the carport that’s not really a carport too)! :)

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10 Responses to "Reno post #13 – final ground floor plan. i think."

1 | Lynn

September 10th, 2011 at 9:58 am

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I love it! It looks very functional. My favourite part is the breakfast bar into the family room.

Are you still planning on having guests use the front entrance? Will there be coat and shoe storage there?

2 | andrea

September 10th, 2011 at 10:10 am

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Lynn – no one ever comes over, so why bother? :)
All kidding aside, we talked about that and figured that it’d be easy enough to take people’s coats and hang them up in the back. But maybe we can put a couple of really nice coat hooks on the wall there if we find that doesn’t work for us. Something decorative and blendy like this.

3 | Sara

September 10th, 2011 at 9:53 pm

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Love the new layout, especially the kitchen/dining room with the breastfast bar into the family room. I have floor plan envy :)

4 | Reno post #14 - crowdsourcing a powder room epiphany >> a peek inside the fishbowl

September 11th, 2011 at 9:48 am

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[…] Is this smartly utilitarian? Or just plain gross? Will it look weird dropped into a powder room counter (depicted in the plans here)? […]

5 | LO

September 11th, 2011 at 5:07 pm

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I Love the big island idea (maybe because I have one). So much time is spent in an open kitchen. Homework, eating, baking, hanging out! And you are right about all the storage it provides. My last kitchen was pretty tight and in my new kitchen, my island is about the size of my old kitchen (custom concrete island). It’s 10 by 10 and I think what I love is that it is square and provides so much storage!

6 | LO

September 11th, 2011 at 5:07 pm

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I lust for a front mudroom/enclosed vestibule like the homes of yesteryear…:)

7 | Ginger

September 11th, 2011 at 10:03 pm

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Andrea, you might have said before…I can’t remember….but what is the difference in your family room and T.V. area? I mean, obviously the T.V. is one room and not the other…but I was just curious how you use the family room. We only have one big living space so I am just curious how each of the different rooms function.

8 | andrea

September 12th, 2011 at 8:30 am

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Ginger: I really should figure out a way to post a sketch of our current floor plan. What is labelled as the TV/Sitting room up there is our current living room. We do everything here; watch TV, read, play board games etc. It’s really the only kind of space we have available for this kind of thing, which has been ok but it starts to get chaotic when we all want to use this room for different purposes, when I want to read, the girls want to play, Mark wants to watch golf… etc. :) The new family room, which overlooks our back yard, will give us another place to do this… comfortably and with some green views. The plan is to keep the TV in the living room, and have cushy seats for reading in the family room.

9 | Finola

September 13th, 2011 at 12:37 pm

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I think this is going to be beautiful Andrea.
One thing that strikes me though, and I didn’t comment at first, but then I came back because, well, I’m opinionated that way :)
The hanging cupboards might obscure the view and conversation between people in the kitchen and anyone sitting at the table. You may find yourselves always ducking your heads around trying to see the person on the other side. I did see a kitchen that had this before, and it was just a bit disruptive.

I am enjoying following along with all the choices. Fun!

10 | Reno update #20 - Moving out >> a peek inside the fishbowl

January 1st, 2012 at 12:09 pm

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[…] to the plans but overall it’s pretty much the same as before. (FYI, ground floor is shown here, and the upper floor is here.) The biggest change upstairs is that the shower area is enlarged. The […]

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