Updated 3rd floor plans

The bulk of the work was done to streamline the bathroom and add a linen closet. We had goals before of leaving a sink-only room available to both bedrooms with a tub/toilet room walled off and behind a door. After the first round of drawings, the toilet seemed too cramped and I hate having to clean behind toilets in tight rooms. My last house had a little alcove where the toilet was, and my meaty hands couldn't get back there. Anyway, it looks really good.

Additional to that is a plan for stabilizing the price. The architect is suggesting that we nail down the schematics and start scouting for contractors. Also, we have a weird height restriction on the lot which, before we bought it, was meant to protect a future builder from encroaching on our view. Now that we're the encroacher and the encroachee, we're going to file papers with the city to rescind that document.

Here's the new 3rd floor. Note also that the master bedroom is a little smaller to accommodate the sink, but that's fine with me.

Feedback on yesterday's 2nd round of plans

I followed up via email with the architect to give positive feedback on the progress in the latest set of designs. Here's a quote:

Much better. Elissa likes the changes, too. Just like before, the first floor is a lock. The 2nd floor is solid too, unless there's a need to change things to accommodate moving stuff off the 3rd floor.

Some changes for the 3rd floor. They're hard to explain, so just imagine making all these changes in sequence, most of them are for the bathroom:

1) Remove the wall/door separating the toilet from the rest of the room. This made sense before, but now it's not really a concern for us.

2) Turn the toilet 90 degrees, facing out, and push it closer to the tub.

3) Remove the toilet-side sink, and use that wall as a door leading into a linen closet that's cut out of 1/2 the non-master-bedroom closet.

4) Move the wall to the north side of the other sink about 3 feet, and put the 2nd sink next to it.

5) Change the way the door between the master bed & bath, so it opens out to the rest of the room.

That'll make the rooms a little less square, but we'll gain a linen closet, some standing space, and a side-by-side sink. If you think the change in #3 will make the non-master bedroom's closet too small, we can move the w/d to the 2nd floor and use that area as a linen closet.

In terms of starting an estimate for all this, is there anything you've done before to put a value to the features of the house this early in the process? Several of the contractors I spoke with said they'd be available to discuss design ideas prior to the construction, but, with the digging probably not starting for another 4-6 months, I'd be hesitant to start looping someone in unless it's more or less the norm. Let me know.

A couple obvious trade-offs include:

- Shed. We'd rather have a basement because it's impossible to retrofit a basement while it's a cinch to build a shed.

- 3rd floor. Until our kids are older, we can minimize the finishing on the whole 3rd floor and take care of that over time.

- I'd really hate to sacrifice the sunken living room, but that's an option. This really gives the house a unique character, though, so let's put this behind the 3rd floor finishings on the "cut list".

Thanks so much for responding to our requests in such a timely fashion. Things were trending away from our initial plans for the past month, so we got a little stressed, but I'm happy that we're back on track.

Truth be told, Elissa isn't really jazzed about the idea of delaying the finishing of the 3rd floor until after we move in. Realistically, though, it'll just be us and an infant for the immediate move-in timeframe. The cost of including those finishings in the construction cost will be the barebones cost + the general contractor's multiplier, so we'll wind up spending less and pacing it more adequately if we wait. I'm actually not really looking forward to the delay either, but if it cuts the price of the construction to fit our budget, I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

Updated plans - back on track!

After a couple frustrating iterations and a succinct phone call, the plans are back on track to where they were 4 weeks ago. We have only small details left to define, so I'm happy we're close to the end. We got back our view-facing lounge, the big closet in the master bedroom, and the first floor was left alone.

The phone call basically covered just my preference to answer interim questions, rather than play tennis with the drawings. The latter method is very resource-consuming (time-consuming, but I'm paying $100/hr for their time), and I'm in front of a computer all day anyhow. Another scarier concern that surfaced in the phone call was the architect's ignorance to the financial ramifications of the changes that are being made. I'm hoping to get to a point where we can trade off features, like having a shed vs basement or installing metal siding vs wood siding, but the architect admitted his inability to drill down to the costs of various options. Chances are we'll have to loop in a contractor sooner than later to get through this very early phase.

Here are the drawings that came today:

Another iteration of plans

Some progress, but also some more ambivalence to our major design goals. In this run of drawings, we see the floor plan expanding 8 feet on the longer axis to accommodate the back door and some space for a pantry and some storage. We also see a 180 degree rotation of the 2nd floor, which ignores our major goal of positioning the 'lounge' in the northwest corner of the house to take advantage of the view and punching the ceiling through to the 3rd floor. Also, the third floor loses its cool entry to the shared sink area of the bathroom and surrenders a significant amount of closet space to the newly-expanded 2nd bedroom.

My feedback is to put a lock on the 1st floor. Everything can be assumed as approved until we start nitpicking the final design. The data above was given to the architect, but we're going to talk on the phone this afternoon rather than trade emails. My main message is that I'd rather talk than trade drawings, and I'll make myself available for approval on any change to the drawings.

Here are the three floors, click to see a bigger pic:

Just got some new plans

After two meetings with the architects, we're still in discussion about the features and layout of the house. They sent some pdf's today (along with an email that the deputy architect is going to be gone until Thursday, so she won't respond to my feedback until this time next week, whaaaaat!!!!!) and we have some constructive feedback.

Here are the plans. Our suggestions include some representation of a "men's room" kind of basement space, a back door, shelves built into the walls of the dining room, and the embodiment of the concept of a sunken living room without the dining room being set so low. Also, I'm not a fan of the compressed kitchen. With all that space, I don't want it to feel like a cabin or a vacation house.

Below are some links to low-res images, and a link to the master PDF below. Don't spend a ton of time analyzing these docs, because our house will be decidedly different. In the future, it might be neat looking at the evolution of the plans, but these miss our stated mark and I'm temporarily frustrated a bit with the process. The elevation (external) representation of these is missing, so there's not a lot of context right now.








PLANS - DRAFT 1

The chosen one

I know this is supposed to be about the new house, but in the "everything we have to deal with" category comes none other than the yet-to-be-born David Lee Roche. Behold!

He/she is something like 0.9 cm long, and 7 weeks along. We're still tentative on announcing this to the world (I haven't told anyone about the blog until I get some house plans to post), but we're really happy and a little scared.

Welcome!

Today's the day. It's Valentine's Day and we've bitten deep enough into the bullet to assume that this house thing is 100% go.

Some background:
We bought a wonderful house in 2004 at 129 NW 50th St, Seattle WA 98107. When we bought the house, the lot next door was still owned by the guy who sold us the house. The lot comes between us and the great view of the Olympics and Puget Sound. When the lot came up for sale about a year after we moved in, we jumped at the chance to buy it. We jumped so far and fast, in fact, we didn't take into account that it might be a financial commitment that would bite our butts down the line.

Less than a year later, we're changing our plans. We can't afford the mortgage on the house and the payments on the lot. It's more than my take-home salary every month, which is crazy. Our plan, then, is to build a house on the neighboring lot, at 131 NW 50th St.

So far, our plans consist of:

• fix up our current house
• sell our current house
• move into an apartment or house (rental)
• oversee the design and construction of the new house
• move in to the new house

And, so far we've:

• updated the furnace in the current house
• started on the new house designs
  

What's the big deal, you ask? Well, we have a baby on the way too. Needless to say, this is going to be quite an adventure. Look for much more from us in the coming 18 months. Me, Elissa, and little David Lee.