Welcome back to the second part in this series, where today I’ll be chatting about my dreams and plans for building a custom home. If you missed the first part, you can read it here.
Several years ago, before I found my current home, I started touring new construction model homes for fun. Through this, I was exposed to many different floor plans and design styles. Eventually I began attending the St. George Parade of Homes (only a 2 hour drive from Vegas!), where I had a chance to walk through some truly incredible houses. Many of the ones I toured were waaaaay outside of my price range, but I was able to take bits and pieces of inspiration from each home, big and small.
One home in particular, the Oakwood by Christensen Homes in the 2023 parade, really sent my brain into overdrive (here’s a YouTube tour). This home was out of my budget several times over, and 3x the square footage that I would want or need, but the floor plan and interior design were exactly what I had been trying to piece together in my mind. I loved the kitchen/pantry configuration, the first floor primary bedroom, the first floor office, the whole flow of the house, really. After the parade, I began thinking of ways I could reconfigure the house to make it work within my budget. I downloaded the floorplan into Photoshop and began making cuts – two whole wings of the house could go (I don’t need a full-size basketball court or a gym attached to my closet), the basement was cut, and what remained could be scaled smaller to fit within my desired square footage. Then, I started moving rooms around, ie: the dining room needed to be moved so that I could have a U-shaped kitchen. Eventually I was left with a floor plan that didn’t look much like the original house at all it and didn’t quite satisfy my wishlist, but it planted the seed that I could one day design my own floor plan and home.
Over the next few months, I began spending more time doodling floor plans on graph paper. At this point I was mostly trying to recreate floor plans of houses I loved: #ProjectCanIHaveThat by TheLifeStyledCo (still my fave!), Eastside by Brook Wagner Design, Secret Ingredient by Amy Storm & Co, anything by Studio McGee. Guys, I am not trained in architecture or interior design, but it was at this point that I seriously considered a career change, because I was having so much fun with it.
At this point, Photoshop was only getting me so far. I knew it was time to learn SketchUp so that I could visualize these floor plans in 3D. I took the SketchUp for Interior Designers course over the summer of 2023 and learned so much. I’m not a pro at SketchUp by any means, but wow, I’ve been having so much fun playing around with my floor plan ideas.
I’ve really struggled to land on a floor plan that satisfies all the requirements I have for the build, though I’ve recently had some breakthroughs. I imagine this would be easy for an experienced architect, but it’s taken me months of trial and error to land on something I’m happy with. This isn’t an exhaustive list of the features and requirements I’d like, but if we take my kitchen wishlist as an example, you can get an idea of the design challenges I think about and why it’s taken me so long to come up with something that works:
- U-shape kitchen with pantry behind range wall – do I want pantry access from both sides of range, or is one side enough? Will it be annoying to walk around each time if I only add one entry?
- Paneled appliances – since I want my fridge/freezer paneled, how do I make it easy to get ice and filtered water? Internal dispensers? Separate water and ice dispensers? If separate, where? Near cup/glass cabinet, in pantry, in bar area?
- Microwave – I don’t like the idea of drawer microwaves, but I also want it hidden. It’s a frequently used appliance, so where do I put it for easy access? I might need to compromise on this.
- Garage and mudroom access near pantry (for easy transport of groceries) – where to position the garage so I can still get windows in the rooms I want windows in?
- Powder room near kitchen (since we spend so much time in the kitchen) – but not too close to the kitchen, because, smells.
- Storage area near kitchen (paper towel, cleaning supplies, batteries, candles, pet care, plant care, etc) – should this be a hall closet or part of the mudroom?
Of course, even with all my upfront planning and designing, there’s a good possibility the floor plan could change depending on the land we buy. If the land is sloped, that opens up the possibility for a walk-out basement instead of a second story. If the land feasibility study only gives us a narrow area to build, my long but thin rectangle-shaped house might not work. And once we take the design to a real architect, I imagine they will come back with a few improvements, or tell me certain things just won’t work.
And now that you’ve read this far, I do hope you won’t be too upset that I don’t have a finalized floor plan to share quite yet. 😅 It’s still a work in progress, and I haven’t even begun designing the second story yet. This week, I finalized the 2D first story floor plan and am in the process of converting it to 3D. But, in the meantime, here is a work-in-progress peek of the kitchen. I still need to decide on a cabinet paint color, add cabinet hardware, add lighting, and finish the ceiling treatment, but I’m happy with the progress!
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