After our house burned down and we decided that we wanted to rebuild on our same location, it was time to start dreaming. Did we want the exact same house plan? Absolutely not! I loved our first house, but if I was starting over, I wanted to have my own bathroom. Let me assure you sharing a bathroom with three boys was not something that I would choose.
I have no intentions of ever moving, so this is our forever home and we needed to think ahead about the years to come. So we started dreaming! What was on our definite list, what was our splurge desires, where were we happy to go more basic?
Dreaming big was the fun part, negotiating with my husband was a whole other story. I wanted to make our house only slightly larger than our original (which was under 1100square feet). I was thinking 1500-1700. He wanted a big house (over 2,200). So there was definitely some give and take that had to go on. FYI…We ended up at 1,920.
Non-Negotiables
1. Another bathroom, with an extra long soaker tub. (My husband is a big guy)
2. One large “great room” with storage. (I loved this about our old house)
3. A laundry room on the main floor
4. A mudroom separate from the laundry room (I was amazed that this one caused issue with our draftsman). Why do people think "mud" and "laundry" go together?
5. Wide doorways (My poor husband has broad shoulders used to have to turn to fit through our doorways in the old house.)
6. An area set aside for my husband to have his own space.
7. Unfinished basement. I wanted the kids to be able to ride their hoverboard or rollerblade or whatever and me not have to worry about them hurting anything.
8. 13 block basement. Our old one was super short and the extra height makes a world of difference
9. An exterior man-door in the basement. (When you have lived through a house fire that starts in the basement with you in the basement, you will understand the necessity of this)
10. Solid doors. No more of the hollow ones that mysteriously end up with holes in them.
11. Utility sink in the garage
My splurge list
I loved the way I had renovated my kitchen the first time. So I decided to do it the exact same way.
1. Sparkly white quartz countertops
2. Mini chandelier over my sink
4. Medium brown cherry cabinets (Because of the price of wood skyrocketing, we ended up having to go with maple cabinets but had them stained the same color)
5. Flat front Kitchenaid dishwasher with buttons on top and a third-row tray
6. French Door refrigerator with the water dispenser inside
7. Built-ins in my living room area
And this time I wanted to have fun tile in my bathroom! ***I ended up falling in love with one the very first time we went to the store!
Keep it basic list
1. Vinyl plank flooring. The bamboo and cork floors that we splurged on in our old house was not worth it to me to spend the money on again.
2. Unfinished basement. This was one of my non-negotiables, but it definitely helped keep costs down.
3. No lockers in the mudroom. We did not find these helpful when we had them made in our old house. Coat hooks on the wall and a long bench do the job for us.
Keeping all of those things in mind, it was time to try to figure out what we wanted our “dream home” to be. We spent hours at Sherwin-Williams, hardware stores, and scouring Pinterest. Seeing what I liked and didn’t like that other people have done is so helpful. And that is exactly why I decided to do this as part of my blog. I am glad to share about the decisions that we made so that you can see and think “yes, I love that!” or “that is definitely not my style”. I think that both are helpful.
So, if you are getting ready to dream or to make decisions about a build or remodel, this is my way of encouraging you. I hope it helps!
