House in the Works--Not

Oh, boy.  Here’s an update on what’s happening with the house and our grand addition. 

The plans that looked like this:

   

Now look like this:

Rolled and banded and forgotten. 

After meeting after meeting with the architect, four contractors, and who knows how many heating guys, paint guys, etc. over the span of a few months, we realized once the bids came back, this plan was too complicated and too expensive, and despite having to put enough money into it that we could have built a brand new house, we were still going to have a kinda crappy house.  Less crappy maybe, but still not ideal.  We made the decision to scrap this whole plan of adding on the three different sides of the house. 

So now, it’s literally back to the drawing board.

 

Current thinking is to sacrifice the current screen porch and deck and add one big, two-story straight, simple addition off the east side that would be a great room/kitchen/dining room with two new bedrooms and two baths, and add back on a new deck and screen porch.  That’s the thought anyway for now.  

Will it ever even happen?  Maybe because it’s not winter with us all crammed in and maybe because no one is at home much these days because, yeah, I feel like I *live* in a van going down Goshen Road, but we don’t feel so bursting right now.  At least I don’t.  But this kitchen of mine is still enough to make me want to run away.  

I did recently find this site and it is great for designing and planning.  At first look, it seems like something to play around with furniture placement but once you get into it, it has everything you need to make full-out house plans with walls, windows, stairs, all the architectural symbols, measurements.  It has choices for pools (!) and hot tubs (!) and even individual plants and on and on.  So cool and I wish I had a few days to spend just on this!