The Shack 2.0
After the house was knocked down, we took a little time to regroup. Or at least I think we did. Honestly, it's kind of a blur. I think we made the decision to start over really quickly and it wasn't until our lot stood empty that it finally hit us that we had to figure out what to do next. That meant figuring out what type of house we wanted to build, what size, what features, how much. The possibilities were endless and I'm not good with endless possibilities. It's when I have endless possibilities that I become very indecisive. That would probably explain why once we found an architect, went through two different house plans, decided on the second one he drew, and then sat with it for a year and a half after a roadblock in the financing process, I decided I hated the house we decided on and went back to the drawing board.
This is the second time since we began this journey that the universe has shown us what is meant to be. The financing roadblock turned out to be a blessing in disguise because 1) it stopped me from building a house I didn't like to now having a plan for a house I love, and 2) using a builder that we met the first time around that had the right price but I didn't get the right vibe. More on that later.
So the drawing board and I had a date. I scoured hundreds of house plans again trying to get the best possible jumping off point. Then, one late night while wasting time on Pinterest, I found it. It had all the features I was looking for, not bigger than my every day house, not an open floor plan (am I the only one that hates an open floor plan?), a full bathroom on each floor, a first floor Master, a mudroom area, a entry foyer, a screened porch, and most importantly a covered front porch. I've always dreamed of a large front porch where I can sit in a rocker drinking some homemade lemonade (or Country Time lemonade that I pass off as homemade because I don't have time to make lemonade from scratch).
Of course the plan we picked needed some changes, so with our tails between our legs, we called our architect back and got to work. Here is the original plan:
One of the main changes we made was to extend the dining area out to match the living area and then extend the front porch all the way across the front of the house. We also nixed the fireplace and added two windows to that wall, made the front living wall have two windows, as well as the dining area front and side walls. I'm all about symmetry. There were also small things like removing the entry closet and moving the opening so the front door wouldn't block the opening into the living room and making the screened porch a little bigger. Later, with the guidance of our builder we also widened the dormers to 6' instead of 3' which is probably one of the better decisions we made. Here are the final plans from the architect. *Note, when building a custom home, there is no such thing as final...
What else does a little lake cottage need? A little lake garage! Our lot doesn't allow for a double car or attached garage so we found this cute little single car detached garage. The workshop area will be more of a entertaining bar area and the single bay is great for storing bikes, boats, or jet skis. For the time being just bikes but eventually we'd like to see a fun water toy in there.
This plan just feels like a little cottage by the lake to me. It doesn't feel like a new modern house which is something I didn't want. I wanted it to feel like it could have been standing for 50 years while still having a few modern conveniences. I feel like we were able to achieve that. Now we wait to see it come to life
