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Bathroom Floor Plans

January 7, 2011 by Amy 8 Comments

All pistons are firing here on the addition. We have a friend coming next week to help out and then possibly two different designers coming to take a look. Even Scott has been sketching out floor plans in his spare time. Our headache right now are the bathrooms. We have an 11×19 rectangular that we can do whatever we want with as long as it holds our closets and the bathrooms. The options are endless and quite overwhelming.

My idea now is to put the bathroom in dead center and a his and hers closet on either side, with the openings from within the bathroom so we have no closet doors in our bedroom. I am SO tired of staring at two sets of bifolding doors from our bed.

Here are a few plans we’re working from right now:

Option 1

This first one we’d add a door and come into the bathroom from the bottom and then go into each closet on either side of the sink. This is my favorite I think. I like the long countertop. I like the idea of natural light at the sink. The bad news is this is a tad larger than we have space for.

Found here

Option 2

Scott couldn’t get around the idea of a bidet but I don’t know, I think we could work from this. I like the double sink and the possible makeup area and especially the linen closet. We NEED one in a bad way.

Found here

Option 3

I think on this one I just really think it would look nice coming in and our sink areas are definitely separate. I also like the sliding door that could close off from the shower and toilet, especially with the kids getting older. Just not sure I like the lack of countertop. Also, the window would need to be a door to the bedroom and we’d have to add a window between the tub and toilet.

Found here

I know it’d be hard but if you have any recommendations, throw them at us. I love this kind of thing! So fun to make something beautiful from nothing!

Additional Additions

January 5, 2011 by Amy 6 Comments

Thanks for the input yesterday. I’m encouraged by the positive response we’ve had, especially from our mothers :). I know secretly they just want a grandson out of the whole deal but that’s ok. Just kidding, guys! Sorta!

Anyway, we had a couple of other great ideas and thought we’d share. Here’s the original plan again:

And I do want to be clear that the boxes in between the Master and Girls Bedroom are each of our closets.

This first additional option was from Allison and that is to take out those closets instead of cutting through the girls room to make the hallway. We do have a tad of an issue because the closets are only 34” and code says it has to be 36” wide. Also there is a question on what to do with our old entrance to our room but I think it could definitely work. It would only take out a small corner of the room instead of a large chunk and we’d build their new closet as part of the new addition.

Another option takes out a need for a hallway through a bedroom at all and that is to close in the girls bedroom completely and make that the closet for the new suite. In this case, we’d only have 3 bedrooms but the flow is much better. We’d also get a cool deck leading out to the pool in the backyard. Scott isn’t much of a fan of this one and seems to think he’d rather do a 4th room in case the girls eventually want to split rooms (which I expect but is not required). This way also knocks out the closets, giving the current master bedroom another 3 feet of space, giving the girls more room since it would be a combined bedroom/playroom. Another option with the deck is to close that in and make a second closet for the current master bedroom for our impending two teenage girls sharing that room :). Or, you know, make a HUGE master bathroom.

So there ya go. I’m pretty excited about this and feel from several sides that God is prodding us to move forward quickly with it.

Do you like any of these plans better/worse?

UPDATE:

Scott found a way to use the closets as the hallway. Our other closet was posing an issue but I think he has it worked out. Latest favorite is this:

Addition

January 4, 2011 by Amy 9 Comments

And not in the subtraction kind of way. Scott and I spent some time this weekend considering an addition on the house. As I mentioned, we’re still considering adoption. But really, we don’t have the proper room for it. Yes, we could make it work with the 3 rooms we have. We could condense the girls’ toys, put their bed on stilts and cram it all in their room. The second option I’m not a fan of but we could switch rooms with the girls so that the girls have a bigger room to fit them and their toys. We lose a personal bathroom and well, that’s a bummer.

Why not just buy a new house? Well, we can’t even let go of a recliner. Think about how we feel about moving. Really, we are in a fabulous location, have a nice piece of property, like the school, etc. I’m not saying NO to it, but all of us want to consider an addition. So I thought we might all want to consider it together. Yes?

OK, so here’s the front of our house. It looks oh so…wintry. Wahhh…when is Spring coming??

Here’s the same side but from the back.

Photo Jan 04, 10 05 44 AM

And here’s the current floor plan on that side of the house

So basically that room you see jutting out of the back of the house is my office (where I’m currently sitting). It used to be our back porch and Scott closed it in. I just looked and wow, it has been 6 years since he did that. The room on the back corner is our room and the two windows on the left side of the house are the girls’ play room and bedroom. Here’s a shot down the hallway. Playroom to the left, their room straight down the hall and our bedroom is the last door on the right and as I said, is in the back of the house.

Actually, here’s a really old house tour if you’d like a better feel for the inside. I’m almost embarrassed by it though…not ONE of those rooms look the same but the floor plan is still legit.

OK, whew, I hope you get the idea of the current state of our floor plan. So there are really only two options for an addition. In both cases, the idea is to add on a master suite, let the girls share our room, and let whomever (whether it be adoptee or just guests) have their bedroom.

OPTION 1

The first is to close in that back corner of the house where the trampoline is. You might want to scroll back up to the pic from the back yard.

The door to the new bedroom would come off the office. You can see I added in where the furniture would go.

The back of the house would look something like this:

The good part about this is you don’t change the front of the house. You wouldn’t even know it was different if you were driving down the road.
You also don’t really lose any square footage from the house. Yes, we’d have to do some rearranging in the office to get a door from there but overall, no square footage is lost.
The one really big downside is you’d lose the window in the office, the window to the master bathroom AND one in the bedroom. Our house already is pretty dark and that’s the side of the house where we get a lot of sun.
We’d also lose the back yard for the trampoline, where it is currently hidden from passersby. However, we do have room for it still.
The bedroom would be roughly 16×17 and include a closet and bathroom.

OPTION 2

The second option is to go wide. We’d tack the room on to the end of the house.

The tricky thing about this is how to get to the room. We’d have to extend our hallway into the current girls bedroom , make a new wall for their room (see the dashed line) and have our doorway at the end of the hall.

The front would look roughly like this. This is rough, but the last two windows would be the addition. The ones in the middle are the current girls’ room:

And the back, you can see it to the right there:

The bad part about this is obviously the second bedroom loses a lot of square footage. The room is not big already and I think this change would make it as small as the first one, which is like 8×10.
Another downside is we’d for sure have to redo all the siding and possibly carpet.
The good news is the room could be much larger, up to 22×20 if needed.
We have lots of space in our side yard that is not used.
We keep all the windows in the back as well as the trampoline space.
All the bedrooms are still accessed from the hall.

Given all that, we are definitely leaning towards putting it on the end. I know we’d lose some of the bedroom but I think it’s better than losing back yard and all my windows and office space. And really, I think it’s a better looking solution.

So did I lose you? Follow that at all? What do you think? Side or back? Or bad idea altogether?

The Pajama Pants

December 29, 2010 by Amy 4 Comments

I must tell you the story of the pajama pants.

On Black Friday, I bought a handful of stuff from Old Navy that I decided to get as as a Christmas gift from my in-laws. Included was a pair of fleece pajama pants. Now, I have never had a legit pair of pajama pants as an adult. The closest thing I ever got was the satin pajama set from Victoria’s Secret, which I highly recommend by the way. I was very sad when I recently caught the knee of them on a door knob in my office and ripped a small hole. Anyway, besides those I usually wore a pair of my yoga pants with a T-shirt. So Saturday evening after opening our gifts at Scott’s parents Saturday afternoon, we all put on our pajama pants to settle in for some movies. Some of you may have even seen my tweet.

Well. I wore them Saturday night and then Sunday we were snowed in. I didn’t get a shower and spent the morning cleaning. Sunday afternoon I finally took a shower, changed the “important things” and then put my pajama pants right back on for me to lounge around the house. I wore them Sunday night and until I showered on Monday at lunchtime. I know. Gross when you actually type it out like that. But let me tell you, I double, triple, quadruple puffy heart the pajama pants. They are SO comfortable. I promise I’d still be in them if I had just a tad less sense than I do. I told Scott yesterday that I needed to get another pair pronto.

Last night Melissa and I met for dessert to exchange Christmas presents and I busted out laughing as soon as I opened the box. Oh, you guessed it. Pajama pants. From Old Navy. IN THE SAME PATTERN. Holy cow. That’s what best friends are for. Even better, she thought my big ‘ol hips would still fit in an Extra-Small. Now that’s a best friend for you.

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I am very sad to report the pants are all gone from the Old Navy website but I’d high-tail it to your local store and see if you can grab any on clearance!

Happy Thanksgiving

November 25, 2010 by Amy 1 Comment

Our Thanksgiving is off to a great start. Lots of lounging and cooking, even some shopping. I’ve been thinking all morning about how much I have to be thankful for. God has been so good to us.

I’m so thankful for all of you that read this. You make taking the time to blog so worth it! Hope you are enjoying family and friends and have a wonderful day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

They Don’t Make Barbies Like They Used To

November 23, 2010 by Amy 13 Comments

With their birthday money, the girls have gotten several toys the past few weeks. One of which we need to discuss. This Barbie. Not an actual Barbie per se but, really, a Barbie. Actually, a pregnant Barbie.

Cool. Pregnant Barbie. We have had several pregnant ladies around us lately. No wonder Emma was interested in getting this. Actually Lexi too. Yes, we have two of these. Because I know you’re interested, this is what she looks like under her shirt.

I feel a little awkward pulling a lady’s shirt up and showing her pregnant belly. I mean, some women are ok with that and then others aren’t.

But then again, this Barbie’s huge belly magically disappears so out of sheer jealousy, I will not feel bad for showing you her belly.

See? Flat belly, happy baby.

Oh, but I’m hiding a little from you. It’s NOT JUST A PRETEND PREGNANT BELLY.

The flat belly spins around and creates a magical hole for the baby to fit in. And look, head down. Barbie must be ready to deliver!

Barbie, you better get your bags, time to go to the hospital! And deliver. AGAIN.

Look, I can’t help it, it’s just weird. Then again, I’m just happy the baby comes out c-section style (ish).

Have you ever seen such??

Heart Desires

November 12, 2010 by Amy 9 Comments

When did they…

…become them…

I almost don’t recognize them. And I don’t mean the missing bad perm and braces. That couple is a happy couple in their 30’s with 2 kids, a dog and a picket fence. And most days I feel a lot more like that 15 year old a lot less like that 32 year old.

But somehow that’s us and every single dream that 15 year old had 17 years ago got wrapped up in a few pictures yesterday.