Here’s yet ANOTHER version of the first floor – this time with an attached garage. I had hoped to have a detached garage, but Denis and I had a brief discussion about various issues such as our freezer, the kitty litter boxes, and ease of getting to garage storage.
So tonight I spent an hour or so making another version of the first floor in which the garage is attached to the rear left corner of the house. This allows us to build a “cat” room into the garage that the cats can access via a kitty door. It also enables us to have an enclosed dog run on the side of the house between the garage and the side porch which will be accessible by humans via a gate from the porch (that doesn’t appear on the picture). Both cat and dog doors will be available 24 hours a day – meaning no more letting the dog outside – he can go out whenever he wants.
Having the garage attached also means the freezer will be just inside the attached garage door as opposed to being in another building as originally planned.
I also moved the back wall a bit further back in the great room and laundry room. The great room is really big at this point, but I also think it’s going to be a very dramatic room with 10 or 12′ high ceilings and BIG windows on that back wall to allow for passive solar heating in winter (the great room faces south). Expanding it back also means there is a bit more wall near the stairs that a computer desk can go for the kids to do homework. I want them to be “out in the open” when they use a computer as they get older, and that corner is now a perfect spot for a corner computer hutch when the time comes.
The more I work on this floorplan the more I love it. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. And what is so great is that this is a good “retirement” floorplan – all living spaces are on the main floor so that in 40 years when Denis and I get old and rickety we need NEVER go upstairs to the upper floor.
So here it is – the main floor redux.
