Design thoughts.
I fell in love with Forest Lane from the moment I walked in the house.
Tim knew it too. I remember when we got in the car after our first showing he looked at me and said, “You love it, don’t you?” He knows me too well. :) I could see so much potential. We wanted a house that we could make our own and were prepared to put in the work. But the floor plan was just so strange.
Forest Lane is unique as it was built “upside down”. The master suite is downstairs and there are no main bedrooms or bathrooms on the first level (and it’s a rambler so there is no second story). So, we went home after the showing and immediately started brainstorming what we could make of it. After hours and hours of doodling on the iPad, we finally came up with something we felt would fit our needs and could be excited about.
Below are some floor plans were provided with the listing. On top is the original floor plan, and the concept we put together in Procreate on the iPad is below. We aren’t professional draftsmen but it’s fun to see the ideas we came up with!
We aim to design a public and private section of the house, connected by a hallway.
We will make the current office/den into our main bedroom, and turning the dining room into a walk in closet and main bathroom. Neither have closets or even doors at the moment (they are just very large openings where bifold doors may have been), so there is some work to be done. But the rooms are large and have a lot of potential! I would love to add windows to the bedroom too since we have a small wooded lot along the side of the house.
The sun room will become a nursery, just need to frame in a closet and add some doors (don’t get ahead of yourselves people — we are just planning ahead :)). Someday it can be flipped back into a sun room or den/office space.
There is currently a wall in between the the kitchen and living room that when removed will make it feel very spacious and open!
Dreaming of flipping the stairs and mudroom/foyer closets to create a better flow to the downstairs, bring in light from the front of the house, and give more function to the mud room off the garage.
Taking time for this process helped us feel more comfortable about making an investment and affirm that this house could be everything we dreamed of. It’s amazing what a little vision and trust can do. Now that we’ve hired our architect, Mitlyng Design, I am so excited to see the final plans we end up with and make this dream a reality!
