I know some of you are probably getting tired of my floor plans by now, but I’m having fun mulling over ideas that I come up with and ideas that some of you have given me. And I just love floor plans anyway. Until we bought this house, one of my favorite past times was to go to one of those websites that has thousands of floor plans available and just search and look and plan and dream. I could spend an entire day looking at floor plans and never get bored.
Soon after we bought our house in 2013, I used a free online floorplan creator called Floorplanner to make a floor plan of our house. Once I created the original floor plan, I just used my trusty photo editing software (this is the one I use) to make edits. After years and years of making edits to the same floor plan, the plan had become distorted and out of scale. So now that I’m wanting to try out different ideas before meeting with the architect about our upcoming addition, I decided I want to start with a fresh, new, and to-scale floor plan.
So I headed back to Floorplanner only to find that I couldn’t make changes to my floor plan for free. It required that I purchase credits to make changes, and I’m not interested in that. I knew there had to be another free alternative, so I went on the hunt. I tried a few that I wasn’t pleased with at all, but then I found SmartDraw. (No, this isn’t sponsored. I really did just happen upon it.) It’s only free for a seven day trial, but that’s plenty of time for me to create a floor plan! And it doesn’t require any credit card information to use it during that seven day trial.
I found it to be pretty easy to use, and while I wish it had more options to “furnish” the rooms (for example, there are no options at all for exercise equipment, and the options for common rooms like bedrooms and living rooms seemed pretty minimal), I had fun using what they have available. Check out the floor plan I made…
Isn’t that fun?! Of course, my main goal was to mock up our addition so that it’s pretty much to scale so that I could add furniture and get a much better idea of what I’m working with. And once I had a more accurate picture of it, with more accurate measurements, I had a much better understanding of what was possible with the space available.
I love seeing a floor plan showing the furniture layout! You can see that I put a dining table in the front living room just to try out that idea. And also, since my plan of putting a dining room area in the new family room didn’t pan out, I added a storage closet and a laundry room back into that space.
I looked over every idea that y’all sent me about laundry rooms, laundry closets, hidden washers and dryers in custom cabinets, etc. So many of those ideas were amazing, and I considered so many of them and tried incorporating them into the floor plan. But in the end, I went back to having a dedicated laundry room. This is our final house, which is why we’re willing to spend as much as needed (well, within reason) to customize it for our specific needs and wants. And the fact is that I’ve never had a laundry room before in my life, and it’s something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time. So in the end, I decided I’m not willing to give that up.
And then a commenter reminded me that I had wanted a storage closet specifically for things like Matt’s Hoyer lift, shower wheelchair, and other items like that so that I can store them out of sight when they’re not in use rather than having them sit in the corner of a room. I can’t remember who that was, but thank you!!
That completely slipped my mind, and I would have been so frustrated had we built an entire addition, and I had to continue storing those things out in the open in the corner of a room (or rooms). Right now, Matt’s Hoyer lift lives in the corner of the guest bedroom (the bedroom we’re currently using as our main bedroom), and I can’t even tell you the number of times that things spins around and hits me as I’m trying to squeeze by it each day. His shower wheelchair lives in the shower when he’s not using it, and I’d love to get that out of there. And his regular wheelchair stays in the home gym by his exercise bike when he’s not using it. That just makes vacuuming that room even more difficult. So yes, having a storage closet for those things is imperative, and I can’t believe I forgot about that! Having that storage closet for those items is definitely a higher priority for me than having a dining area in the family room.
So the new bedroom will have a storage closet as well as a whole wall of wardrobes. I also added a fireplace in the bedroom, which Matt has always wanted. I put windows flanking the bed, and French doors out to the back yard. I had wanted to add windows flanking the French doors because I love all the natural light I can get, but Matt said it was too much for him. And since he spends way more time in the bedroom than I do, he gets the final say on that.
In the laundry room, I did an L-shaped design with the washer and dryer just inside the door. Unfortunately, stacking the washer and dryer isn’t user friendly for me because I’m so short. (I measured, and while I would be able to reach the controls on the stacked dryer, I wouldn’t be able to actually see the controls. ? So I’d have to use a step stool every single time, and I’d rather avoid that hassle.) I also put a utility sink in there. I envision upper cabinets all around the room for extra storage.
In the family room, I did a wall of bookshelves on the left as you enter from the music room, and on the opposite wall, a fireplace. And on the back wall, I added three windows (the same configuration we have in the front living room and the breakfast room) and French doors leading out to the back yard. And I do want those French doors, as well as the French doors in the bedroom, opening out instead of in. My mom had new French doors added to her breakfast room and den that both open out onto her amazing covered patio, and I just love it. That way, the swing of the doors doesn’t interfere with furniture placement inside the rooms.
Probably the main change I made is that instead of having the entrance to the bedroom closer to the wall of wardrobes, I’ve moved it to the far exterior wall. I did that for several reasons. First, I love that it makes the bedroom feel more separated from the “public” areas of the house. Also, I love that it opens up that exterior wall and allows for one more window to bring in more natural light. And finally, the placement of the laundry room close to the back exterior wall of the house makes sense to me so that on those days when I’m working outside and making a complete mess of myself, I can come in the back door, go directly to the laundry room and drop off work clothes, before heading into the bedroom.
So I think I have the floor plan figured out, and I look forward to meeting with the architect to see what he thinks, or if he has any better ideas.
But because I love floor plans so much, here are a few close ups of the floor plan for the other areas of the house. I just love looking at these! ?
Here’s a closer look at the whole master suite, plus the laundry room and the hallway bathroom. The big, blank area in the master bathroom is the shower. I couldn’t find a nice way to designate that area as the shower using their tools.
This is what I would call the main public corridor through the house, from the front door, through the (future) dining room, music room, kitchen, family room, and out the back doors to the back yard.
These are all of the areas off of the hallway — the hallway bathroom, guest bedroom, and home gym. Right now, the only way to access the master bathroom is through the home gym. It’s an awkward floor plan right now, but once the addition is built, it’ll all come together and make more sense. But even after the addition is built, I plan to keep the doorway between the bathroom and the home gym. It just makes sense to me to have those rooms accessible to each other.
On this floor plan, I didn’t include a passthrough from the kitchen to the family room. I’m still mulling over that idea, so I decided to leave it off for now.
And finally, here’s my studio, studio bathroom, storage closet, and back studio entry, which is all accessible through the breakfast room. The carport with the very nice wheelchair ramp sits behind the studio through those French doors, but I didn’t put it on the floor plan.
And here’s one more look at the whole floor plan with the addition…
I can’t wait to get started on this addition! It’s going to be a dream to have such a large bedroom, a dedicated laundry/utility room, and a nice, open family room. But for now, I can just stare at my new floor plan and dream.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
