I think it is fun to imagine the flow of the rooms, how we would use the spaces, ask myself questions like; it is too big? too small?
Does it have enough wall space for the massive amount of art, objects,Tibetan prayer flags, textiles, and assorted crap I tend to hang on the walls? (what? You don't reject houses because they don't have enough wall space?)
Would the resulting house have character or would it be just another cookie-cutter house. As a devoted eclectic (according to some, borderline eccentric. okay maybe complete eccentric) a house we live in can't be ordinary. Oh, it can be on the outside, I guess, if it has to, but the inside? Yeah, it just ain't gonna happen.
The only time that JR and I ever built a house from the ground up we bought a set of plans only to not use them. There were parts of the plan I liked and parts that I didn't like. Also, the slope of our land had to be taken into consideration. And the fact that I wanted a full length cantilevered covered porch instead of a gabled one, 12 foot ceilings on the main floor, a walk-out basement, and a 6/12 pitch (6 inch drop for every 12 inches of roof face. In case you don't speak roof pitch. This is very steep. Most houses are 4/12. I wanted more attic space and I didn't want to worry about snow buildup.) on the roof didn't help matters. Our contractor finally said: "Michele, you are making so many changes to this plan that I can't really read it anymore. Why don't you just sketch what you want on some graph paper and we'll make it work." So that is what I did.
So I guess I should add architect to my resume. Okay maybe not my resume but at least my bucket list.
What are some of your requirements in a dwelling?
Love,
M
PS: I purloined the images from our digital library. We've got some cool architectural pamphlets displayed.
