What we wanna do, v1

So we're back in the UK now, and we're thinking about our plans for our house when we get it. Of course we have lots of pictures, and our memories, but nothing looks like you remember it when you really get there. So it's all very concept-, rather than detail-, oriented. But we have some seeds of ideas. And before we see the place again, before we actually do any construction, I wanna get this down for the record. We'll see how closely future reality matches.

To start with and for reference, here's the floorplan as it now stands:

Our primary focus on the upper floor is going to be moving the kitchen to where the front left bedroom is, and lofting the ceilings in a portion of the house all the way up to the roof. The front-right bedroom will become Kepler's playroom, possibly with its own internal mezzanine, and atop the ceiling of that playroom we'll have a balustraded loft-room, with a futon and some cushions, looking down over the entire living space. The wall between the two back small bedrooms goes away to create a shared office for Sarah and I, and a small corridor adds not only a door to the TV room (which is nice for privacy when that TV room becomes a guest room), but also a couple closets. The corridor is Kristi's good idea. The front bathroom goes away completely -- why have two so close together -- and joins with the existing kitchen to become a library, in which the existing stairs up will lead to the loft above the payroom. The back bathroom gets a little bigger by encroaching on kitchen-space. Make sense? Here's a sketch:

As to the layout of the new kitchen, we're thinking about our options. Definitely an island or two, allowing flow to the dining space and the verandah space as well; the outdoor table will possibly be the more-used dining area anyway. Pots hanging overhead. Pass-through the window. Gotta be careful to accomodate the open panes in any design.

So the entire lofted area, where the ceilings come out altogether, looks like this:

We're doing this for a sense of space, but also because the front part of the house, which was an extension on the original house, has its ceiling a little higher than the old house. By just doing away with those ceilings altogether, it'd feel much nicer, I think. And the roof has a rather shallow cant anyway; it won't be a huge addition of volume, it won't be overbearingly high. Steve and I went to check out the structure of the attic during our last visit to the house, and it turns out that the joists which hold up the roof are seated in the exterior walls with no central support anyway, so those will be nice to expose and clean up.

There is one major piece of work involved with all this, though. If you look again at the floorplan of the house as it stands now, you can see that the back wall of the front two bedrooms is a thick stone wall. This was the original exterior wall of the house before the front rooms and verandah were added on. Looking at it from the front, it's shaped roughly like this (not including the lower floor):

The door in the top connects the old- and new attic spaces, and maybe was a window in the original house.

Anyway, if the new kitchen is to communicate with the dining space, at least some of this wall has to go. Structurally, there seems to be nothing we can't do; a bit of steal can hold up a surprising amount of stone wall, and custom-cut arches aren't as expensive as you'd think. we could just take out a block of the existing wall:

or add an arch:

Or even combine the existing hallway into the archway:

These options leave the doorway between the attics for some sort of sculptural installation or even stained glass. But these options also leave a huge wedge of stone floating up at the ceiling level, looking heavy and weird, and intersecting the lofted ceiling, cutting into its sense of space.

Maybe a better plan would be to eliminate almost all of the original wall. The only thing it's holding up is ceiling. Joists could do that job, and would match what we're going to reveal over the rest of the space anyway:

This definitely feels airier and lighter, and also allows a passage through from the stairs up to the loft over the playroom. It's also a much bigger job.

Of course, the walls from the library, tv room and office would extend all the way to the roof. Wall space is good for art, and attic space is nice for storage and mystery. We're considering putting another room atop the library, after all we do have those stairs right there and more guest rooms are always welcome (you are going to visit, aren't you?). But the room over the library likely wouldn't have a railing looking downward. Maybe a window. But it's good to have some enclosed spaces as well.

Also, regarding the little corridor to the TV-room and office: I like the idea of an antique brass-and-wood revolving door. A small one. Maybe it's just me. No? Ok then. I had to say it.

So that's our basic thinking. We need to do some research into kitchen flow. Wish I'd brought a tape-measure to our last visit.

And I know I know: there's a whole lower floor which is even bigger. And the vastness of the verandah to consider. I'll get there. We've got some ideas. You'll see. :)