The outside.

Well, things are starting to take shape, and take on dimension. In our most recent meeting with our design team, we reviewed a couple of revised floor plan and layout options, all variations of the L shape we loved from the initial concepts. I’ll show you all three, but I’ll also tell you now that we’ve already chosen the one that spoke to us most and it’s this one. 

This option adds a guest bed and bath at the southern end of the house, and puts a detached garage in the northeast corner. We loved the balance of this whole structure, how the garage as an outbuilding fit with the barn metaphor you see in the shape of the house, and the more enclosed feel of having the garage door face the same gravel drive space as the front door. It just felt good. So good that I got goosebumps when we looked at it. 

The team had put together two awesome alternatives, as well.

Option B, pictured below, foregoes the guest space, something we were considering as a way to cut square footage and therefore costs. But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that a real guest space is going to be really important. Since we’re moving to an island, friends are more likely to come and stay for a night or a weekend than to drop by for dinner, and we want a nice, private-feeling space where Tim’s family can stay when they come visit from Kentucky. Also, maybe we want an au pair! She’ll need a room. This option also shows an attached garage, with the driveway coming in from the northeast corner of the lot and the garage door facing the road. An attached garage makes a lot of sense in our climate, and this would have meant more yard and less driveway in front of the house-- all good things!

Option C also foregoes the guest space but attaches the garage to the south end of the house. This gives the main part of the house much longer lines, so the entry is moved from the glass pass-through between the sections (which becomes an office) and to the top of the public space, so you would enter into the main dining and living area.  

Here’s what each would look like:

So Option A is The One. We’re in love with this direction and how things are coming together. It’s like our design team took an idea we had in our head and made it real, but also better than we could have imagined it.

Want to see it in 3-D??

Yeah you do!! 

This is the front of the house, as seen from the entry off the road. Garage obviously straight ahead, living and dining space behind that notched out wood section with the glass wall, and entry just past that, between the two perpendicular structures.

This is the view from the backyard, so, the main living and dining room in the center, behind that glass wall, with the den and guest space to the right of that. You can also start to see here what the deck off of the primary bedroom will look like, all the way to the left.

Straight-on view of the back of the house, where you can see the pass-through effect of the glass entryway and of the glass wall + glazing in the living/dining space.

We’ve still got work to do in terms of material selection, and there are details to refine, but you can see generally what things will look like here. We liked this idea of a black shell or exoskeleton that’s carved away to reveal pockets of this warm material underneath. There’s lots of glazing, and a wall that will open up at least in one direction in the main living area.

Next up we get into materiality and interiors. So far we’ve felt so insanely lucky to be working with the team that we are. It seems like our visions are just totally aligned. Decisions are quick and easy, and their style is just so on point. Hopefully that energy keeps carrying through as we move along and keep building out the construction dream team!