I found this site awhile back when Anthony and I were talking about how we wanted our shop/apartment to look when we started building on our property. I wasn't excited about the idea of drawing up a grid and cutting out little pictures of tables, stoves, chairs, and such (to scale), so I search around on the internet and found a free and easy to use floor planner that had all those things and much, much more. All I had to know was the dimensions of the apartment section of the shop, and off I went. I really got into it and spent about 4 hours playing around with layouts, where to have the bathroom and the stairs and all that. I finally came up with this for the downstairs of the apartment:
Anthony requested there be a T.V. room, and I really wanted a sitting place that was no where near a television, so we worked everything else around that. The kitchen is super tiny with limited storage space, but if you look at that white space on the top left - that's the stairs going up from the back door. Underneath that is going to be all the pantry space I need. I could even forgo having a dishwasher to gain more cupboard space. No, seriously, I could. I've got more to say on the whole dishwasher subject at a later time.
On a whim, I put in a cute little chair, standing lamp, and small round table next to the front door. I like the idea of having a little space to just sit, or read, or write, or whatever. Most of the foot traffic is going to be coming in through the back door because the bathroom/mud area is right there. We'll have some "locker" spaces against the wall to the bathroom to put all the shoes, coats, umbrellas, etc. that need to find a place when people come in.
On the whole, I really like it. It's nice and cozy. I think we can be quite comfortable until the house is built. Then, we can use it as a guest house for when people want to stay a day or two. How fun :).
I'll probably do some rearranging to the upstairs layout before I'm completely satisfied with it. But, here's what it looks like right now:
The stairs come up into what will be the "school room". There's a craft table in the middle for all of our project times and we each have a desk to work at. There's plenty of space for storage cabinets, white boards, bulletin boards, and the like. It should be great.
If you're planning a room remodel, or are thinking about building a house, I would highly recommend using www.floorplanner.com to get your layout ideas down. It's very versatile and has a TON of items to put in your rooms, and it's FREE!
