House Design

Coming up with the final choice for a house design has been quite a journey. We began by looking at a huge number of stock plans from a number of sources -- design books published by a lot of different folks and a lot of online resources. We decided that none of the designs we had found really worked for us. They all had compromises. It seemed like there would be a canned design which included items like Master on the main, a large utility/mudroom near the Master, spacious kitchen, no superflous spaces like home theaters, parlours, etc; and in addition have good views to the front AND back -- and finally fit into a 125-foot wide lot with about 30 feet on either side for good access. Nothing out there seemed to work.

So we tried a custom house design and still didn't get what we wanted. The designer had a vision of what we wanted, but in the end it was incorrect. More delays, and some wasted money spent.

Revisiting one of our more favorite house design sites (Alan Mascord), we found a few designs that were less of a compromise. Or perhaps we finally began to understand that some compromises are inevitable. Either way, we found a design that we thought we could work with. Here is the starting point. From there, we worked with one of their designers to modify it according to our vision. I want to post some of the drawings for what we finally got, but I'm concerned about copyright issues. I'm inquiring with Mascord on what we can and cannot post so hopefully some bits and pieces of the design can be posted here. That's all for now.