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We wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood to see what we liked, and literally the exact moment we stepped out the door it started raining.  We were pretty confident with our choices, though and Matt ran home to add them to the drawings.  We are both really happy with the way things turned out.

Windows in the back/North side of the house with bedrooms

North side of the house with bedrooms

If all goes well and there is enough time this weekend, in addition to putting a new roof on the back sunroom, we’ll also be able to start putting the windows in.

After an expensive and hurried trip to Kinko’s, I went down to the Village Hall with Matt. He claims that once those people find out you are an architect, they love to start giving you a hard time, where as home owners can basically get away with anything.  We took a number and sat down to wait. 

Once our number was called, we brought up our plans and started to figure things out.  So to start off, you just submit an application for plan review, and all the information on this is basically your own.  The electrical, plumbing, and building permits come after your plan is aproved.  I was relieved since we didn’t have those filled out yet.

We are applying for a kitchen/bath remodel and addition of a deck.  We took them through our plans to make sure that all the details they needed were there (Matt had to make a few notes about rail height on the deck), but I was very impressed and proud of my brother-in-law with the detail in the drawings and how much he had thought of.  Matt had stamped and signed all 3 copies of our plans which each included a plat survey and gave them a copy of his architect’s license.  Then the moment he had been waiting for, they wanted the license of his company as well, even though he is a home owner doing a private project outside of his company on his own home.  We were told if he hadn’t stamped them, they wouldn’t need any information at all, and as a home owner you can draw the plans yourself.  I could have brought them a picture I came up with myself on a piece of printer paper and they would take it.  But because he’s an architect…

Matt very calmly explained that he is a home owner drawing plans for his home that he didn’t feel he should be penalized for being more professional (more professional than any drawings I would do, I can tell you that!).  While they went to check on this, we contemplated another expensive trip to Kinko’s to print them out again, and we would just leave the stamp off this time. Ridiculous.  Fortunately when they came back, it was all okay, and the plans were accepted!

100 bucks later, and that was it.  It will be 4-6 long weeks until we hear, and longer to get a permit if we have to make revisions.  By then we will have our electrical and plumbing information together and hopefully can just move forward.  In the meantime we will leisurely paint and strip every wood surface I can get off the walls.

I am tired.  I don’t think I am ready to submit.  It is all just rushed and I haven’t started the forms.  OP doesn’t not have necessarily a good website for submittal requirements.  One requirement that I saw required a site plan the site survey probably won’t be enough.  There are gaps in the drawings but it is hard to say how hard they will review the stuff.  I am hearing some bad things from other architects, but I think we just need to get it into the system and take our hits.

Demo plan

new floor plan

Electrical Plans

West facing exteriorSouth facing exterior

north side exterior

Bathroom idea

Here is some more work. The tub move currently is only giving us a 30×60 tube and requires us to make the door 30″ and move it closer to the toilet and generally is pretty tight. It will be import to verify the exact location of the toilet. I am showing a short depth toilet like in the basement here to minimize the interference with the door. But we will need to verify the location of the collar to confirm that the small toilet will work.

I didn’t include a sketch but the plan is helped maybe by flipping the toilet and sink. This might not be necessary or desireable. But I did a drawing with the toilet and sinks flipped and I liked how it made the toilet more private or at least not immediately viewable from the hall. The double sink configuration is very tight on a 7′-0″, but it is close to working. Another 3,4,5,6 inches would be a big help. I again really think the tub wants to be as big as the tub downstairs here which is 34×66. Does the linen closet want to opening off the bathroom (I think it does) or does it want to opening of the little hall area where it could be larger and more usuable than the way I have it laid out.

Kitchen version 1, floor plan and elevation

I am liking the kitchen. I will find photos of Micah’s house but Mark Bebbe a classmate of mine centered the stove/range on a large window and had a nice contemporary exhaust hood “floating” out in front of the glass.

I really like the separate doors up at the top of the 42″ upper wall cabinets. Again I thought the little LED display case light was really nice at showing off nice dishes that we saw at Troy’s showroom. It really makes that upper shelf of a 42″ cabinet, I think, more “usable” given that it is just really too high to use the upper shelf on a 42″ cabinet. Again please warm up to the exhaust hood idea. Thoughts and comments are welcomed.

Appliances will start to be very important. For example. The fridge probably wants to be 36″ wide. Also I am just showing a 30″ wide stove. We could go with a wider stove and take advantage of the window opening more and still make the 15″ door units work. I really like standardizing as much as possible on a 15″ wide door/drawer unit. I think 30 and 15 inch units work much better than 12 and 24 units. They just seem to proportion better. Also I like to not have 24 wide units mixed in with 30″. Also base cabinets want to relate to the layout of wall cabinets.

I will try to make some time tomorrow to draw up what we sketched on the deck and respond to any comments that come back.