Art: new home build | myMCMlife.com

House Plans – Round 2

01/19/2012

Our house plans are developing and our excitement is increasing. I think we’re almost there with the floor plan! Again, I’m purposely obscuring this photo so our architect’s intellectual property can’t swiped (as easily). We figured out how to incorporate a fourth bedroom that we’re calling the den. It’ll probably be more of a playroom, creative space for Precious and other kids to hang out in by the time we move into the house. It’s crazy to think that our little 6 month old baby will be walking by the time we’re in our new home. Also, the laundry room grew into an office/craft room for me. Yay! Now the trick will be finding a GC (general contractor) who will build this house for $100/square foot or less.

I like the philosophy of Rachel Peters, interviewed on Design Mom, about her custom built dream home—she intentionally had their architect make the bedrooms and closets small to encourage the kids to go outside and to make it harder to hoard junk. We’ve had a similar philosophy for our new house: keep the bedrooms small and the common areas big and open to promote togetherness. The minimalist in me likes the small closets idea but the thrifty part of me wants to organize and store anything we might use in the future.

7 Comments | Art, Art: new home build | Tagged: floor plan, house plans, new home build | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

House Plans: Initial Drawings

01/13/2012

We’ve got plans! However, I want to protect the original work of our architect so I’m not going to fully share the plans at this point. We are thrilled! We wanted a lot of mid-century influence but figured it was going to be a modern twist, since it is 2012 after all, and we’re not planning to try to trick anyone into believing our home was built in the mid-1900s. Jason and I were hoping Ryan, our architect, would not just take our (many) ideas into consideration but also throw in a good mix of his own ideas and creativity. We were not disappointed. The exterior is different than what we expected and anything we’ve seen before. “Stunned” is the word that comes to mind with my initial reaction. Stunned/stunning are pretty similar words, right? Now I think it’s stunning.

The front of the house, according to these plans (which I’m sure will change some), will be a mix of cinder block and stained wood. I scribbled in the landscaping to help me visualize it. The most notable elements are the roof line—Ryan’s idea to let a ton of light flood into the great room which will have vaulted ceilings with exposed beams—and the lack of apparent front door. There is a front door, of course, but it’s concealed behind the wall of a courtyard.

I woke up early one morning walking through this house in my head and getting ideas along the way. I had to get out of bed to fetch some tracing paper and start scribbling down my ideas. We’re still waiting for our house to sell—we’ve had 13 showings in the first month!—which means we can take our time in the design and planning phase for now.

Here’s my “Dream House Wishlist” in case you’re curious:
• great room (kitchen, dining room, living room)
• wood-burning fireplace
• 3 bedrooms minimum
• 2 full bathrooms
• 4th bedroom that will serve as a den/playroom/guestroom for now, until/unless we need it for more kids
• studio for Jason
• laundry room/office/craft room area for me
• courtyard or atrium
• mid-century design influence
• great natural light and big windows
• garage
• wood floors
• lots of other little ideas

Oh, it’s exciting! It will be sad to say goodbye to this house that we love so much but having a new place to look forward to helps. We’re also anxious to get back to fostering kids. I’m glad we’re finally not getting placement calls anymore because it was heartbreaking to have to keep saying no, but we’re still very aware of the need and that every day there are kids that need a safe place to go. We’re feeling like this year and transition time will go by very quickly, or maybe we’re just ready to jump ahead to moving into our finished house.

2 Comments | Art, Art: new home build | Tagged: dream house, new house | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

The Land

01/04/2012

We’ve been referring to the chunk of dirt, grass and trees we own as “the land.” We stopped by there one day last week to finally get a picture of the three of us. My mom walked down (a looooong walk, 6 house down!) to snap these photos for us. Standing on this ground makes us so excited about our new house. We’re really looking forward to the planning and building process next year.

1 Comment | Art, Art: new home build, Family, Family: Jason, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: new home build, sold, the land | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Pinterest December 2011 Additions: In My Dream House

12/21/2011

Are you on Pinterest? Since we’re in the process of planning our dream house, I’ve been trying to remember to pin images of features I love for our future home. Here are a few recent additions and what I loved about them.

I love the art and the fireplace here:

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Martina on Pinterest

Light airy living room with huge windows. Love it. Somewhere in the great room, if not in the living room:

Source: gallery.apartmenttherapy.com via Martina on Pinterest

Super cute breakfast nook, though I may prefer an island or peninsula in the kitchen with stools instead:

Source: designsponge.com via Martina on Pinterest

The next 3 images totally inspired me to rethink the “den” into more of a creative space, playroom, art room:

Source: designmom.com via Martina on Pinterest

Craft supply storage:

Source: designsponge.com via Martina on Pinterest

Remind me to make sure we create a space in the kitchen to store cookbooks. I love what they did here on the island. Also, I like the white cabinet doors and white subway tile backsplash:

Source: designsponge.com via Martina on Pinterest

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: interior design, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design, Art: new home build | Tagged: dream house, ideas, inspiration, new home, pinterest | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Big Announcement: We’ve Got Land

11/30/2011

As if we don’t have enough going on with Precious and her pending adoption, Jason and I have also been working on another big project. We’re building a house! Well, we will be once we sell our little mid-century modern ranch. But, we have purchased a piece of land. It’s really rare for land to become available in our 1950s-70s developed neighborhood, but the house that originally sat here was removed after a fire. This lovely, treed, flat, half-acre lot is less than a mile from our current home and just 6 houses down from my parents house. That probably sounds too close to most people but we have a great relationship and I love that Precious and our other future kids will be able to walk to over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.

We found a local architect, Ryan Thewes, that we’re really excited to work with. He’s studied with students of Frank Lloyd Wright and he does a lot of modern design. We think he’s the perfect architect to bring the mix of mid-century and modern that we’re hoping for. Building a house is something we’ve been dreaming of for a long time but assumed it would be in our distant future. When the perfect lot opened up, we decide to take a leap of faith. God has blessed us with great friends and family who helped us work everything out.

Our biggest motivation for moving out of the home we absolutely love: more space and bedrooms for more kids. We tossed around the idea of building on but ultimately decided to move on. Our home is three bedroom but one of the rooms is Jason’s studio which leaves just one room for kids. That worked great for the past 5 years but we’ve moved into a new season. Now that we have Precious for good, with DCS regulations for foster homes we would only be able to take one more child and she’d have to be a girl close to Precious’ age. We have it in our hearts to continue fostering more kids so more bedrooms are a must.

Here are some pictures I took on the property back in October the day we met Ryan there with our friend and real estate agent Jeremy (and his dog Maggie.):