We've done the brief, the site visit, the developed brief, and signed on the dotted line... so James got to go away and think about everything and try to come up with a design that a) we love, b) meets all our brief requirements, c) makes maximum use of sun and shade and privacy, and d) sits well on the site. Good luck with that! Sooooo glad we're getting someone who knows WTF they are doing to sort this stuff!
At Nico's nap time on a Saturday a few weeks ago, it was d-day. That's designs-day. Eep! Excited! Nervous! Nervous for James! James presented us with three designs, all of which met the brief but each was different in feel, in size, in layout. Cue two weeks of Ben and I debating the options and staying up at night drawing possible tweaks and additions. We even folded two plans in half and photocopied them together to create our very own Frankenstein house. We tried fiddling with bits "if we just moved the garage back like this, and shortened the hallway here...." Ben redrew a part of one of the houses using tracing paper (handy to have a Hubby who designs, he has all the tools!). He proudly presented the "new and improved" design to me... only for me to point out that in his design, one of the bedrooms and laundry had no windows! Fail. On the positive side, the bedroom could have had a window into the garage, and that could totally have been Sam's room!
After discussing Frankenstein obsessively for a few days, we figured out that we had probably made more problems than we solved by sticking the two plans together. So back to the original plans we went. The plan that I first said "I like that one best" to James? That was the plan we went back to.
The next meeting, we got to fiddle with the little details, try to make some bits bigger and some bits smaller, James did a bit more tweaking... and voila! We have a floor plan! I know you're all dying to see it.. but I haven't posted it otherwise all the excitement will be gone and no one will follow my blog anymore! Ha!