Day three - new house plans

The bulk of our third day here, from 11am on, was spent with our architect Eric in Daylesford (about an hour or so away). Here's a photo of him with Dave:



Broadly the house layout is staying the same but we're enlarging it... incrementally the extra cost won't be that much and we'd rather err on the side of too much space (as we'll easily fill it) than risk it feeling cramped.

The biggest changes:

• The library will become MUCH bigger. We're extending it in length by about 4m but putting a small wall jutting out a little to give it the feel of two separate spaces, yet open enough to see through. The furthest space will be two storey, with spiral stairs up to a landing, so that we have some serious book storage both above and below. We'll be using the giant stained glass lampshape in here as a kind of reverse cupola, with lights & skylight above.
  
  
• The dressing room upstairs will have a dormer window inserted to make it feel more spacious and add room for a seat... it'll also be a little wider, so it feels less like a walk in closet. There'll be a matching dormer on the other side.
  
  
• We're changing the shape of the stairs to be square rather than a rounded finish, with a decent landing area, which may entail extending it a little to ensure they retain a sweeping feel, akin to the stairs at Standen. We'll be moving the 11ft clock so that it backs onto the kitchen wall rather than between the stairs, and raising the ceiling height by a step or two, to ensure there's space for it.
  

Other less major changes:

• We're widening the entrance hall and similarly enlarging the pantry and kitchen.
  
  
• The kitchen door will be shunted towards the front of the house to make space for glass fronted full-length cupboards for storing china, on the wall backing onto the pantry. This solves one of the major storage dilemmas.
  
  
• The bedroom and study upstairs (and possibly also the bathroom, yet tbd) will have 1-2 steps down to enter them from the hall landing. The exact amount depends on how much the ceiling in the stairway area needs to be raised to accommodate the clock. This will give them a wonderful feeling I think, like the house we saw in Washington.
  

• Eric is going to attempt to bring the bathroom dormer window forward a little, so it has a bit more space, although it'll still be cosy in feel.
  

• At the front Eric is going to see if its possible to put a small balcony - accessed via climbing over the window sill - across the top of the front verandah. It depends on what it does to the roof shape, but he's going to experiment with it.
  

• In the lounge room, a false ceiling will be added starting a bit in front of the bay window area, to make the space feel more interesting... and at the same time the whole room will be lengthened a bit "letting it breath" in Eric's words. A similar thing will be done in the kitchen probably too.
  

Eric is going to work on revising the drawings and send them to us in a few weeks, so I'll scan and add them here when they arrive.