The house plan

We were sitting at dinner with our niece and nephew. We were at their house. I had no idea they lived so far away. They are at the opposite end of our metropolis from us. It was over an hour drive. He is the contractor that bailed Tom out on the house projects. Nephew dropped everything and re aranged his schedule to come work on our house for a few days to get it ready for sale, on very short notice.

My niece had cooked a great dinner of Greek style food. I found it delicious. Trevor never turns down anything so he ate well. Riley, of course, took a couple of bites and called it interesting, but not interesting enough to eat much. Tom will eat and enjoy red meat, just like Trevor.

They showed us the house they have recently purchased. Newly weds and their first home. Its in better condition than the house we are trying to buy in Longview. We started to talk house plans. Tom shared some of his ideas and joked that his problem was he wanted a house plan that could only be accommodated in a 6000 square foot ranch. I agree with his ideas in concept. But they will be hard to accommodate.

He wants the kitchen in the back of the house, tucked away, so the mess is not visible. Old school style. No open family room plan, where the kitchen is exposed to everything, and not located by the front door as the first thing you see when you com in. OK, so it will be a deep house.

The next note was that laundry, closets and bathrooms should be next to each other. Laundry should not be carried across the house but created and put away right where it accumulates. I loved that concept. He also like a large master suite . That is what sold us on the house we have now. Half the house is master suite. But the laundry is not in the master suite. It is at the end of the hall. near the boys rooms.

He mentioned a dumb waiter in the garage and having the kitchen downstairs. I liked having an upstairs and downstairs kitchen. Once the boys move out, I see the potential of renting out one floor as a separate apartment. We may need care givers in our old age or even passive income.

I found out from the city that a single residential unit can rent an apartment if the owner lives on the premises in one unit.

My wish list also included not having a lick of carpeting in the whole house. My nephew told me he could get hardwood flooring for me at the cost of laminate. I want a room big enough for the pool table to fit comfortably. I want a big master suite with a soaking tub in the bathroom. Double sinks in both ours and the boys bathroom. We need a room for conversation that will not have a TV in it, in essence two living rooms. That was what I loved about our old house, the upstairs downstairs living areas.

The lot we want to buy has some restrictions on building. The city sewer line goes through the back yard so we can only go so deep. The city has restrictions on set backs in the front yard so we can't bump out in front either. The house may be three stories tall in the end, with lots of stairs.

Tom feels that stairs may be a good thing. The advent of the ranch house has brought on a lot of laziness and lack of exercise. Doing stairs every day multiple times is good for the constitution and health. I could plan a design that in the end could be side by side units.
I could see the master on the top floor with a view, the children's bedrooms below that. The living quarters on the first floor and the party room below that. uh, I count four floors in that plan.

So, send us your favorite house plans. Remember the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The architect designed incredible buildings and spaces.

Tom is John Gault in Atlas Shrugged, by the same author, or more likely he is the steel Barron battling the system until he finally throws in the towel. I gave him that book to read when we first married. He took it to heart. Now we are living it out. We have reached the third section, making the passage across the country to that hidden oasis we know exists. We have found it once before. We know it is still there. Only those that make the effort will find it. They must give up working in the system and start working for themselves. We will build our home there and grow old.