Contemporary #1

This house design was one of the first ones I did (after completely modeling my condo and designing my new basement). It's stucco with a corrugated metal roof, and is somewhat of a warm weather design, since there is a roof valley that would catch and hold snow. Otherwise, I think it's a nice, clean design for a narrow lot (about 40' wide by about 100' deep is all that's necessary).

Below are the floor plans. On the first floor there are a few things worth noting:

This is another view of the front, showing the covered walkway a little bit better.

This is a close-up view of the covered walkway. Note the skylights and clerestory windows.

This is inside the front door, looking (obviously) toward the stairs. The doors on the right lead to a coat closet. The "blue" doorway-looking thing is a doorway to the hall that leads to the garage, the laundry room, and the storage room.

This is looking from the entry way to the dining room. I chose to build-in cabinetry in the dining room, and the two cabinets shown have brothers at the other end of the dining room.

This particular design has some furniture showing, since I wanted to show how furniture might fit into this space. Being my first design, I wanted to be sure I was planning the rooms appropriately.

The dining room looking toward the living/family room. Note the cabinets lining the walls. The front "palladian" window frames a Japanese maple rather nicely. Some sort of decorative, yet smallish tree would be appropriate.

The walls in this design have colors and/or wallpaper on them, to illustrate how a more fully decorated house might look. In this design, there are no problems with walls interfering on other levels, but in some plans (initially) that was quite a problem.

This is inside the living/family room. I fronted the prefabricated metal fireplace with a red sandstone hearth and mantle. Note the high cathedral ceiling and the clerestory windows. No, I didn't put any furniture in this room.

Looking down the hallway from the dining room toward the kitchen and breakfast nook. The door on the right leads to a small under-the-stairs closet. You also can just see the small alcove (on the right beyond the closet door) where a telephone and the mail might want to live.

This view is from the breakfast nook toward the kitchen. Note the columns and the low, "half-wall" separating the nook from the kitchen. The door on the left leads to the back yard.

In this design originally, I had a slightly wider kitchen, and there was a sliding glass door on the far wall (in this view) where the sink is, now. I like the U-shaped kitchen better. It's not going to be right in the path of people going in and out.

The nook has an alcove with built-in cabinets. The alcove is backed with a mirror. There are ways to show a reflection in the mirror, but I deemed them not quite worth the graphical hassle. Graphic design is not my area of expertise, though I did do the background for this web site.

You can see the small phone alcove, too. I don't know, I just think it's kind of neat. Your mileage may vary.

Ta da! The kitchen in all its glory. (Wait a minute, didn't we already see this?)

The sink, and the door to the panty. That's the fridge on the right. I like my appliances built-in.

What does the inside of the pantry look like? Well, it's lined with built-in cabinets. You can put a lot of cans of baked beans in a pantry like this. Eat for a freakin' year, probably.

I don't know why I did an image of the laundry room, but here it is. Maybe I thought the bright red color was cool. Maybe.

Don't get dizzy looking up the stairs. I wanted to show the upper hallway ceiling and the skylights. Forgive me, I was still new with this tool (Home Designer Pro 6.0).

Here's the master bedroom. It's somewhat narrow, but it is decently long. That's the door to the master bath/closet on the far wall, and the door to the outside world (outside the master bedroom, that is) is on the left.

I wanted windows along the right hand wall, but the roof outside sorta got in the way. Instead, I decided that skylights would be a reasonable compromise.

Looking back toward the other end of the master bedroom. Well, there are a couple of windows in this room.

My ideas on bathrooms have evolved, somewhat, but this design isn't too bad. No, there's no shower, but I suppose the tub could be made into a tub/shower enclosure. Otherwise, there really isn't enough room for both a large tub and a shower.

This is the other upstairs bathroom. Yeah, I think the bright blue walls are a bit much. The corner tub, too, probably isn't the best thing when kids are involved. But then again, perhaps it isn't that bad.

Here is bedroom #2. See the deck. The deck is outside the door.

The deck. All hail the deck.

The tiny back yard, complete with lawnmower and grill. Note, though, that this house fits on a 4000 sq. ft. lot. That's a small lot. A goat might be enough to keep the grass cut.

This is a slightly elevated view from the front.

Contemporary #1

The front, at night

the front, by day