Just like our first house floor plan and our current house floor plan from yesteryear, a bunch of you have requested a new house floor plan. So here ya go! They definitely help visual people like us see what walls are where, and what flows into what. So we whipped this up with floorplanner.com (which is, as the name might suggest, a free floor planning site). One big difference from the last two floor planning posts that we shared? This time there’s a second level. Who’s got two thumbs and a set of stairs? This girl.
The funny thing is that when we shared a video tour of the new house, some people said “wow, the new house seems so much bigger!” and some other people said “wow, your new house seems so much smaller!” so that was interesting to us. I think it’s hard to judge room size without furniture, so since the new house is empty – and covered in blue trim and wallpaper – it might be throwing people off. In reality the new house and the current house are almost exactly the same square footage (there’s literally only a 20 square foot difference). The new house just looks a lot bigger from the outside since there’s a visible second story instead of a hidden 1000 square foot addition off the back of the house that you can’t see from the street.
As for a few first thoughts about what we’d like to do to alter the actual footprint…
- we’d love to convert the big triple window in the eat-in part of the kitchen into a big french door that leads out onto the deck
- there are a bunch of doors closing everything off on the first floor (they block the flow between the dining room and kitchen, the kitchen and foyer, etc) so we’ll be taking those down to open things up
- the wall between the living room and the kitchen will come down, but we’d love some built in bookcases on each side with a large centered opening (sort of like the built-ins in our current dining room but perhaps with glass doors and lighting)
- we’re planning to fully renovate the chopped up bathroom and sink nook in our bathroom so they’re all one space with a nice big double sink and a soaker tub
- someday we’d love to fully finish the unfinished storage space at the end of the hallway (right now it’s just a raw space full of exposed beams and ducts, but maybe down the line we can floor it and drywall it to create a movie room/bunk room for Clara, potential Bean #2, and their friends when they’re older) Update: due to lots of questions, I wanted to clarify the stairs you see in the unfinished storage space – those lead to the attic, but the area labeled as “unfinished storage” is on the same floor as the bedrooms (no walking up or down to get to it).
This video tour of the new house will probably make more sense out of those bullets, and of course we have a bunch of other stuff banging around in our heads (we change our minds every minute) so we’ll be back with a big ol’ List O’ Planz for all the items on the agenda. Get ready guys, we might break 3,000 words with that baby. Oh wait, we forgot measurements! Here’s an extremely approximated rundown for ya (tape measure + three year old = immediate mayhem).
- Foyer: 9.5 x 8′
- Office: 16 x 13′
- Dining Room: 13.5 x 13′
- Kitchen: 21 x 11′
- Hall Bath: 4.5 x 5′
- Living Room: 20 x 13.5′
- Sunroom: 18 x 12′
- Our Bedroom: 13.5 x 19′
- Our Bath + Sink Nook (since we hope to combine ’em down the line): 8.5 x 7′
- Possible Future Nursery: 11.5 x 13.5′
- Clara’s Room: 13.5 x 12.5′
- Hall Bath: 8.5 x 7′
- Guest Room: 13.5 x 11′
- Laundry Nook: 3 x 7′
- Unfinished Storage (with exposed beams, ducts, etc): 17 x 19.5′
Ever made a floor plan? Ever been so excited to have stairs? Tell $herdog all about it.
Maru says
Hey! Love your blog and I’m excited to see the progress on your new house! I hope you find some way to include your current kitchen stools haha, I really love them, even though I’ve never seen them in real life… Yeah it’s a bit embarrassing.
Also excited to see how Clara’s new room will look, she’s so cute!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, thanks Maru!
xo
s
Kathryn says
It probably reveals a little too much about how I spend my time that my first reaction to Maru’s comment was, “they just got a shout-out from the internet’s most famous cat!”
Elizabeth says
I agree that it was likely a builder option to finish that space… well, I pretty much know that b/c I have a similar space above my garage that IS finished, and I have 80 year old neighbors who bought the house next to mine new in the late 1970s, and they’ve told me all about all the options, things they had the builder fix, landscaping issues that they’ve had over the years. Definitely get to know your neighbors, especially long-time ones, they are a wealth of helpful info!
Our over-the-garage space IS finished, and my 9 yo has a little door from her room to that space. It actually creeps her out, she gets worried someone will sneak in from the “bonus room” (which has separate stairs) even though we’ve assured her she is perfectly safe. :) We do have AC in that space, but it must not be well insulated, it still gets pretty warm in the summer. (AND is covered with ACRES of fake wood paneling… makes it very dark!)
I don’t remember the ceilings from the video, or couldn’t tell. Are they smooth, or popcorn? (For your sake really hope smooth!)
YoungHouseLove says
Smooth! Wahoo! We just got lucky!
xo
s
Avone says
Maybe you’ve already addressed it and I missed it, but does the nursery have two doors? I’m confused about the entrance off the stairs.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s just the closet. Sorry it was too small to label it! There’s no connection to the stairs from that room, you have to get to them from the hall :)
xo
s
Lynn @ Our Useful Hands says
I love the new floor plan. And I knew you were hiding the goods on that unfinished storage space in the house tour video! lol. But I ain’t mad atchya because I figured it was your panic room or something and we don’t need to know all of your bidness like that. :o) I think that we’ll be tinkering around with that floor plan tool tonight because Michael likes nothing if not floor plan makers (and now Candy Crush Saga on Facebook – the now 3rd wheel in our marriage….) and now I literally cannot wait for that List O’ Planz. – cue Jeopardy music.
My best, Lynn
YoungHouseLove says
Hah, yes it’s so dark in there since it’s all exposed beams and ducts so it would have been a black hole on the video. We’ll have to bring our tripod and take some still shots of it and hopefully capture it in all of its unfinished glory!
xo
s
jbhat says
There is nothing more exciting than the potential a BEFORE floor plan holds. So thrilled that this is happening!!
jbhat
Amy says
We call the Finished Room Over Garage the Frog!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I love it!
xo
s
Alicia says
This question is a little off topic from the floor plan, but do the people who you bought the new house from know that you have a blog? I know you mentioned that the people who are buying your house did not know about your blog, but I’m interested if the people who used to live in your new house are reading your blog now to see what you’re doing with the house. Also, what about the people who you bought your current house (#2) from? Have you heard from them? Do you know if they read your blog?
YoungHouseLove says
Sadly the new house had sort of fallen out of repair, so it was completely uninhabited for at least a year or two and then was sold by a family member of the people who used to live there. We don’t know if they know about our blog as of right now, but maybe as we fix it up they’ll learn about it from a relative or friend? That’s what happened with our first house (it was amazing to hear from the original owners decades after they were raised there).
xo
s
Carolyn says
Tried to browse a bit to see if someone else had asked this already, but since you both love more open floorplans, would you knock out part of the wall between the living room and the office (french doors?) to make that more open or do you like having the office a little more distinct both for the sake of the floorplan and for separating work/life?
I’m way excited about the new floorplan and all that you’ll be doing in the new house!
YoungHouseLove says
You’re exactly right with the latter thought! We’re hoping that by keeping it separated we’ll find it easier to switch off at night when we’re in the living room or hanging out upstairs since the office is its own little zone :)
xo
s
Jennifer says
Thanks for sharing your floorplan… does help visual folks like me.
Ok, I have a question regarding having multiple projects in the planning stages. Do you tend to tackle one thing at a time, or do you do bits and pieces on several things at once?
Currently, I have fabric in my trunk to recover kitchen chairs, a swatch taped to the wall in my basement (bought the paint a YEAR ago), and I have about a dozen rugs saved on my favorites bar to make a decision about. The list goes on. Sometimes I feel crippled by the sheer number of projects floating around in my head, and it ends up that nothing gets done. So, I am wondering if you struggle with that and if you have any advice as you embark on renovating this new home.
Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Sometimes we like to see something through (ex: we wouldn’t prime cabinets and then leave them, we like to prime and then paint and then hang them back up) but if it’s a longer project (ex: a kitchen reno) sometimes we take it apart and tackle one thing (ex: hanging floating shelves) and then skip to something else in another room (ex: painting and hanging a mirror in the bedroom) and then skip back to more kitchen stuff. It’s really us just hopping around trying to do whatever we’d love to do (keeps morale up) and saving things we have to save up for (ex: larger renos) for later while we tackle the easier/affordable stuff :)
xo
s
Jen says
Let the fun begin! Can’t wait to see what you come up with at this house. I know you said it will be awhile, but just wanted to mention that you will need to have a structural engineer check the joists in the unfinished part on your second floor- there are two types of joists to use over garages ( probably more than that) but we just built a house and elected to pay more money to have the weight bearing kind so we could have the option of finishing the space someday (3x the cost of ‘regular’ joists- who knew?!)
Good luck!!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Jen! Many other folks in our neighborhood have finished off that space so we hope we can find a way down the line :)
xo
s
Carla says
SO excited about your new house and all the new projects that are headed your way – huge congrats to all of you :)
We have a little two storey house and three kiddos under five. I cannot stress enough how important that unfinished storage area will be in your future!! It is excellent to have an upstairs ‘living’ space for the kids. As Clara grows and if a potential sibling comes along, it will be fantastic to be able to send them upstairs to their own area and keep down stairs free of kid-clutter. It will also be fabulous for friends when they come to play. We love our second living space upstairs and it used daily by our little ones.
Absolutely can’t wait to see what you guys comes up with :)
[email protected] says
Can’t wait to start seeing your progress on the new place.
Callye says
Alright, so I was pretty sad about you leaving your current/old house. But now that I’ve seen the floor plan and that amazing deck and sunroom, I think I’m officially on board :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, thanks Callye!
xo
s
Kim says
Was this house a foreclosure? You mentioned that it was empty for while and it was 100k under other homes in the area.
YoungHouseLove says
No, it wasn’t a foreclosure. The realtor & seller just priced it low because it has so many cosmetic issues (not many people could see past the blue trim, wallpaper, faux brick linoleum, stained carpets, etc) and it also had a few deeper problems (leaky roof, bad furnace) so it wasn’t like the other glossy already-updated homes in the area. It’s really rare to find a fixer upper in this neighborhood (we had looked on and off for 7 years) so of course we jumped on it!
xo,
s
Elizabeth says
Oh, I have another question, sorry… is the sunroom unheated or heated space? I can’t tell if it was added on after the fact, or part of the original house… like does it count as part of the sq footage? Your old sunroom seemed much more “finished” than the new one…
YoungHouseLove says
It’s actually counted in the new house, but we’ll be removing the old heater (it’s a half-broken safety hazard according to the inspection). I guess if we eventually finish the room over the garage we’ll earn back that square footage and then some later on though :)
xo
s
Karen H says
You are going to LOVE having your garage open right into your kitchen. I don’t have a garage, but The drive way goes right up and along side the kitchen door/patio area and the patio is covered. After 22 years of hauling groceries from thecondo parking lot, up the stairs to the building, back down the stairs to the ground level and into the house, it’s seriously awesome to be able to park the car 10 feet from the kitchen door (or maybe I’m just lazy ;) )
I really like this new house of yours, but ‘fess up–are you going to miss thatgorgeous kitchen in house 2?
Vera says
Looking at your second floor plan, I really wish that when you get to the laundry, you bust in to “Clara’s” closet and create a door in that hallway to create a proper laundry. I only started following you guys last October, so I’m SO excited for this new journey, and can’t wait to see all your ideas unfold!
Maggie Budiono says
the post everyone is dying waiting for finally comes!!!!!
now i’m waiting for the next post : moving out/in :)
thanks for sharing these with us
Elvira says
First of all, I LOVE your new house! (I also liked the current/currently sold one by the way).
But I was wondering why you guys are opening up the kitchen to the living? And why not the living to the sunroom to make it one large modern room with lots of windows to let in the light! That’s something you see a lot actually in Europe (where I live). But as I said, just wondering :)
And I’m really excited to see how you make your new house a home!
YoungHouseLove says
We have big plans for the sunroom since we’ve lived with rooms full of sliding glass doors for two houses now (our first sunroom is especially similar to our current sunroom) and all of the sliders break and feel like you’re sitting in a fish bowl! So we actually want to remove them and create something more open (more like a covered porch with a dining area so we can eat outside without leaves falling into our food thanks to the roof over our heads). So since the sunroom won’t be an interior room (they’re usually never opened into a living room since they have such bad heat retention that they make a house drafty if they’re not closed off) and we always love homes with kitchens and living rooms that are open, we’re psyched for that!
xo
s
Phunk (TJ) says
I only came across your blog in the last couple of months so I’m really excited to get to watch all of your progress on a house from the beginning :)
Jocelyn says
Your new house is so much like mine. I’m so excited to see your progress. I hope you are able to easily take te wall Dan between your kitchen and living room. I have a feeling there will be plumbing to divert since the bathrooms are overhead.
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, there’s a wet bar in there too, so we assume it’ll involve a plumber rerouting a few things. Hopefully we can still get it done though!
xo
s
monica says
Would love to see an opening between the Living Room and Office – I know you like the idea of a separate space, but I can imagine a future where you might want to be able to feel a bit more connected to the back yard (kids playing out there etc) and the rest of the house while you are working…In anycase I am really looking forward to see how it all evolves!
YoungHouseLove says
You never know where we’ll end up!
xo
s
Chrissie says
This may be a totally crazyyyy thing to ask, but I have been hunting for the Ikea Alvine Kottar curtains you have in your living room ever since I discovered them (when they were discontinued, SIGH) and was wondering if you didn’t need all of them in your new home if you’d plan to sell any of the panels. If so, I would be extremely interested! I know it’s a total longshot, but they are pretty much my dream curtains and I only need them for one or two windows… so couldn’t hurt to ask!
Also, thank you for your site and what you do. You inspired me to hang my current curtains nice and high, and you’ve been a go-to for me while trying to get over my indecision when it comes to decorating. Good luck and have fun with the new house!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw I’m so sorry but those are conveying with the house (we’re selling it with them and the light fixtures) so I’m afraid we don’t get to take them with us or sell them. Hope you find them somewhere though!
xo
s
Megan says
I was crazy excited to get stairs someday. A rancher with a basement that opens to the backyard is mine and my husband’s dream floorplan. However, I recently discovered that our dog is terrified of stairs! If there are more than three steps, he’s having no part of it. Such a kooky mutt.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so funny! Clara and Burger act like they’re some sort of novelty! We find her hanging out on them with dolls and Burger will be sleeping in a sunspot right in the middle of the stairs!
xo
s
Jenn says
I love this floorplanner site! We just closed on our first house on Monday and will be doing some major work before we move into the new house in June. I’ll definitely be making a floor plan this weekend!
I used to design my own houses and floor plans on graphing paper and now I get to do it in real life, yikes! And Sherry, I used to get crazy excited for houses with stairs, until I realized how klutzy I am. Cannot even tell you how many times I fell up and down stairs as a kid and still visualize that happening when I’m on stairs. But, new house has stairs to the basement, so I’m gonna have to watch where I’m going!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Good luck with them! I love the visual of falling up the stairs.
xo
s
Claudia @illiams says
we have the almost identical house built in 1983-we were not lucky enough to have the laundry on the second floor. we bought the house new and over 30 years we’ve had lots of ideas but no skills-requiring contractors. We replaced the windows in the breakfast area with French doors and took down the wall between the kitchen and the family room. We also enclosed the sink area in the master, enlarging the bath, though we went the huge shower route instead of the soaker. we also put a 7 foot opening between the family room and what you will be using as an office.the next project is updating the fireplace similar to what you did so beautifully in your current home. my daily routine is checking YHL – you are inspirational!
Meryl @ Expat Travels says
You funny Americans. That’s a ground floor and a first floor, not a first floor and a second… In my world anyway :P
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I love that!
xo,
s
Simone says
Must admit that I was super surprised by the initial “by the way we bought a house post”… but its sooooo exciting to be able to watch a “total transformation” now with this new house!!!!! how cool :) lots and lots of new projects adn possibilities… can’t wait!!!!
Sue J. says
Very excited to see the changes that you make — question for you: do the sellers “know” that you are YHL and that you are blogging about the house?
YoungHouseLove says
They are an older couple and their son sold the house so I’m not sure anyone of them are privy to who we are, but we’d love to hear from them someday! We heard from the original owners of our first house and it was awesome!
xo
s
John says
I used an iPhone app called MagicPlan to make the floorplan of my house, seemed to work well. It’s *moderately* accurate and really really easy. All I had to do was spin around and aim the phone at each corner of the room, and it figured everything out for me. I just wish it were totally free to export the floor plans without their watermark all over it!
Floorplanner.com is much nicer though, better if you want to be more accurate. Gotta take measurements though which is certainly not my forté!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the tip, John! That probably would’ve been easier for our purposes. Maybe next time…
-John
Tahlia says
I love being nosy and looking at other people’s houses. Can’t wait to see your progress. I have a couple questions, will you be using the unfinished storage space for storage or something else? And will you be keeping the built ins that were in the living room (I think that’s where they were, the ones in the corner) sorry if you’ve answers these previously! And in regards to stairs- I have a split level ‘one story’ house that has half a dozen stairs seperating the kitchen/dining from bedrooms/bathrooms. In the first month of living here I fell down them 7 times so me and stairs do not mix! Still love the idea if them though!
YoungHouseLove says
There’s actually a bullet in this post about what we’d like to do with the unfinished storage space down the line (for now it’ll just be for storage though) and as for the built ins in the dining room, we’re hoping to work with them but not sure yet. Once we move all of our furniture in I’m sure we’ll figure things out a lot more :)
xo
s
Melissa says
My master bathroom has a very similar layout to yours. I can’t wait to see your remodel; I would like to do a similar one in our house. Congrats on the new place!
Lori B says
We use our upstairs ‘bonus room’ as a library/ family room. We have built-in bookshelves lining the long wall with a crafting desk and storage unit for our youngest (resident artist :). In the other half of the room are two big comfy chairs, a credenza between them with reading lamps and an aquarium, and there’s a built-in window seat.
It’s wonderful having a ‘quiet’ room, and it’s used by everyone in the family every day!
Zoe says
I kept thinking that this house looked so familiar…. once you printed the floor plan, I finally realized that this is the same set up as the house that I grew up in (west end henrico)! My mom always called it “5 over 4 with a door” :) We moved out when I was 8, so it took some memory digging to recall why this home felt so familiar. We even had the same railing on the front porch!
Funny story is…. my old house still exists, but not at the same address! They passed plans to expand the main road next to our house, so the county bought the house from us. After we had already moved out, they decided to pick it up and move it down the street! Pretty weird to drive by now and remember that I lived in there, but not on that street.
I’m hoping you all are not planning the same kind of home overhaul ;)
YoungHouseLove says
No way! That’s really cool!
xo
s
Kelly says
What if, in the future when you need that extra finished space over the garage, you did this? You could rearrange the closets a little bit at a minimal cost, move the laundry a tad and have a larger playroom that’s open to the hall so it would let some natural light move through the upstairs hallway!
http://tinypic.com/r/amuy53/5
YoungHouseLove says
That’s fun except Clara would lose her closet, which is why she picked that room! It’s really cool in person (it has a peaked roof and everything) so I envision making that a little hideaway within her room for her to duck into :)
xo
s
Lauren says
So after looking at your new house (well, the floor plans…not the actual house, as you live many many miles away from me), it just hit me why it felt so familiar! Your house is VERY similar to my father’s house in NJ (so similar in fact, I am curious if there is a laundry shoot in Clara’s closet too). I always loved the center hall colonial style and the layout of the home, so it made me sad when he told me he was selling it (they just closed on their new house a few weeks ago). But now I get to see it all the time through you guys, and it will most definitely be more stylish! LOL
I can’t wait to see what you do with this space!
Congratulations on the new home, and happy DIYing!!!
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so funny! I wish there was a laundry chute in Clara’s closet, but the laundry is on the second floor, so there’s no chute :)
xo
s
Belinda says
Love reading your blog. We just moved from overseas to the VA area and I can’t wait to check out the shops around us. I was interested in the white 6-container clothes/storage unit you are using in the master closet in your current house in “house tour” – it would be perfect for my closet. Can you tell me where you got yours from? Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
That’s an old wooden bookcase from Bed Bath & Beyond with Ikea bins (they’re white and plastic) that we just shoved onto the bookcase to create makeshift drawers. Hope it helps!
xo
s
Samantha says
Your house reminds me so much of the house I grew up in in Pennsylvania. I miss it dearly and watching you update yours makes me think more about what could’ve been. We even had the same floor in our foyer! Like my old house, yours is ripe for all kinds of remodeling or additions. That’s just one of the many bonuses of having a traditional rectangle of a house.
Thank you for sharing your journey with us, your readers, through your blog. To some of us, it’s much more than simply a place to learn about paint colors and flooring selection; to some of us it’s a chance to go home again.
Nichole says
I’m sorry if you’ve addressed this in another post that I’ve been unable to find, but what are the ceiling heights in your current home?
YoungHouseLove says
They’re all standard height (8′) – although we noticed the ones on the main floor are really something like 8’2″ – so it’s not exact.
xo
s
Lynn says
Love your style! I was looking for your current house paint colors. They would be perfect for this house I am updating! Thanks!
Heather says
I have been staring at these photos of your kitchen before and after and just realized they are the same layout as the kitchen in a house we are considering buying! even the details like the under the cabinet microwave that hangs too low over the stove, and the decorative trim above the sink! You have given me confidence that we can turn this potentially ours home into a real good looking one with a little elbow grease. Thanks for showing us the way!I am learning a ton by reading your blog. Keep up the good work and many blessings on the new baby’s birth!