Just when you think you have it all figured out...

You don't!!  We bought our house with intentions of adding on in a few years, not to live in it the way it is forever.  The house has tons of potential and lots of options for adding an addition......maybe that's the problem.  We've been dreaming about this for 2+ years and now comes the time to figure out exactly what we want and put it in writing.  Wow, this is scary!  

The original plan was always to put on a second story and have only living on the main level.  Right now while the kids are young, yes that is the best possible option and what I want - all the bedrooms together so we are close to the kids.  But then I start to think about the future....when the kids are in their teens will they really want to be next to mom and dad?  When they move out what will I do with all those bedrooms upstairs?  Do we really have a budget to add that much space to the house?  And so the big debate begins!!

We met with Lori, who will be drawing up the plans, this past weekend.  Since then we have been coming up with different idea's that will suit our needs a little better.  At the present moment we have decided to push the back out 12 feet and have 3 bedrooms down in the basement for the kids and have our master bedroom on the main floor.  Completely different than what I visioned all this time!  But when we really think about it, the idea works!  The kids would all be together downstairs, there would be a family room down there, I think this will be ideal when they are a little older and have friends over, it would be their space.  We would also get our space away from them and the house would be perfect and ideal when the kids move out.  Less steps and the empty bedrooms would be downstairs and we could always change them into something else.  I'm not a huge basement person so Mike had to do a little convincing as he grew up with a bedroom downstairs and played downstairs.  I think I am fine with it as long as we put in large windows which will obviously have a big egress spot outside.  So....this idea has really thrown me off since this is not what I pictured all this time, but it makes sense.

Now Lori is currently coming up with a few different floor plan options we will need to pick from.  Then we decided we are going to file a variance with the city to try and put on the front porch that I want, otherwise it will just be a regular sized overhang and a deck on the front to look like a front porch.  

So things are coming together a little, it's just really scary to think of deciding on an actual floor plan and sticking to it!!