For The Designer In All Of Us

A long time ago, in 1992, while I was pregnant with my only daughter, my husband and I set about figuring how to make our tiny 2 bedroom house accommodate 5 kids. We looked at other property for building, larger homes in the area, even a double wide on 10 acres of beautiful land. Nothing felt right. In the end we decided to take out a loan to renovate the house we had. What began as an addition turned out to be a major demolish-rebuild project. Our house came down, right to the foundation; my husband rebuilt it bigger and better.

The rebuilding was amazing. We were operating on a shoestring budget since we intended to build more than what the bank approved. One corner we cut was blueprints. I drew them myself using graph paper and a ruler. That’s it. I measured the existing house, our lot, the dimensions of appliances and fixtures and beds and other furniture. And I laid it all out. What fun!

I know that if I designed a house today there’s software to make the job much easier. Even better, thanks to my friend Deb, I’ve been using Floorplanner that lets you design your room or your project right on line. Oh, and there’s even a free, personal account that let’s you save up to 5 plans!

So far, I’ve used FloorPlanner to layout the kitchen in Nick’s apartment. Even Nick was impressed. Next up, I’d like to redesign our living/family room to accommodate some type of home theater chairs to make it more like an entertainment room. Okay, what I really want to do is find a way to combine an entertainment area with a play area with a pool table. Yeah, good luck on that, right?

But really, using this great online service, you just never know what I might design. Go ahead over and play with it a little. Design your dream kitchen or your master suite then stop by here and let me know how it turned out.