Our Home: Floor Plan Changes

As I mentioned on Tuesday  in my post about our new living room ideas we decided to make some changes to our homes layout. In case your a new reader to Chic Little House, we lost over 97% of our belongings and house due to a fire in July 2012 you can read more about the fire here. We like the original layout of our small home, but wanted the living room/ dining / kitchen areas to feel more open to each other. But we still wanted to keep the integrity of  1950's rancher and not make any major changes that our existing layout feel off. Some of the changes we decided on our minor tweaks that still leave us giddy, those minor tweaks are simple to make in our home since its been completely gutted down to the studs. Now the big changes make me wanna do cartwheels with the anticipation of what's to come! I still plan on doing a floor plan before and after, but still need more time playing around with a layout designer. First up the minor changes we are making to our houses layout 

 Minor Changes 
  • Enlarge doorway between Living / Dining & Kitchen
  • Rearrange Linen closet layout 
  • Remove Master Bedroom Closet - creating a nook area
  • Replace sliding glass doors in Nursery with a pair of windows 
  • Enlarge Main bathroom window 
Our Thought Process

I've wanted to enlarge the doorway between the living room and dining room forever, so when our house was down to the studs, we decided it now or never. We went back and forth between making it really open between both areas, but in the end decided we like the idea of our front door open to a small wall way instead of nothing. Our new opening is still much wider than the old one and will still allow our house to feel open. The photo below illustrates, how our rooms will still feel open in relation to each other.  


(via Pinterest)

Here's how the opening currently looks, before it was a very small opening. Now its super open, too much for our tastes. But all that will change soon. 


The plan is for the back of the door to 'hit' the wall, still giving us a nice big opening to see into the dining room and kitchen. I like that I'll still have a little wall real estate behind the door, not enough for the picture ledges we once had there. But I have other plans now, so its OK. 



I'm also excited about the change in Avery's nursery, I loved all the natural light his sliding glass doors provided but never like the idea of them being in his room. A pair of twin windows, like in the picture below has me excited try some and sew some DIY Roman shades in a fun print! You can read more about my ideas for his big boy room here. 


(via Pinterest)

Big Changes 
  • Update Kitchen layout from 'L Shape' to 'U Shape' kitchen
  • Remove hallway closet (makes the kitchen & main bathroom larger) 
  • Flip Plumbing in Hallway bathroom (swap toilet and vanity layout)
  • Laundry / Mudroom Addition 
  • Create access to backyard from inside house (with out using a bedroom access) 
  • Push Garage forward 5ft for laundry room addition (more details soon)
  • Master Bathroom / Walk-in Closet Addition 
  • Add French Doors in Master bedroom that lead to backyard 
  • Widen Garage door from 8ft to 10ft 
Our Thought Process

 As progress on our house continues  I'll have more in-depth posts about the changes we are making, for now this is a glimpse of our plans. Again, I have to stop my self form doing a cartwheel whenever I think about the big changes! First up improving our kitchen's layout from a dysfunctional L Shape into a Functional U Shape. The new layout will allow our kitchen to work for us and give it better flow. The new layout will also provide us with more counter space, more storage which will help my stay organized. To create our kitchen U Shape, we got rid of an awkward bump out that took precious space away from our kitchen and bathroom. The bump out was actually a hallway coat closet, we decided to remove. With a small home like ours every inch is vital and we'd rather have a roomier kitchen and bathroom then a storage closet we rarely used. I've been pining kitchen images like crazy and will share more of my ideas for our new kitchen in upcoming posts. For now here's a U Shape kitchen I adore. 


Remember the picture from our house progress last Friday? The frame out is for our bedroom addition!! So excited to see progress happening at our house. Click here to see more of the progress so for on our home. Our plan is to transform our basic 1956 rancher bedroom into a master suite, complete with a walk in closet, french doors to our backyard and a bathroom. Another bathroom in our house is a must, since were a family of four. I'm also thankful to have my own bathroom (OK, I'm sharing with my hubby, but still :)  I've been gathering inspiration ideas and can't wait to share more about our plans. I've always wanted french doors in my bedroom and so happy it's becoming a reality. This picture makes my heart skip a beat, our setup will look different but you get the idea.  

(via Pinterest)

 Just a reminder every Friday I will be sharing weekly updates of our house being rebuilding progress. While all the new things we are doing to our house is exciting, I'm more excited about filling our home with love and laughter when we move back in. Keeps things in prospective, a home you love is more mean-fulling sharing it with those you love. 

 Please let me know if you have any questions about our floor plan changes, I'd be happy to answer them. 

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Our Home: Sofa Shopping

Last week, I shared our living room ideas read more about our ideas here. In the past few months Hasani and I have done a lot of sofa shopping at various stores in our area, we went as recently as Sunday afternoon. I wanted get another look at fabric options now that I narrowed down our fabrics for the living room. When we first started thinking about sofa options, we liked the idea of getting a large sectional to for our living room verses the one sofa and two chairs we had prior. I love the idea of having one big sofa for my family of four to pile onto. In the end, I knew there was a strong possibility it would make our living room look smaller.  If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen this picture of me yesterday checking out fabric samples, searching for the perfect shade of grey while at Scandinavian Designs. Follow Me on Instragram @MrsClh 

After much thought we decided two sofas matching sofas would be more practical, and still give us plenty of seating and not overwhelm our living room. After-all I wanted our living room to be more than just one big sofa. If we had a larger living room I think two different sofas would be fun, but since our living room is on the small side the matching sofas create a nice seamless look and the patterns and pillows and other elements in the room become the focal points. Love the vibe of the living room below, the matching sofas create a great canvas for the whole room. 


Now that we nailed it down to two sofas, we had to determine the style we wanted. I made my list of what I wanted and didn't want in a sofa. For my family our sofa is an investment piece something we don't plan on replacing for a few years, so I want to make sure its what really want. I decided to make a list of items and wanted and didn't want in our next sofa. A few items that my no list were do to my last sofa, which I loved but also a hated a few things. I wanted the loose back cushions, I was forever fixing those things. The cushions just never stayed just so one my pet peeves. 

 My Sofa List 

  • Tight back Sofa 
  • Firm Cushions 
  • Straight Arms
  • Piping on Arms or Sofa Cushions, added bonus  
  • Exposed Wood Feet
  • Flippable Cushions 
  • Not too Mid Century Modern feeling, but a smidgen is good 
  • No Slip Cover 
  • No Rolled Arms
  • No Loose Back Cushions
  • No Leather 
  • No Tufting 

We bought our last sofa at Scandinavian Designs, which held up really nice and so we decided to begin our sofa search there. I'm a big fan of Scandinavian Designs, they have a great selection of modern and classic style sofas and also a have a large selection of fabric to choose from. After looking at several sofas, I liked the Martin Sofa the best it had everything I was and wasn't looking for in a sofa. I really like this sofa, its exactly what we've been looking for and met all my above requirements. Sadly when we popped in there to check out the sofa in person again, they didn't have the floor model in stock (expecting it in stock in 11 days) So I wasn't able to get any in person pictures. Funny enough, the store manager remembered me from last time I popped in there, I'm guessing it was my long list of requirements that had him remember me, lol?!? Embarrassing, yes, lol 
I like the clean lines of the side view of the sofa


 The other sofa that I really, really like was the Hennessay Sofa from Crate & Barrel. This sofa is almost exactly like the Martin sofa, except for the feet and fabric choices. I really like this sofa and flexi springs in the cushions. Good cushions, that will last are really important to me. I also really like this sofa in person and think it will look nice in our living room. However, I worry about two things: the shade of grey being too dark since there's limited color choices. The sales associate was nice enough to give me a sample of the grey fabric, which I like because its a nice woven fabric. The sales associate said the fabric would appear lighter on a large piece of furniture vs. small swatch. I really like the 'on screen color' below, perfect medium grey.  

Here's and in room view of the sofa, again the clean lines of the side view of the sofa make me happy.

There's put top two sofa contenders, we like them both. I think we when purchase our pair of sofas, in the end it will come down to fabric choices, quality and warranty both sofas are made in the USA! Which is a nice bonus. In case your wondering what other stores we checked out while sofa shopping here's our list: Macys, JCP, Becks and a Local Consignment Center (where we find some goodies, for other rooms in our house!) I'll share those details soon. While I was at Scandinavian Designs yesterday, I got distracted by some pretty mirrors are good prices, this round beauty caught my eye. 

 Both sofas are super similar, but which one do you prefer? What are some of your must haves while looking for the perfect sofa that will suit your needs?

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