Our heads are spinning

At the end of October we met with our architect to share our wants and needs for the house, how we live, what our daily routines are like and what we like and don't like about our current house. Not surprisingly Stu and I spent a lot time preparing for this meeting. We even created a Wiki to collect our thoughts about our "needs" (e.g., at least 3 bedrooms) and our "wants" (e.g., sound-proof music room). Some of our thoughts were more general like not needing a big master bedroom since we really only "sleep" there while others were very details like the measurements from our current master bedroom closet and all the AV equipment in the family room.

With all that he learned from all our homework and his visit to our house, Ryan then spent the next few weeks working on preliminary concepts for the new house. We met with Ryan and his wife Nicole earlier this week to review those plans -- five interior floor plan options and four exterior options.

Overall, we were pretty amazed with what our "cabin in St. Paul" could become. (We look forward to sharing before and after pictures.) While none of the plans totally hit the mark, each had pieces that we liked. The challenge will now be to get those pieces to fit together under one roof. Some of the big decisions we have to make are:

* Do we want to expand out on the west side of the house and keep the house all on one level (very consistent with the neighborhood)? Or do we want to add on a second floor which could take advantage of the views across the river valley?

* How close do we want our bedroom to be to the kids' rooms now while they are small and as they become teenagers? Stu and I actually found ourselves trying to guess how the kids would try to sneek out of the house in the middle of the night as teenagers. ;-)

* How do we share common family spaces without the kids' stuff taking over the house?

* How important is it that we have a basement?

Next steps are to share our feedback on the preliminary plans with Ryan so he can conitnue to refine the plans and start meeting with contractors.

We definitley have some big decisions to make and are still excited about the potential of our new house. We look forward to sharing more updates over the holidays.