Hello. Happy New Year.
The start of the year is always special for us because it marks the anniversary of when we found the farm.
Four years ago today, we submitted our offer on the farm. Our search had lasted a year and a half. We’d seen lots of farms and a few that we actually liked.
With any farm that we thought might have potential, my usual routine was to return home and work up a floorplan of how I would reconfigure the house to make it my dream home.
The house was usually the least important factor when we were looking at a farm. Location, quality of property, whether there was a barn. Those mattered to us. The house, I figured I could work on that.
My floorplans were not to scale and usually more dream than reality, but they were a regular part of my process.
Except on this farm.
I never drew a floorplan. It wasn’t that the house was perfect. Lots of things were missing: master suite, garage, front porch. And there was a big thing that I wished was missing: it had an indoor pool, and there was no way I was keeping that.
I definitely had the floorplan in my head.
However, I never sat down at my computer and mocked it up.
But now I have. In fact, I’ve mocked up three different plans.
I’m a big believer that living in a space helps me make the best decisions about how to renovate it. My vision for this house has changed over the past four years.
Before we get to the vision, let’s start with the reality. Here’s the main floor as it exists today (in fact, pretty much as it existed when we saw it four years ago).
And here’s the front of the house as it looked last June.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share some different floorplans with you, and you can see how my vision has progressed over the years.
There are still lots of questions to work out, and I hope that you’ll share your opinions as we go.
Home on 129 Acres 
Indoor pool?!? Sign me up! 🙂
It’s a very “special” feature of our house. I didn’t want a pool in the first place and especially not one in the house! I’ll be glad to have this room be something else.
I either didn’t know or forgot you had an indoor pool! Will you get it taken out or somehow work around it? Or am I jumping the gun? 😉
The pool room is the main focus of the floorplan options you’re going to see. I do not want a pool, so making use of this room is a priority. Plus it’s a great room with lots of windows and great views!
You could leave the pool and start an alligator farm – just a though.
That is definitely one thought. I’m not sure that filling it with alligators is an improvement on the whole indoor pool concept, but I will take your suggestion under advisement.
I thought a little alligator wrangling after dinner would be a great family activity.
Indeed.
Wow!! As always I am impressed. i am looking forward to this year in your posts. Happy New Year ! Auntie Anne , I
I’m looking forward to your comments, Auntie Anne. Thanks for reading.
Maybe you could cover over the pool to have a room then use it as a root cellar?
It would be great to use it as storage of some kind. It’s a huge space. I just have to figure out how access would work.
I had no idea you had an indoor pool! I think that would be an awesome feature! But obviously if you wouldn’t use it, than it is just wasted space! i can’t wait to see your floor plans!
I can see the fun of a pool, but I’m not sure that we’d use it that much. Plus the logistics of humidity and chlorine (or whatever else the pool needs) in the house are a little more than I want to deal with. The other big red flag is that before we gutted the basement we could see the water line where the basement had flooded before, and we think the most likely source would be the pool.
Wow that was a lot of exclamation points!!! 😉