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Renovated Factory Home
The story of a house design, from idea to design to plan!
The Idea:
On the way to school one day, I had the idea for this house and quickly wrote it down in my phone. I said it’d be a large classic victorian house with a modern glass back.
Later, I sketched the floorplan both on my phone and on paper. I had decided to have a grand entrance hall with a dining room and bathroom to the left, and an office and guest room to the right. In the back would be the great room which would be open to the backyard and a tiered deck. Upstairs would be bedrooms and the master suite.
And as soon as I had the time I created the computer floorplan and started designing the interior.
The exterior shifted a little more towards looking like an old factory building than a victorian home, but I was okay with that. Classic brick walls with orderly windows completed the look. While the three story deck and quirky green front door kept a modern feel.
The Design:
I designed the interior with a classic color scheme, straight from Sherwan William’s “Early and Late Victorian” color family. And many of the rooms were inspired by photos I found on Pinterest.
Such as the kitchen, inspired by this classic white galley kitchen.
And the living room, inspired by this modern and functional living room.
And the guest bedroom, inspired by this chic and relaxing bedroom.
The Plan:
Off the main entry hall is the formal dining room, half bath, office, and guest bedroom. At the back of the house is the living room and kitchen, both very open to the backyard. The two car garage is connected to the kitchen and dining room through a multiuse mud room/butlers pantry.
On the second floor, you arrive in an open family room with a grand master suite at one end and a hallway with 3 more bedrooms, a full bath, and a large laundry room in it.
The dining room off the entry hall which connects to the kitchen through a butlers pantry/mud room.
The second floor family room which has an exposed brick stairwell.
The elegant master suite with his and hers closets and an attached bath.
If walls could dream… they’d dream of simple inspiration turning into stunning home design.
Midcentury Masculine: A Modern Home Design
Some of my greatest ideas have began as random thoughts as I was going to bed and this house design is no exception. My idea started with the white pinstripe sofa and just exploded from there. So I frantically jotted down the important elements of the design on my phone to save them for later.
An introduction to the house:
The next day I sat down to design this dreamy living room and just couldn’t stop! Six hours later, I had an entire house.
The front of this house is modern and minimal with the front door accented. The sides of the house are plain for privacy from neighbors. And the back of the house makes the most of an amazing view with lots of windows and a huge deck.
Inspired by Emily Henderson’s mixing of styles, I named this design Midcentury Modern and New York Masculine. The Midcentury for the interior and color palette and the Masculine for the lines and texture of the house. Now ladies, dont be afraid of the title “Masculine” its just another design style. According to Kyle Scheneman in an interview with Dwell magazine, “A masculine space is a room of rich textures and deep colors. It marries clean lines and a functional approach with a hint of quirk.”
The first floor:
To begin the tour,
we have the entryway.
The fabulous teal walls continue into the colorful dining room
and the modern kitchen.
There is a full bath across from the laundry room and garage.
The living room completes the open great room.
And the second floor:
We’ll continue the tour upstairs,
a built-in bookcase serves as the railing for the stairwell and storage for the office area
and a family room space complete with window benches completes the loft.
Next is a hall bath with double sinks,
a large tub with a tapestry hanging above, and rich “vintage wine” walls.
The first bedroom makes the most of a small footprint with an Ikea-inspired wardrobe wall and bunk bed.
The second bedroom has a huge storage headboard and a large walk-in closet. Both are painted in a wonderfully fun “monticello peach” color.
Last but not least is the master bedroom. The “central park” green is relaxing and inviting.
And a reading nook makes the most of the huge wall of windows.
If walls could dream… they’d be sure to write down those last minute house inspirations before drifting off to sleep.
Modern Floorplans
I started this floorplan on a design app on my phone. I liked it so I decided to copy it onto paper and add an exterior view.
On the first floor is the great room. The second floor has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, laundry closet, and an office. The third floor has the master suite and a lounge/studio.
If walls could dream… they’d dream of three levels of beautiful floorplans.
More Prefab House Design Photos
I introduced this house a few weeks ago in my Stunning Prefab House Design post. I have created many more drawings and computer models of it since then.
On the left is a drawing I made from an image of the great room in this house. In the middle is a rear exterior drawing I made of the house from the image. I loved all the different levels with many decks in the back of this house. Lastly on the right, is the front sketch of the house and the computer image which was featured here.
Here is the floorplan of the house. On the left is the first floor, with a garage, family room, bed, bath, and laundry room. In the middle is the main floor, with a large deck and the great room and master bedroom. On the right is the third floor studio.
Here are some “glass house” images of the house that I made on the computer.
(You can click on any of the images above for a larger view)
Exterior Experiments
This exterior design was born out of bored inspiration. I had some extra time in the airport this weekend and I have wanted to experiment with 2-point exteriors for a while so I decided to make this sketch. Two point perspective is where you use two vanishing points instead of one. It is used for large scale exteriors such as street views or building exteriors with more depth.
In my design, I made a section of a street corner with a wide assortment of building styles.
If walls could dream… they’d dream of bored inspiration!
Stunning Prefab House Design
Today was just one of those days that wouldn’t have been complete without a little architecture. These are my favorite type of days. Inspired by modern prefab houses, I designed this house first on the computer and hope to soon finish the interior but the exterior was so fun that I couldn’t stand to not play around with it a little. So I printed out a picture of the 3D computer generated image and traced it. Then I used my handy dandy colored pencils to color it.
The design of this house is very dramatic yet minimal and clean. The garage is at the front of the home, at an angle to the center of the house. The landscape angles up (which by the way is extremely challenging to do on the computer software I use) to the front door. The porch wraps almost all the way around the house. On the first “basement” floor is the garage, a family room, and bedrooms. On the second “main” floor is the open great room and master suite in the angled addition to the right . The third floor is an open studio and deck space perfect for an artist. Although you can’t see it in this photo, the back of the house rests on the edge of a dramatic cliff. The main floor has a gorgeous pool and patio area. The second floor has a large deck and outdoor kitchen which opens to the pool below. The third floor also connects with the levels below. This house is truly stunning no matter which angle you look at it.
Look for interior photos soon!
If walls could dream… they’d dream of stunning and dramatic exterior design.
Beachy Seaside Room Design
I was inspired to make a room with this type of beamed ceiling from an architecture book I had. I also liked the large, dramatic windows with the bold curtains. To ground the design, I added wainscoting around the lower half of the room and a warm floor rug to balance the colors.
The first thing I designed was the view out the windows, at first it was a meadow with mountains in the background but I decided that it wasn’t working with the colors I wanted the interior to be, so I changed the mountains to an ocean and added some yellow sand. I considered leaving it like this because I liked the look of the windows so much, but I stapped a pic and continued on with my coloring.
Next, I dressed up the windows by coloring their casing and curtains. Then I tackled the ceiling. Traditionally I would’ve gone for dark brown wood beams and lighter wood ceiling, but I decided to experiment with a darker ceiling and a lighter painted beam, which I think worked quite nicely.
Another experiment in the room was the wallpaper. Originally, I was going to do plain green painted walls, but I decided since this was a beach house, I should go with something blue. Once I had a blue base up, I decided that it overpowered the view. So I decided to add a wallpaper design and the fun began. After looking online for an inspirational design for what seemed like forever, I finally came up with one out of my imagination. I used my new electronic eraser (so cool!) to lighten the oval shapes where the design would go I used a white gel pen to add the design.
Finally I colored the wood floors using colored pencils and an orange marker and then I colored the rug to look like on old Persian rug.
If walls could dream… they’d dream of beachy windows perfectly framed in a nautical seaside room.
Natural Home Exterior
On this drawing, I experimented with some exterior styles. I started with a basic sketch of the corner of a house and some trees. I added some molding around the roofline and base of the house with stone at the bottom. Next I outlined and colored the landscape. Next time though, I’d adjust the scale of the trees and shade of the bushes. I think the trees in the back are too small and the bushes are too light in this design. My next step was to color the siding on the house and the windows. I chose warm, earthy orange colors to keep it natural yet contrast with the stone and the landscape. Finally, I finished up the roof.I used colored pencils on most of the coloring and I used black pens for the outlining and a colored pen for the molding above the stone and below the roof.
If walls could dream… they’d be dreaming of fun new exteriors and landscapes.
Natural Wallpapered Room with Fireplace
The design for this room was simple: create a basic living room and to have fun experimenting with some new coloring techniques. In the center of the room is a warm fireplace. To one side is a mirror and a large window and to the other is a TV and a dramatic wallpapered accent wall.
The view outside is a lovely little forrest. The window is anchored by navy blue drapes. On the cabinet to the left of the fireplace is a large gold framed mirror and two large vases. The fireplace itself is made of red-yellow brick. To the right of the fireplace is a flatscreen TV and a dramatic wall of wallpaper. Once again, I had a horrible time trying to find wallpaper inspiration on the internet and ended up greating this design on my own. I colored it grey with a hint of purple. The walls are a light blue and the floor and cabinetry are light woodtones.
If walls could dream… they’d dream of pretty wallpaper in a natural living room.