Big news about Our Little House...

I am so excited to finally be able to share some exciting news about Our Little House.  I've hinted a few times that we were planning something big at our house.  So, what is the big project?  After seven years of daydreaming, hoping, wishing and planning we are finally expanding.  Yes, we are finally adding a two car garage, enlarging our kitchen and adding a mudroom!!!!  If you can't tell, I am pretty darn excited!  We have been working on this project for a few months and have been waiting on the architect and engineer to give us the final plans before I shared the news.

We are actually doing this project in two phases.  

Phase one:

Adding the 2 car garage and getting the mudroom and kitchen framed out for phase two.  

Phase two:

Complete the mud room and gut and expand the kitchen.  We also plan on removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room and the wall between the kitchen and family room.  Since the basement steps divide the kitchen and family room, we will be putting up a half wall around the steps.   

Ever since moving into our house we had planned on enlarging the kitchen into the side porch.  We thought it was going to be a fairly easy task (mistake number one) until we looked further into our plans.  After removing part of the porch ceiling we realized the trusses were going to be an issue.

We could have left the original trusses, but that meant we wouldn't be able to raise the roof in the "new" section of the kitchen without having a bulkhead.  Since a bulkhead was not in my dream kitchen plans we moved onto plan B.  Instead of keeping the original structure we will be demolishing it and starting from scratch.  Much easier for the contractor, but more money out of our pocket.

For the house, designs went with our contractor's recommendation, GBL Designs in Finksburg, Maryland.  The drawings were far from cheap, but totally worth the added cost.  If you are local to Carroll County, Maryland, I would highly recommend them.  They were great to work with and changed the plans many times until we were happy with everything.

Here is our house as it looks now...

And here is what it will look like...

Here is our house about a month ago to give you some perspective.

We had to include two front doors due to the electrical meter, but will inset the middle door by about 3 feet.   That door will lead into the mud room and future kitchen.  I can't wait until we can get started.  We'll have to wait until the weather breaks, so were aiming for March/April.  In the meantime, I have been having fun gathering inspiration for the mud room and kitchen.

Kitchen Love

I'm still trying to decide if I want to use use ORB or chrome finishes in the kitchen.  I am positive that I will be doing white shaker style cabinets with dark hardwood floors.  

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Similar style with ORB finishes

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Stacked Carrara marble backsplash is a must!

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I am hoping to incorporate open shelves somewhere

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Mudroom Love
Love the pop of color on the door!

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Garage door Love

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 I hope you all stick around as I share this process.  We are hoping to get the permit sometime this week and hopefully start working on the addition when the weather breaks.