Monday, April 17, 2017

Phase 1 Floor Plans for The Merc!

Today were diving into the floor plan!!! Man guys, do you feel like this post is a long time coming? There is still so many things to talk about (financing, finding a contractor, all of the reports we had to do etc.) but I’m ready to start talking about the fun stuff, and I’m sure as riveting structural engineering and environmental reports are, I’ll bet you’re ready to talk about something different too.

The square footage of the Merc is just over 4200. That is more than enough space for our family (if you remember when we were planning on building our dream was to have 3500, so we ended up with a little more than we bargained for). Its all on one level and is currently broken up into 4 spaces by weird walls but is essentially one giant room.

The first thing that needed to happen was to get a scaled layout of the building as it existed. We worked with an amazing draftsman (G.H. Turner Design if your in St. George) and he came up with this:

I had a few non-negotiables that we had to work with.

  1. An office. This was super important to me and also the way that we were going to check the boxes with our mixed use zoning.
  2. Bedrooms for all of the kids, at least 3 plus the master.
  3. Theater for Court and his Call of Duty alter ego.

(See how I narrowed down my list with these tips!)

The red walls in the floorpan below are not load bearing and can be taken out, but everything that is black has to stay. (The dashed lines on the left side of the space are the wooden trusses in the brick room)

That leaves us with this blank slate:

Aside from our non-negotiables, we also needed to work with the space. There was no option of putting bedrooms in the front of the Merc. The giant storefront windows clearly are not going to be part of our sleeping situation.

There were some hefty walls that we had to work around. Specifically at the back of the Merc. The additions on the back are out of concrete block wall so they are thick and critical.

The back door on our property needs to open into as functional of a space as possible because I do not want to truck everything to the front of the building when we are coming inside.

This is the preliminary schematic of what Greg and I came up with:

I then took it to THE MOST AMAZING ARCHITECT ON THE PLANET Bill Western (seriously, he’s AWESOME and everyone in St. George needs to hire him) and he took the rough plans and turned it into everything that it needed to be! Here’s a 3D shot of it from the front of the building, I’m going to be highlighting everything on this cause its loads easier to visualize the space!

I’ve never attempted to explain in writing an entire floor plan, so I’m going to do my best. We are tackling the renovation in 2 phases, today we’re talking about phase 1.

To satisfy our commercial requirement, we are putting an office in the front of the building right where this door and window are now, This will be the official Vintage Revivals World Takeover Headquarters (insert evil laugh). This space can also be used for pop up shops etc.

If your looking at the front of the Merc, this is the white stucco section on the left.

A pair of doors divide the office from our entryway. If you remember from the exterior elevation post, we are reopening the original entrance and that will be our front door.

Because we’ll eternally be rocking the giant storefront windows, I wanted the house to be a little bit divided from what people walking by can see. So I put in an entry way that connects to the office, but also has a way to block off the hallway that goes into the back of the house with a large sliding barn door (its not pictured below, but will block the long hallway that goes into the rest of the space.)

On the other side of the entryway, we’re reopening this old doorway into what will be the kitchen.

The kitchen is the smaller brick room inside the huge brick room.

It currently looks like this:

The opening that will go into the entryway is where the shelves in the wall are.

If you remember from the exterior elevation post, we are putting a faux door in where this one used to be so from the inside it will just be a wall with a high window.

We’re still trying to decide on the actual layout of the kitchen, so any suggestions are appreciated!

There are a few bedrooms sprinkled throughout. We have to cut holes into the walls for the egress windows so that should be fun. The 2 windows on the back wall (in the laundry room and in the bedroom) are the random doors that don’t currently open onto our property, so we don’t have to cut holes for those #smallwin.

 

Definitely the quirkiest part of the space is the hallway. We needed to find a way from the back corner where the door is, into the rest of the house and work around all of the permanent walls. So its a little zig-zaggy but we’re just going to roll with it.

I love that the doors to the bedrooms and main bath are tucked back inside the building. The back space by the door will also serve as the mud/laundry room. We’re no strangers to walk through laundry rooms, and I’m excited to bring this space to maximum efficiency.

One of the hurdles with so much square footage all on one level is that there is dead space in the center that needs to be filled with rooms that don’t need egress windows (so bedrooms were out) or natural light. We are using that to our advantage and putting some bathrooms and Court’s theater there.

We’ve also got some fun design ideas to bring as much natural light as possible into the hallways and center spaces (think transoms on all of the doors!!) but if you’ve got any other suggestions I’d love to hear them!!

Also I’m working on a post with the most FAQ’s that are in the comments, so if you have any questions leave them below and I’ll answer them!!

xo

 

 

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