Celebrating the Moment

The walls are going up, and it’s time to make decisions on the things I’ve been vacillating over—kitchen layout, furniture placement, entry space usage, etc. The current design allows the master bedroom to be part of the main room. Large, asymmetrical double doors open up a large portion of the wall (see plan). Do I want my bedroom to feel like more of an extension of the space, or do I want it to be a separate entity? Do I need a mudroom? Just how muddy is it? Do I really want to live in the country? It’s all quite daunting.

 
Elevation of asymmetrical bedroom door

I wish I could find a better way of showing this. Can you tell what you’re looking at? The door between the bed and living room is so wide, it allows the bedroom to become part of the larger space. Or I could use only the small door and keep it more private.

Inner Monologue:
Take a deep breath and remember that you are a design professional; you do this for a living. Relax. You’re a mature adult going through a rite of passage (though, yes, rather late in life). You will come through this a wiser, more mature and, for sure, poorer individual. So what if you’re using up all your savings? Who cares that you owe more money than you ever thought possible? The bigger picture is you now co-own a house with Kinderhook Bank; you’re partnered with Visa on some fabulous kitchen cabinets; you’re sharing custody of a car with Volkswagen Credit; and you’re joined with Master Card on a myriad of household items. You’re pretty sure you own your land outright. Does that make you landed gentry?

So back to issue at hand—DESIGN. The main goal in the design is to create the most flexible, adaptable space possible. The whole purpose of having one large living space is that it will work for anything and everything—formal sitting room, dining room, flower arranging room, discotheque. Possibilities abound!

Going further with this concept, all the surfaces should offer the same freedom—nothing precious, nothing to worry about. I’ve chosen concrete floors and honed granite countertops. The high ceilings and large windows will make the place bright and airy. The over-scaled fireplace is a focal point and, along with radiant heat, a source of warmth. 

Example of a concrete floor

The kitchen, an integral part of the main room, should have function as the guiding rule in its design. I don’t cook (the refrigerator in my NYC apartment has been broken for 15 years), so the location of the phone jack is essential. Some of the local restaurants require reservations.

In response to the hundreds of comments regarding the front door placement, I have decided to put it in the entry pavilion (how novel!), as per my architect’s design. Please note, Laura Bohn, how flexible I can be! And Kitty Hawks, retiring may have been a little extreme. Stopping short of a porte-cochere, I will, in the words of my first employer John Saladino “celebrate the moment of entry.”