A Model

We're having another snow day today.  It stinks. Big. Time.  I wake up in the morning with such dread on days like this, wondering how I will entertain my children yet again without leaving the house.  (As I write this, Brennan is ironically singing, "Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me!")  I think this is our fifth (?) snow day in just a few weeks!  It's enough to make me ca-ray-zee.

I'm keeping myself entertained with thoughts of our new house.  I have fabric swatches and paint chips lying around everywhere, teasing and tormenting me, as it will be a long time before the house is built and we have enough money to do all of the things I want to do.   Nonetheless, I will plan and dream because it's half the fun.

We have a model home of our floor plan in Hendersonville, less than an hour from here.  I've been out to visit once, and Jim has been out twice.  On his second trip, Jim took a bunch of measurements and lots of pictures.  If you don't have a great imagination, it will be hard to picture how great the house will be beyond the crazy decorating in this model.  But you can try.

This is the formal living room (open to the dining room).  It is the first room on your left when you come in the front door.

This is the view from the front door with the living room and dining room on your left and the family room and kitchen straight through in the back:

Here's the view from the middle of the house looking forward:

To the right of the stairs is the entrance from the garage and a coat closet, and the closet to the left of the stairs is nice and deep.

Here's a view of the family room from the kitchen:

And below is obviously the kitchen.  We will have black appliances and different countertops, and the floor will be wood.  The cabinets will be about the same, and none of the paint in the house is what we will have (they're painting everything white and we'll paint colors ourselves).

All four bedrooms are upstairs (exactly what we wanted) as well as a play area for the kids and the laundry room!  (I'm so excited to have the laundry upstairs near all the bedrooms!)  There is also a huge storage closet off our bedroom (separate from the walk-in clothes closet).

The master bedroom is absolutely huge.  You can't even tell in this picture how gigantic it is:

It's fun to have time to think about how I will organize, decorate, and nest before the house is even built.  Knowing my sick personality, Jim took pictures for me of all of the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen so I could pre-plan where I would put everything before we ever move in.  (True love, I tell you.  I didn't even ask him to do this.) 

And I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to have this:

It's a walk-in pantry, and half of it is hidden in this picture!  I never dreamed of putting a walk-in pantry on my wish list because they are ridiculously uncommon.  But it is, along with the upstairs laundry, one of the things about which I am most excited!  Well, those things and this...

This is a study located just off the family room.  It's tiny, but it will be a dedicated space for my craft supplies.  It has a door on it, and there won't be a server or other computer equipment in it.   'Nuff said.

Now, if it would just quit snowing so that people could go to work and finish approving our loan, prepping our lot, and ordering our materials, we'd be much closer to making this house a reality!!