Our new house.

Let me tell you about the house that we've been dreaming about for the past year. It's almost time for our dream to become ours and I'm getting excited for our March 25th closing date.

We had two main goals in moving from our old house. The first was more space. Space for our kids, space for homeschooling, space for my crafty side and more space for storage. The second was to find a house that we could be comfortable in at least until the kids start moving out. When it came down to time to move, the thought of leaving our neighbors seemed too much, so we talked it over with our friends and since they were feeling a little cramped in their house too, we decided to make the search together. I'm so glad we did. We found a neighborhood to accommodate two budgets and two styles and needs. The Hebert's have already moved in to their dream home and we are anxious to be neighbors again.

Our first house, on Travis Drive, was a very nice house. It certainly was a nice for our "starter home." After 6 years of living in one house, we'd developed a list of things we would change. I think everyone has one of those lists. "When we get our dream house, it'll have xy or z." So, while I feel very blessed to have had such a nice home on Travis Drive, I'm a thrilled with the niceties we will have in our new home on Pond View Lane.

The new Clark home will total about 4000 square feet, as we added some space here and there to the original floor plans. It's large and almost twice the size of our old house. It wasn't that we had a specific square footage in mind, but we did have a list of rooms and spaces we wanted to have available. It all added up quickly. It has 5 bedrooms, a nice sized dining room, a "game room" upstairs, a large storage closet, storage space in the garage, a media room, a nice open kitchen, a breakfast nook that could be extended to hold a large table, a nice master suite that isn't too large, as is the custom these days, a beautiful entry, and a pleasant family room.

The boys will share a room and Mary will have her own. There is room for them all to have their own rooms, but I value the experience of sharing a room with a sibling and the boys seem to get along well for the time being (maybe a little too well for bedtime). They have separate beds, but they always sleep together in one, so to save space, we are just going to put one bed in and add another when one of them complains. :-) Mary will have her own room, part of the privilege of being the only girl, I suppose. The boys have requested a Cowboy room. So, we'll be decorating with ridin', ropin', rootin' tootin' accessories. Mary can't wait to have her horse bedroom back, so her decor will remain the same.

The 3rd upstairs bedroom will be dedicated to my craft stuff. I am so anxious to design my design-space and continue work on my scrapbooks and crafts. I am thrilled to have the space for my stuff.

Obviously Doug and I will occupy the Suite downstairs, but there is another bedroom downstairs. We call it the guest room, but it will house our exercise equipment for the time being and will eventually be a baby's room when we decide to have our 4th (and likely the last) child. Once Baby is old enough, s/he will move upstairs to the kid-castle and the room will once again be used for exercise and visitors.

Upstairs there is a game room, which we will use for homeschooling. Off of it, is a large storage closet and the walkway to the media room, which won't be a media room at all, but Doug's Dungeon, aka office.

My second favorite room of the house (the first being my craft room), is the breakfast nook. The plans showed it as your standard size breakfast nook, but a family of 5 and growing can not fit a large enough table in a standard nook to be comfortable. So, we have altered the plans to extend the short side of the nook by 5 feet, making it almost square. It is at the rear corner of the house and two of its walls are windows with window seats. It is open feeling and gets the best light, all day long. It faces north-east and just glows so perfectly at all hours of the day.

Of course, the nook is attached to the kitchen. It is large and open to the family room. The cabinetry is stunning. It has a island bar where we can put 3 stools to serve our kids breakfast. I can't wait to have a bowl of fruit for the kids to nibble at all times. And, I finally have my double oven. That was on the list of for things to include in our dream house. I have a laundry room with cabinetry and counter tops!

All around the house, the walkways and walls are trimmed with rounded corners and brow arched openings and niches. The stair case takes two turns from the foyer and is simple, but gorgeous (even if I do say so myself). The ceiling has 9 coffers, which we chose to mirror in wood and tile inlay on the floor. Another one of my favorite parts of the house is the door. The day we made our design choices, a door arrived at the selection center and it was not like any other door they have there. It wasn't even supposed to be allowed in our neighborhood, but our consultant must have really liked us because she fought for us to have this door. It is bronze with beautiful scroll work on the large window. It is HEAVY and just gorgeous with the colors we chose. Unlike any other door in the neighborhood, it has a brow shaped top. I love the door and I love even more that we are the only ones in the neighborhood that has one. I usually don't care much about who has which features on their house, but since it was kind of an ordeal to get the door, I think it means a bit more to me that we are unique.

We will be taking pictures when it is all said and done and you will be able to see them on smugmug. But, I would much prefer for you all to come visit and take a peek around our house. It is such a nice feeling to be getting the house of your dreams. A house that we got to choose each color and surface, one that I get to decorate to my tastes and make our home, knowing that we have the space and features that will allow us to stay to raise our kids. I hope the kids grow up with fond memories of this house.

I've put the basic floor plans below, but note that our house is flipped and has had some additions and changes to these plans.