FEBRUARY 27, 2024

I met with the Design Team this morning at 7am to get edits going. John Gitter, the builder for this operation, was also there. As Captain Cluless, let me tell you – If you get one thing from this post, let it be this: INCLUDE YOUR BUILDER IN YOUR DESIGN MEETINGS!!!!!!!!!! If you don’t have a builder for your first design meeting (I didn’t), that’s fine. They’ll recommend someone to you and help you find the right fit.

We talked about starting from scratch. We were trying to cram too much stuff into too small of a space, which made the design stray from the entire Strawberry Box concept.

Also, I forgot to bring a pen to this meeting and had to write with Sharpie. I’ll break down my notes, but I wanted you all to see the notes I took. Here is a testimony that if my small brain can do this, you can too.

Here are the edits we talked about:

• -Wayyy to ranchy – We need to squish it together to replicate that “box” feel. We’re taking Bedroom #2 and the guest bath and creating a second story. This will be loft-ish with vault ceilings. “Stacking” the bathrooms/ rooms will cut down on first level space.
• -The master bedroom, bath, and walk in closet will be rotated (replacing where Bedroom #2 currently is).
• -The BEST NEWS OF ALL. The laundry room will be moved and connect to the walk in closet.
• -Where the laundry room currently is, we’re going to make that a half bath. I don’t want people using the master bathroom when they come over since the guest bathroom is moving upstairs.
• -There will be more space for the kitchen/ living room now so we’re going to repurpose some of the living room space and use that for the kitchen.
• -The garage will be much smaller (22′ maybe) with the door on the side of the house.
• -The basement will be full exposure, so the garage stairs that go downwill go bye bye. For now, I’m planning on leaving the basement unfinished.
• -The last biggest change we’re making is that the kitchen/ living room will be flipped. What I mean by that is right now the living room is facing the road. We’re going to change it, so it’ll be facing the back of the house.

We’re looking at the main level being 900 square feet with the upstairs being 300 square feet. That meets the village requirements. We’ll have the revised designs back in 2 weeks.