the farmhouse floorplan

Seeing as though an overwhelming amount of people who took part in my survey (which is still open by the way, I thought why the heck not?) wanted to see more home design and decorating here on Cinderella at Brindabella, I thought I'd better let you get your bearings around this ramshackle  farmhouse.

Here is a floor plan which I did, it's not exactly to scale but it is near enough (no massively too big rooms or wonky angles). You can see that the general layout is with the kitchen in the heart of the home, with a lounge room off that and bedrooms and bathroom separate again, all off the central hallway. I hope you understand my doors, windows, cupboards and what-not - an architect or draftswoman I am not.

The dining room, back porch and sewing room was once a big old wide back verandah, but was walled in to create a little sleep-out room off the back porch (which could be classified as a fourth bedroom or study) and a sunroom with big wide windows facing north and east which we are using as our dining room. I would love to re-instate this back verandah one day but in the meantime we really need those two rooms and can't re-incarnate them elsewhere in the house. 

With a bit of imagination you can see that originally the hallway was a T-shape, the current doorway into the lounge room from the kitchen was once a straight wall and access from the kitchen to lounge was through the hall. This was changed by the previous owners at some point to make the kitchen the most awkward shape (but access to lounge room easier). We want to block this triangle area in the kitchen in with a wall to create a walk-in pantry at some stage (hopefully this year). 

The lounge room is the main room we use in the house, as well as the kitchen as it's the central point. You can see that there is a big open space in the middle of the kitchen, it probably lends itself to have a dining table in there but ours is simply too big so needs its own room, so we utilise the sunroom as our dining room. We really want to get an island bench built to go in the central space in the kitchen though, as we are lacking usable bench space as well as somewhere to sit and have a cup of tea or breakfast.

The laundry is basically external and is your typical weatherboard farmhouse outbuilding - concrete floor, no door, full of spiders. Don't even mention the outside loo, unusable does not even begin to describe! We are hoping to get a plumber to fix it before next summer as it would be handy having a toilet there when we have barbeques in the backyard and on the back porch.

The bathroom is small but very functional. A small corner mini-bath and shower, toilet and sink vanity in the tiny space but the bathroom in the cottage I really felt was taking up valuable real estate so small bathrooms don't bother me, although I would love a tub to soak in. I love how wide the hallway is, or that we have a hallway at all! I really think thoroughfares and 'in-between' spaces are really important in a home's design and 'flow'. The one thing that gripes me about the house is that the front door is never used. Like never. The carport is at the rear of the house, all visitors and us use the kitchen door off the back porch to enter the house. Except the Jehovah's Witnesses that came one day, the one and only people to use my front door, I nearly joined up just in thanks!

So there you have it, the farmhouse all flattened out for you! At some point I am hoping to get around to doing an outside plan of the garden layout, sheds, eventual hen house, clothesline, veggie patch and all that...you know, one day when I figure out how to either connect my scanner or draw half decent diagrams in Photoshop. 

Any questions, comments, ideas? I'd love to hear how your own home 'flows' or if it has quirky original features, add ons or extensions which can be traced throughout the architecture. Do you love to see a homes history as much as I do?

P.S. If ever you come to visit me here at Brindabella, be sure to use my front door and I will love you forever! :)