Brian Einsweiler

Well, it's been nearly a month since we kicked off the floor plan and elevation drafts for the house, and today I finally have a design that we're submitting to the Parkside HOA for approval. I'm very happy with how the design turned out. I fixed a lot of the things that I didn't exactly like about the old house and made some changes that make the window and room placement ideal for my specific lot and views.

First, here's the site plan that shows how the house sits on the lot. It's in the same position as the old house. Due to the narrow lot width and setback rules, the house is the same width, but we ended up adding about 8 feet in depth. Two feet of this is in the garage, and the rest is in a larger family room/dining room/kitchen area. The front of the house faces north-northwest, and Flying W Ranch Road passes at the southwest corner of the lot. (There's a giant tree right at that dot in the southwest corner that survived and I'm very happy about that!) As you can see, I had a comfortable margin to fit the new, slightly larger house. A lot of my neighbors in Parkside aren't so lucky and are pretty limited with their rebuild options due to the small lots and odd shapes. I ended up going from 2200 finished square feet to just shy of 2800 square feet. Oops.

Now, without further ado, the actual floor plan:

First, the main floor, which is reminiscent of the old house, but I moved the kitchen from the center to the left of the rear area and opened it up completely (and made it a little bit bigger). The family room features a nice big panoramic window that overlooks the city of Colorado Springs and Cheyenne Mountain. I'll also have a gas fireplace instead of the wood fireplace I used to have. My deck is quite a bit smaller than the old house (it was 34 feet wide and 8 feet deep, but wasn't very usable because of the shape), but this one will be much nicer with composite boards and more decorative railings.

The second floor features an enlarged master suite that will include a jetted tub and separate water closet for the toilet. I added a loft in place of the old house's vaulted area, which made up a bit of an increase in the square footage of the house. The loft will take place of the office/den from the old house. It also has a nice vaulted ceiling. There's a second floor laundry closet to save trips up and down the steps, and the second and third bedroom are nicely sized now.

Next, the basement level. It ends up quite a bit bigger than the old house since I'm not leaving a crawl space near the front of the house. That part will remain as unfinished storage, though. There will be a full bathroom, bedroom with walk-in closet, and a nicely-sized rec room with lots of windows. Outside the sliding door will be a simple concrete patio, but in the remaining area behind the house I plan to have a nice little rose garden or something.

And finally, the renderings of the exterior elevations of the house. It's nothing too fancy, but we did make the front a bit more interesting than the old house with decorative soffit vents, a stone facade, and railings on the front porch.

Doing a full-custom home has turned out to be a very interesting, and sometimes difficult process. My builder is making it pretty easy on me, but the sheer number of decisions that must be made is overwhelming at times. I still haven't settled on the wood for the floors, the cabinets, counter tops, carpet, etc. Though, I do have a good idea of the types of styles of those that I'd like. Now, doing that within my budget will be the tricky part!