Friday, February 10, 2012

The Snail House

Back in daydreamland, I did more detailed drawings of the "Snail House" that I posted about last month.

Follow me on a guided tour...

The first floor is dominated by bedrooms, including a couple of guest rooms forming a small suite.

Bathrooms are clustered around the central core. I envisage solar light tubes leading down from the roof to bring some natural light into those windowless spaces.

Ali asked me why I didn't give the kids' rooms separate en-suites. I could have, but with such a deep space to play with it would have made access a problem, and I like the idea of the hallway linking all the family rooms together. All the bedrooms have sliders opening out to a paved area running around that side of the house.

The big open space is a spacious garage with lots of room for bikes, storage, and a large work area for all those tree forts and pirate ships I need to build. This means we might have a fighting chance of getting actual cars in the garage!

The main entrance leads into a circular hall with stairs up either side to a balcony.

The second floor is extremely simple, and shows the spiral nature of the plan with a sweep of rooms running around the house.

I've added another staircase joining the playroom below with the family room above. I think this makes these informal family living spaces more self-contained and slightly separated from the entertainment areas.

This stairwell continues up to the eyrie at the top - strictly adults only :)

11 comments:

Kimberlee Turley said...

Don't forget the closets. Never enough closet space in any house I've been in. And a huge pantry to store food for the zombie apocalypse.

Elizabeth Twist said...

This is wonderful. I often sketch a combination workspace / studio / writers' beehive retreat that is my dream structure for the property my family owns up north. Another "given enough money" notion.

Botanist said...

Kimberlee, I admit I haven't drawn in closets, but I'm sure there's space in there for them. It's not something top of mind for me, we aren't used to built-in closets anyway - that's not really a UK thing. The thing we lack is space for coats and shoes - hence the separate cloak room :D

Elizabeth, it's always good to picture our dreams. And who knows...one day...

J. Andrew Jansen said...

You're missing one thing: The stairway up to the office needs to be hidden behind a bookcase or something. All of my dream home sketches have included secret hallways to secret offices and whatnot.

Also useful re: the zombie apocalypse.

--j--

Botanist said...

Aha! Secret passages. Good one, J. There's lots of my favourite elements missing from this plan, which is why I tend to have lots of different "dream" houses. For example, I like balconies overlooking living spaces from secret dens, which this one doesn't have.

Isn't it funny how even dream houses tend to be compromises? I guess this one is more of a concept than a dream, then.

Lindsey R. Loucks said...

I love this! It reminds me of when I was a kid and I used to design the layout of houses with pencils laid out end to end. Ah, memories!

Ellie Garratt said...

Such an apt post, considering your last comment on my blog. Wonderfully creative. Loved it!

Jean Davis said...

Nice! Since I'm the one to lug groceries in, I'm going to caution against putting the kitchen on the second floor and yes, closets. Must have closets! My house doesn't have near enough of them. I love the flowing stepped shape of what you've got here though. :)

Botanist said...

Interesting, Lindsey. You obviously never had Lego then?

Ellie, I hadn't thought of that! The two weren't connected in my mind, other than by my love of drawing out plans.

Jean, I'm going in here eyes wide open - as the one who already lugs groceries each weekend to our second-floor kitchen :)

Lindsey R. Loucks said...

No Legos for me. :(

Matthew MacNish said...

This is beyond awesome.

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