After the purchase of the cottage, we knew that the layout would need to change. The kitchen as in other posts was closed off to the rest of the cottage with only a small opening into the log cabin room. Other problems with the current design include:
-Having to walk through a first floor bathroom to get to the only bedroom on the first floor
-No bathroom on the master bedroom side of the cottage
-a kitchen closed off from the view of the lake.
-only a toilet and a sink in the upstairs with the remaining three bedrooms
The original cottage layout, seemed chopped up. You could tell where each addition had been added to the original log cabin. So having worked with floor plans before, we decided that we would spend the winter months revising and planning the new cottage layout as well as the new placement of doors and windows.
In my design years I have used a few different software CAD design systems. I recently had upgraded to the PUNCH Design software. Very user friendly and fairly reasonable to purchase.
So our first priority was to basically take the first floor to the studs. Since the walls on the outside of the original structure needed to be rebuilt ( for more on this read the blog on the foreclosed cottage) most of that was already complete.
We started with a plan to open up the main living spaces. The kitchen was closed off from the view of the water and only one 4 ft opening into the log room. The kitchen was dark with limited windows. We started with a plan to eliminate the walls and open the kitchen up to the log room by installing an engineered LVL. Along the lake side we also needed to open the view so a second LVL was engineered on either side of the original log cabin. Jack Plates were used to hold up the demoed walls until the LVL’s could be engineered and put in place. These Jack Plates were very important because they needed to hold up the roof and the second floor.
Below is the computer layout of the new space, both upstairs and downstairs.
After the new layout was designed, we went to work on the new window and door placement. I wanted more natural light in the kitchen as well as windows to maximize the view. Window opening and door openings increased in size from the existing windows. Our windows and doors were placed through Home Depot
Below is the second floor layout…
