2.1.07

More Sketchup, Please!

So, the time has come for us to renovate our house. Actually, that's not quite true: that time actually came about 5 years ago, but we're only just getting around to it. What can I say - we've been busy. We're pretty excited about our plans, though, which include new flooring upstairs and down, new furniture, and, most significantly, substantial changes to the layout of the main floor and bathroom. Our little townhouse is only 975 square feet over two floors, so when you chop that up into several rooms, it tends to cut down on the usable space. So we're taking walls out. Three walls, to be precise. And one closet. We've been mulling over several potential plans for a couple of years now, and I think we've finally come up with a design that will require minimal demolition work while maximizing the available space on the main floor. We're hoping to go with the clean, modern look of a trendy Manhattan apartment: wood floors; concrete countertops; and colours that are bold yet tasteful. Now, to help us picture the final product, I have called upon a superfly little application called Google Sketchup. I first used Sketchup at work to create a virtual walkthrough of the ongoing renovations at the Lethbridge Public Library. The program is incredibly simple yet quite powerful. And it's free. Anyway, I applied my mad Sketchup skillz to our first floor, and this is what I came up with. It's pretty much to scale. Feedback/suggestions/constructive criticism welcome.


5 comments:

Katherine said...

ooh la! That looks like something out of a magazine. Concrete countertops? We were discussing how you would make those...make a mold and pour it? Looks good.

Anie said...

coolio.
gonna feel alot bigger i think!
look forward to the new look.

Robin said...

Thanks for the comments yos. Katherine, there are two ways to do the countertop: you can pour it in place, or make a mold and then set the countertop in place once it's cured. I think we'll take the latter approach. After buffing and polishing, the concrete looks almost like stone. Cool stuff.

chris.birrell said...

Sorry for the late input. I think that your ideas look great. I had read about this sketchy program in the newspaper but had yet to give it a try. I'm going to landscape my...wait a second...oh yes, parking lot. Next summer for sure. You'll have to check out the fruits of that labour.

Great idea knocking out the walls. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures.

Where did you get the idea for the countertops? I've been pretty fascinated lately with alternative home building technologies. Is it more or less expensive than granite? I thought so.

Another thought. Why is it that the home consumer has allowed for so many impositions regarding what they can and can't do with their property?

WALL said...

Looks good Robin.

Shalom the World

Jeffrey Charles Wall and Family