Making Plans

I didn't dream of marriage and children.

I dreamed of building a house.

Before I was in junior high, I started drawing house plans on the back of sales tickets in my parent's business.  People came in with their plans to pick out carpet, draperies and wallpaper.  We visited houses under construction on the weekends.  I seldom got to see the house complete with furniture but I could imagine based on a few decorator magazines we had at home.

As I got older, I fantasized about my perfect house. There was this one home plan in a book of plans my Mother bought.  I just loved it and could picture myself in my huge master bedroom and in my sitting room.  I wanted to go to college, get a good job and build a house.

Of course, I met a guy and then another guy but my dream never died.  In 1993 it became a reality and we moved into the house I designed.

I have tons of photos of the house building process.  I don't have any photos of the little girl drawing house plans or even me in the shop where I spent a lot of time (but that is for another story.)

For this page, I used a copy of the architects working drawing based on one I had given him of the house I wanted.  We made a few changes to this but it is close.  Also on the page is one of the many drawings I did as I worked through ideas to get to the final floor plan.

It makes for a busy background so I was challenged to find a way to keep the background from being overwhelming.  Using a lot of wood veneer and wood look elements tied to the photos and kept he color scheme simple.  I also repeated my embellishments.













There is more on the process in this video:



This page was my interpretation of one of the LOAD prompts about things we did as a child that influenced our life.  Drawing house plans, as simple as they were back then, definitely influenced my life through my 20's.

Thanks for visiting today.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.