Last week I shared about our lot, and this week I can’t wait to tell you about our plan for building a custom home, which I have dubbed “The Creek Classic.” My goal for the bones of this home is to keep it pretty timeless, with a slightly coastal feel, and then I can go wild with my eclectic glam furnishings. With the creek in our backyard, the name was an easy choice. For the sake of clarity, I’m going to refer to our old house as The Sweetbay Sanctuary (we lived in a neighborhood called Sweetbay Ridge). “Old house” and “new house” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, and it’s also pretty confusing! Also, I like alliteration. 😉

Many people complain about the process of building a house, but I actually love it… It’s pretty incredible to envision rooms and spaces that only exist in your mind, and a few months later to actually be walking through them. While our last builder, Capstone Homes, was fabulous from a quality and price standpoint, they weren’t a custom builder, and what I was looking for this time around was a truly custom home. Let’s just say that my tastes don’t always line up with what is trending in MN, so the flexibility to go outside the figurative design box and pick other options is a pretty big deal to me.

After checking into several builders, we ultimately decided to go with Precision Homes. Owned by a super sweet husband and wife team named Paul and Alena (he builds, she designs… And yes, the comparison to Chip and Jojo is an easy one), their attention to detail, the ability to customize, and the value built into their homes is exactly what we were looking for. One of their homes was just featured on House Hunters last week too! We are ecstatic to be working with them.

Building a Custom Home: Exterior

When I mentioned we are building a custom home, it truly is going to be designed just for us. I looked over what must have been 100+ floor plans online, specifically hunting for one with a bonus room over the garage. My parents have one, and I’ve always loved the use of that space. After finally finding a floor plan I really liked, getting a bid on it, and deciding to move forward, we worked with an architect to develop the exact plan and make it work on our lot. After multiple changes, I’m happy to share the final iteration of our custom home plan. While The Creek Classic is technically a tiny bit smaller than The Sweetbay Sanctuary (168 sf), the space has been well thought out, so it may actually feel like we have more usable space.

See that window on the right of the rear side of the garage? This is actually the result of what I like to call a happy accident (although in truth, I’m sure it was no accident and was actually divinely appointed… Amazing to see God work out the details, even down to the layout of our house!). Our first home, a rambler style town home, was great from a space standpoint, but the floor plan was really deep and narrow and had virtually no natural light. After living there for 10.5 years, natural light feels like a necessity for me.

The lot we purchased faces North, so the backyard gets great Southern exposure, which should flood the house with sunlight. Our original plan included a long straight bonus room over the garage with a small window out the side, but when Paul submitted the plans to the city, we received some bummer news that according to a new application of setback rules, we had to shrink the bonus room by four feet and lose the window. Paul offered to throw in extra can lights, but I was NOT on board with a windowless bonus room. The plan for this space is “kid zone central,” and I don’t want my kids hanging out in a gloomy cave. After some back and forth and input from my dad, we finally decided to put a shed dormer out the back of the bonus room, and I love how that added extra space to the room as well as a lot of additional Southern exposure light. No cave for my kids!

We hope to eventually add a sport court on to the house. The space behind the garage offers the perfect place to build that down the road.

Building a Custom Home: Interior Floor Plan

Starting in the basement, we have our guest bedroom, which will be quite a bit smaller than our previous one, but that was hardly ever used, so I think it will be sufficient for our infrequent guests! Our family room leads to patio doors, and although the space is laid out very differently than in The Sweetbay Sanctuary, we still have a place to play “hall ball” (our made up family game that shares many similarities to soccer, and is a great outlet for us all when we’re cooped up inside during MN winters). The highlight of the basement, at least in Adam’s eyes, is the workout room. He definitely takes a back seat when it comes to design decisions, but that room is all his, and he has BIG plans. 🙂

Besides the bonus room, the main floor is my favorite part about The Creek Classic floor plan. At The Sweetbay Sanctuary, our island served as our family gathering place for many activities, including crafts, homework, and most dinners. We rarely ate at our table. So a larger, conversationally shaped island with more seating and counter top space will serve us well!

There are a lot of similarities to what we had before, such as a large open great room, an office space with French doors, and a mud room accessed from the garage. The dining room should get a ton of light because it is surrounded on three sides by windows and patio doors. Our powder room is tucked away from the main living area for a bit more privacy. Originally, the plan had a wall off the foyer, but when I had the idea to open it up with a pocket door, we all got really excited about the Nerf gun war possibilities that presented since we can make a complete loop around the main floor! And yes, we are working our family’s love of Nerf wars into our home plans. 😉

The one area in The Creek Classic that I notice the slightly smaller space is in the bedroom size. All but bedroom #2 are slightly smaller than their counterparts at The Sweetbay Sanctuary, and bedroom #4 is significantly smaller. BUT that bedroom was used primarily for storage and an extra sleeping space for nieces and nephews, since we only have two kids, so I think it will still be really functional for what we need. 

And even though it’s slightly smaller, I think the master layout makes more sense here, so we can have a sitting area, instead of ten feet between the end of our bed and our dresser that wasn’t super usable space. This is my bedroom layout plan. As I’m obsessed with natural light, we considered adding transom windows over the nightstands, but because they would be off centered and would lock us into a set bedroom layout, we decided to skip it.

That’s the gist of The Creek Classic floor plan. Feel free to comment below with any questions! I’d love to hear about your experience building a custom home if you’ve done it before (any tips for us??). I hope you’ll follow along as I share design plans and inspiration and watch our new home come together!