Inches Matter

There was illness, stress, a big decision made, a road trip, and some general resistance to the project, but I'm back!  One thing I'm noticing as Scott and I pour over the plans to eek out every bit of storage we can get, is the value of a few inches.

For example, if you look directly to the left of the double doors, you'll see our laundry room.  When we measured our stackable washer/dryer at home, we learned that we needed 3 feet clear to accommodate the machine and the venting.  That wasn't quite included in the floorpan, so we needed to borrow some space from the bathroom.  We switched the toilet with the shower.  The toilet needs 15 in. from the center line on each side to be up to code.  It's tight, but it'll make it. (whew!) In speaking with a plumber for an estimate, he mentioned that plumbing can't go on an exterior wall so we would need to build a fake wall, costing about 3.5 in.  That's valuable space that we may or may not have.
We currently own a 55" television, a size my husband has come to accept is too large.  It was over 51 in. wide, taking up too much wall space between the bathroom and the bedroom.  We'll have to downsize our television to fit the space better.
We thought about the size of the kitchen, the amount of cupboards (remember that there's going to be a large window over the kitchen sink, so we won't have upper cupboards on that wall) planned, and decided that we really wanted to try to include a pantry, even if for just the cans and spices.  This is what we asked to do.

While this will give us a huge bang for our buck, it will take valuable inches from the entryway/mud room area.  Each choice we make seems to have consequences for other areas.  We're really glad that we've had time to look, and think and research different options.  I'm glad we're taking our time on this phase as it takes a while to figure out how we really use a space and what we can and can't compromise on.  If you ever plan a small space our advice is to really take your time here and think through what you really need. Inches matter.