The Design

As a designer, designing something for yourself is one of the most challenging jobs I could get. So many great ideas have come across my desk, I love many architectural styles, how do I filter through all this? How do I build something cost effective and beautiful? What best represents my style but would also appeal to my clients when they come to visit the space? 
Something I talked about in my previous post and will probably bring up again is our "forever home", this is why we bought the property the basis of which everything is designed around. Our shop needs to complement our house and fit the property. The dream house for us is a two story stone farm house, with a wrap around porch. So I quickly came to the conclusion the only style to compliment our farmhouse was a barn! 
​So, on to the next task, to keep it simple yet functional for both my husbands masonry company and my design studio. I had to ask both my husband and myself, the same questions I ask my clients, how do we want this space to function? What's going inside? How big do we need each space to be? From here we worked out a floor plan. There were a lot of hand drawn floor plans on graph paper before the CAD drawings, very similar to the stuff my clients bring me at their initial meeting. 
​Once I started drawings on the computer I had to start thinking about the structural requirements, building components, energy efficiency design, how do all these things tie together and how much are they going to cost! ​The one thing I find very important in the design process is collaboration. I worked closely with the truss designer, HVAC designer and my sub-trades when applicable to ensure the best possible design. Hoping I will have time to dig deeper into some of these topics and give insight into how I worked through each design requirement in future posts. 
​So here it is: