Happy new year! Houzz lets you create "ideabooks" that are basically like collections of bookmarks to photos on their site with your own notes about what you liked in the picture. You can easily share these ideabooks with your design and construction team by email. Start building your ideabook(s) now. It's never too early to start thinking about design. Since you are a few years out, you have a lot of opportunity with your property. Is natural light important to you? Visit the site at various times of the day. See where the sun comes, what obstacles (trees, etc) there are, where the views are etc. Your home should be designed with the properties of your land in mind. If you've not bought the site yet be sure to check in the various restrictions on development in the area. In our town you are only allowed to build 6000sqft per acre total, including porches with 3 walls, and only 15000sqft of impervious covered hardscape/house per acre. There are also limits on septic, engineering, etc. Be sure to check out if there are any existing easements. How will this impact/limit your house or landscape plans? You can't build over a utility easement for example. What are the setback rules? Are there height limits? Is there a process by which neighbors can slow/block your development? If they're available, take a look online at your town planning committee minutes to see what obstacles past projects ran into! A good architect will work with you to help refine and implement your vision for your life on your land. They should listen to you and your desires and bring their experience/wisdom to the table about what works and what doesn't in home design in general and for your specific area. There are too many people around that either don't have local knowledge, don't have enough of an opinion about details, or have too much of an opinion (e.g. they have a "vision" that supercedes yours). Spend the time talking to a few different architects and figure out which one you would be most comfortable working with. For me I was able to find one who shared my love of the type of house we were remodeling, and who was super responsive via email, and so the interaction has gone really well. In broad strokes, the process for us went something like this - we considered the types of space we wanted, figured out what spaces could be multipurpose, came up with rough dimensions for the spaces etc. then (since we are a remodel) drew the perimeter of the house and arranged them inside the perimeter using colored bubbles in a computer program. From there both the architect and I took several steps at arranging the bubbles into a layout my wife and I liked. You have much more freedom when you are working with 100% new construction, though if you are shooting for a specific historical style you may have more limitations (e.g. a colonial will limit you to a rectangular shape). From there, we proceeded to modeling the space in three dimensions, understanding the elevation, ceiling heights, etc. Plans followed and now we're in early construction and material selections.

Hi Annie Marceau You're probably busy moving at the moment. Send some pictures when you get there! If you want to share an ideabook here on houzz hit me up on my profile. The video below might help as well. Thanks, -frank Build Beautiful Homes

Hi Jasmine Morrow If you want a bit more glam, you could rotate the desks to the wall to create on large work plane. This would help hide the wires from the computers & stuff as well as make it easier to work together. That would make the wall a focal point where a large centered mirror would go with possibly (1) or (2) shelves on either side would add to the function and give a place to put some glam goodies & accessories. Adding some wall paper on that wall above the chair rail would really make the space pop & seem intentional. Hope that helps! If you want to discuss more specifics, or share an ideabook here on houzz, please feel free to hit me up on my profile. Thanks, -Frank

Patricia, I forgot to mention that the drapes are going for sure. 😊 Shirlpp, the stained wood fireplace and built in is staying the same. All of the woodwork throughout the house is staying...there is stained oak wide dental crown molding throughout the whole house. The front door is a big custom made stained oak door. We did not build this house and because of our situation, the wood is not changing. We are changing all of the light fixtures and some other things, but not stained oak wood. I think I’m going for a modern traditional vibe and I don’t prefer the usual traditional selections. We will be getting new furniture for the living room. We have not moved into the house yet. Everything in the pic is not ours. I think my living room inspiration board is private so I can undo that.