Hi Cat-Mom, Yup, we're also renoing Living Room and Master Bedroom at the same time- you? :>) I just faux-painted our entry stair railing to make do until we add on to our front entry. So many balls in the air, hard to juggle it all at one time. kgwlisa, That's what I had thought of so far, basement ceiling has been ripped down, so all the plumbing is fully exposed, and present shower and bath have leaking problems, so things pretty well have to be redone anyways. I was even contemplating 'borrowing' more out of the common wall when we build it, by building in storage behind mirror and perhaps a deeper vanity. I'm assuming this is a fairly basic/common plan, and hopefully others have paved the path... Rae

Ooooo, I love puzzles! So just to be clear, the entire bathroom space will be one room, with the tub situated perpendicular to the window so the window is at one end of the tub, the only entrance will be to the hall which is being widened to 48 inches? I want to be sure I understand where exactly you want the tub as that will determine the rest of the space.

Thanks everyone! A few answers to question: Jaymielo: Yes, the addition will be two stories. There will be two bedrooms downstairs, and the master upstairs. There isn't direct access from the garage to the house right now. You exit the garage, turn, and walk two steps outside to get to our back door. The current back door is located where the new stairs start by the bathroom. is a scan of the original house floorplan before we did the kitchen bump-out. The resolution of this scan isn't good enough to see dimensions, but it will show the doors that allow garage access. Marthaelena: Good guess on a door location! That's where our back door is currently located. The bottom of the layout is the front of our house, and the main entry is where the indentation is between the kitchen and livingroom. My husband's grandparents designed and built this house in the 70's as their retirement home (hence the 2-bedroom house!), and it has ended up in DH's hands because he respects thier wishes that it stays in the family. So, resale isn't very important to us b/c we have no plans of ever leaving it. If life intervenes, property values here are such that we could sell for half it's value and still be able to buy a house outright anywhere but CA. We would LOVE to be able not to do a 3-level, but we would have to either give up a level, or sink it 18-24" because of the height restrictions here; we can't be more than 24' above our curb. Supposedly the layout shown is to scale according to DH's program there, but I'm not sure I'm buying that. I'm going to get a better layout for you guys including ALL dimensions. I know from doing my kitchen that the more info I can give you, the more you'll be able to brainstorm with me. Sweeby: I hear you on not liking that program! That's why DH has been the only one who's been working on the plans so far. Everytime he asks me to sit down with it, I just get that Ew feeling b/c that program is difficult to work with, and doesn't do a great job showing you what's going on. Graph paper plan or better program (like BHG) will follow later today. The stairs will have to be included in the 19x21 addition space, and it makes the most sense to us to put them by the garage there. The terrace will be 3 or 4 steps up from the bedroom. We may be able to gain a bit more width by raising the roof on the part of the current structure that's over the current bathroom and guest bedroom. However, we'll need to consider how that roofline will look from the outside because we don't want a funny looking house. I'm open to whatever ideas you come up with! That's why I'm posting here- we need a fresh and different look on this. Resale is unlikely, so we'd like to do what's best for us. Our house is currently at about the 60th percentile value wise for our neighborhood, even with it's current 2 bedrooms. This addition and the terrace with it's view, would probably move it up considerably. The house is pretty unique with it's atrium already. Here is a link that might be useful:

Thanks ptreckel and all!!! It was definitely worth it. The Provia door was about 10k, then the portico build, new window, rock repair work about 20k. So for about 30k it made a big difference and I would def do it again.