Finally... It begins!!!

We have been very busy so pardon the lack of posting! Nathan and I have decided to finish off our upstairs, which will in turn give us 1650 more square footage to our house! We had been thinking of building a shop out back so that Nathan could have more room than in the garage but with Baby Boy on the way, we decided we needed the extra living space now. We have been working with an architect and with a structural engineer to get things rolling. After a glitch from miscommunication we are FINALLY moving on the upstairs! These are some of the pictures I took last week before we began construction so we would have some before and aftere pictures! Here is our starting point:

This is what will become the office area and will attach to the bonus room. The walls here will come down and the stairwell will become open with an overlooking banister.

French doors will go in here off of the back end of the stairs as a break to the rest of the upstairs, which currently is one LARGE room... this area is about 1200 square feet so it was perfect for any design we wanted to go with.

This is the same open area, just from the other side of the room looking back to the stairs onto what will become a very open hallway, a bathroom, a closet/bedroom, a second kitchen, and a large family room.

This area is going to be floored and closed in to be used as a large "walk in" closet... perfect for all of my holiday decorations!! Yippie!!!

And this area is going to be redone completely. This is where the communication got misunderstood with the engineer and he told us we needed to TAKE OFF THE ROOF!!! Um, NO!!! So, after redrawing the plans, we will be able to open up this are (without taking off the roof) and make this into a sitting room with a fire place... this area comes off on what will be the family room.