The First Decision

Guest blogger and first time builder Kristin, known to her Instagram followers as @buildingvillawest, shares her journey on how to choose the perfect floor plan.

Hi, I’m Kristin! My husband Nathan and I built with McDonald Jones Homes last year. We were first time builders and I’m by no means an expert, however we did have an amazingly smooth build process (and a beautiful home to show for it) and so I would love to be able to offer some bits of advice that may help someone else with their build.

I will start with the first decision we made, and it’s a big one... choosing a floor plan.

With three small children (Eden age 5, Ryder age 4, and Flynn age 1), we wanted to make the most of this opportunity to choose a home that would work perfectly for us all, as well as suiting our needs as the children grew up.

While on our build journey I spoke to so many others that struggled to narrow down to find their ideal floor plan. It seems likely, given how many layouts there are to choose from, that this decision could feel quite overwhelming. For Nathan and me, it was quite simple though. Before even opening the floor plan brochures, we discussed how we wanted to live in our new home.

The main things we looked forward to were the children enjoying the backyard and lots of room for entertaining. On the practical side we also thought about the children having their own part of the house, and us parents having a retreat to ourselves. And finally an area for us all to come together: a large open kitchen/dining/living with a separate media room.

From there we broke it down into more detail. For entertaining friends and family we knew we wanted to choose a plan with a kitchen-dining-alfresco flow to it to encourage the indoor/outdoor lifestyle. Whilst the children would be enjoying our new big backyard I wanted to be able to oversee them whilst I cooked in our beautiful new kitchen. We loved the idea of the children’s rooms coming off a central area. This room would act as a playroom whilst they are little, but could later become their own living room as they grow up.

We hoped  for our own master suite to be somewhere in the middle of the house –  with three small children we didn’t want to be too far away from them, but as they got older we didn’t want to have our room right next to theirs either. 

Lastly, I tried to envision what we wanted to see as we opened our new front door. I had always loved the idea of a home with a beautiful entry, I think a wide hallway upon entering creates a spacious and calm beginning to your arrival home.

At this point, with a clear idea of how we wanted to live in this new home, we opened the books of plans. It was then a simple decision. We knew very soon that the Milano Two 16 was the one for us, it ticked every box.

Now that we are living in the house, we are loving that our vision has come to life and we enjoy the space in just the way we had imagined.
 

Busy mother of three, Kristin received the keys to her new Milano Two 16 at the end of 2017. Since then, she has continually wowed us with her home styling on her Instagram page @buildingvillawest.

Follow Kristin on Instagram to find out her styling secrets and discover what it’s like to live in a McDonald Jones home every day.