Chateau Planning

 I'm working on painting the inside of the dormers and adding more tapewire on the second floor and making the connections with eyelets.

The kitchen - probably going to wall up/fill that 2nd doorway in the back so only one remains, going into dining room. This wing was originally designed to be 2 rooms (kitchen and eating area) but both would be too small. This will also give me more wall space in the kitchen for cabinets, since the opposite wall has a french door and window.

I want a grand kitchen with the cathedral ceiling, probably arch trusses if I can figure out how to do it. My inspiration is a Whitledge-Burgess kitchen that has this dramatic effect. I was thinking about doing it for the French Country Manor but I would have had to cut out the floors in the wings. This house has that cathedral effect already.

Here's that kitchen idea...

One of the challenges I have with this house is how the second floor(s) were attached. They were supposed to sit on crown molding from the first floor. I want to choose and finish my crown separately and don't want to depend on it to support the second floor. 

In looking at this tonight, I decided I will nail and glue in the floors. Here's how that will work. For the dining room I will nail from the kitchen side and then from the foyer side.  There is a beam in the kitchen lengthwise along the wall that is next to the dining room, and I will either remove the beam or simply nail right through it. You can see the beam just barely in the photo above. Same on the other wing - nail from the study into the living room ceiling and from the foyer into the living room ceiling. The foyer itself will then be pretty sturdy and tight so simply gluing down that partial floor should work.

I feel much better about the flooring attachment. I have tapewire done, and have a plan to secure the flooring. I'm looking at wallpapers that I have from my stash and starting to get a sense of what this house might look like. In each of my other houses, there was a theme or era that guided me through these choices. This will likely be in recent times, don't want to go back in history. But trying to solidify the feel for the house...thinking about what a chateau might look like. Thinking toile, a bit romantic, country french. 

Here's the foyer. It has an opening for stairs on the left by the door. 

Here's an earlier picture with the floors in:

Below is the center part of the house, (not showing the wings on either end of the house) capturing the placement of tapewire. Lower left is dining room then center is foyer of course, right is living room (and to the far right, beyond the photo is the study.

Second floor, may do a bathroom on left, then hallway/stairway, then on the right is the master bedroom. You will notice in the photo above, in the master bedroom there is a partition, almost splitting the room in half. That is supposed to be a bathroom but I just think its taking up too much space in the master bedroom. I can't imagine how I could place a bed in there with the partition! 

This photo  below shows the tapewire up under the peak This is more for my reference so I recall how I did it and where it is. Its up behind the hinge on the third floor. Kind of an awkward angle but that's what I have!