ᐅ Idea Development / Organizational Matters

Created on: 9 Oct 2014 20:19
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Panama17
Hello everyone,

I wanted to ask how you gathered and organized your ideas before and during the house planning process. I’m still quite early in the process but already have piles of magazines lying around. Now I’m wondering how to keep everything orderly and sorted.

Did you mark pages, links, addresses, or photos in the magazines that you liked? Or did you cut out pages, articles, or photos and store them sorted by themes (kitchen, bathroom, fireplace, garden, etc.)? If so, how did you collect them? Boxes, folders?

At the moment, I have no clear plan and am just overwhelmed by the growing stacks of magazines. I’m worried I will soon lose track and won’t be able to find anything I liked again.

Looking forward to tips and experiences :-)
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Panama17
10 Oct 2014 11:09
Thank you all for your contributions 🙂

For me, it’s less about floor plans and more about other nice ideas for interior design. Of course, I have a few ideas regarding the floor plan (I definitely want the kitchen at the back with a terrace leading to the garden, and I don’t want it to be open plan), but I will proceed as most people here recommend—going to the architect with my ideas and letting them "draw" it up.

I’ve also read that it’s important to have a fairly clear idea early on about how the kitchen and bathroom should look, so the plumbing and electrical connections can be planned properly.

Ah, everything looks so great in magazines (bathrooms, fireplaces, furniture, lighting concepts, etc.), browsing through them is just fun for me.

I think I will also cut out nice ideas/photos and file them in an organized way. Scanning sounds good, but I’m afraid that might be too time-consuming for me.

Ziva, I definitely want to visit a show home village, and I’m already eager to browse bathroom and kitchen exhibitions as well (island kitchen yes/no, etc.), but right now it’s more convenient for me to gather information from home since I have a 3-month-old baby at home ;-) .
Doc.Schnaggls schrieb:

Furthermore, in various house-building books we have purchased, we marked the pages that interested us with colored sticky tabs and have a special folder for them as well.
Dirk

Doc, what kinds of books have you read and which would you recommend?
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Doc.Schnaggls
10 Oct 2014 11:20
@Panama17 : I personally found the following books really helpful:

- Law and Contracts in Home Building: What Homeowners Need to Know
- Planning and Building Our House: The Complete Guide to Home Construction
- The Standard Construction Specification: How to Compare House Offers Correctly
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Panama17
10 Oct 2014 12:19
Thanks for the tips :-)!
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Doc.Schnaggls
10 Oct 2014 12:31
@Panama17 : You're very welcome! I hope the books will be helpful to you as well.
Koempy10 Oct 2014 13:11
It is also important to remember that not everything that looks good in photos will necessarily look good in reality or be practical.
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Panama17
10 Oct 2014 14:58
Koempy – that’s clear enough. But at least it gives some ideas of how things could look. I hope to get advice from people who know their stuff in case I get stuck or make a bad choice. For me, function always comes before aesthetics, that’s how I’ve always done it.

DNL – I took a quick look, it looks great. That’s exactly what I was looking for 🙂. I will definitely try it out and sign up using your link 😀.