Modern Farmhouse floorplans - Moving on up...stairs!

Our side of the house has a second story for the girls' bedrooms, guest room #2 and the massive-quantities-of-toy-storage-center...errr...loft.  On an side note, I seriously had no idea when I became a Mommy about the quantity of toys.  Admittedly, I am a big part of the problem.  I see a cool toy and think "OMG, I should buy this!"  

Okay, on to the upper floor, for reference, here is where the upper floor is located from the front:

The stairs going up are going to have a wall of windows (note to self, bathrobe required).  While we don't have a clerestory on our side of the fence, we do have the pièce-de-résistance, the stair tower.  

So, let's take a closer look...

When you walk into the front door, you will be able to look up and see a catwalk that connects the guest room and loft side with the girls' bedrooms.  The loft has some cool features that I would not have thought of by myself.  First, the architect suggested putting one of the 3 furnaces in an upstairs closet for efficiency.  By putting it upstairs, the distance the air has to travel is shorter (since it will be conditioning the upstairs) and therefore it will be more efficient.  Second, there are going to be beams that mark the entry to this location, which is cool (the dark shaded lines on the sketch).  

Then you will take a step down to a linen closet and the guest bedroom.  The bedroom will have a window seat in-between two corner closets and has a full bathroom.  Because this bathroom shares a wall with the super-sunny stair tower, the architect designed a rainglass small interior window from the bathroom to the stair tower to add natural lighting.  Interior window, who would have thought!

The catwalk will allow kiddos to drop their toys both into the great room and the main entry!  Finally, walk across to both girls' bedrooms with a jack-and-jill bathroom, built-in shelves, and a laundry chute.

So, about that stair tower...the architect mentioned that some people really like to install a spiral staircase and put a little platform up there (like a little reading nook).  He designed the upstairs to allow for the spiral staircase here:

When I first told Matt about the spiral staircase, I thought he was going to immediately nix it.  But he said "actually, that will be a cool thing to do.  And maybe we need to get one of those windows up there to open."  I said "Oh, because it will get warm up there?"  He replied "No, for shooting...it will be a sniper tower."  

For safety reasons, the sniper project is getting pushed to a phase 2 or 3 of the modern farmhouse :)  But the location for the spiral staircase is there in the event we decide to build the nook.