Our Custom Build Coastal Farmhouse
We are so excited to be designing and building our new home (with water access per Matt’s request) in Panama City, Florida. We spent about a year drafting, editing, and finally creating our floor plan and building elevations. We had some very specific things that we wanted to achieve with this home but also a budget that we needed to manage well.
Our floor plan design goals included a timeless front elevation, a logical layout on the property we had purchased, lots of windows and natural light, our main living spaces to face and flow toward the water views, a master suite on main, an additional en suite on main, and a master closet that connects to the laundry room.
We took our ideas and multiple photos and floor plans to a local home designer who brought it all together for us.
We drove around taking photos, searching Pinterest, and buying all the home design magazines to conceptualize a classic front elevation that would maintain appeal over time. After converging several looks together, we settled on this L shaped home with side facing garage and a dash of modern farmhouse charm.
Matt’s biggest request for this new build was water access for fishing. Although waterfront property in our desired neighborhoods isn’t easy to find, we did secure a canal front lot with bay access that was a reasonable drive for him to Tyndall AFB. We definitely wanted the main areas of the home to face the water and for the home to flow naturally toward the water views.
I like large (and plentiful) windows and I cannot lie. Windows are always high on my home design list. More windows = more natural light, which I love. In Florida, windows are highly regulated due to hurricane safety factors but we added as many as we felt made sense here.
And lastly, in thinking about longevity, we decided to keep our master suite on the main floor (with our closet connecting to the laundry room) plus add an additional en suite (bedroom with full bathroom attached). We found that having two suites on the main living floor was very uncommon but for us, it made a lot of sense. We have two young children (under 3 years old) and wanted to keep them easily accessible to us for several more years before moving their bedrooms to the upstairs area. Also, we considered that eventually the main floor en suite could function as a guest bedroom which would eliminate the need for aging family members to climb the stairs. We increased the width of those doorways to thirsty six inches also to accomodate any future visitors who may require adaptive equipment in our home.
I can’t wait to share more with you on our house plan and construction process but I hope this overview may provide some helpful information to someone as they are planning out their own space! Thank you for being here…
With so much gratitude,
