This is a rough draft from Lumber Yard Boy.  The posts will be moved and obviously not in front of the garage door.

Deb and I have decided, for several reasons, not to build our house quite yet.  If you missed the reasons WHY, I shared them in a post a few weeks ago.  BUT… we want to be on this property in the woods ASAP.  Therefore we are going to build Deb’s workshop first, and live in that for awhile.  It was our original plan from the very beginning.  The funny thing is, I always say “Be careful what you speak into the world because a lot of times it comes true.”  And this is a perfect example of that.  We talked about it for a long time.. and set it aside.

Anyways.  We are still building a house in the future.  But after calling this new building Deb’s workshop or our barn, now a house, we keep getting confused as to what we were each talking about.  Therefore we thought it needed an actual name.  We have ALWAYS said we want the workshop to look like a little cottage and not a barn.

Deb requested the word WOODS because it means WOODS as in forrest, and WOODS as in boards.  It will eventually be a place where she will be working once we can turn it back into her workshop. I loved the thought of using the word IVY in the name, because of course, IVY is our dog’s name and IVY grows in the woods.    Therefore…we came up with The Woods and Ivy Cottage.

The Woods and Ivy Cottage Layout

So we know we have to have The Woods and Ivy Cottage a home first and then turn it into a workshop.  So we didn’t want to put tons of money into making this a house and then have to do a lot of modifications to turn it into the workshop.  We don’t know if the house will be built next year or the year after.  So we have to feel comfortable while we are here.  It will be 40’x48′ with 10′ ceilings.  There will be a 10′ section along the entire right side for storage, a mechanical room, and a bathroom.  We planned this part from the very beginning. (There will be an 8′ porch on the front that this photo doesn’t show.)

Color Palette

I bet you are really wondering what the color palette of the outside will be.  Well…..  SURPRISE!  I am sticking with wood and whites!  ????   The Woods and Ivy Cottage will have white vinyl siding with a white metal roof.  We weren’t going to originally add a porch on the front of Deb’s workshop but now it’s a must.  Since we don’t know how long we will live in it.  We HAVE to have some place to sit outside if it is raining, etc, or we will be very sour.  ???? It will have cedar columns out front which will add the wood aspect to all of the white.  AND, we will add some wood colored shutters on the windows that we will make from scratch.  I have a Pinterest Board with several ideas of upcoming projects if you want to check that out.

Storage Side of The Woods and Ivy Cottage

Front Section – Small Garage for Polaris

This part of our plan has stayed the same for the most part… with a few minor adjustments.  The entire right side was going to be divided into a 10′ section all along the right side.  This front part of that area will have a garage door so that we can keep the Polaris and anything else that goes along with that.

Middle Section – Mechanical Room / Pantry

The middle room will be the mechanical room that will hold the furnace, softer, water heater.  While this is our home, we will probably use this for a pantry and kitchen gadgets.

Back Section – Bathroom

Deb, of course, planned all along to put a bathroom in her workshop.  It was only going to be a half bath, but now we will be adding a shower and a place for laundry hook-up.  So not much has changed there either.  We wanted to keep the bathroom/laundry room beside the kitchen in order to save money with plumbing.

Front Entrance

The front entrance will be a double glass door to let in lots of light.  I created a makeshift entryway to the right.  And there will be a door going out to the garage area.

Kitchen / Dining / Living

We are going to have a small 8′ section of lower kitchen cabinets with a sink along the back of The Woods and Ivy Cottage.  We had always planned on a utility sink to wash paint brushes, etc, and a fridge out there anyway.  We will be using our fridge and stove from the rental, which will actually be perfect for a spot for canning in the future once we move to the house.  We can just keep the mess out there.  The arrow on the photo above is the kitchen, and we will pull our old bar from storage as it holds lots more items.

Dining and Living Area

The above photo shows the dining and living area all along the left side.  I will have all of this divided with furniture but it will be more or less an open concept.  This space will eventually be Deb’s workshop where she has all of her tools and makes all of her projects.  ????

Bedroom

We will have one section in the middle that will kind of divide up the big area which will be our bedroom.  The four walls will easily be able to be removed once we get into the house.  OR.. Deb even mentioned maybe she can make that a paint section for her shop.  She can take her projects in there when she paints them keeping them free from dust from the other section.

So there you have it.  Again this is a temporary situation.  There are things that we would love to have included, but giving the space we have, we can make do with this for awhile.  I think we have come up with a creative way to start The Woods and Ivy Cottage out as a house and turn it into Deb’s workshop later without too many modifications.

Stay tuned for some fun adventures to come.