hello!

I’m planning a master suite addition to my small ranch style house. I’m pretty clear on where I want the room to go but I’m not so clear on the most graceful way to transition from the existing house to the addition. I had an architect friend draw up a design that I mostly like but when I read from Sarah’s book "Not So Big Solutions" where she says: “start with the roof and then work to see what can be done with the floor plans” it made me have some doubts about my design. The shed style roof doesn’t seem to be in the style of the existing house.

Any ways, I would love it if anyone has any ideas or thoughts on what a graceful design might be (or if you think the one I have is the best solution)

here’s a photo of the front so you can see the roof style:



here’s the existing house in plan view:



the back of the house is on a canyon and has great views so I want the addition to be back there. The back looks something like this:




we had an architect friend draw up a schematic. His idea is to bump out the living room to create a transition to the master suite. Here's his design:



That design would look something like this:



Sarah Susanka says when remodeling, “consider the roof first”. When I try to think that way I come up with something like this:



But that would seem to dictate a floor plan with a very long hallway like this:



Anybody have any clever ideas? Thanks!

Tripp