The PLAN (Read this first)

Originally we wanted a little more space (change the TV room into a baby room and increase the size of the living room so that we could use it for television also), as well as add a mudroom to keep the outside outside.  The plan was to bump out the two rooms (Miles' and TV) about 2 feet, then bump out the living room 8 feet to do this.  Huh!  The county wouldn't go for that--we're too close to the property line.  So back to the drawing board.  What Todd figured out was this:

He made the outside wall parallel to the road and extended it to the end of the screen porch.  The TV room will go beside the screen porch, the mud room will fit just before you enter the living room.  We'll add double windows in the kitchen and dining room (good south facing light), skylights in Miles' and the baby's room.

The second big issue (and this was really more important than space) was our low, icky ceilings.  The original house was a modular home, so the ceilings are only 7.5 ft tall with horrible textured stuff on them.  Makes for a very claustrophobic feel, and it's really difficult to make the ceilings smooth.  We also needed a new roof, so it seemed the right time to take the plunge.  Here's the plan (see the sketch above):

Above the walls on the edge of the house, the roof will start at 8 ft.  From the front of the house (over living room, baby and Miles rooms) it will rise to 11 ft.  From the kitchen and bathroom side, the roof starts at 8 ft and rises (more steeply) to 15 ft.  At the join, we will add clearstory windows so that we get natural light into the bathrooms.  The roof should look pretty cool from the front because it's triangular in shape (see the floor plan).  The roof from the back is at an angle that is optimal for the future installation of our south-facing solar panels.

Footer inspections tomorrow, hope all goes well.