Designing for self

I am currently in the process of designing our own home.

Currently, for most of 2011 that is.

In designing for clients, it's usually said: "it would be a lot easier to decide on the design path for this project if it were my own."

That is actually far from what has been happening for most of this year. For one, it's so hard to please every single family member. It is no easy feat to fit all the rooms and activity areas each member of my family wants/needs into a two-storey structure, in less than 300 square meters of a plot of land. That, and still leave a decent amount of open space for a garden or lawn.

I am also expected to factor in some feng shui and Filipino building beliefs -- try fengshui-ing for five family members with different Chinese zodiacs. And we're not even Chinese. Add to that some supposedly practical bedroom positioning of ALL bedrooms to face the East. There's also my mother's belief that we should only position the front door to face either East or South. But wouldn't it be more practical and security-efficient to place the door where it is easily accessible and visible to/from the main access path, which does not conveniently happen to face either East or South, but West. So the dilemma continues.

Of course, being a designer, I am also in a way pressured to deliver aesthetics-wise (but I BELIEVE that will be a given, plus aesthetics is SUBJECTIVE).

Perhaps I have to start grounding the design somewhere, but eleven months into the year and I'm still pretty much lost.

A random sketch I did of a possible facade for our house. Entourage c/o my bro.