When I’m writing a story, particularly one that is part of a series, like Lilac Bride, I have such fun coming up with the settings in the scenes.
The story takes place in the fictional town of Holiday, Oregon, which is where all the books in the stories are set.
For Lilac Bride, I got to introduce two new characters, which meant some new settings to incorporate into the story.
Kaden lives in the bunkhouse at his brother and sister-in-laws place. One thing that I love about the farm where Colt and Piper lives is their barn. It’s three stories with an indoor arena and a cupola with a widow’s walk on the top.
I searched online until I found one that matched the picture in my mind. And this just happened to be the spot where Kaden proposed to Katherine in the story!
Speaking of fancy barns, this one gave me the biggest smile. There, above the arena, is a reading nook! How cool is that!
Anyway, back to this story. Katherine is also a new character to my Holiday Brides series. She works in a bank. It was easy for me to picture what it looked like inside because I just envisioned what our little small-town bank is like.
Katherine’s home, though was completely new, so I started looking through house plans. I confess – I LOVE looking through house plans! Seriously, I do. To me, it’s just fun to look at the floor plans and imagine who might be at home there. A few of them even end up in my “consideration for my dream home” folder!
For Katherine’s house, I knew I wanted it to be a one-story home, something that would be been a popular design back in the mid 20th-century.
When I saw this Craftsman style house, my interest was piqued. It seemed like the perfect house for Katherine. A lovely place where she would have grown up.
And the floor plan was really close to what I pictured in my mind (and it just so happens, that I really, really liked the way this one flowed!).
There are so many parts and pieces, bits of information and details that go into a story to make it feel realistic and inviting. Researching house plans and envisioning the settings is one area of the process I truly enjoy!
If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you’ll check out Lilac Bride. You can even find out what color Katherine ends up painting that flex space in the plan!
