Please critique my floorplan
grewa002
12 days ago
last modified: 12 days ago
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grewa002
12 days agolast modified: 12 days agoRelated Discussions
Please critique my floor plan
Comments (23)Garage/home walls have to be fire rated. It would function better if the garage was set apart from the main house with either a courtyard or breezeway between the two so that you could get more natural light into the house and still be able to utilize the visual connection between the two. A garage that needs to house two cars stacked on a lift will need to be taller than you are planning to account for not smashing the lighting on the ceiling. You might want to house something beyond lower height sports cars. Our 4 post lift in our garage won't allow a tall vehicle like a SUV on it and then raise to full height, and we vaulted our already 11' tall ceiling to 15' in the lift bay. Even with Corvette stacked on top of Corvette, it's really tight with the lighting when the lift is up enough to get that second vehicle under it. Only Formula cars without the wings would really work to have the double stack be comfortable at that height, and they have issues with the ramps, needing longer ones to get the ground clearance for the chassis. We also climate controlled our garage area, as that keeps the vehicles in much better shape, and it's a much more pleasant working environment. While you plan on having guests here, this isn't a very guest friendly house. There isn't enough room allotted for them, either in the public or private spaces. I might suggest the separate garage have a second floor guest suite(s) and make the main house more about your groundfloor space on one side, and the public space on the other, linking to the garage space visually through the breezeway. Double height space is very difficult to heat and cool, so I would suggest having hydronic radiant floor heating for winter comfort so that the people in the rooms are closer to the heating source.(We did that in our garage, so if you happen to need to be on a creeper under something, you don't have a giant cold mass of concrete sucking the warmth out of your body.) For summer, if you rarely get temperatures above 85, then I probably wouldn't do AC at all since you are in a low humidity climate. I would focus on doing some type of cupola with operable vent windows that will allow the hot air that rises to be vented externally. That's an old fashioned technique, but very effective in climates that don't heat and humidity to need full time AC. Overall, you really need a good architect to take these ideas and make them more functional and designed specifically for the site, to take advantage of it's positives. You will need that anyway for permitting, and in CA there are plenty of creative people who would love to be a part of an interesting build. Take a look at some back issues of Architectural Digest and see if you come across any designs that you like, Then contact a couple of those folks. This needs a large amount of technical expertise to wade through the red tape of building and permitting. So, you need someone local as a builder, well as an architect whose work you admire to work as a team to accomplish this build. Hire good people, and then listen to them. A good design is an interactive experience that makes the work better. Good design is "invisible" You don't even notice that things are where they need to be and work the way they "should". Bad design is obvious, especially if you live with it. It makes life harder. Don't make your life harder!...See MorePlease Critique My Floor Plan!!
Comments (12)I really like a lot of aspects of this plan (the open spaces, wide hallways). There are several door swings and positions that I would fix. Also, I would add a small high window in your powder room by your main entry. I would also combine the bathrooms for your nap room and play room. Is there really a reason why you need 2 separate back to back bathrooms? I would reconfigure your kitchen island as well. If most of the cooking is going to take place at the island, you'll always have to walk around the island to reach the perimeter cabinets. Not sure what you'll have there, but I'd imagine that you'll have to access those things since you don't have a whole ton of food storage on your island. Also, I'm not a huge fan of windowless rooms, and the center of your house has a collection of them--butler's pantry, office, 2 bathrooms. You will always have to have artifical lights on in those spaces to make them functional, and I just so prefer natural light. Is there a 2d floor plan, elevations? Good luck!...See MorePlease critique my floorplan
Comments (12)Thanks for the input, Lirio. My sketch is small, isn't it? I do have drawn 27" lowers in the sink wall, and will go 30" if we can pull it off (we did that in our last kitchen which was similar but 6" wider). To do more than 26 or so on the cooktop run would get us too close to the doorway to the foyer. There are two adults, sometimes both work at the same time, and two kids who currently are mostly in the way but will be cooking soon. We know it's tight but that's just something we have to accept. We want to have the dishwasher under the largest wall cabinet so we can unload directly into it. But having it near the table makes more sense. So yep. I'm gonna do that! Not sure we have space for an actual dedicated baking zone but in a kitchen this size, there's only one zone. :) The coffee/tea stuff can go in the little cabinet off by its lonesome--it would be neat to get all the countertop appliances over there. The appliances forum has assured me that I can microwave in a speed oven so I will put one of those in the wall oven cabinet and lose the microwave. It's not ideal over there but I'm trying to maintain counter space. The sink run of cabinets wraps around into the nook with a 12" deep upper and lower--it's like that now and we like it. The spouse wants to keep them although it knocks a foot off our dinky nook. But we do fit. They look like this: The bump on the end of the sink run is 10"--we could bump it all out 6" on that side I think. Otherwise, the plan has it pretty similar. And if you picture a six-inch wider oven cabinet, a refrigerator where the range is, and a cooktop between them, the other side is kind of the same as this photo too. (Currently, the refrigerator is in the corner corresponding to the lower left of my drawing. It's not a good spot. I want to keep it near the table as well as accessible to the cooking area so I haven't stuck it on the other end. But it might be weird to have it in the middle.) This photo demonstrates why the door's location isn't firm yet--missing wall. I don't want no stinkin' open kitchen! :) (An open kitchen would be fine if it didn't mean every other public room in the house could see it...) Ah yes, Debrak, my drawing kind of stinks. :) I will have the dishwasher NEXT to the sink. Promise. That's non-negotiable. Lemme see if I can edit that or at least grow it. In the meantime, the cabinets are mostly placeholders. (At least until I figure out this drawing program!)...See MorePlease critique my floor plan, trying agan
Comments (4)You have plenty of cabinets in there, so that's not an issue. It's possible to put the cooktop in your island, but you're right that it might make the work triangle too congested if you and hubby are both cooking. For a one cook kitchen, the cooktop would work very well. If you're going to keep the current configuration, I think you should add either a pot filler or a prep sink near the range. Otherwise, you'll be carrying full pots of water quite a distance, which may be dangerous. Is your drawing to scale? If so, you may have a little room to move the island toward the entrance to the LR, at least a few inches. If that's so, you might be able to move the cooktop to the island without making it impossible for two people to work in the kitchen. If you do that, then I'd put the wall oven where the range is in the current plan. I'm not sure what a "country cupboard" is, but it looks lonely over there by itself. If you have a picture of the area, it might help, but the drawing almost looks like you've used part of the space available and left the rest empty. What I want to do is make your fireplace a focus of the room and put something down there, even if it's just a coffee bar under that huge window behind the seating area....See Moregrewa002
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