Another plan review - would LOVE all opinions!

16 years ago

Thanks to all of you in the last 6 months - you've taught me so much from your posts. I FINALLY have plans to share, and really want to see all advice, comments, etc. We're getting close to a final floor plan, and I want to get it down tight (well, if possible), and avoid costly errors later. MightyAnvil, happy 2008 to you, and would love to hear your thoughts.

This is a craftsman-influenced home, albeit one with a curving staircase and 2 story entry. There's a nice view towards the front, hence all the balconies/patios and windows. Pool in the backyard, up the hill a little ways (it's on a sloped lot). Garage/unfinished basement downstairs (not posted), stairs come up under the curving staircase.

Powder room toilet and vanity will be flipped, as per another thread. I'm not sure how to envision the height of the foyer closets, since it's supposed to be 2 stories. I also can't quite get the main floor bathroom close to the backyard, to do double duty as a pool bath...does anyone think that's a big deal, to walk through the 'study' to get to the closest bath? We've never had a pool before, so don't know how inconvenient that would be. The kitchen is not set at this point, he just drew it in, but I'll post on the kitchen forum later.

3 closets are lined up to someday possibly be an elevator if needed. The closet in the great room will be my kids' lockers/cubbies, and my desk w/ cell phone chargers, etc. is the little thing next to it.

We'll put another desk between the master br door and the walk-in closet. Thinking of flat screen tv in the great room between the fireplace and the patio door, but can't get an AV closet there...sigh.

All suggestions welcome, big and small. Do walk-in closet doors open in or out? How 'bout the master bath toilet? Any better way to get a LARGE tub and 2 person shower in the master bath without compromising the view?

TIA!

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Comments (14)

solie
16 years ago
I think walking through the study to get to the pool bath is absolutely an issue. I know you need to reserve some space for a possible future elevator, but I would put a bath where the utility room is and a smaller utility room where the pantry is, and enlarge the interior pantry.

Why do you need a full bath and a powder room so close to each other? I'd lose the powder room. Ideally, power rooms should not be so exposed to traffic anyway. It's an additional expense that is adding very little additional utility. Maybe you have a special reason for it you discussed in a previous thread?

It seems like you could eliminate hall space and gain BR and closet space on the second floor by eliminating that hall door to the balcony. I think the secondary bedrooms are a little small. I also think all those doors to balconies from kids' rooms are a huge, huge safety issue. It may not concern you, but it's likely to be a problem if you sell. Also, doors are more expensive than windows and less energy efficient.

But I like the idea of one en suite bath and one hall bath. That works for so any family configurations.

I would at least plumb for a stackable w/d in an upstairs hall linen closet, since all your bedrooms are on the second floor.

I think the configuration of more formal/less formal spaces on the first floor is really, really nice. I like your plan.

Where is the back door, what is your climate, what are the ages of the homes occupants, where is the garage relative to the house? What will be your primary family entry point?
chapnc
16 years ago
Once you switch the positions of the powder room sink and toilet, you should be able to have a door that swings *in* instead of out.

I also would not want family and guests going thru the study to get to the bath. I can't tell if the back wall of the study is at or near ground-level, but if it is, move the bath down to the rear wall and replace the tub with a shower. This will reduce the footprint and should allow you to have access from outside *and* from the study. The study would move down to where the entrance is directly off the hallway; the hall would lead directly into the study (no right turn). The study should end up being the same size, with no loss of floor area. Of course, this will mean you don't have direct access from the living space (you'll have to go thru the study), but you have a powder room downstairs already.

This will also allow the study to be used as an extra bedroom if needed.

You state that the stairs up from the garage come out under the curved main stairs. This mean that when you bring things in from the car, you're going to have to either go through the Family Room or the Dining Room to get to the kitchen. You should use a hard flooring material like tile or hardwood in these areas so that you don't end up with a worn and dirty traffic pattern if you use carpet. Avoid carpet in all of your high-traffic lanes.

I would definitely leave the storage closets where they allow for a future elevator. They serve as storage today (and who ever has too much?), but allow for the elevator in the future.
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I totally agree the 2nd floor bedrooms are off balance, but in my mind the secret room does make up for some of that plus I've found that boys don't tend to care so much about bedroom size the way girls do. My son would be happy with a mattress & a steamer trunk for his clothes while my daughter owns more bedroom furniture than I do. Maybe we could partition it off a bit to add a sitting area so it won't look so huge? I know we have to take resale into consideration and life is full of surprises, but since this land has been in the family for over 30 years already, we don't plan on selling while we're alive. I'm already envisioning grandchildren enjoying the secret room and my oldest is just 11! :) We are pulling the garage out several feet toward the front so BR3 will get a bit longer, too.
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Custom -- unique -- those can be euphemisms for weird and bad. While this house contains some nice features, it also contains some bad ideas that will not live comfortably -- things no one's going to like in real life. And it is expensive in ways that don't help the looks or efficiency of the house. - The entryway has a barrel vault that leads into an arch . . . and beyond that is a coffered ceiling . . . and then you have another arch off to the left. These are all expensive, showy ceiling features -- but having all of them within arms' length means they will "compete" with one another. One feature of good design is that it contains "enough" . . . without going overboard. Note that your inspiration plan contains multiple coffered ceilings, but it doesn't mix and match ceiling features. Repetition in design creates a sense of harmony. - On the subject of arches -- I love them and wonder why people aren't building them anymore. But they're an expensive feature, and I would never spend the money to build one between the kitchen and the mudroom, especially since it's tucked behind the kitchen cabinets and would literally only be seen as people come /go from the house. Unless your budget is genuinely unlimited, put your resources in spots where they're going to show. - I agree with the poster who mentioned the difficult turns necessary to enter either of the secondary bedrooms. If the aforementioned elderly relative needs a walker or a wheelchair, this will be difficult. It would be easy to move the door to the smaller bedroom to an easier-to-access spot. Will this relative live with you all the time? If so, he or she will probably need more than an 11x11 room with a small closet -- could you happily move all your personal effects into this room permanently? I ask because this was a MAJOR FIGHT with my easy-going grandmother only a few years ago, and she NEVER got over having to get rid of so much stuff. I agree with the poster who suggested making the larger office room a bedroom for the elderly relative. - An ADA bath in a 9x9 space. Is that possible? Okay, it's possible, but I mean, is it possible to do it well? - The master bath is large but contains SIX DOORS. Stop and visualize six doors in this space. The master bath is also laid out poorly: When you walk in, your sightline is the corner of the shower. And the toilet closet is tiny and cramped -- backing into a 6' deep closet and scootching over to the side so you can close the door (plunging yourself into darkness) won't be comfortable. Why plan two sinks in such a small vanity? It means you'll have no drawer space. What is the dry area in the shower? What is keeping it dry? Note that when you walk into the bathroom, you'll have to close those double doors and reach behind them to turn on the light switch. With all this space allotted to the master bath, you can absolutely have something better than this. - The great room is a positive ray of sunshine in an otherwise chaotic plan. Ditto for the foyer. - The odd extra hallway (containing a butler's pantry?) near the dining area is wasted space. Why would anyone walk through this hallway when the foyer is literally two steps farther away? - The kitchen doesn't work on any level. It's huge, but everything is so far apart! Your "major players" -- the sink and the stove and your prep space -- are all disconnected from one another. Why would you want your ovens in the dining room? Look at the floor plan and imagine yourself going through the motions of preparing one of your favorite meals. Likely it's going to include too many "walk across the kitchen" trips. I think you're falling for the oh-so-common idea that a BIG kitchen = a GOOD kitchen, and that is axiomatically false. An EFFICIENT kitchen = a GOOD kitchen. - What you're calling the Hearth Room could be an incredible dining room, and it's completely wasted as a sitting area. Because it is connected to the great room, it has no privacy and serves no purpose as a separate room. - The table, in its current position, is blocking access to the kitchen and the Hearth Room. Imagine squeezing by either end once chairs are in place. - If you move the sink in the mudroom to the same wall as the washer/dryer, you will save significant money. Why? Because you'll limit your water needs to one wall. That means only one wall needs to be thick enough to run water, and the plumber only has to work on one wall. I don't love the island in the middle of this room. This is a storage room / a pass-through room. The island actually creates a barrier. - I personally dislike the "friends' entrance" concept. I'm making the front door nice. I'm arranging guest parking to encourage people to see /enter through the front door. I'm setting up a table for purses/keys, etc. I don't want people traipsing in through the back door where I'm storing plastic bags, recycling, and dog food. And if this is a "friends' entrance", for whom is the front door? Enemies? I don't invite them over. - I agree with the posters who say most rooms are over-sized. You could easily reduce most rooms by 25% and still have comfortable spaces. The exceptions are the two secondary bedrooms, which don't seem to fit in with the rest of the sizing. - The hallways could be vastly reduced, and that could make up the price difference you mentioned -- you need the foyer hall and the two small halls to reach the bedrooms, but the giant freeway running through the middle is just expensive wasted space. I do like the inspiration plan's connection between the mud room and the hallway -- it promotes good flow in two directions, without being over-sized. Were you the poster from a couple months ago who loved hallways because of a wall treatment you saw in a model home's hallways? - A garage sticking out on the front doesn't make for a very attractive exterior. - You're going with a basement AND a bonus room over the garage? I'd pick one or the other, which would eliminate one staircase -- do not underestimate the cost of a staircase. Actually, staircases cost in both money and square footage. Either a basement OR a bonus room will give you a secondary living space. Again, this house has some redeeming features, but they are so buried under the oddities and mistakes that it's hard to find them. I vote for a fresh start. This post was edited by MrsPete on Thu, Sep 11, 14 at 18:21
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Overall I think the design is really great and would love to see the elevations. But can you stand a few more comments about possible tweaks? 1) If you swap the location of bathroom and closet serving bedroom on the front right upper side of house, you could add a window to the bathroom for natural light. 2) Same thing may be true for the closet and bathroom serving back left upper bedroom tho in this case the slope of the ceiling might prevent that. I've sketched a possible revision below. 3) What's up with the zig-zag hallway upstairs? Did you mean to put in a door at the end of that hallway to reach the front left bedroom? Have you thought about turning that bathroom horizontal (and against the outer wall so you can put in a small window) and putting the closet beside it so that what is now the zig-zag hallway becomes a rectangular space? Since the bedroom room is at least 15' wide, you have room for a nice wide bathroom and a nice wide closet. Then you could turn what now seems like a wasted hallway space into something like a reading nook. If you want the front left bedroom to have easy access to the back hallway, you could even put in a door from the bathroom opening into the reading nook area. 4) Re the "exercise" or "craft room" downstairs. Since it is on an outside wall, have you considered patio doors in place of the windows? If it was ever used as a craft room, that would make it easy to get equipment in and out. And, while it would mess up your master closet plan, it might be good to try and figure out some way to put a doorway from exercise room into the closet so there is access to the masterbath. 5) And finally, instead of the rather long hallway between music room and exercise room that ends in an odd "deadend", why not just incorporate all that space into the "exercise room". Nothing wrong with an odd shaped exercise or craft room. Anyway, here's a sketch showing possible revisions to the upstairs. Just some suggestions as I really do like your house!
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P G wrote, "...my question to you, how would you handle it, if someone expresses their needs/wish list for a home and then shows u a plan, which they are not married or necessarily attached to?..." It's a good question, and a common one. Probably every practicing architect has faced this more than once. The challenge is the degree to which (or not) they "are or aren't married to" the stock plan or home-grown plan. The all too frequent reality is that after spending inordinate amounts of time looking on the Internet for the "perfect" plan, and especially spending eons of time doing one's on plan using a CAD system, most human beings ARE married to their plan in whole or in part. You can test this by asking your husband if he's willing to abandon his plan! Thus, an experienced and creative architect is going to have to spend additional time to review the stock plan with the consumer and gently suggest, "well, have you thought about this...?", and "have you considered that...?", attempting to demonstrate that there may be better and more appropriate directions and solutions. It's really so much easier and more fun to start with a clean sheet of paper, working closely together with the architect of your choosing. You will be able to tell a lot about your architectural technologist by how they respond to this plan and your husband's plan. If s/he simply say, "Sure, I can get this drafted up in just a few days...", you have a big problem. On the other hand, if they scratch their chin, and say, "Well, have you thought about this...?", you may have a keeper! I really don't know what a Canadian Architecture Technologist can do. There is no equivalent in the U.S. Their degree and training is less than an architect's, and they may be legally limited in the size and type of buildings they can design. My guess is that they fit somewhere between a draftsperson and an architect. I would think their technical knowledge and skill may be strong, but wonder if they have the true creative abilities of talented architects. If their past work looks appealing and they have good references, it's worth a go.
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juniork
Original Author
16 years ago
You guys are amazing! Thanks, Solie...actually, our designer init had the powder room NEXT to the bathroom on the main floor, because I had stressed 'value engineering' to him, so he was trying to group the bathrooms. I wanted a bathroom near the kitchen/great room, since that's where we'd spend most of our time, but I thought a powder room opening out onto the great room was too 'open', and so moved it into a more discreet place, in the entry, thinking that noone congregates in the entry, right?

We're in NorCal, so mostly warm/dry, or cold/wet. The garage is under the house, so stairs come up under the foyer staircase. Definitely either hardwood or tile first floor, carpet second floor. He has a sliding door out the breakfast nook for the back, as well as one out the dining room, which I'm not positive about keeping.

The upstairs init only had master +2, but since we have 3 kids, kinder + elem school age, we had to settle for squeezing in 3 small bedrooms rather than 2 larger ones, to get them upstairs...the size bothers me too. I'll have to think about the balcony thing...maybe lose the tiny one that serves no purpose...

Chapnc, that's a great idea...I think that since my toilet now extends back to the back of the house upstairs, it would still count as value engineering to move the bathroom to the back of the study. We can't decide whether to keep the pool or not, but since it's there, I'll prob. just leave it there, and move the bathroom. I'll check with hubby.

Thanks for your GREAT comments! Would love to hear more!
rhome410
16 years ago
Only had time for a quick glance, so just have one quick comment...The prep sink would be more helpful on the fridge side of the island.

Best wishes!
ehoops
16 years ago
I like your floorplan. My first thought is to also consider a different layout for your pool bath. We are also in No Cal and have a pool. What we opted for was a mud room off the back of the house leading to the kitchen. It has a full bath as well as storage area, etc. (We would have put our laundry there but we opted for upstairs laundry as all but the guest bedroom are upstairs). It looks like you may be able to accomplish the same thing mud room set up by tweaking your utility/pantry. I would put the entry from outside as a single door from the utility and turn the pantry area into a bath.
I'd keep the powder room. We ended up converting a closet into a powder during framing because we realized the mud/pool bath would be more personal with bathing suits hanging everywhere, etc...
Good Luck.
raenjapan
16 years ago
I really like it, overall. Another solution to the pool bathroom problem would be to put a toilet in the utility room. I personally don't think you would use a shower much, but a toilet is nice, and the utility room is rugged enough to handle pool traffic. If you go that way, I think you'd be safe getting rid of the powder room.

I'd also put your main laundry facilities upstairs. In the house I grew up in, we had a laundry room downstairs and all the bedrooms up, and there was always a laundry basket waiting to go up the stairs. I would put a small washer/dryer combo in the utility room, and your big units upstairs, maybe where the current storage closet is.
juniork
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks, everyone for the comments...I'll have to look at the plans again to see if I can squeeze more space upstairs for even a stackable front loading washer-dryer...the upstairs has always been tight, due to set-backs, hence why the 3 bedrooms are small, and no utility room upstairs. I'd love to know if anyone has a better way to configure the bedrooms, without changing the outside walls! That storage closet has to stay there, since it's the 'possible elevator'.

I think I WILL try to put the main-floor bath into the study, so it can be accessed by the pool users...have to look at that more with the design guy.

Definitely have to rework the kitchen configuration and appliance-placing!

I SO appreciate all of your comments, please post if you think of anything else, even little things!
bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
16 years ago
hmmm... I'm a little confused about that "future elevator" is going to fit. On the first floor you show a pantry plus two small storage closets that you said were grouped together so that the space could eventually be turned over to an elevator. On the second floor though, where the elevator shaft would have to be, you only have a single storage closet that looks much smaller than the combined area of the lower storage closets. Unless I'm misreading your plans (which is quite possible b/c the numbers on the measurements aren't quite big enough to read clearly on my monitor) it looks like the elevator would stick halfway out into the upstairs hallway which would make it impossible to get to get from the top of the stairs back to bedrooms 3 and 4.

I also strongly second the recommendation about finding a way to move the laundry room upstairs. If it was me, I'd cut the size of the master bedroom down, even by as much as 25 to 30 percent, in order to make room for an upstairs laundry. With three kids, you are never going to "love" that luxuriously large bedroom nearly as much as you are going to HATE lugging basket after basket after basket of clean laundry back upstairs on a daily basis!
lynnemarie
16 years ago
Nice house!

Is the utility room blocking your view to the pool/backyard from the kitchen?

Is there a wall where a large bed will fit in the master bedroom?

Agree with eliminate one bathrm up / add laundry up.
juniork
Original Author
16 years ago
thanks, bevangel and lynnemarie! The one storage closet is the future possible elevator. The other one next to it on the main floor will be the lockers/cubbies for the kids stuff, since I think we'll come upstairs from the garage (under the curving staircase), and go into the family room, dump off coats, etc, into that 'closet'. It's the closest space I could come up with that's close to the stairs.

Great pick-up on the utility room blocking the back view! Unfortunately, we're building on a slope, and the pool is higher than the house is right now, so there's not much of a view to be had, which is why the utility room is back there. Luckily main views are to the front.

I'm definitely going to work on moving the main floor bathroom to have access from the backyard, and really try to configure at least a closet to put in a stackable w/d, if not a full utility room. bevangel, I LOVE that comment about loving my master vs hating lugging the laundry upstairs! Hehehe...it's true! :)

Thanks you all, for posting, and as always, would love to hear more!!
saskatchewan_girl
16 years ago
I would use the PDR for storage, since you have a full BR so close. I'd also move the UTR over to the pantry beside it and make the UTR a PDR. Where you have the pantry & 2 storage areas......I'd take out the storage and downsize to just a pantry, to have more of an open view to the DR.
I love the french doors going into the MBR : )
okmomof3
16 years ago
Have you considered pocket doors or the double doors for the walk in closets? I like those better because closet doors hardly ever get closed and the doors take up a lot of room.
juniork
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks everyone! I LOVE this forum, and all of you who comment!
am including the updated plans (STILL working on them, so not done yet), and elevations! Ignore the door and
'windows' by the garage...they'll be scaled down.

My biggest issue with the roofline currently is that it looks very 'boxy', and the main floor roof will block the upper floor balcony views. My biggest concern is the master balcony. I think my master bathtub 'view' may be blocked by the balcony/roof. Is it possible to elevate the bathtub high enough to sit in it and see the view, and not have it look too funny?

Does anyone have any ideas to help with this? The only reason we're building is for the view out the front! Thanks again, everyone! (Hope I still remember how to post pix!)
juniork
Original Author
16 years ago
Shameless bump of my own thread, cause we're meeting on Monday to try to figure out the rooflines, and I would really appreciate any input into elevations. :)
Have a great weekend, everyone!

Another plan review - would LOVE all opinions!

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solie

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