Efficient Open Floor Plan Suggestions

11 years ago

Hi, My husband and I are just beginning the process of building a new home. Where do you guys get your house plans? We have scoured the internet and some books but haven't found the perfect one yet. We are looking for something maybe around 1700 sqft. Nothing huge but something with a nice master bedroom/bath with shower and tub/walk in closet and 2 additional bedrooms. I would also like a pantry and a laundry room with a sink. We want one level with an unfinished basement. We're building in North Carolina (if that matters) - also wondering what people are paying these days to build in NC. Thanks!

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Comments (4)

Alliegator
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
We got ours from sunplans.com - we did an adapt-a-plan. Hopefully we'll start digging in the next week or two. We love our plan, and Debbie has been amazing to work with. No regrets.
bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Some people find plans on the internet or in plan books. Some folks find a builder they like and then just choose one of the builder's plans. Some people hire an architect to design a custom plan just for them. A few of us spend uncounted hours designing our own homes.

It all depends on what you want, how much money you're willing to spend, and/or how much time/effort you're willing to spend educating yourself, and/or how much you want/need an expert to guide you through the entire process.

As for prices to build, everyone asks that question and nobody ever gets what feels like a satisfactory answer. The truth is, there are just too many variables for any answer you get - other than a bid price based on building a specific floor plan on a specified lot - to be anything more than the grossest of ball-park guesstimates.

Even narrowing down your request to "cost to build in NC" doesn't help. NC is a very big state with a highly varied geography and huge demographic and cost-of-living differences from one county to another. I can easily imagine that the price of building the exact same house could easily vary by 75% or more depending on whether you were talking about building it in the middle of the Research Triangle Park area, in the mountains around Asheville, along the Outer Banks somewhere, or down on an old tobacco farm in the Bladen Lakes region. And I'm not just talking about higher land values in some areas than others. Because cost-of-living is so different in some places than in others, labor prices will vary significantly. You would, for example, probably pay a whole lot more for a plumber to come out and lay your plumbing lines if you were building in Chapel Hill than you would if you were building in, say, Lumberton.

Wish I could give you a better answer. I know it frustrated me no end that I couldn't get a reasonable idea of what it would cost to build until after I'd already committed a heck of a lot of money towards building. Unfortunately, that is just the way the process works. You can try an online building cost calculator like the one in the link below - but I found it to underestimate the cost of building my home buy more than 40%.

However, if you're looking for a builder and happen to be planning to build in southeastern NC, I have an uncle that builds homes around that area and I can vouch for his integrity and for the beauty of his work. I'm in Texas so I couldn't get him to build my home for me but, when I go to visit, I'll often go round with him to see the houses he is working on. I've seen enough of his work to judge its quality for myself. And, I've met enough of his customers to know that they all consider him an honest, reliable businessman. Email me offline if you're interested in getting his name or more info. (Just click on the MY PAGE link after my name and that will take you to a page with a link that says "email me".)

Here is a link that might be useful: Online building cost estimator
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I wouldn't get 'cute' by using a cut-out on plywood for the carpeted area of the Great Room. I've seen that done by cheap builders and in hotels (where they have to replace carpeting often). This would work against you when the house is for sale: buyers perceive it as a cheap shortcut. If you don't want an area rug or rugs, you can have carpeting cut to size and bound. You can lay whatever depth of padding you want underneath. You can carpet OVER the hardwood, as Colleen suggested. Point is, the hardwood is THERE, and it matches the rest of the house. (A friend's house was only three years old, but she couldn't find matching wood to lay in place of the carpeting in her DR.) OK, if you *must* have a pantry that large...I sure wouldn't sacrifice kitchen windows for it! Can't it go between the kitchen and the garage instead? Your kitchen appears to have lots of upper cabinets. How often would you access the pantry? Wouldn't it be just as close in a 'back hall'. I would want a half bath in a back hall too, near the family entrance. Ours is the most used facility in the house. In your plan one must trek through the house to the hall bath. BR #2 would benefit from having natural light from two sources -- not just one window. Won't a shelf interfere with accessing your walk-in shower? I see no house plans with large linen closets IN bathrooms.
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The footprint is simple, and it will be inexpensive to build. The living room is quite large compared to the kitchen /dining room. No fireplace? I'm assuming you have a door between the laundry and the kitchen, which was left out of the drawing? Once you add in appliances, your kitchen will be on the small side of comfortable, but even with the island you're it's going to be tight -- what you need is a pantry. If you add in the storage of a good-sized pantry, you'll be okay. At 12x14, the dining room sounds like it'll be spacious, but keep in mind that about 3 1/2' will be chopped off one end for the hallway . . . so in reality it's more like 12 x 10, which -- again -- is the small end of comfortable. You could stretch the space by putting in banquette seating against the wall. The corner bedroom's closet is deep, but it's only the width of a doorway (36" at the most); and a closet rod needs 22-24" . . . this means you're going to have a deep closet with only about 36" of hanging space. This is totally un-functional. I'd look putting the bedroom in the corner (windows on two walls are always better than windows on just one wall), and I'd go with a reach-in closet across the wall shared with the dining room -- this would provide some acoustical privacy for this bedroom. Both bathrooms could be better. Neither has any storage, and the master has lots of wasted floor space. Most people like to put the tub under a window and the sink far from the window /but nearest the door. You asked about the dimensions of the master bedroom: 12' is do-able but narrow for the foot of the bed. It'll be a bit tight. The 20' long is on the large side of comfortable -- it would give you enough space for a seating area or a small office area in the bedroom; however, given that you need space in other parts of the house, I'd steal from this square footage -- to me, a bedroom is just for sleeping.
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The circulation was what bothered me the most in the original plan. Oh, and those skewed closets by the mud, kind of like just to have skewed lines. The kitchen did not have enough counter space, kitchen was looking to small for this house. All I did was fine tuning what you already had. I see not need of 2 stairs that close to each other. There are options that I can suggest but that means to change the footprint, while this was traced above your plan, to scale. I see no problem with the master entry off the dining room. The master bath could be lay out in a different way as there is enough room. I squared off the master bath corner as the shape you had only will complicate the roof and make it more expensive. Having a refrigerator side view from the great room is not that nice but if you prefer to have the refrigerator next to the small pantry, it is ok. You may not need a bulkhead between kitchen and great room. The change of ceiling and height may be enough but the way the columns are placed, you can have a think bulkhead. Without columns, you can have arches similar to the ones in your pics. I did not detail a few things, like windows or some exterior doors.. Hope this helps.
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User
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
We toured model homes until we found one that felt like "home." Then our builder coordinated with the model home's builder to get the original plans, and then we sat down with our builder to make modifications to the existing plan. We're still wanting to do more tweaking, but it's close.

We toured about 75 model homes in Minneapolis and 25 in Phoenix before we finally found "the one."
whitney_c
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
alliegator - do you mind saying how much your plan cost? It seems you need to know ahead of time that you definitely want one of their plans before starting the process. Can any contractor build one of these homes?

bevangel - you make great points. Thanks for the info. about the cost estimators. I just want to avoid buying a plan that ultimately will be out of our price range when we go for bids. We'll probably just talk to some contractors and see some things they have already built and start from there I suppose.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Efficient Open Floor Plan Suggestions

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Alliegator

bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz

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Efficient Open Floor Plan Suggestions

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Alliegator

bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz

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