Anyone built this home by Garrell Assoc, 'Lansdowne Place?'
dcmyles
12 years ago
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Marcia B
12 years agosharinkd_yahoo_com
12 years agoRelated Discussions
would love some feedback on house plans
Comments (25)It can take a lot of time to learn about the choices available, and then make the choice. Then order, wait for delivery, sometimes wait for the installation. Right there is one reason for knowing what you want before the build begins -- if you want an item x in mocha, it's better to know in advance that it might take 3 months before it can be delivered. Unfortunately, even in the best of plans, there can be totally unforeseen delays from late delivery, unexpected weather, unavailable work crews, or even theft [which can take time to replace the stolen material]. But with pre-planning, at least the crew won't be sitting around waiting for you say which faucet you want. You will have last minute decisions in approving the color/size/cut of stone or brick should you be using those items, for the reason that samples are always approximations and you won't know what you get until you get it. However, stone/brick is just about the only category that has a last-minute decision built into it. The next reason for getting specific in advance is that it can be difficult at best and overwhelming at worst to make a lot of important decisions in a very short period of time. Unless one is already a professional designer /builder /carpenter /tiler /plumber /electrician / decorator /et cetera, one is going to have make choices and decisions about things we just have never even thought about! It's an exhausting process, and that's a major reason for stress for the builder. Another reason for making as many decisions as possible in advance is actually the simplest: budget. And there is no way to have a budget without knowing what numbers are in it, and what those numbers represent. Unless you have an endless supply of money, there will be a limit as to how much can be spent. A pre-computed budget lets you know that if you spent $30,000 on kitchen counters then you won't have $20,000 for lighting. It gives you a chance to determine which is most important to you -- waiting to the last minute decision might find the counters installed but leave only $1000 for lights when in real life you don't cook much and it is the lighting that's important. Keep in mind that every time the owner changes his/her mind *during* the build, it is money wasted. Cosmetic changes [such as finding the "blue" paint is really brown when on the wall] can usually be fixed at once and during the build. However, changing the placement of a window or door is in the same category as changing a ceiling height or where the staircase is located -- the structural integrity of the whole house can be affected, and changes from blueprint shouldn't be done without approval of a structural engineer (ahem: $ and time), and the change may require re-inspection to be sure codes are still being met (ahem: lost time -- and $ while the crews wait). And another page of the budget is simply that there is difference between what the average GC thinks you'll be satisfied with and what you actually are satisfied with, in terms of quality, uniqueness, and customizing. Sometimes the difference is even more -- I've seen kitchens put together from the local discount-mass produced store and I've seen kitchens where every detail from crown molding to toe-step was handmade by a craftsman. Not going to say that one is better than the other, but IMO the wallet-holder should know -in advance- that there really can be tens of thousands of dollars difference in the final bill. The same is true of almost every detail on a home: you can get mass-produced in all levels of quality as well as getting custom-made or handcrafted. But if you didn't get specific on the contract, the odds are pretty good that you will be getting the least expensive whatever. On this same page is simply that item A can be the same or very little difference from item B, except in the price tag. Many builders are going to use the less expensive because they have figured a set price which includes their [or the subs] labor -- and the cheaper item will give them a bit more profit. And the last thing is, if it isn't written in detail in the contact, you shouldn't expect to automatically get what *you* want. The builder must make a profit -- and that's fair. But there is flat-out no way to reasonably expect the builder to know what you want if you don't already know, and finding out during the build is the most expensive way to go -in terms of time and money and stress-building....See MoreNantahala / Amicalola / Tranquility / Garrell and Associates hous
Comments (601)My name is Polly Scharling. My husband and I have been dreaming of building our Amicalola Cottage/Tranquility style of home from Garrell Associates since we got married in 2007. We are finally getting close to looking for land to build our home, in the North Carolina mountains, near the Asheville, NC area. It would be so great to see how you built your homes. I have always wanted to see a walk through video (not just still photos on a loop). Also it would be great to see photos some of the spaces that are not necessarily shown on the Garrell website or youtube posts, like the master closet, etc. Also, any custom areas any of you may have changed or designed yourself as custom options. Thank you in advance for your time. Scott & Polly Scharling. :) pascharling@gmail.com or text 239-249-1167...See MoreNantahala Gable House Plan
Comments (1)We were going to purchase a plan from an online website. However, after speaking with contractors they could take it to a draftsman or a lumber yard and redraw the plan in order to give us bids to let us know if we could afford what we wanted or not. This may be an option for you to know if it is worth it to purchase the plan. Also, I am not sure if Garrell sells CAD files, which can make customizing the plan or making changes a little bit more difficult and possibly more costly....See MoreAnyone building The Tranquility C by Garrell
Comments (22)CP makes some good points, but it might help to work through a some of the "whys" The best houses have windows on at least 2 walls in all public rooms and all bedrooms. This increases both natural light and the potential for cross breezes when the windows are open. Also, having views in two directions makes a room feel more spacious and connected to the outside spaces. The best houses have simple roofs. The simpler the roof, the less potential for problems. Every extra ridge, every extra valley increase the potential for leaks. More, each time rooflines come together and meet, they must be built exactly correctly, flashed exactly correctly, and roofing material applied exactly correctly. Even when it's done well, these areas can create pooling of snow or rain water. The fewer of them, the better. The best houses are shaped in H, T, I, U or L. Because we want a simple roof line, that necessitates a simple shape to the house. These shapes come from a time when plans were drawn by hand, and built by somebody with a tape measure (or knotted string) and a saw. Simple letter shapes keep the house no more than two rooms deep (which make it possible for natural light to penetrate into all of the rooms). And they keep the organization of spaces simple for residents and guests, as well. The best houses do not put closets on outside corners. This is prime real estate. Never waste a corner (where you could have two windows!) on a closet. The best houses do not have kitchens without windows so there is no natural light. I know you look at this plan and think, "What is she talking about, there are windows everywhere!" In fact, there are not. That kitchen is about, what, 10' from any window? And what windows are even that close look out on a covered porch. Remember that a covered porch acts like another room. Light won't come directly in those windows because of that porch (except maybe very early or very late in the day when the sun is nearly to the horizon. So, that's a kitchen that is going to need lots and lots of lights. If you are dreaming of something like this, you won't get it with this plan: Photos you see on Pinterest of kitchens that don't have these sorts of windows that look bright have ALL the lights turned on, even during the day, and a bunch of added photography lights to try to make them look bright. If you still want to go with this plan, do everything you can to mitigate that. Lots and lots of lights of the correct temperature (color), and bright surfaces to bounce the light around. Because that kitchen is going to be more like this: It's still a pretty kitchen, but notice that all of the light is artificial, and the atmospheric quality is very different. The best houses don't have rooms with no windows. This is a common flaw of modern plans, so watch out for it. I can let it go on a laundry room and sometimes it's useful for a media room. But watch out for areas with no or too small windows. Many of these stock plans also tend to have upstairs bedrooms with sloped ceilings and one tiny window in the gable. These rooms are just going to be dark, too. The best houses do not have angled corners and walls making furniture placement hard and closets mostly unusable. This is something you might not really appreciate until you try to live in it. But one experiment would be to cut out some furniture shapes in the same scale as a printout of this plan and see how you can arrange them, while maintaining 3' aisles for people to walk through the room between furniture pieces where needed, too. The closets here are OK, but what really because dysfunctional in an attempt to accommodate the angles is the kitchen. The best houses have a central organizing "spine" so one can easily figure out how to get from one room to another. Another thing that has become common in these plan farm designs (which does not make it good), is the embrace of "open floor plans" to such an extent that there is no flow. I blame much of this on the advent of computer design. It's possible to simply arrange the spaces on the screen, and then have the computer create the roof to cover it. Which leads to huge, expensive roof designs that are water problems looking for a place to happen. Remember to ask for a top-down view of the roof of your eventual plan or any plan you are considering, so that you can assess this. A few general comments about this specific plan: The master suite has some issues. The little "niche" entryway is odd. I suspect this is an attempt to provide some privacy for that room. But I think that it's going to be a serious challenge to get a box spring in there. You might even have to try to bring it in via the covered porch. The space is so poorly laid out, that there are two areas that are just empty shafts in your house. Inaccessible and unusable. But still costing you money. Do you see them? Now, this may be a Northern bias. But that vanity that is just bumped out of the house on the side is a set of frozen pipes looking for a place to happen. And, is that a large window, on the front of the house IN THE SHOWER? Why? Yes, I see there is a shutter on the rendering. But windows are A. Expensive and B. Prone to leak. It seems like asking for trouble. A better idea would be to design that suite such that the shower is not on the front of the house where the facade needs a window for symmetry. (The facade itself is a mishmash of conflicting gables, mismatched gables and disproportionate windows. A sign that we're already in some trouble). There are also a number of spaces that don't seem likely to function well as what they're labeled. Now, you may be intending another use for them. But always carefully evaluate whether the space is appropriate for it's intended use. The "shop" area is much more a pass-through than anything likely to be useful for repair or construction of anything. And the sleeping porch isn't positioned in a spot where it would be useful as such. It, too, is likely to be a passageway more than anything else. It doesn't look like the sort of serene retreat associated with the idea of a sleeping porch: The upstairs has some issues, too. First, the children's retreat area is something of a glorified landing. And, this is another one of those spaces with no windows. It will be dark, and probably not a space anyone will enjoy during the day. It might make a nice reading nook in the evening, when the rest of the house is dark, too, and it doesn't feel like a cave. Bedroom 2 will also be dark, with just the one tiny gable window. And neither upstairs bathroom has a window. Now, add to that the fact that those curves (like the breakfast area and connected porch) are going to be very expensive to build. (I can hear my Dad, here, "Curves cost!! I get it, I like a good Victorian curved expanse of windows or a nice barrel vault. But they are cringingly expensive to execute and less likely to be executed well. The jog out for the little "shoe room" is also something that you might find adds quite a lot of expense for.... shoes. I suspect that one of the reasons you can't find photos of this house as built is that... no one has ever built it. It's likely to be an expensive beast, and most contractors probably promptly talk clients out of using THIS plan. If you're going to engage the services of an architect, then I do have some suggestions. Put together some photos you really like. See that first kitchen photo I posted? That communicates to your architect that you want a light-filled kitchen. Lots of photos. Make sure to note WHAT you like about them. Then talk about how you live in your house. What spaces are important, and what happens in them? Are you a serious cook? Or do you mostly just heat up food? Do you need storage for the Bridal china? Etc. How do you want the house to feel? How do you want to feel when you're in it? Should it be a cozy, quiet retreat? A place for a bustling collection of family and friends to be constantly coming and going? Some of the sorts of things we told our architect were that we wanted the private areas of the house to be distinctly separated from the public areas, that we wanted the house to look and feel as if it were an old house that had been lovingly updated, and that we wanted to plan ahead for the future need to adapt. So, pre-planned space for an elevator, wider hallways, and a curbless shower. Then we turned him loose to work his magic....See MoreILoveRed
12 years agodcmyles
12 years agoaaronjr7372
12 years ago
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