Help on a 4bed 3 bath single level floorplan

11 years ago

I'm amazed at all the valuable advice given freely here on this site from so many of you. Some people post their hazy, unworkable ideas, and go away after the discussion with charming floorplans. I hope mine doesn't need that much work. (?)

The first home we built was our builder's stock plan, with tweaks. Why do most stock plans seem like they were designed by bachelors who don't cook or do laundry? I want this next home to be our last.

We've lived a lot of places, mostly rentals, and looked at bajillions of floor plans. The only floor plan I've ever fallen in love with is a 4000 sf two-story French Country style home with 5 beds and 5 baths. I'd love to build it, but I need a single floor, under 2800 sf home. So this is a mash up of elements we liked from that plan and several others. I don't have a design program, so I'm drawing in Excel. I realize that my walls have no thickness. I think my rooms are sufficiently large to allow for actual walls.

There are some things we don't want.

No wasted space.

No stairs.

No laundry room doubling as hallway to garage.

No formal dining room. We wouldn't use it. No bar eating either. Just our table.

No Jack and Jill baths.

No fireplace.

No front porch.

No vaulted ceilings, just 9 foot flat.

There are some things we do want.

Compact footprint - to not take up too much of our lot.

Master bedroom near the laundry room.

Large kitchen (190 sf minimum). I need to love my kitchen.

15 linear feet of desk space on a great room wall.

Very large pantry close to garage and kitchen.

Lots of storage.

Separate, more formal music room.

Covered porch in back.

So, any feedback would be helpful. Will our exterior be workable, or are we stuck with a massive roof, dwarfing everything else? Oh, and it faces south, and it's as wide as I think it can be and not be too close to the neighbors, but it could go deeper.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (5)

kirkhall
11 years ago
What are the dimensions? I have 2 concerns: 1) your family room is going to be dark. 2) your house is too deep and will be very expensive to build due to having to span such a deep front to back (that might be mitigated with a load bearing wall or 2, but you are going to need to pay attention to this part, especially).

Renovator will be one of the best to comment on your roof size.

And, I think it would be "better" if you could have a sight-line from front door to a back window, but right now, your game room wall juts into that space making that not possible... What will be in your "game room"?
lavender_lass
11 years ago
If you haven't walked through a plan like this one...I would advise you to go look at some triple wide manufactured homes. They are very similar to your design and the middle rooms tend to be dark. Usually the middle area is for closets or open to a room with windows on one end. If you like that feel...then you're on the right track. If not, then I would make some changes to your plan.

I would also look at more single story ranch plans. Here is a site that might be helpful. An advanced search will give you some great results, but you'll probably have to simplify the roof lines.

This plan looks like a good possibilty. The laundry is close to the Master Bedroom and Bedrooms 2 and 3 could share the hall bath, with Bedroom 4 (guests?) having its own bath. I'd probably tweak the kitchen, but that's true with almost any plan. Since you don't need stairs, the study could gain that square footage and make a nice game room :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to eplans home
Related Discussions
2nd Level Floorplan Help
Q
Comments (10)
No need to yell.It may have been a good thing to note that you were gutting the house in the OP.Say I took the time to help you out and drew a plan for you and the stairs cam down in the middle of your first floor kitchen or someplace you did not want them?I have just wasted my time for your lack of info while asking for help.If you want me to put MY effort into YOUR project for FREE it would not hurt for you to invest a bit time into yourself with getting pissy. I'm done here.
...See More
Master Bath floor plan help
Q
Comments (5)
pamal66, thanks for responding. We haven't used the existing tub ever, and there is another bathroom with a tub in the house. The current shower is a massive annoyance for both of us--it's one of those classic brass framed enclosures with rolling door and fiberglass pan. Relative to standing in it, it's only 30" wide and has no storage alcoves and no good place for my wife to shave her legs. It's 47" deep. If we leave the shower where it is we might be able to stretch it to ~34-36" wide and 56-58" deep. That probably isn't going to be enough to make us happy, especially in the width direction. If the shower moves to where the tub is now it can be quite wide. It needs to be pretty long (roughly 58" or more) along the left (outside) wall to look right with the window opening. So if the shower is in the corner as in the new layout, putting the vanity on the outside wall instead of the linen/storage closets allows adding the transom window for more natural light, which is a major goal of ours. Also, keeping the vanity along the garage wall -- especially if the w/c is the current size or near it -- means there's not enough space for a decent size (7' minimum) vanity to be floating. Vanity along the garage would also mean the shower door was on the bottom, ie, opposite the shower head and sprayer. That might not be a huge issue due to the size of the shower? Presumably we could put the Moen U digital controller on the outside wall just inside the door. The current door to the w/c is only 24", so it's not even close to the 36" ADA/wheelchair requirement.
...See More
Review 3-level house floor plans
Q
Comments (7)
Where do you walk out on the first floor to the outdoors? Where are the windows? You don't have enough room for an island in a kitchen that is only 11' deep. The living room/dining room is narrow. The stairs are an afterthought instead of being considered another room. What do I mean? You're walking up staring at a wall. It will be dark as opposed to walking up and walking towards light. What is the property width and length and what are the set backs? Minimum sized powder room should be 5' square. The main floor bedroom closet is barely large enough to put a single dress in, let alone more stuff. The rental kitchen/living area is only 16 long? Not very conducive to living. And only 1 closet in the whole downstairs space? Where in the master would the bed go so you're not walking around the bed in the middle of the night to get to the bathroom, or not straining your head to one side to see to the deck? Angled walls to me say the person doesn't know how to design a house. The master is narrower than 7' wide which means you can only have hanging along one long wall. You need 2' for each side for hanging plus 3' for an aisle for a total of 7'. Laundry appliances stick out 30" if you get full sized appliances. That means on a 72" room, your standing and sorting room is only 42" deep. And if the laundry room is that small, there is no room for things like brooms, linens, etc. In fact where downstairs is the broom closet or other closets? Where upstairs are the linen closets? There is a reason architects go to school to learn this stuff for years and then have to apprentice for another 3 years before they're even allowed to be licensed.
...See More
Floor plan for 3 level detached house
Q
Comments (41)
Cpartist beat me to it. As drawn, the person sitting in the chair in the living room will be staring right at the toilet of the powder room and everyone who enters and exits. Yes, I know that chair is only a place holder, but just putting it there you should have noticed that. Everybody in the living room will still see people entering and leaving the powder room. It doesn't matter that you only plan to be there a few years. You have to sell that place one day and any problems you create will effect the price. A 'flex room' in a house that size is a sign that you can't figure out what to do with that space and gave up. Waaay too much wasted space that has to be kept clear for walking through and can't be used for anything else. Top floor: The door to the MBR is wrong. Why have an opening that large and then have the door swing block part of it? And I'd love to see the movers try to get furniture into that left dogleg into the MBR. The door in the MBR ensuite toilet cubbyhole is impossible. Question--Once someone walks in there, where will they stand when they try to close the door?? Do you really think that even kids can deal with vanities that tiny and closed in? Bifold doors cannot operate the way you have drawn them on the closets. They must pull out; otherwise there's no way to close them. Now: the deck. There's no access directly from the MBR to the deck. Why not? If anyone should have direct access, it's the grownups! And, oddly, the widest window in the house is awkwardly placed half over the tub looking out to that deck. This list above is all covered in Design 101 in Architecture school. Been there; learned it. Just as I would never spell 'everybody' as 'everybuddy', an architect would never make the above mistakes. Just like a writer knows the words 'casual' and 'causal' and knows the danger of using either incorrectly, likewise, an architect looks for clearance around every door before drawing a line and hangs doors with the correct swing automatically. Those just come naturally, like muscle memory. Hire an architect. And when the architect tells you that you don't have enough room for a powder room on the main floor, listen to him when he suggests that one of the kids' bathrooms should also have public access for that use. And especially listen when he says that both kids should share one larger bathroom. It won't kill them. Hire an architect.
...See More
lilacsnviolets
Original Author
11 years ago
Kirkhall Ã¯Â¿Â½ you always notice the sight lines. And here I thought IÃ¯Â¿Â½d considered it all. The game room is for fuzball, air hockey, darts, whatever, and the walls are for noise control. But it shouldnÃ¯Â¿Â½t be right there. It should be tucked away somewhere over the garage, or in the basement. Neither one works for us. The plan would really work better without a game room, and the porch in that spot.
Sorry I didnÃ¯Â¿Â½t mention it in my original post, but the scale is 1square to 1 foot. So the depth of the plan is 52 feet. If that is too deep to roof cost-effectively, what is the solution? Can it be solved with tweaks to the layout, or am I back to scratch?
Lavender lass Ã¯Â¿Â½ I love your practical comments here on GW. I love light and windows, so the cave look isnÃ¯Â¿Â½t the effect I want at all. In the past IÃ¯Â¿Â½ve had solar tubes in laundry room, hall, and master closet. Would they work in the master closet, laundry room, and family room?
The thing I donÃ¯Â¿Â½t like about J&J baths is the two separate doors into a private space. The plan you link to has this problem for the master suite. ThatÃ¯Â¿Â½s easy enough to fix, but as soon as you do, the laundry all needs to be lugged through the kitchen. IÃ¯Â¿Â½ve spent my free time on eplans and houseplans for years, and I canÃ¯Â¿Â½t find a stock plan I like.
Annie Deighnaugh
11 years ago
I think the place you will spend most of your time will be the darkest of all...kitchen/dr/fr. That would make me crazy.

I think you should think about a real split plan with FR, DR, Kit running front to back and with guest room, game room and music room on one side and master and bedrooms on the other. You might also think about making the plan narrower and deeper rather than wider.

When we were looking, we needed wide and shallow given lot constraints and were frustrated in that most of the model home places did the opposite so they could cram as many houses along the street as possible. It did yield some very interesting and functional home plans though.
DreamHomeDreamer
11 years ago
Just thought you might find some use in Sweet Home 3D. It is a free (not a trial) house drawing program download, that is pretty decent. You can do a virtual visit and walk through your house. It might help you visualize everything while 'sitting' on your couch. You can add windows, change the height at which the windows are off the ground, etc. You might also find it helpful because it includes the wall width which add a decent amount of space to a floor plan. The only thing it doesn't do, is roofs. But since yours is staightforward, you can visualize it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet Home

Help on a 4bed 3 bath single level floorplan

Comments (5)

kirkhall

lavender_lass

Related Discussions

lilacsnviolets
Original Author

Annie Deighnaugh

DreamHomeDreamer

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Help on a 4bed 3 bath single level floorplan

Comments (5)

kirkhall

lavender_lass

Related Discussions

lilacsnvioletsOriginal Author

Annie Deighnaugh

DreamHomeDreamer

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

lilacsnviolets
Original Author