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Floor plan review ï¿½ new plans

9 years ago

Awhile back I posted plans for a house. Well, we ditched that house and started over. Here is what we have so far. (There are few things we know we want to change but would love thoughts/opinions)
Thanks!

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Comments (4)

mrspete
9 years ago
- Hate the garage sticking out in front.

- What is that walk-in closet type room to the right of the front door?

- I don't like the layout in the master bedroom. The little hallway is wasted space and the 90 degree turn will prevent you from bringing in large furniture. The master bath is large for the few items it contains -- lots of wasted space and no storage.

- I like the great room - kitchen - dining arrangement, though the dining seems a bit small. No fire place?

- Secondary bedrooms and baths look completely average, which is fine. My one concern: Another small hallway that may prevent furniture from moving into the two bedrooms.

- I hate the utility room. So much wasted floor space, yet the washer/dryer are pushed to the far end -- far from the folding area. Separating the machines and the sink is an expensive choice (necessitates water and extra-depth in two walls).
stumpydarby
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for your thoughts. :)

The garage sticking out is just a fact of life. I know not everybody likes it . . . but I would actually like a front and backyard and this design allows for that.

The walk in closet type room by the front door is a storage closet. You can never have enough storage!

The master hallway is rather large -- shouldn't be too bad for bringing things in. (much better than what we have now!)

The master bath has a huge run of cabinets --- most likely a "tower" cab in between the sinks that will be a linen closet. So, there will be tons of storage from the vanities.

No fireplace -- we are in Florida. It just wouldn't get used.

We might consider taking a little of the utility room to enlarge that hallway leading to the two bedrooms. (We need space in the utility room because I hang dry the majority of my clothes . . . so it isn't wasted space at all!)
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Thanks for your input Renovator8. Are all of the major spaces awkward? Which ones in particular look the worst? Do you have any suggestions on how I could make this flow better? We've looked at how we live on a day to day basis and how we would like our home to function. This plan seems to be the best flow for our lifestyle, but some help from GW may help us change it for the better. If you were to provide some more feedback I may understand why it is so awkward. I'm definetly an amateur so I would love some input on how to make things flow better. I do recognize that some aspects of our plan is not traditional in the way most houses are being built: i.e. stairs are by the entrance, not accessed easily from the interior of the home. Living room is at the back of the home and not accessed through an entry to the home. There are some reasons why we chose to do this. On the east coast of Canada we have a much more informal way of living. We entertain in the kitchen/ dining room (kitchen parties) rather than the living room. We will have a covered deck off the kitchen since we do have so many kitchen parties. Sometimes women and children gather in the kitchen/ dining and the men will go to the living room or the garage. Many people including us do not use their basements other than storage and utilities such as hot water heater, furnace etc. The stairs are usually only accessed to store seldom used things such as extra supplies, seasonal wear and seasonal decorations. Our lot is set up so that all of the outdoor living and access to the home is on the south side. The north side is 100 acres of family woodland that won't be accessed. I hope these extra details of our lifestyle and how we would like our home to function will help you provide us with some input.
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A hodge-podge of thoughts... I'm pretty sure we looked at this plan when we were trying to decide! The porches on the back seem closed off from each other. I would prefer to have the square footage open for entertaining. The front porches seem far from the kitchen and possibly not used nearly as much? Depending on the direction the house faces the Living area could possibly be very dark. I do love the optional gameroom. Bedrooms upstairs seem small. Our two bunk together and that area would work for them but would be tight. (We plan to keep them together for the time being, allowing the other two rooms to be play room and guest rooms). Our upstairs bath is small like the one upstairs in your plan. However we planned larger closets to allow for desk area in them for primping/storage - to keep it out of the bathroom. I grew up with that and loved it. The additional corners/bumpouts on the foundation will make it more expensive. Having the plumbing all over the house will be more expensive than having it generally in the same area. 12'x12'8" dining room... Our table is 4'x8' seating 6 without the extra leaves. Can be 4'x10'. Our table would not fit lengthwise in your dining room. We entertain a lot and need the additional seating. We wanted: 4 bedrooms, laundry in an accessable area, large kitchen and living room area with an open concept. Vaulted section (husbands elk mount - silly but what we wanted). Plumbing generally in one area. Large closets. Must have large pantry. Wrap around porch, Country living. We are outdoors most of the time. Function was extreemly important for us. Being on a farm and using the laundry to drop clothes and be near a shower was a necessity. Wanted tall ceilings (for the feel and to help with the wrap around porches and letting light deep into the house). Could NOT (!!!!!) find everything we wanted in the layout that worked with our views and driveway access. So we started drawing. We were aiming for about 2400-2500sq ft. We saved on keeping the foundation square, rooflines simple, and sub contracting out ourselves. We are dried in now and working on electrical and plumbing. :) Example of what we did. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=jennybc%20gardenweb%20&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QrAIwAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fths.gardenweb.com%2Fforums%2Fload%2Fbuild%2Fmsg0309084529850.html&ei=h0-fUcr7NYTc9QSFr4GwDQ&usg=AFQjCNFF3KXs5DfVIteq3OJlLSfsm5bNcw Didn't purchase plans. Bonus! Did have someone review the specs for beams and lengths for vaulted area, and roof support. I have to disagree with rosies: "And above all, wrap-around porches make the interior rooms gloomy all year, not just shadowy in summer, requiring artificial lighting all day long/all year long." No offense. There are so many reasons I think the statement is wrong I don't know where to begin. A house in the woods can be gloomy with no porches. A house with few windows is gloomy. I would say how the land lays in relationship to how sun rises and sets through the seasons AND the layout of the house in is much more improtant in determining the gloom factor. IMO I knew I wanted bright light in my kitchen in the morning. So I made sure the kitchen was on the back... etc. Keep these things in mind.
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Thanks for all of the reviews. I will make sure to change the swing of the bathroom doors and will most likely make the pantry door a single outward swinging door. As for the family room, it's 18 x 18'2 including fireplace and built-ins. I'd like it a little bigger but we're tweaking an original plan and trying to only make minor changes to keep the costs down. I think since it's an open plan, I'm ok with the size. I've measured the size against our current family room and I've seen pictures of the family room in a built house and it seems large enough. lyfia, I hear what you're saying about the location of the laundry room but it doesn't really bother me. As for the front porch, I think it's 7' but that is the one last thing I have to confirm. I agree that 7' should be the minimum. Yes, we'll change the french doors to sliders. That works much better. gobruno, I hear what you're saying about the bedroom with the small dormer as the only source of natural light. Unfortunately, in order to keep the elevation the same, I don't think there's much we can do. I'm going to look at pictures of larger dormers to see if we want to make them larger. There are skylights in the playroom but I think we're going to add a large dormer instead. Thank you all for the reviews!
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Please post a plan that can actually be read and BTW we run to our car in the rain all the time and we have an awesome carport but no garage since to put in a garage would close up our outdoor space look. I have no idea why you would have 1/2 baths on the floor with bedrooms , flex rooms to me are wasted space figure out if you need them then have a purpose for them . A kids den is a mystery that is what family rooms should be . An inglenook does in no way make sense and walkin pantries IMO are a waste of space and you will need roller skates to cook a simple meal in that kitchen with the pantry that far away. Use your DR what the heck are you saving it for putting a table in the great room will add all sorts of issues for other furnishings. Make the kids den the TV room . Put stools at the islnad of you want more casual eating spce.
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mrspete
9 years ago
I don't think you're going to find anyone who's going to say, "Garage sticking out in front -- YES! Just what we want."

Ah, a closet. Given that it has a window, I was trying to make it into a tiny office space.

Knowing now that this is a closet, I'd say make the master bath a little more narrow -- eliminating some of that unnecessary floor space between the sinks and the shower -- and allow the closet to be a little larger. As you say, more storage is always good, and you'll never miss it in the bathroom.

Still on the bathroom: I still vote for a linen closet; it gives more storage for a lower price than linen towers, and it'll keep your dirty clothes hamper hidden.

It's not the width of the master hallway that'll be the problem -- it's the turn. We bought a king mattress recently, and even bringing it down a straight hallway and turning it into the bedroom was tricky. The movers had to open my daughter's bedroom door and maneuver it back and forth a bit to get in the door. And a mattress has some "give". If you have a double or triple dresser, it'll never get into the room. One possible fix -- now that I know you're in Florida -- is that you might ditch the large windows in the bedroom and instead go with glass doors. In addition to being in keeping with Florida houses, you'll be able to move furniture in through the back very easily.

Thing about the utility room space is that it's not laid out in a user-friendly layout. All that space is in front of the washer/dryer -- you can't hang things in that space because you need it for walking. And the washer/dryer are too far from the folding area.
stumpydarby
Original Author
9 years ago
French doors are going to be added to the master bedroom. (That was one change that was left off the plan. As well as some more windows in the master)
Hopefully getting things in shouldn't be a problem. (Thank goodness!)

The master bathroom layout is still up for debate. We just wanted a large space and we could move things around. We are meeting with a kitchen designer and she that could trump these plans. (We have played around with separate vanities and whatnot) We shall see.

The utility doesn't bother me but maybe that is because I have been doing laundry in a garage without a folding area or a sink or anything. ;)

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