Plans for your review!!

11 years ago

Hello all! I posted a plan a while back but we got stopped in our tracks - my husband became very ill and was in the hospital most of the summer AND my architect was diagnosed with cancer and is dealing with very aggressive treatments.

Husband is much better (thank God) and architect is expected to be fine (again, Thank God!) so we are starting to get back on track. I took what the architect had done for us and entered it all into Chief Architect Home Designer, and then have spent countless hours playing and changing.

A little about ourselves. We are in our early 40s and have two boys, 9 and 5. My spry 82 year old father will also be moving in with us and will have the first floor suite.

We live a casual life. We like to cook and convene in the kitchen. I know I want the open concept to the family room as we have it in a vacation house we rent out and I love it so much more than the closed upone we have in our current house.

We are on a corner lot, and the house will be facing south, with it as far south and west on the lot as allowed by the village. We will have a large sideyard to the east. (lot is approx 185x125 - large for this area, south suburb of Chicago)

In the first floor master we added the reach in closet because my dad wants to use the walk in as a little office. If we move downstairs eventually, that closet will be taken out.

We work out of the house, so a large office/den is important.

I know the dining room is a bit of a hike from the kitchen, and I don't care. In 11 years we have used ours 3 times. I wouldn't have one at all but DH is insistent.

I like the kitchen layout, and will tweak it some in general.

We originally had 2 stairs - one in foyer. Decided that our lifestyle didn't warrant it. We are not "grand" people, so a grand foyer stair that would rarely get used was a wasted space for us.

Weird thing in family room is a fireplace. Computer thing.

The space behind the entry closet will house a baby grand piano. Also, that area will be framed for an elevator shaft, should we ever need one.

Screened porch is mostly for the cat (yes, don't laugh) and maybe occasional casual dining, but my allergic family doesn't tend to dine alfresco much so I'm not worried about size.

Center hallway on second floor will have a skylight or sun tunnel for added light.

I welcome your comments! I'd like to get this as done as possible for the architect.

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Comments (6)

vbensley
Original Author
11 years ago
1st floor
vbensley
Original Author
11 years ago
2nd floor
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No, we aren't totally set on this plan. There are a lot of things that we really like, such as the back corner livingroom, the kitchen and the entryway. I know the entry hall is a lot of wasted space, but it gives us the design we are looking for, where the livingroom is semi-secluded in the back. Our current home (for 2 more weeks) you walk directly into the livingroom, and the kitchen is basically open to the livingroom. That is the sort of design we want to get away from. That being said, I would be open to a different plan that would offer us some of the same features in a better packaged plan. Max square footage: 2200 Yes a basement. Prefer open stairway, rather than closed in with a door. One story ranch, two car garage, space for mudroom cubbies. Any other questions?
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On the first floor the only real issues I see is the tv/ family room has no access to the kitchen. Making a u-turn around those steps could get irritating. Also the path from the garage to the kitchen has the same issue. Is there a way to place the pantry somewhere else and open that area up as a doorway?
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Mrs Pete wrote: "...Virgil, I understand the entry is long (for a house this size), but how can a room be vague? I don't understand..." Mrs Pete, place yourself as a guest or owner at the front door, and then transiting from the front door through all of the initial entry spaces to finally arrive at the living/family space. That journey is ill-defined and there is nothing in the process that is positive or rewarding other than finally, only finally, arriving into the living/family space. Enroute from the front door one encounters doors, spaces and changes of wall plane to the left and right, again and again. The corridor space widens, narrows, widens--on and on. One can only wonder what all the doors and spaces must mean and where they lead. Are these important or not? Why must I travel through such spaces to reach the important spaces in the house? It seems so thoughtless and unnecessary... This is the sort of thing that a consumer may not even recognize, but it's the thing that every experienced architect quickly sees as a major element in a bad design. The entry sequence in a well designed house is logical, provides positive images and encourages visitors and owners alike. Such an entry sequence not only rewards visitors traveling from the front door, but it also enables them to quickly and positively reach the home's major spaces. In these sketch plans the entry sequence is simply utilitarian at best, and the only encouragement is to close one's eyes until finally arriving into a more pleasant and inviting space. Again, as I said earlier, if none of this matters to you then carry merrily on. On the other hand, if you are sensitive to good design, for you and your guests, then carefully consider what visitors to your house see and experience, making these as positive and memorable as possible. It's the difference between shelter and thoughtful good design. Good luck on your project. This post was edited by virgilcarter on Sat, Oct 18, 14 at 23:03
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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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dpusa
11 years ago
Vbensley

Glad all is better now/
Here are some thoughts:

1. Overall the first floor looks great. The foyer area looks like a lot of wasted space. I would move the coat closet to open that space up a little and make it less boxy.
2. Add a cupboard to the Office so that it can add storage there - perhaps a double back one for the coat closet and the office itself within the office space.
3 .Is the dining room on the top right?
4. Upstairs foyer area looks large again - can some of the space be added to the bonus room?
5. I do not understand why there is a bump out closet in the foyer.
6. Love the laundry room layout and space!!
7. Can the storage room become smaller and the space be added as a walk in closet for the bonus room?

As you can tell from the above - I am all about space maximization :) however they are just IMHO - no offence meant as I think the plan has to fit your needs.
vbensley
Original Author
11 years ago
Funny, I thought the dining room was labeled! It is to the right of the foyer.
The closet is there to kind of separate the space, and behind it is where the piano will go. Also, it is (part) of where the elevator shaft would be, should we put one in.

The storage room is unfisnihed space in the attic. To me, having that for christmas storage is more important than a wic, but I will think on that more.

Thanks! Keep em coming!
User
11 years ago
I hope this plan is just a diagram because the rooms don't seem well thought out beyond being roughly placed on a grid. For instance the walls that enclose the dining room need to be thought out more carefully. Between the bump-out closet and the oversized door to the dining room it is not a good space. And the kitchen is huge with odd relationships between work areas. Perhaps it would help to show them large enough to read the text and dimensions.

I never turn on the grid feature on in my CAD program because it makes it difficult to visualize the individual spaces.
zone4newby
11 years ago
A few thoughts--
1) Do you have clients visit your home office? If so, you might want the powder room to be closer to the front of the house.

2)If it were my house, I would worry about the first floor being dark-- all the windows that face East or South are shaded pretty heavily, have you checked that they've got the angles right so you'll get winter sun through them?

3)Right now, when someone walks through your front door, they're going to see closet doors first. I imagine you want something there because you want to keep the private part of your home separate from your office, but if it were my house, I'd rather have a plain wall there (that you could decorate with a nice painting or something), and move the coat closet somewhere less prominent.

4)I agree with renovator8 that the bump-out closet and the dining room's doorway to the foyer don't work well together. I think the closet (or wall, if you take my suggestion above) needs to be lined up with something, and that big doorway should be open only to the foyer, not partially to the side of the closet.

Those are my opinions, worth every cent you paid for them!

Best of luck!

Good luck!

Plans for your review!!

Comments (6)

vbensley
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Plans for your review!!

Comments (6)

vbensleyOriginal Author

vbensleyOriginal Author

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dpusa

vbensleyOriginal Author

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zone4newby

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GET HELP

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vbensley
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vbensley
Original Author

vbensley
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