Please review final house plans, suggestions?

10 years ago

We will hopefully be ready to break ground within a couple weeks. I'm getting very nervous that I have missed something, or that something is not going to be right. If you could offer any suggestions or advice, I would really appreciate it. Background - We are building on a 11.5 acres of hardwood covered ridges. Living in the house will be myself, my husband and our 2 kids ages 14 and 12, (and 2 dogs) husband works from home. We will have a deck off the back, it's just not shown on the plan. House will face south, (mild winters). I have limited editing capabilities to the plan, but I tried to put in some things. Thanks for your time!

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sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
Sorry, didn't load right.
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
and the rest of it....
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Home Plan - Please Review - Pretty Pretty Please :)
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Comments (13)
You've obviously put a whole lot of thought into your floorplan and how to make it meet the needs of your family. I like it a whole lot but I do have a few questions and concerns. Not sure what you mean by "maximize light coming in from the bathroom off the mudroom." Are you wanting light from that bathroom window to spill into the mudroom and provide natural light there? If so, I don't think there is anyway to get very much light to spill over and still give the bathroom the necessary privacy, You CAN put an interior transom windows up over the bathroom door which will allow some light spillover. And, you could use a frosted glass door for the bathroom door. I'm not a fan of the latter except in masterbedrooms where there is less need for a total "sense" of privacy. You might also consider putting in a light tube to bring natural light into the mudroom. I have another concern about the bathroom by the mudroom tho. Not sure if that is a shower or a dog-shower or a utility sink in the lower right hand corner but with it there, you have no space in front of the vanity sink to stand while washing hands. What is that room between the staircase and the office? I can't read what is says and, at first, assumed it was your pantry but then I found the pantry down next to the dining room. I agree that a larger pantry would be nice. As your kids get older, you're going to have bikes and other sports equipment to store in the garage. It would be nice to have room for the second freezer inside the house so that the garage space could be dedicated to that other stuff. The hallway on the children's side may be too narrow to easily move furniture into their bedrooms. There is an indication that it is 3'4" wide (which would be plenty wide) but based on the grid background, it looks like the wall to wall width may only be about 2'8". Does the 3'4" measurement include the 4" deep walls on both sides? If the actual wall-to-wall hall width isn't at least 3'0", you might want to consider bumping the left exterior wall out another couple of inches. Given the overall size of the house, a few more inches won't make a noticeable difference in the cost to build. But a too narrow hallway will bug you forever! To maintain exterior symmetry, you would probably also want to bump out the exterior wall on the garage/masterbedroom side of the house as well. But, a few extra inches on that side could be useful as well. The only thing about the design that I really really don't like is the powderroom that opens directly into the living room. Guests will be squemish about using a PR that is so centrally located...too much concern that others will hear them as they go about their business or, even worse, if their business tends to create a bit of a stink, the smell will waft out into the living room before the bathroom vent fan can take care of it. And, do you really want to be looking at a toilet when your babies leave the bathroom door open while there are guests in the house. IMHO, that bathroom REALLY needs to be moved to a location further from the center of activity. The closet for bedroom III seems a bit small - especially for a girl who will eventually get to be a teenager! Also, be aware that your dryer needs to vent to the outside. It is easiest to vent a dryer that is on or very near an exterior wall. Given the location of your laundry room, I've linked below to some info that you should probably read regarding venting a clothes dryer. Just a thought but, have you tried putting the playroom in the middle of the left wing then having two short halls leading off of it with two bedrooms at the front, and two bedrooms and the laundry room at the back? And the guest powderroom tucked in to the left of the study so that one must go down a short hallway from the living room to reach it? this is really really rough but may give you some ideas Here is a link that might be useful: dryer vent info.
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Hi everyone. Momto3 - This floor plan is indeed beautiful, as the pictures of the finished house show. And some of the suggestions given by others were little nuggets of gold to keep in mind! MyDreamHome, I love your laundry room - I have not come across one that is in that small a space and yet works as efficiently as yours does. The garbage bins for laundry are a wonderful idea! I too fold in my laundry in the laundry room as soon as items come out of the dryer - otherwise they need ironing, and I am not into that (unless it is part of my quilting - that is a different story). For those many people who were enquiring about how to make this large house smaller (I believe it is 5,000 square feet, give or take a couple hundred): some great suggestions were made about making some rooms smaller (ie - do you need a 30+ by 15+ playroom, and a 16+ by 14+ breakfast area? We would all like it, but...). However I have two other suggestions as well. This house, built as a single-story home, has a huge footprint. That means a huge basement or slab, and a huge roof surface. Furthermore, the roof will be quite high, simply because of the area it has to cover. So... You could consider moving some or all of the bedrooms upstairs, and while this may not reduce the square footage of the home, it will reduce the cost of building significantly (the cost per square foot will go down significantly because this area does not need its own basement/slab or roof). For example, if you put 1500 square feet of bedrooms/bathrooms upstairs, you will reduce your footprint and roof area by that amount - the size of a small-mid size house! With some interesting jut-outs, dormers and some sloped ceilings, you can make a very interesting as well as a light and airy second floor. In fact, a friend of mine did just this - they planned a large single-level house, and the architect suggested that with almost no changes to the roof other than a couple of dormers, they could put in a large master suite and two additional bedrooms and another bath on the second floor. They agreed, and then re-envisioned the main floor to keep the footprint the same size as before, giving them about 1/3 more living space for very little extra money. Just one word of warning: it will impact the layout of the roof trusses, and perhaps even the type of truss used, so that you have full use of the available height. So include this in the plan before you start building - even if you plan to finish the space later (another advantage of reducing the footprint - you can finish off the other levels later if money is an issue and yet you expect your family to grow). Similarly if you build the house with a basement and your land has just a bit of a slope to it, with some forethought you can have a walk-out basement with large windows and French or sliding doors...or at worst, finished rooms with large windows. Then you can put some of the bedrooms and the play room downstairs and still have them bright and airy. If you live where you have to do a basement anyway, you double the size of your (single story) house by utilizing the basement. A current trend in my area is for builders to use 9-10 foot ceilings in the basement to ensure that the area is not claustrophobic (and it allows for bigger windows if the house sits a bit higher). Often with a bit of landscape planning, enough of a slope can be created when the footings and the basement are laid down. Again here, if you plan to finish the basement (now or later), give it some thought so that you do not limit your options when you do finish it. For example, you may want to use longer or different types of beams to support the main floor to reduce the number of posts in the basement. And you may want to ensure that your posts are no closer that 12 or 15 feet apart - so that you likely won't have a post in the middle of where you would like to have a bedroom. It is also important to have a plan so that you can make the best use of windows, and put larger ones in if possible. Every bedroom must have an egress window (which is not very big), so don't plan on sticking a bedroom in the front of the house unless you are prepared to have windows at the front, etc. Plumbing is easier if it is roughed in now as well, although if you change your mind, it can be moved easily enough (but it costs $$). Has anyone tried either of these options? I would draw out a sample, but I don't currently have a couple of free hours - sorry... PS - sorry for the length of this post...
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So close-please review almost final plan
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Comments (19)
Jenswrens, we are going to include the prep sink. Here’s the updated kitchen plan. AnnieDeighnaugh, no, we don’t want two laundry rooms. That’s a leftover from a time when all the bedrooms were upstairs and we will ask for it to be removed. We are adding more windows to Bedroom 3 downstairs. There’s not much we can do about some of the windows not being under a deck, though. The ceilings are 9 feet, so I hope that will help. Good point about the “rabbit warren” in BR 3- I’ll give that some thought. I can see why you think there’s a lovers leap upstairs, but the door actually opens onto, I guess “landing” would be the best word. The landing is open to the foyer below. The door is there because the upstairs won’t be finished right away. The upstairs linen closet won’t require a special roofline. It just takes advantage of some otherwise empty space. I do think I’m OK with having more space in the bathroom and closet than the bedroom. We won’t be storing any clothing of anything in the bedroom- just our bed, two nightstands, and something for the TV to sit on/above. I think I like the idea of a cozier bedroom. I’ve been in some similar sized rooms (I’m weird in that I carry a measuring tape around in my purse and whip it out to measure rooms that seem to have nice space) and I didn’t think they were cramped. Do you think we’ll regret it though once we’re in- I’ve never been in a house with this layout so to some extent it’s a guessing game. The windows in the closet are just small windows up high on the wall- they’re not full sized windows and you won’t be able to look out and no one will be able to look in. They’re there for aesthetic purposes on the exterior so there are not big blank walls. We will probably upgrade the UV coating on those windows. I’ll look into switching the master bath toilet to the other wall. I don’t think the powder room would be as much of an issue, as hopefully when we’re trying to sleep no one will be using the powder room. The bedroom has windows on only one wall, but it does have glass French doors on another wall. Should I add a window to the wall with the French door? Waterproofing the basement is a main priority for us. In our current house the basement leaks like crazy and anytime it rains the sump pump goes wild. So water issues in the basement are an issue of which we are acutely aware. It’s one of the first things we asked about when we interviewed builders. Thanks for your input. I really like your house, by the way. Chicagoans, I don’t anticipate that we will really use the front porch for anything other than some decorative flower pots and the like. We will use the back and side decks mainly, as that’s where the view is. The front porch is really just for aesthetics, but if we were going to use it I’d definitely make it deeper. I think that I can vent the range hood up and out the wall above the kitchen. The second floor space is over the kitchen, but the wall the range is against is the exterior wall on the upper floor, if that makes sense. I have posted on the kitchen forum, and mistakenly didn’t post my updated layout here in my original post (but it is posted above in my response to jenswrens.) pps7, in the master bedroom we plan to center the bed between the two windows on the rear wall. We had them spaced so that we could fit a king size bed between them. We don’t need two entrances from the garage. That space off the foyer has been a pain- it was sort of a leftover space after everything else was placed and we haven’t been able to find a good solution as far as what to put there. We originally had a powder room in that location. But, then we started asking whether we really needed two powder rooms on the main floor and decided that we didn’t. I thought the conventional wisdom was that you needed a bathroom close to the family entrance/mudroom area, so we chose to keep that powder room and eliminate the one in the foyer. Of course, as long as it is just us we can just use the master bathroom. I’m not against eliminating the mudroom powder room as long as it won’t create a problem. Your idea to make a hallway to the closet and bath area is intriguing, but I’m not sure how eliminating the powder room would allow us to do that. Can you describe a bit more how that would look? My husband and I talked about the door to the deck from the master. I’m fine with changing to a few windows, but he wants to keep the door. We do have several dogs, and he likes that we could just open that door and let them out in the mornings. I’m not sure how much we will actually use it though, but I have to let him win sometimes. In the master bath, we’ll have two towel rings at the vanity area on the side walls, and will hang a hook outside the shower on the wall next to the tub for towels to grab when you exit the shower. We will probably also put a towel bar under the window between the shower and linen closet. We don’t re-use towels, after one use they go to the laundry, so we don’t really need a space to dry towels for reuse or anything like that. I have considered moving the entrance to the kitchen to the mudroom area instead of the current hallway location (moving the entrance to the other side of the range, so to speak). However, I have a couple of concerns about that. If we keep the powder room in the current location, I think it makes it much less accessible. My next concern would be that if the entrance is moved, you could probably see from the living room into the mudroom. I’m thinking the mudroom will probably not be immaculate most of the time. Would you think either of those things would be a problem? I hadn’t even noticed the uneven spacing of the front columns! Does the window under the porch need shutters, since it’s protected? I’m also not sure if correctly sized shutters would fit in the space, but I have no problem including them if they fit. We could also slide that window to the right I think to create more space for shutters. Thanks so much for all your advice. Lolauren, I think what you’re suggesting is to move the ovens next to the doorway from the mudroom/master hallway into the kitchen. Is that correct? Do you think that would be an issue with traffic flow by that area? Annkh, I understand that it’s a little confusing. We won’t be finishing that area now, so the landing is enclosed so you’re not looking from the foyer up into an unfinished area. The doorway was moved to the loft side just so you didn’t seen it from downstairs. At the time the upstairs is finished, that wall will be opened up to the hall as you’re suggesting. jlband25, the first floor is about 2800 square feet. Our community has a 2500 sq. ft. minimum for the first floor. MrsPete, I’m OK with not getting our money back out of the master/mudroom area. We don’t plan on selling, as least for quite some time, but I know that things don’t always go according to plan. I think it will really work for us. Are you suggesting movng the laundry fixtures to the wall where the door to the mudroom is currently located, or to the wall the mudroom lockers are on? I’ve not looked at the upstairs as closely as the others levels since we’re not finishing it right now, but I agree with your point about the bathrooms and will ask for that to be changed. Kirkhall, point taken about the grilling deck and doors. That’s a subject of contention between my husband and me. Does the revised kitchen layout above look any better to you? And does my explanation of the upstairs layout clear up that issue? I don’t necessarily love 2 story foyers, but my husband does like them. How would you propose reversing the staircase? Are you suggesting putting the landing against the front wall and you would enter the stairs from the kitchen area? Thanks so much to everyone for your advice! Every time I post I’m blown away by everyone’s ideas and the things that others pick up on that I never noticed. Ashley
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Final floor plan review (open floor plan) What do you think?
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Comments (17)
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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jdez
10 years ago
I love your plan. My DH and I would also be ok with a single sink in the master bath. I love it. Not too overly huge and I love the screened porch. Hope everything goes smooth with the build. Don't forget to post pics later on. Thanks for sharing.
okpokesfan
10 years ago
I would make sure that when I'm standing in the foyer, I won't be able to look straight at the toilet in the kids bathroom. You might think about moving the door over.
Naf_Naf
10 years ago
Nice Plan.
Flip the bathroom so you can not see the toilet from the foyer.
Add at least 12" to the dining area. It should be ok to shift the island.
The laundry door bother me.
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
JDez- Thanks!!!! I appreciate your comments. I was a little nervous about one sink because two is the norm, but I just really don't see a need for two.

okpokesfan- I had not even thought about seeing into the hall bath from the foyer! My goodness! Thanks for that!

naf-naf- Thanks. I will definitely check out the hall bath/foyer situation. I had not even considered that. Would you make the laundry room flush not angled? I think the designer did that so the hallway would have better flow, but I've contemplated puling the wall out flush. It would give me more space in the laundry room. Just an fyi-I'm not planning on having the ironing board where it is drawn in.

Thanks again for all your help!!
lavender_lass
10 years ago
How much can you change? Is anything possible?

If so, I would change the upstairs. Even though you have mild winters, I would NOT want my upstairs office over the screened porch.

Love the screened porch, but I think the living room, dining, kitchen, screened porch and master should not have anything over them. I'd try to put the two bedrooms and bath over the front...so they're over the front bedrooms and garage. And it would make some sense of those gables! :)

In the kitchen, I still like the island. Even if you have to have some partial walls, I think it makes the plan more open and gives you more flexibility in the dining room. I like the banquette...but if you ever decide to have a bigger table or pull it out a bit, you'll have more space this way.

Just an idea... {{gwi:1507073}}From Kitchen plans
littlebug5
10 years ago
I don't know how to fix it, but I think you are going to have a major problem arranging furniture in the great room. You will have lots and lots of traffic thru there.
bpath
10 years ago
If you flip the master, so that the bath and closets are on the right and the bedroom is in the outside corner, you gain:
- a sound buffer from the living room, so when the kids have friends over, you have a quiet place
- better light
- cross breezes
- plumbing clustered, saves $$
- faster hot water to the master

Can you flip the kids' bath completely, so the water heater (is that what that is?) and tub are on the right? This goes along with the suggestion to move the door.

If the ironing board will be somewhere else, can you make the LR a tad shorter, removing the angle, and put the door next to the MBR door? That would widen the hallway just a bit, just to have a little more open feel back there.

Consider solar tubes in the hall and the interior hall bath for light without electricity.

Loving the screened porch :)
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks everybody for taking the time to chime in.
LLass- I don't know if "anything is possible" right now. My husband might have a different opinion about that. :) I know what you mean about the bonus space over the garage and screen porch, I have actually brought up that point before. I think we are beyond changing that. We are in a milder climate and having foam insulation, so hopefully it won't be an issue. I will check on the opening the wall for the kitchen idea. I do think I might like that!

Liitlebug5- I've mocked up my furniture on my plan and I don't think it will be a problem. But I could be wrong. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

bpathhome-We had considered flipping the master and bath, the reason we didn't is we live in the south and get brutal western sun in the evening. I'd rather not have much living space with windows on the western side of the house. It would just heat up the house all summer.
I can rearrange the hall bath and laundry however I need to to make them more convenient. I will try to sketch out what you've suggested and see how it works.

Thanks again for all your help!
lavender_lass
10 years ago
Had a few minutes, so just changed a few things. Don't know if you'll like it, but maybe it will give you a few ideas :)

The laundry room is a bit awkward (that corner) so I added some shallow shelves there. It gives you more storage, but still allows easy access to the bedroom. Also put in a little corner niche, just for fun.

I changed the second floor just a bit and added on the 'short' wall...a wall of cupboards/bookcases. Great extra storage and easily accessible place to keep kids' toys, as well as holiday decorations, extra office supplies, etc.

Oh, and I made the safe room a little bigger. I'm assuming you're having this in case of tornado? After spending the night in a very small walk-in linen closet as a child...it would have been nice to have been a few feet bigger. I do not miss tornadoes! {{gwi:1507076}}From Kitchen plans
{{gwi:1507077}}From Kitchen plans

This post was edited by lavender_lass on Thu, Oct 17, 13 at 15:12
doodledog_gw
10 years ago
I'd switch the master with the masterbath purely for the soundproofing. That's one big open concept space and all that sound would interfere with trying to sleep in the master bedroom. And it appears the only space for a TV would be the wall between the great room and master compounding the sound issue.
mrspete
10 years ago
I'll second the idea of going with a single sink in the master bath. I've never grasped the concept of needing two sinks side-by-side. No one ever uses them at the same time anyway, and they're an expensive item. Not having them = more storage, and we all need that.

I don't live in the world of tornados, so I am unacquainted with the world of safe rooms. I think I'd build it as small as possible. After all, you don't spend significant time in there.

I usually lean towards finding house plans a bit excessive and suggest reductions, but in your case, I don't think you have enough space in front of the toilet in the master bath to make that space comfortable. Also, your master closet seems a bit off: It's long and will only hold clothes on one side -- not a particularly good use of space.

If you move the shower to where the sink/vanity is now, you could put the tub in the corner, which allow nicer windows in the tub area. Then you could put the sink where the tub is now. I think it'd be a nicer bath area.

I totally agree with the idea of flipping the master bedroom and bath for noise reduction.

I also think your dining room is too narrow. It looks fine on paper, but when you have people pulling chairs back, that small space will be gone.
bird_lover6
10 years ago
I'm with you on avoiding the hot western sun. Our bedroom has a large window facing the west, and we have to lower the a/c 2 or 3 degrees to get our master at a comfortable temperature, while the rest of the downstairs is freezing. (Two story house with 2 a/c units.) It's just brutal when it's 102 degrees outside and the sun is beating down on our window.

I think the hall bath and a sound proofing wall will be adequate for sound reduction, and you have the fireplace butted up against half of that wall which should help, as well.
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks again for all the feedback.
LLass- You are amazing with your editing skills. I'm not able to edit the plan at all. Thanks for taking the time to do that!! You've given me some things to think about and I can see how the laundry and bath doors can be fixed. Thanks again!!

Doodledog-Re master bath and bed -I thought switching them before but decided not to. We've had a similar layout in a previous house and it wasn't really an issue for us. We usually watch TV together, but we will put sound bats in.

Mrs. Pete- I'm glad to see you agree with the the single sink. I agree, storage takes priority, how many times do I need to use the sink at the exact same time as my husband?
The safe room is only a little over 8x4, so for a family of 4 and 2 (big) dogs that's really not too large.Unfortunately, living in the South a storm shelter of some kind is needed.
I'll see what I can tweak with the master closet and bath. My husband works from home so his daily work clothes are shorts/jeans and t-shirts. He does travel and needs suits ect. but we have been trying to simplify our wardrobe, so I really don't want a lot of space. I would just fill it up. :) I didn't have it penciled in the plan, but there will be a closet upstairs in the guest room as well as in his office.
I will mock up the dining room to check the space.

Bird lover 6- I'm glad you understand where I'm coming from with the western sun! I don't want to be fighting a constant battle to be comfortable.

Thanks again everyone for all your comments!! I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out.
lafdr
10 years ago
If the safe room went back a little more, it could be accessed from the kitchen and be a large walk in pantry.

I like the redone version mud room much better. If you keep the old version, consider taking out the hall so it is just the one mudroom you walk through from the garage without a hall.

Do you really prefer the hall bathroom with no window? It could be flipped with the laundry room. I prefer laundry rooms and bathrooms to be on an exterior wall for light and more direct venting. But that is personal preference.

lafdr
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
lafdr- thanks for your thoughts. I do like the re done mud room /pantry by LLass as well. The only issue is the the stairwell. I don't want an open stairwell in the main part in the house. We have 14 yr old handicap child who is able to walk, but not that well, and not able to understand safety hazards. (I couldn't just tell him stay off the stairs.) Therefore I really need the stairs away from the main house with a door to to close them off. Maybe I should have expressed this in my initial post.

The laundry and hall bath I have toggled with as well. Right now I have a pass through hamper/ hanging space from the laundry to the master closet and if I switch them, I gain a window in the hall bath but lose my pass thru, it's a hard call. ;)
lavender_lass
10 years ago
What if you put a door on the stairway? The door could stay open against that wall to the closet or you could close it for safety. Just an idea :)
{{gwi:1507080}}From Kitchen plans
User
10 years ago
11 acres and a front load garage???? You've got plenty of room for a side load here, and it would help the appearance immensely.
sweet_tea_
Original Author
10 years ago
live_wire_oak - I know, I despise the front load garage as well. The issue is the terrain of our land, we are building on the top of a ridge, and the angle the driveway will wind up the ridge, that is the best / only place for the garage. The lay of the land dictates this one.

Please review final house plans, suggestions?

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