Welcome!

The only thing I am seeing right now is your washer and dryer are right by your entry? Is that right? If so, it looks way to small a space. Where will you fold clothes, store laundry items, etc.? When dh and I built our home that is the only room I overlooked and am sorry I did. My laundry room is so small plus I have the cat food in there :( You might want to consider your basement or something.

As for the kids' rooms, you could almost make a den or small bonus room if you made their rooms smaller! Lovely plan though!
Good Luck!

Thanks twotogo. I am really torn on the laundry room. In our current house we have a stackable (full-size) washer and dryer in a small hallway on the way to the basement. I usually fold clothes in the living room and it doesn't bother me, but then again I've never known the luxury of having a big laundry area, so maybe I would really love that. I've always thought I didn't want the washer/dryer downstairs, but maybe it's worth it to have a great space. I need to think on this one some more! Also, my wonderful dad will be our plumber, so I have thought about asking him to install washer/dryer hookups in the basement just in case I change my mind down the road.

I like the idea of a den upstairs. I could cut their rooms down to approximately 17 x 12' (still plenty big) and instead of walk-in closets I could just do wall closets. Then we could use that extra space to make a great game room with foosball(I love foosball!), darts, etc. That seems more logical to me, but I'm just not sure yet.

Thanks again for your input.

It's a very nice plan. It's a refreshing plan - often times the plans we see on here have dining nooks/areas that are far too small, or the family room is rather small. Ample and well thought-out spaces.

The game room/den would be neat upstairs. You could always put french doors entering that room and it would give it a little flair. Just a thought.

I dunno about the laundry room. It is very tight, but if you usually fold laundry in the living room, it's not as big a concern.

I think it would be good to put the hook ups in the basement, but, we live in an older house right now and of course the D/W are in the basement, and I hate it!!!! I have to lug clothes all the way from the second floor to the basement. And I'm lazy, so half the time the clothes never make it back up.

Thanks krycek. It's so nice to hear that you like the plan overall. It's funny you mentioned the nook, because I'm pretty sure I found this forum by Googling "average dining room dimensions" or something similar. This site really helped me decide on the size, because I had no idea how big or small it should be.

I love the French doors idea. Maybe I could put the den in the very center upstairs. The French doors would be visible from below the loft area and would look so much prettier than regular doors. Thanks for the idea! I do like the idea of a den upstairs, so I will really try to figure out how big I would want it to be. My "guesstimate" of 17' wide for the bedrooms would make it too small, I think.

Overall, very nice, efficient plan.

A couple of thoughts:

-I'm confused-where's the entry? Where's the back of the house? Where are you going to put coats? Backpacks? Are these going to go in the basement?

-If you can swing a larger laundry room, you will love it. I've never had a laundry room before either.

-there's no hall to the master bedroom, it opens directly into the family room.

-I agree, I'd try to get the master a couple of feet wider

- Up stairs, I think you can easily do 3 bedrooms or 2 bedrooms and a den. The den can double as a guest bedroom.

- For the upstairs bedrooms, I'd try to place the bedroom in the corners and the closets on the interior so that you can add windows.

- Are you sure you want the loft/double height family room?

I agree--nice plan. I would add a den/play area upstairs so that you can have another living space for the kids. Especially since it doesn't look like you'll have basement living space, that upstairs common space will be useful for little kids toys (not sure how old your kids are) or as a hang out spot for older kids when they have friends over.

I'm not a fan of closed stairwells, but I'm glad that yours is fairly wide. I would definitely add tall windows in your stairwell so that that space isn't clausterphobic and tunnel like. I also agree with the comments about needing some kind of landing spot for coats/bags etc. by your entrance.

The door should hinge the other way on your master bath door so that it opens against the wall and not the sink.

To avoid so much wasted hall space upstairs, I would have the den/play space be the first open space at the top of the stairs (so any hall space would be part of the open den). Then I'd put the storage room with access from the den/play space, then a bedroom, the bath in the corner (I'd put a window in the bathroom), and the other bedroom where the bath and storage used to be, with the doors grouped at the end of the hall, or something like that.

Finally, I'd make your basement walls 9 ft. With an 8 ft. basement wall, you get spots that are 7 ft. bc of duct work, etc.

Good luck!

Our master is 15x18 and if I could go back and change it, I would make it 15x15 or 15x16. We have a king bed, 2 big nightstands, a dresser, and a chair and it's got wasted space.

On the suggestions for upstairs, I think that would be a great idea (since that's how we did ours LOL). We have a 12x24 landing that is the common playroom. To the right is a closet and the bathroom and to the left are 2 12x14 bedrooms. My son's bedroom has a queen bed, dresser and chest and is plenty roomy.

We created a computer desk area in the kitchen (which is open to the family room), rather than have them using a computer in their own space. Makes it much easier to supervise what they're doing!! Just a suggestion...

:-)
V

Just some food for thought. We have almost the same upstairs as you with an additional small bedroom too. The large rooms are the exact layout (ours are still, somewhat larger) we have with study corner nooks, adjacent to the walk ins. We have a five boys, 9 year old and 11 year old share and the 4 and 5 year old share. Our "baby" is 2 and has the little room. Just wanted to mention that, believe it or not, the older boys are now "embarrassed" by their huge rooms! Numerous times they have said how they just want a normal small room like their friends. Not to mention, they also would like to get rid of all their beauftiful and expensive pottery barn quilts, roman blinds, decorations, lights, etc. and buy "some stuff from Wal-Mart!" Yikes, yes, I was devastated. We are looking to build again and will have smaller bedrooms;) Not to mention, I don't wan to encourage them to hang out too much in their rooms, but rather have them with me.

Your plan looks very nice. I would think a larger laundry room might be nice, but for a family of 4 would probably be fine. I would never want to live without a locker, cubby, coat hooks again. I would most certainly have a designated area by a back hall, in the laundry room, etc if not a mudroom. An extremely small space, if set up well, can hold an amazing about of "stuff." Not to mention the decluttering and arganization it will promote in your home.

I agree about making the kids rooms smaller and having a kids den/playroom upstairs instead. This allows larger groups and groups of mixed sexes to hang out together at your house without having to hang out in the bedroom (which will cause issues when they get older). Also creates a good place for a kids tv, video game consoles, kid DVDs, etc. We have boys and all that stuff is in our den right now. Makes it very *interesting* (i.e., unbearably loud) when all boys have friends and they are playing the wii!

Again, thank you all for your input. It has all been so helpful!

Pps7: I know the entryway is a bit confusing. We are building into a hill and originally the plan had only a basement entrance. We changed it to a side entrance on the front of the house (by laundry room and half bath). Our family should normally be coming into the home from basement/garage, so I was planning to have lockers either in basement at base of stairs and/or in the small closet off of the dining area at the landing of the stairs. The landing area is small though, so I am not sure how much storage I can really fit there ��" I will sure try to make it work though!

Gobruno: Thank you for your suggestion of a window in the stairwell. I will at least put one at the landing to brighten it up. Great idea!

Arkansasfarmchick: Very good point regarding computer space in kitchen. I definitely want to be able to monitor their computer usage, so avoiding computer desks in the boys’ bedrooms is a wise idea.

Mommyto4boys: Your input on the room size was especially helpful since you have firsthand experience with your sons’ huge rooms. Thanks for sharing, and ouch on their dislike of their awesome Pottery Barn stuff! Boys!

Athensmomof3: Great point about groups of kids being able to hang out in the den area versus bedrooms and being able to have mixed sexes hang out there as well.
_______
Before I posted I had toyed with the idea of a den upstairs, but now I’m sure! All of your comments helped me to convince my husband as well. He really loved the idea of huge bedrooms and I was just not convinced. I am now planning to have a den upstairs that will be approximately 17’ x 12.5’ and the boys’ bedrooms will be approximately 14.5’ x 12.5’ (I think). We might eventually make part of the garage/basement into a game room, but that will be years down the road. With the den upstairs we can start enjoying it right away, so thanks once more for all the great ideas for that space!

~papergirl

Something to consider: As your kids get older and don't take up so much of your time, and as you get older yourselves, you may find that you and your husband have slightly different schedules/preferences on the time each of you goes to bed or gets up. Whoever goes into the kitchen to fix coffee or breakfast may find that this can be difficult to do without waking the other person, when the bedroom door is so close to the kitchen. Ditto on anyone using the family room when one of you wants to go to sleep. I would want (and have) more separation between the master BR and these public rooms, and 2 doors between them to muffle the noise. YMMV.

Anne

Something to consider: As your kids get older and don't take up so much of your time, and as you get older yourselves, you may find that you and your husband have slightly different schedules/preferences on the time each of you goes to bed or gets up. Whoever goes into the kitchen to fix coffee or breakfast may find that this can be difficult to do without waking the other person, when the bedroom door is so close to the kitchen. Ditto on anyone using the family room when one of you wants to go to sleep. I would want (and have) more separation between the master BR and these public rooms, and 2 doors between them to muffle the noise. YMMV.

Anne

14x12.5 is a pretty good amount of space for a kid/teen. I think it is well worth it to gain the den. I always think it's a great idea in any house, especially when it's a family, to have a space to "escape" to that isn't a bedroom. It helps defuse things and get eachother 'out of each other's faces" especially when there are teens involved.

The Master Bedroom thing that jim and anne pointed out makes sense if you are a light sleeper. I am a very heavy sleeper so it wouldn't bother me, but if you're a light sleeper (many parents are), I can see how kitchen noise would bother.

jimandanne - good point about the kitchen/family room noise. My husband is a heavy sleeper and I am an extremely heavy sleeper, but when I am just driting off noise sometimes keeps me awake. Maybe I will at least put a lot of insulation around the master bedroom walls and get a good solid door to help block out the sound.

Krycek - I agree that 14 x 12.5 is a good amount of space for spare bedrooms. Our current master bedroom is 14 x 13 and feels plenty big with a queen bed, 2 dressers and 2 nightstands. Having that bonus room will definitely be nice, and as someone else mentioned it can be a good guest bedroom as well. We can just get a futon or something.

I am so excited to build! Thanks again for the advice. :)

Along the same lines as the family room noise concern, I would worry about family room noise transmitting to the boy's bedrooms. If they are asleep and you want to watch tv, their bedroom doors are right there - will it bother them? I would want more separation between their rooms and the family room if I were living there, but your family may work differently than mine!

Our upstairs bedrooms are 12x12, 12x12, and 12x14. Each of them as a good-sized walk-in closet. Even at that size, the kids have plenty of room for their "stuff", as well as room for a bed, dresser, desk.

On the other hand, it looks as if your master is about 13x14, and that would be too small for us--I want room for a king sized bed, 2 nightstands, 2 dressers, a chair, and for us, a small bookcase. I realize not everyone has the luxury, but I'd definitely want to make the master large enough for a king sized bed.

I'd want a slightly larger laundry area, although I don't fold in my laundry area. (I don't keep piles of laundry in there, either--it's bring in, wash, dry, take out)

Don't jamb the stair into the corner. Add another riser and pull the nosings back a half tread from the corner for a continuous slope railing.

The stair landing off the dining nook should be longer to prevent falling down the stairway when opening the door. Trade the closet for safety. The door should be larger for furniture movement.

The plans would be much easier to read if they were arranged in the order of their relative height above grade and the American cut-line convention was used for the stairs. By the time I figured it out I had lost interest in the rest of the plan.

I think you're all right in that your kids' bedrooms can definitely go smaller, and the third bedroom/guest room/rec room would still be a good size. Our master is almost half the upstairs, and 3 kids' bedrooms are the other half! They're small ones, about 11 x 12, but that's much bigger than 2 of them sharing a 9 x 11 bedroom, which is what we're currently doing.

Your master bed is up against the window, right? So you need either a high window or a low headboard.

Did someone already mention that a couple of your doors might want to swing the other way?

We're building into a hill, and our plans specified 20mil vapor barrier, and our builder said that 10mil was more common, he couldn't find 20mil, so ended up putting 15mil x 2 layers, just to be absolutely sure that he met the specs on the plans. I think yours says 6mil.

Can a window go into your upstairs bathroom? It's nice to get ventilation and light into the bathroom. I couldn't get my kids bathrooms on outside walls, since I wanted more bedroom windows, but they all have skylights.

Can you do something with that storage space off the kids' bathroom? make THAT the laundry room somehow? That gives you a little more space to play with for the foyer, and even if that becomes storage, it's easier to store holiday stuff downstairs, than upstairs...

Thank you all again for the great advice. I might not have thought about what kind of vapor barrier to use, but I will definitely pay attention to that now. Thanks for bringing that up.

We were supposed to bring our plans and bids to the bank this week to try to get final loan approval. Yesterday our contractor advised us that he thinks we should scrap this whole plan and start with a new one! We are building on a steep hill and he gave us a lot of logical reasons to choose a different plan. Long story!

Anyway, all of your great advice will not go to waste, as I will definitely remember all of it when coming up with a new floor plan. Maybe I can find a way to design a big mud room and make the bedrooms more secluded from noise, design a better stairwell, bigger master suite,awesome game room, etc.

Okay, since you're proposing building what is essentially a three-story house, I'm going to go off the deep end here and suggest that you SERIOUSLY consider adding home elevator to your plans!

Lugging groceries upstairs from the garage is going to get old in a big hurry. And, if someone in your family ever gets hurt and is on crutches, it is going to be really really difficult for them to get in/out of your house. And, if they are wheelchair-bound - even temporarily - it will be absolutely impossible. In a few years your sons will likely be playing sports and it is not that uncommon for athletic teenagers to wind up with a broken leg or needing knee surgery at some point. Are you or your husband going to carry a 180 lb 17 y.o. son up/down all those steps???

You can get a 3-level home elevator installed in a new build for around $30K. I know that is a LOT of money. But, with a new build, people often spend that much and more just upgrading from standard to top-of-the-line appliances and putting in fancy granite countertops. With a 3 story house, an elevator would be at the top of my priority list.

I would put an elevator right where you have that downstairs powder-room. Upstairs it would fit into the right-hand half of the "office" and in the garage level it would fit beside the left parking bay. With your design, you would need to get an elevator that opens up in different directions at the different levels. At the basement level you would probably want it to open toward the "south" and on the upstairs level it would have to open toward the "north". At the main level, the elevator could open either direction but you would need to remove the closet if you wanted the elevator to open toward the dining room. Personally, I'd probably have it open towards the south on the main level.

BTW, if you close in a portion of you garage - to create an entry room around the stairs, you can get away with removing the door in the dining room that leads to the basement stairs. Not having a door swinging in toward the top of the basement stairs would make that area safer.

Next, I would completely remove the laundry room from the main level and remove the remaining portion of the "office" so as to leave the staircase open along one side (railing instead of wall). That would allow you to have a very nice "entry foyer." As your house is currently designed, guests arriving at the front door must walk down a relatively narrow hallway past the staircase, past your laundry room, and past the powderroom before finally getting into the heart of your home. That is NOT going to feel at all welcoming.... especially since they first have to climb a fairly lengthy set of exterior stairs/steps just to get to the front door in the first place! You really need a transition space. You NEED a spot where, when you answer the front door, you can step back and say "come in" and actually welcome your guests BEFORE you have to turn your back on them and lead them down the hallway. Getting rid of the laundry room and opening up the staircase would give you that welcoming space. Plus, you'ld have the added advantage that, while coming down the stairs, you would have a view of those windows to the deck instead of being in that tight enclosed stairwell!

Next, if it could possibly be done, I would move the front door to the spot where the three windows are (across from the current laundry room). This would require having the exterior stairs/steps lead up to the deck instead of to the side of the house. But, if that side of the house faces the street, it would make the front door more obvious and therefore make the house more welcoming. You could still have lovely windows surrounding the door. Moving the front door so that it opens out onto the deck would also allow you to incorporate a portion of the deck into "transition space" from outdoors to indoors.

Upstairs, I would definitely make the two bedrooms a lot smaller and put in third room to serve as a SHARED den/playroom/study room for the two kids. IMHO, kids should be encouraged to play and spend time together and with the family. They should be discouraged from spending too much time holed up alone in their individual bedrooms. Giving a kid a huge bedroom seems to me to send exactly the opposite message.

Plus once kids reach their teen years, you sure don't want them entertaining friends in their bedrooms. Far better for them to have to do their entertaining in a shared space where they know a sibling (or Mom and Dad) can be expected to walk in at anytime without knocking!

Besides, with a murphy-bed along one wall, the boy's den/playroom could also serve as a guest room when you need one. (Don't the grandparents ever come to visit?) Or, if you should ever have another child, it could become a permanent third bedroom without requiring you to do extensive remodeling.

Unfortunately, with an elevator where the powder-room is and the stairwell opened up to create a foyer, you really don't have a good spot left on the main floor for a guest powder-room. Instead, I'd put a powder-room upstairs and probably add a shower in it as well so that overnight guests don't have to use the boy's bathroom (ugh!). I'll admit that upstairs is not the best location for a guest powder-room but, with an elevator to use to get up/down stairs it's not a terrible option either. I find my guests all want to take at least one ride in my elevator anyway. LOL!

Finally, move the laundry room either down to the basement or up to the second floor. With a home elevator, moving laundry up/down stairs ceases to be a horrible chore. I'd probably put it in the basement b/c that eliminates noise issues and reduces potential flooding problems. And do make your laundry room bigger so that you have room to sort and fold clothing there and room to hang things to dry. I know you said you fold laundry in the living room now - but as the boys get a little older, don't you want to teach them to do their own laundry? If so, there are going to be times that they start the job and then wander off and forget about it for awhile. You can "nag" but it is usually far more effective to just allow their laundry to sit there undone until they realize that THEY have to finish it themselves b/c Mom won't! That means there may be "piles" that sit around for days. You will find it a lot easier to hang tough if those piles of laundry are NOT right next to your front door. LOL!

Oh, one last thing. You show a sink in the basement. Why not add a toilet as well so that, when you're outside it it not necessary to come all the way indoors to use a bathroom? You have plenty of room.

If you want, I'll spend a little time this weekend fiddling with your drawings using my paint program and show you the changes I would envision.

p.s., no I don't work for an elevator company but here is a link to the company that makes the brand I got. I will admit, we had quite a bit of trouble with it when they first installed it - turned out to have a bad mother-board or something like that - but once they finally figured out what was wrong and got it fixed, it has been wonderful! There are other companies that make and sell home elevators as well. Just do a google search and you'll find them.

Here is a link that might be useful: ThyssenKrupp home elevators

Bevangel - thank you for all of your great advice! I mentioned in the post above yours that, unfortunately, we have to scrap this whole plan. And we were soooo close to having it finalized! All of this great advice will not go to waste though, because we are still going to build a similar rectangular house, just face the narrow part toward the street instead of the wide part.

We will attach the garage to the side of the house instead of basement level. We will only have 2 stories in the new home so won't need an elevator, but thanks for the information about them. You are right that when you put it in perspective of how much you spend on all the little things for your house $30k doesn't seem outrageous for something that is so useful.... and fun :).

Oh I know how disappointing it can be to scrap a design and start over fresh - but sometimes that is the best way to proceed.

Since you ARE starting over, may I suggest that you give careful consideration to the direction that your new house will face and the direction of your best views.
Since you've already mentioned that you'll be building on a steep hill, I'm guessing you have some great views and you'll want to place windows to take advantage of those. But, in doing so, you'll also want to design so that your windows will get maximum sunlight when you want it (i.e., on cooler days) and be shaded as much as possible on those hot summer days.

Also, give a LOT of thought to the way you and your family currently use your home and how you WANT your new home to LIVE over the years. Think how you want your home to function now AND when your boys are teenagers, and then when they're all grown up and maybe bringing their own children to visit Gramma and Gramppop. How much privacy do you want? How much togetherness do you want? Do you entertain? As your boys get older, do you want your house to be the place they and their friends congregate? How easily do you want to be able to supervise their activities? Is your family outdoorsy? sporty? or, rather sedentary?

Think about all the daily activities of your lives starting with early morning and moving to late night. Think about life as you live it (or want to live it) on the weekends as well as on workdays. Think about party times; family times; and chore times.

For example, visualize all of you getting out of bed and getting ready for school and work (who gets up first? who is gonna shower where? will they wake someone else who wants to and can sleep in? where will clean clothes that haven't yet been put away BE when son has just GOT to have a particular t-shirt THIS morning? who will fix breakfast? who will clean up the breakfast dishes? will we be trying to put lunches together at the same time? where will bookbags and lunches and hats and coats and gloves be found when we're all rushing to get out of the house at the same time? and HOW will this all change as the boys get older and take on more responsibilities?

A lot of the fun of designing a house is in visualizing yourself and your family actually living and growing in the house... and doing so will help you design a house that lives the way you want it to.

Good luck and do post your preliminary designs here for feedback. We all just LOVE looking at floor-plans and picking them apart.

Thanks again for the wonderful advice bevangel. I will definitely try to keep it all in mind while working on the new plan. I'm struggling a bit trying to make everything fit on the new plan, but once I get it finished I will gladly post it here so it can be picked apart!

You have a lot of great ideas here, maybe starting over won't be as painful as you think. We'd been in our "forever" house for 2.5 years before it was hit by a tornado; the very last thing I ever wanted to do was build a custom home again, but it's amazing how many things I'm doing differently this time. Many changes I would never have known to make without living in what I thought was a "close to perfect" house first.

Having a small separation between master bedrm entrance and living space: didn't have it before, but am building a small alcove-like space that gives you a few steps' separation between great room and door to Master this time. I found I hated having my bedroom open directly into the living room!

I had both my boys upstairs in large rooms before, both will be on first floor and a little smaller this time. However, I had a bath in each room last time and am doing the same now. Since I hope to be here when they are bringing families home for holidays, I'm trying to think about spouses and children, plenty of room as well as privacy.

One thing I did right last time was give up the open-to-ceiling family room. I didn't want to decorate it, for one, and since the space is already framed and roofed, simply adding a floor over the family room gave us a wonderful playroom on the second floor between boys' bedrms.

This time the playroom IS the second floor: we wanted a mostly single-floor house w/all the bedrms downstairs, but still wanted the wonderful flexibility that came w/a separate playroom. So there's a little sitting area at the top of the stairs, a small full bath for guests, and a wonderful playroom w/an entertainment loft about 7 ft above playroom floor. It's going to be an incredible useful and fun area, I think, and should serve us in a variety of ways throughout the diff stages of our family life.

I had my first nice laundry room in last house, and am doing it even better this time: separating it from the general garage-entry and mudroom area w/a pocket door. That whole area was all one space last time, and everything just felt cluttered all the time. Of course, better organization of the mudroom and the laundry rooms themselves will help, too!

But honestly? The biggest changes after living in first house for a while are 1) everyone on same floor, and 2) slight separation of master bedrm from family room. I think you'll find you're looking at things a little differently after living w/the idea of the first floorplan and picturing some of the great ideas you've been given here. Maybe a "second draft" will be exactly what you needed!

Good luck, and please give us a shot at the new plan! ;)

Riley605 - I'm so sorry to hear that the tornado destroyed your home. It sounds like you have a great positive attitude about the new build, but that must have been a difficult thing to go through.

I really appreciate you sharing the things you would change. I'm definitely going to think about what you said about separating your laundry from your mudroom in your new house. I had planned to combine the two, but now that you mention the clutter I can really see that happening easily in my house too, so I will strongly consider the pocket door or another kind of separation.

In the new plan our master bedroom is next to the kitchen, so I was thinking of at least placing a big walk-in closet and maybe pantry between to two rooms to create some separation and a bit of a hallway, as I definitely think it would feel weird to go from kitchen directly to bedroom! I can't wait to post my new plan and get more awesome advice from everyone :)