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Please comment - final floor plan

11 years ago

Here is our final floorplan. We are building a 5200 sq feet home on a riverfront property. I would appreciate any comments/suggestions.

Thanks!

This post was edited by lzhwong on Thu, Jan 9, 14 at 14:14

Comments (15)

lzhwong
Original Author
11 years ago
Second floor

This post was edited by lzhwong on Thu, Jan 9, 14 at 14:15
pps7
11 years ago
Well thought out plan. Here are a few things to consider:

1. You have a 5200 square foot house- please find room for a water closet in the master bath! You can possibly put in a pocket door and leave the toilet as is. The master bathroom is one room that I think could use some work. Is that a window above one of the vanities? It feels cramped while the bedroom is huge.

2. The 3 car garage sticking out in the front may negatively impact your front elevation. not sure if you can change it based on lot size or other restrictions.

3. I would want a door to the Mudroom from the outside and maybe a small covered porch there.

4. the stairs may be dark upstairs( we have this problem, so lean from my mistake!). can you put a sky light or solar tube?

Good luck!
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Re the T-shaped island... Seeing your inspiration photo helps me understand how you want the T-shaped island to function and it is a lovely idea. I'm just afraid that you may not have made the base of the T long enough for it to really serve the purpose you want. It looks like the seating area on each side is about 3 ft long. (I'm guessing based on comparing it to the width of your cabinets). I'm also guessing that you're planning on 4 people being able to sit together there(two on each side). If so, you may find that the two people sitting closest to the prep sink wind up feeling a bit squished. With a countertop blocking free arm movement on one side and a dining companion blocking free arm movement on the other side, 18" might not be wide enough. I could be wrong tho. Perhaps you could do a "mock up" by putting a couple of tables together to simulate the island then seeing if the planned seating area will work for your family. BTW - don't let your concern for your designer's frustrations at redrawing things stop you from getting your plans EXACTLY right. I didn't go back to my designer and make him fix the number and location of my porch posts yet one more time like I should have. He had had them RIGHT on one set of plans and then apparently pulled up a previously saved version and "lost" the correction on the next set and, having fixed the posts once, I didn't notice the problem again until we had already had 10 sets of the final drawings printed up and were in the process of getting bids. I had wanted one fewer post across the front of my house and the remaining ones each spaced about 18" further apart to make up the difference. This would have placed the posts so they FRAMED the front bay windows and my front porch swing symetrically. As it is, one post sits off center in front of my bay window and another post blocks my view from the porch swing. I figured, "what the heck, they're just porch posts. I'll just tell the builder where I want them to go. No need to get new drawings." Wrong! By the time we finally got thru the bidding process and had picked a builder, the issue had slipped my mind again. My porch posts are structural supports for the porch roof and for a deck that sits above the roof. They were framed up - exactly as the plans showed - and I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong until one day while getting rid of junk, I happened across an earlier set of plans showing the posts in the correct position. By that point, our porch roof was on and the roof deck was done. Changing the posts would have meant pretty much taking the whole porch and roof deck back down and starting over. Total cost to fix - nearly $15,000. I had to leave them alone. No one else notices the lack of symmetry (or, at least if they do, they'e too kind to say anything) but it bothers me no end and always will. Getting you plans exactly RIGHT falls under the "measure twice and cut once" mandate. If redrawing frustrates your designer, too bad. That's what you pay him for. (Besides, he's doing it on a computer so it's not like he has to redraw every line by hand. LOL!
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Without dimensions on the plans, it is difficult to tell exactly how big the Living Room area is but, it LOOKS to me like you should have plenty of room for a reasonable amount of furniture in there without it looking or feeling cramped. I think the way the master bath is designed is very I personally would not want to devote as much square footage to the bath as this design requires but it is different and looks fairly functional. If your shower won't have doors then I suspect you'll get a bit of water splashing onto the floor outside the shower but with tiled floors that probably won't bother you. I don't think you'll be able to switch the laundry and toilet as Yillimuh suggested tho unless you're willing to lose your hall closet. Too bad because it would have been good to have the toilet a bit closet to the bed and nice to have the laundry closer to the closet. Since you mention you're retiring, have you given much thought to the possibility that you or your spouse may one day become wheelchair bound. One problem with "toilet rooms" is that they're usually too small for a wheelchair to get in/out of. So, people wind up having to tear down the walls surrounding their toilets. While your toilet is tucked back out of the way, consider if you had to take the wall with the pocket door out completely to allow wheelchair access, would you still be okay with entering your master bedroom thru the bathroom then? Do look into sound insulating the wall between the game room and powder room. The game room is nicely positioned to be repurposed as either a formal dining room or a formal parlor if you or a future owner should ever decide to do so. If used as a formal dining room, you wouldn't want to be able to hear the sounds from the powderroom during dinner. Finally, do you mind my asking where your garage is? At first I assumed it was next to your kitchen and I was going to comment that your kitchen might be a bit dark since the only natural light would filtering in from the sunroom...but then I noticed the window over the sink - so the garage can't be on that side. Then I thought it might be at the front of the house (in front of the kitchen office) but, again, you have windows there so that can't be it. Is the garage "semi-attached"? (i.e., connected to the house only via the mud room? If so, please be aware that if you're on a slab, the mud-room section of concrete may be highly subject to cracking. That piece of concrete slab like a small bridge between two very large slabs of concrete. It is natural for monolithic slabs to tend to shift around a little bit. As long as the entire slab moves as a whole, you don't get cracking. But with that "bridge," the garage slab and house slab will basically be two independent slabs and will probably move independently of each other. The bridging section probably won't be strong enough to force the garage slab and the house slab to "move together". And, if they move independently, cracks will show up running across your mud room floor. Even if you have cuts in the concrete to direct cracking to a specific spot, it may not work. I know because I have a similar design with a screened porch connecting my garage to my house. The screened porch is 10 ft wide by 14 ft long. (14 ft from house to garage.) We got our first crack across the screen porch slab within two months of the foundation being poured! After almost three years, the cracking and shifting seems to have pretty much settled down - but we have a half-inch wide crack running clear across the screen room floor in one place and a second smaller crack (maybe 1/8 inch wide) running across clear the screen room floor in another spot. The cracks look pretty ugly but at least it is a porch floor and eventually we'll put down composite pavers (made of recycled tires) to cover the cracks. I'd have been sick if the cracks had been in my nicely tiled mud-room floor. Just thought you ought to know.
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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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Steps to a tub are a HUGE safety hazard. HUGE. The only way that it's ever recommended is if a non slip coating is applied to them and you have several grab bars that are easy to access. An island cooking zone is a lot more expensive and difficult to construct than one against a wall. With 70% of the time spent in the kitchen devoted to prep, it's also a false way of accomplishing sociability in the kitchen> Better to devote an island to prep only with the cooking zone a quick pivot and turn away. The breakfast area is too small and the dining area is too large and too far. Then you have seating at the island too. Better to have a single more versatile eating area that can expand and just the casual stools at the island than to have 3 places that don't work well for any of the eating functions. If you've got enough room for the angled garage, then you have enough room to do a side load garage. That will be a MUCH more attractive look. There's a lot of wierd space wasting awkward angles in the master that don't add anything to the functionality and just cost you money. And the closet is as big as a bedroom. The whole master area occupies way too much space proportionately for the amount of time it's actually occupied --and you're asleep.
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virgilcarter
11 years ago
Three sets of stairs? I think you could save a lot of space and walking if you had a more efficient vertical circulation system.

Good luck on your project!
lzhwong
Original Author
11 years ago
pps7: Thanks for all of your comments. We specifically did not want a WC as it feels claustrophobic to both my husband and myself. The window above one of the vanities is a transom window. I wanted to get as much natural light as possible. There will also be a skylight in the master bath. I was also concerned about the back staircase being dark so there will be a solatube there. I'm not a fan of the 3 car garage but there is nothing we can do about it.

virgilcarter: There are two staircases. One in the foyer and one near the kitchen. The third staircase that you see on the second floor is to the attic. We wanted a walk up attic instead of one of those stairs that you pull down.

Thanks again!
LuAnn_in_PA
11 years ago
"virgilcarter: There are two staircases. One in the foyer and one near the kitchen. The third staircase that you see on the second floor is to the attic.

LOL... so there's three sets of stairs, as virgilcarter said!
virgilcarter
11 years ago
For a long time, it has been quite common for multi-level houses to have stairs that are combined in one location to provide access to 3 and 4-level houses.

The space and expense saved by eliminating seperate stairs is often better used in living spaces. Perhaps in a 5,200 SF house economy of means is not an issue!

Only a thought!
chispa
11 years ago
You could do a cat walk along the edges of the open foyer and then stack the attic staircase over the foyer staircase. Make it a bit curved and it looks really cool when looking up from the ground floor. Center part of foyer will still be open.
kirkhall
11 years ago
You can see your powder room/toilet from the breakfast area. Maybe flip the bathroom appliances around so you won't have to look at them from the table.
motherof3sons
11 years ago
I agree with Kirkhall. This is a layout flaw in our new build we did not catch and it drives me crazy. We always keep the door closed and have EZ close lids on every toilet in the house. Guests always leave the door open and the lid up. Yuck! I am forever closing both.

Shift the bath fixtures and the door.
zone4newby
11 years ago
I like it. If you were looking to cut square footage, I'd consider getting rid of the sun room, because I think it robs the breakfast area of light and blocks views from the family room, while duplicating the purpose of the upstairs playroom (which I could see being a pretty wonderful place).

It looks like the bathroom next to the playroom is going to be for the exclusive use of bedroom #4. I think it's unfortunate that they can't be connected so it's ensuite.

What is the primary way you see kids going out to play-- is it through the sunroom? I think I'd want some kind of closet in that area so they don't have to tromp across the house or leave piles of shoes/coats near the back door.

If it were me, I would forgo the bonus room in order to make the garage part of the house smaller, and the main house more prominent. I don't know what you have planned for this house, but it seems like the bonus space is pretty unnecessary.
lzhwong
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you for all of your awesome suggestions! I am definitely going to be flipping the bath fixtures in the powder room. I never even thought about that! Do you guys think I should move my prep sink so it faces the main sink instead of the oven?

zone4newby: The bonus room is actually going to be my husband's "mancave," where he will play his games and watch tv. Originally, his bonus room was much bigger but he gave me a few feet to make my laundry room bigger. In terms of the sunroom, it will be an area where the children can play while I cook. I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old so they will need my supervision for a few more years. When they are older, I envision them using the playroom more and the downstairs area will be converted back to a sunroom.
lzhwong
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you for all of your awesome suggestions! I am definitely going to be flipping the bath fixtures in the powder room. I never even thought about that! Do you guys think I should move my prep sink so it faces the main sink instead of the oven?

zone4newby: The bonus room is actually going to be my husband's "mancave," where he will play his games and watch tv. Originally, his bonus room was much bigger but he gave me a few feet to make my laundry room bigger. In terms of the sunroom, it will be an area where the children can play while I cook. I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old so they will need my supervision for a few more years. When they are older, I envision them using the playroom more and the downstairs area will be converted back to a sunroom.
Nick
11 years ago
Would it be possibe to add a pass-through kind of openining between the master bath and upstairs laundry room? I know there is a bit of height difference between the levels but I don't think the variation would be too much. It would be nice to toss dirty clothes right through the wall and into a laundry room hamper right before showering instead of having to haul them through the master and down the hall. Kind of like a laundry chute... but with no verticle chase.

This post was edited by nicke360 on Tue, Dec 11, 12 at 22:08
zone4newby
11 years ago
Have you lived in a house this large before? We are a family of 5 and are downsizing from 3800 sq.ft. to 2500 because we have discovered that much of our current home is rarely used, and we're tired of cleaning/maintaining/heating/cooling more house that we actually need.

I hope, at the very least, you will be able to hire some cleaning help while your children are so small.
okpokesfan
11 years ago
If I were building a 5200 square foot house, I would want my kids closets to be bigger. I have a 9 and 11 year old and in our new build I am making room in their closets to store toys, stuffed animals, more clothing, shoes, etc. This may not bother you but just a thought.

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