Get an architect!

Check out the Farmhouse Revival Plan on Southern Livings Website. That is the house we are building and the great room/fam room is in the front. In front of the kitchen.

Thank you!!! That Farmhouse Revival Plan is EXACTLY what we are looking for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And autumn_4_gov those Don Gardner plans are great too! I'm going to peel through those between those and the farmhouse revival the other poster sent we may have exactly what we are looking for! WOW Thank you both SO MUCH!

Thank you so much for the links to these floorplans! I too am designing a house with the great room on the front to capture the light from our southern exposure (as well as a connected sunroom).

Hi everyone! I am so glad I found this post. Would anyone mind sharing their layout of their home with the greatroom at the front of the house and how you incorporated the kitchen please ?

Doesn't anybody know what an architect does??

sapphire0905, I recently posted my plan with the greatroom on the front if you want to check it out (plan by architectrunnerguy): http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4565569/new-house-plan-reveal-a-la-arg-hooray

Mark !!! --- HI ---- yes I sure do! Thank you for your question !

kawerkamp.. this sounds just like me..After much hemming and hawing over our previous houseplan ---

Now I want to change mine and put the great room at the entry of the home. Thank you for sharing your link !

It amazes me that some people will spend "hours upon hours" looking for the perfect house plan when they can spend an hour or two with an architect and get what they want. Those house plans online or in books are someone else's dreams (or nightmares); build your own dream.

I digress.

My BIL and wife spent a year searching the internet for a house design. They finally asked me to design it. I talked to them for 2 hours and sent them a preliminary design a week later. Their response was "let's build it". And we did. The builder still uses it in full page magazine ads with no mention of who designed it.

The internet is a great resource but not for a complete house design. The designers shoot for what they think the average person might like. Why would those designs be worth searching through? If you want something special you have to pay for it. I would have no idea where to begin if I were to design a house to sell online.

Hello sapphire. I will post my plan, it is a single level but somewhat different than typical designs, as it was designed with consideration to our lot restrictions and, of course, our needs and wants. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4449548/the-journey-for-the-plan-has-finally-been-realized-long?n=40

Hint: Many experienced and creative architects, who design custom, single family homes, have tons of designs stored in their minds with great rooms in the front...and the back, and the side, and upstairs and downstairs...just about everywhere that "great" is possible...doesn't take hours upon hours to find those architects! :-)

Why would those designs be worth searching through?

In my case, I still look through them and run through the exercise of how I would place furniture and move through them in a typical day. Once I learned about bubble diagrams from this forum, I realized I still didn't have a concrete idea on which rooms I would like to have close to each other, or what type of exposure, etc. It's been a very useful exercise in my opinion, as I'm learning what I should be asking for once I am ready to start interviewing architects. For example, now I know that I prioritize garage location highly (exposure for passive snow melt, proximity to kitchen for putting away groceries, etc), but that I'm still conflicted about master bedroom location. Now I'll be able to correctly identify garage location as a need, but leave bedroom location up to the expert based on whatever else I learn along the way.

Hence the question you should ask is, "How are you going to drag the information out of me that you need to design a home for me that meets my every need?" If they don't tell you they will probably show you.

Building a variation of this: https://www.hamillcreek.com/portfolio/buena-vista/ 

Jennifer I hope you plan on changing the kitchen up to something functional. I would highly suggest posting it on the kitchen forum.

Conducting to the watering place

A quadruped of equine race

Is simple but he may not care

To practice imbibition there.

Can anyone help me find a one story home with great room and dining in front . We have a view of the water we want to see . I have looked at so, so many many plans , and 995 have everything in back of house . Thanks for any help yiu can give me .

@angeladevoted Tate You will not find a plan on the internet, plan book or magazines which will suit your specific wants or needs. Ask me how I know. After searching for a year or so, we hired @Architectrunnerguy (Doug) on this forum. I posted my experience up thread.