New here. Please critique my house plan sketch, thanks
angeliquereagan
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
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angeliquereagan
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Please Critique My House Plan!
Comments (9)As others have said the garage is nice and big which is fine but does overshadow the rest of the house somewhat. If it can be sideloaded it might help. The windows appear to be casement ..which is fine but you have somewhat narrow windows. I would suggest considering double hung windows. You can usually get them a bit wider and also operable but they are usually cheaper than casements. Im just not a fan of too many narrow windows that you see more frames/sash than you do glass and view. The wrapping porch is almsot worthless. I would consider just taking the house straight across and changing shape and orientation of the closet. The stairs does apprear to be very tight and may not work well. Im not sure of ceiling heights. They should be 42" wide MINIMUM in a scissors stair configuration and the landing should be that deep as well. You have to consider getting furniture up and down. Then you have to consider when its on an outside wall the foundation sticks at least 4 inches further into the landing and if you want to furr it out and finish it you lose another 4 inches. So possibly you may want to add a bit of space there as well. The family room is a bit narrow/shallow at 13'-6" or so. lay out some furniture and you will find it fairly tight Im guessing. The other area that is tight is the laundry. You will be walking through it quite often and clothes and shoes laying around will make it quite tough to keep organized. Its always tough to judge because we arent aware of your restrictions and budget but if possible consider making a seperate laundry room. Good luck...See MorePlease critique my plan; thanks!!!
Comments (16)I understand what you are trying to do with the 4 foot increments; however in real life they mostly don't work out that way because you have to account for the dimensions of the layers, such as drywall, finish trim, siding/brick/stone, etc. So it's important not to go OVER your increment, but it's very likely you will go slightly under most places, or else you will end up with slightly over on external surfaces. If you are planning for certain siding lengths on the exterior then this can put you into small pieces, etc. On the interior: depending on how you cover your windows, there may be space lost due to window coverings out into the room. For example, if you use curtains (and curtains are an energy saving layer at night when drawn during cold weather), they typically use up at least six inches into the room off the wall. So a window over a dresser will use up your dresser top with curtain overhang, etc. Or if the curtains go to the floor then you would have to pull your dresser out 6-8 inches from the wall. Likewise for the desk in your second bedroom. Don't forget this same concept with your barn door, too. You will have to pull furniture out 6-9 inches for the door to clear behind any furniture pieces. Right now you have furniture pieces in the track of your barn door, in the drawing. It's also very awkward to have a piece of furniture partially covered by a window, as it looks your master night stands will be. Much better to have pure wall behind them, or all window, but not in between - it will not look right visually. Remember that your birdseye view shows only the window width. You then have to visually account for more width due to casing/trim and then a few more inches still if you hang curtains and have the rod wider than the casing. Allow about six inches between the bed and a night stand, too. That six inch gap is the perfect place for an outlet bedside. But you also just need it for space. If you have a seating corner in the master bedroom, you will likely sometimes read while sitting there. Therefore you need real estate to put a desk lamp or floor lamp, for lighting. Next up to think about: lighting (and where the controls will be) for the dining and living rooms. This is more of a challenge than it first looks, because you need most your light coming from above in this over-sized single space. Normally you get a good chunk of light bounced off the walls in smaller rooms, but in the case of huge rooms then your light has to come from above and be adequate without being piercing to the eyes. You'll want at least two carefully placed floor outlets in the living room. You'll want to locate your dining table light fixture carefully so it ends up over the table correctly. We did a chandelier type fixture centered over the table, and then two down pointing cans, one on either side of the chandelier. In our case, the chandelier has frosted type glass and the bulbs in the glass pointing UP. It does a great job of washing the ceiling with light, but the table is muffled and rather dark. So we needed down light as well to increase the intensity of light on the table, which you want so you can see well when you are eating, and to highlight table decor. One thing you can do in the living room is plan wall sconces along the available walls that will wash the walls with light both upwards and downwards. Another approach is to place some ceiling can lights near walls, such that their light cones then hit and wash down the wall (if you don't want to have sconces on the walls) Otherwise the room will tend to look dark during non daylight times. Don't underestimate how lit walls will make the atmosphere inviting and cheerful, whereas non-lit walls, even with good ceiling light, tend to make a space dreary. Another great option is to use carefully planned LED strips up against the wall or ceiling, to make a light wash, similar to above cabinet lighting. These concepts do not have to be expensive to do or energy hogs, either, if done carefully. In our bedrooms we used wall mounted two x 4 foot fluorescent t8 fixtures, mounted horizontally on the wall up high. We then put up a curtain rod and valence/cornice to cover the fixture. Light washes the wall and ceiling from the top bulb, and washes down the wall from the bottom bulb, but does NOT glare into your eyes, due to the valence/cornice. Very cheap to do, very inexpensive energy-wise for the amount of light you get, very cheap parts to replace. Lighting is one area where you can EAT IT in your budget if you don't plan carefully, both in buying fixtures and in energy consumption. The three big challenges of "open concept" spaces are furniture placement in the absence of walls, lighting, and electrical outlet placement. (With a two story house you have another: infrastructure placement such as heating ducts and plumbing lines to reach the second floor, but this doesn't apply in your one-story house case.) Don't forget there are in-between models, too, to open concept. Half walls maintain the visual feel of open concept, but also allow for furniture placement against a (half) wall and outlets placed in (half) walls. One thing we did was put cased openings (like glassless windows between rooms) in the wall between our den and dining room. This was intermediate between a wall and open concept. It gave us the wall space we needed for furniture placement and in-wall infrastructure (ducts, etc.) but still gave visual sense of openness between the two rooms. It was a great balance for us. I'm not seeing glaring wasted space. There are a few pockets of space that are just... space. Like the chunk outside the entrance door to the master bathroom. There's a chunk in the guest bedroom. You'll want to trim the size of the shower in the master back into that niche and not bring it the whole size of the niche. This will cost much less to build, be MUCH more friendly to clean and maintain, and give you a chunk of "in-niche" space outside the shower where you can have your ceiling ventilation fan mounted (in our case we mounted two heat lamps on either side of the fan in that niche, but they are on separate control so we don't burn energy using them unless we are chilled). You have very generous spaces in general but not that much wasted space; part of it will be how you use the space and arrange stuff in it. One more thought: if you are a pet person, then plan for real estate for feeding, food storage, bed/crate, toy storage, litter box, etc. And a cabinet or drawer for pet related stuff (grooming brushes, treats, etc.) This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Jul 30, 14 at 22:59...See MoreNew House Plans... Please help and critique...
Comments (10)I don't think it's a bad plan, but it needs some tweaking: - I agree that the post in the foyer has to go. The space just doens't allow for it. - Do you intend to use the office as an office? It appears to be set up for a possible bedroom. Since it looks like money is an issue, I'd consider eliminating the 3rd bathroom. This space in this bathroom and the adjacent closet would make this area into a good-sized family room /office, and it would give you a place where someone could watch TV without disturbing the rest of the family in this otherwise very-open floorplan. - If you can go to 2000 square feet, I'd add a little extra width in the great room -- once you have furniture placed to the middle of this room (to allow walkways), you're looking at a rather tight room. - The dining room is too small for the table you've drawn. Also, squaring off that odd corner in the dining room will allow for better circulation around the table AND will cost less to build. I'd go with a sliding glass door in the dining room; that takes care of the "swing problem" and doesn't cut into your floor space. - As for the kitchen, I'd make it into a galley kitchen -- more usable space, and it could be a little more narrow (probably 9 foot wide, as opposed to your current almost 12), giving you a little more space in the great room -- space that could become a real eating bar. I'd adjust the pantry /laundry rooom ... oh, I'm just going to draw a sketch. - I'd try to give a little more sinks space to the hall bath. - I'd move the back-bedroom closet to the other side of the rooom. It'd provide a buffer between the bathroom /living room (noise), and it'd allow for nicer windows towards the back yard. - Is that a window in the front closet bedroom? I'd look at moving this closet somehow....See MoreNewbie here - please critique my MB plan
Comments (5)olychick... thanks for your feedback. I suppose I just needed to hear it from someone other than my DH that side-by-side baths are ok. And that wall that butts up against the tub in the left bathroom "hides" view of toilet from hallway/doorway, so no need to reverse the door there. weedyacres... I think you hit the nail on the head about the disproportion of my MB layout. Something about it doesn't sit right with me, but I'm not very good with visualizing things based on a plan drawing. I'm not sure what you mean by shifting the closet down. Do you mean moving it into the current Playroom? We would like to keep that room undisturbed since it will be the office after the addition is done and building into that space would make it less than ideal for what we had in mind. What do you think about switching location of the shower to where vanity is? And moving MB door to the bedroom side (thus opening into the bedroom, rather than hallway)? I am open to making the shower smaller, too. Our contractor is suggesting building walls around shower so there would only be glass door (apparently, glass panels that large cost a LOT)....See Moreangeliquereagan
9 years agoangeliquereagan
9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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