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Building a Home

Floor Plan Critique

Stephen Pickett

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

First post here on the forum. My wife and I have recently purchased a
lot to build our dream home. We are now in the process of finalizing our
choice on a plan. Our favorite thus far is one from a local architect I
have been communicating with. I made several changes (all of which he
agrees are possible), and ended up with a plan we very much like. I am
now looking for advice from those that have been there and done that.

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Comments (5)

sheloveslayouts
8 years ago
Do you have a drawing with more detailed dimensions?
mrspete
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Mostly good, but I see a few things that I think could be better:

- I like the kitchen and great room layout, but the dining room is so far from the kitchen (and down a dark hallway) that I don't see the dining room getting much use.
- I like that the backyard door is located on the corner, so it doesn't interfere with the breakfast nook or the great room's furniture placement, but it looks awfully small. Perhaps this is just the way it looks on a floor plan.
- I'd bring the refrigerator over to the end of the "L" nearer the pantry. You want all your food storage to be close together, and you want it to be near the entrance. You don't want to walk back and forth across the kitchen (disturbing the cook) as you put away your groceries.
- Do you really need a four-car garage?
- I don't care for the garage entry. The traffic flow will be poor (walk in, dead ahead is the dining room), and the door will "knock against" the bathroom door, and I'd like it better if it were closer to the kitchen -- I'm wondering if you could flip it with the laundry room for a better result. Yeah, I see that it messes up your bathroom entry, but if it could work out, it'd be better.
- Since you have a full bath available to guests, why go to the expense of a half-bath too? You have five bathrooms in this house -- do you really need that many (and want to clean that many)?
- Given that it's on an interior wall, how do you plan to vent the dryer?
- I'd bring the washer/dryer to the other side of the laundry room so that they'd be dead-ahead when you enter the room -- you'll use the cabinet and sink much less than you'll use the actual machines -- and this would also give you a little more "standing room" while you work at the machines.
- How much space do you have in front of the stairway? It looks awfully small on the floorplan.
- I think your "study" walk-in closet is too narrow.
- Are you using the space under the stairs for anything? Could you open the master bath linen closet into this space? It'd give you oodles of storage, even if it's just for suitcases and other "occasional" items.
- The inward-opening doors in the master closet will cover some of your clothes, meaning that you'll have to enter the closet and close the door to reach the clothing.
- In the master, where are you going to hang your shower towels?
- You have SIX doors in your master bath. Those doors'll block your way and make the space feel smaller.
- You have a long vanity, but you'll be standing way at the end to use your sink. Doesn't look comfortable.
- I'd want windows on both exterior walls of the master bedroom, and I'd want insulation between the master and the great room (for sound insulation).
- Upstairs, note that you have no bathroom available for bedroom 4 (just open the nearby bedroom to the hallway, and you're golden).
- Bedroom 4 could have about 3' more space in the closet ... if you allow it to encompass the attic opening ... and accept that you'll have to scootch things around to enter the attic. A worthwhile trade off? Only you know.
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Comments (23)
All this anti room-sharing and bath sharing! Good grief! For decades, families ALL shared ONE bathroom and managed, regardless of sex. I'm certainly not suggesting that we go back to one bathroom houses, but the idea that teenage opposite sex siblings cannot share a bath is ludicrous. Buy the girl a dressing table where she blows her hair dry and keeps any cosmetics. Makes time in the bath far less and keeps all her "stuff" out of it as well. My son and daughter shared a jack-and-jill bath just fine. DD now shares a bath with her two teenage boys - she has more control over them and their idea of bath hygiene than she does over DH who has the en suite to himself. My children even shared a room until DD was about 7 and kicked her brother out - wanted her room to be "girls-only" when friends came by. My two grandsons have always shared a room and have never requested a change. They have two extra BRs in the house so they could easily each have his own, but they like having each other. Younger GS is dreading his brother going off to college next year - can't imagine him not being there in the room with him. It's all these attitudes that have caused colleges to spend a fortune on dorms with the majority being singles, and at some schools, each with its own bath. Children no longer know how to share. Makes me wonder if separate bedrooms for married couples may become the wave of the future for these non-sharers!
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floor plan critique
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Comments (19)
Is there someone sleeping in the second bedroom upstairs? If not, could you use that as your dressing room? It would be more convenient, especially if you put the bedroom in the corner and did a standard bathroom beside it rather than the odd little bathroom/den space you show now. And it could be easily converted back to a bedroom by a future owner. Downstairs, you could use the small guest bedroom as Dan's office. The other 2 rooms you have cut up could become guest rooms. This would be better for potential resale than having oddly shaped rooms carved up for closets. And you could certainly use one of the guest rooms for storage if you don't need two. You might also consider tub/shower combo's in the bathrooms instead of the small showers you show now. As is, the only place for someone to take a soak, or bathe children is in the master bath. A final idea is explore the possibility of storage under the stairs. You might be surprised how many coats/boots/etc. you could fit there. Lot's of pic's on Houzz for under stair storage.
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Please help! Floor plan critique
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Comments (31)
Not a pro and I'm having trouble seeing the details in the plans, but I have to agree with Lindsey_CA 100%. My "laundry room" is very small, probably 5x8 and leads directly to the garage so it's our main entry into the house. It's one of the things I despise about my house. I also have 2 kids who are now high school aged and between all of us, we do laundry at least once a day. My kids both play sports, so sometimes I have to do laundry more than once because the washer and dryer only hold so much. I can't tell you how many times people come flying through the garage and hit someone with the garage door. Or come through the kitchen trying to get out because they're late only to run into the open dryer door. I have to move the laundry to the family room to fold it because there is no counter space in that room. I'd love to relocate the washer and dryer but my husband does not want them moved to the basement, and we would lose a bedroom moving it upstairs, so we are stuck. We have a utility sink that gets a lot of use (much more than I thought it would) and I can't see if one is in your plan, but definitely put one in. Also make sure you have more closet space than you think you will need. I also agree that the exterior has too many juts which makes roofing lines more difficult. I also don't like having to go through the game room to get to the kids' bedrooms. While I do understand wanting to separate the kids from the master suite, when they get to be older, you are going to want to know what's going on in their rooms. I have a two story and can open my bedroom door and tell who is still up. : )
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Floor plan critique
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Comments (14)
@One Devoted Dame Sounds like you definitely have your hands and hearts full. We have 9 children, but they are growing and flying the coop. 4 already are married. The days are long, but the years are short as the saying goes. The lot is basically a 67.5 wide by 117.5 long corner, rectangular lot. Set back of 20 in the front, 10 in the back, 10 on the street corner side and 5 on the other side. 4 feet of pool decking can go into the 10 foot backyard setback. This basically means we have 52x87 to work with including space for the pool. But restrictions say pool and fence can't go in to a side yard, so our house has to run front to back on the narrow width. So if I want to have a formal living and dining, as well as a family room, secondary bedroom( one day craft room) and the Master all down, it's pretty hard to make that happen without putting room upon room. Before we moved to the coast we had a 4000 square foot traditional 6 bedroom home in a golf course community. It was the typical upscale track builder home with a large family room with two exterior walls behind the garage, a nice kitchen in the middle back of the house with 8 foot island and a huge morning room that held our casual dining table and looked into the backyard. The formal living room / dining room ran from front to back on the left side. There was also a study in the front of the house across from the living room. All the bedrooms were upstairs. Now we live in a 3500 square foot reverse floor plan meaning main level is on the second floor. It's an even narrower lot than the new one and we have living/dining/kitchen/sunroom all in a row front to back on one side, and on the other Master/Master Bath/ Stairs /Bedroom 2, Bedroom 3. If you walk in our front door you look down a long hall to the main bathroom at the other end. lol. That's always been the one thing I hated, that I couldn't change. Downstairs is bedrooms 4 and 5 and a bath behind the one garage and a 12x24 family room and screened in porch behind the other garage. Long hallway again down the middle this time looking straight into the laundry room, but at least it has a window so you basically can see straight outside. After living here for 6 years, I guess I've just become used to deep houses with room behind room. It's not perfect, but it's not awful. I don't think there is perfect, but always compromise something you want for something you want more. Also, if I'm going to have more than one living space I really want at least one to look into the front yard and the other to look in to the back which this allows for.
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dekeoboe
8 years ago
Not seeing a need for the powder room on the main floor. Can't people just use the bathroom near the garage? I am seeing a need for access to a bathroom for bedroom 4 and there is none available without going through another bedroom.

I would also move the door to the study down closer to the garage. That way if in the future it is a bedroom, you do not see into it from the kitchen.

What will the roof look like on this house?
bpath
8 years ago
Do you have kids? When coming in from the garage, the straightest shot for you and the upstairs brigade is right through the dining room. Will there be room for passage with dining furniture in it? And anyway, the dining room is faaaar from the kitchen. Maybe you won't use it much for dining, and it really will be just a passage?

The garage entry is awfully narrow. If you are carrying things in and have a jacket, purse, umbrella, cap, keys, etc, besides the groceries, luggage, or what-have-you, well, you have no space to move around.

Is the door in the upstairs hall so you can jump down onto the FR couch? Saves time, but could be hard on the couch. Are you planning a balcony over a two-story FR, or storage?

I say, keep the first floor full bath AND the powder room!

What is the climate? Who else is living here?
kirkhall
8 years ago
What bathroom does Bedroom 4 use?

I think I'd swap the study with the bathroom/closet so the closet doesn't have a window, and so you can lose the powder room (one less bath to clean).

Where do you vent your laundry to? It seems like it will have a 20' run in almost every direction.

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