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Floorplan for open concept home

8 years ago

Floorplan for a new construction modern home in the San Francisco bay area. About 3400 sq ft. Some minor tweaks made to this plan already, eliminating the deck on the side of the house, and adding a media closet next to the living room. Glass around the back deck is floor to ceiling and will slide open completely. 14 ft ceilings in the great room, and 10 ft ceilings in the rest of the house. The beam on on the back patio has been removed as well. Any thoughts or critique?

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Comments (5)

marthaelena
8 years ago
I have little time now but the no mudroom is a deal breaker for me.
Oaktown
8 years ago
Hmm, reminds me a lot of this house, except for the location of the second sitting area and suite.

Good luck!
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Thanks for the feedback everyone! A little more information, we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the local building department allows us to only have an engineers stamp, it isn't required to have an architect. Additionally, our builder (while not an architect) has a lot of experience drawing up plans, and if we could find a floor plan that only needed some modification then he could draw up the plans. Maybe we will end up going to an architect after all, however at the moment I'm just trying to collect some floor plan options to see if we can avoid it. Ideally, we are looking for a single story home that has a large great room, windows in the kitchen, 3-4 bedrooms and about 3000 square feet. We don't need a seperate dining room, or formal living room, though if a plan has a dining room we will turn it into an office, or some sort of other "flex" space. Thanks!!
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Feedback on our Floorplan, please! (60's ranch with open concept)
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Comments (8)
Stove, as a symbolic hearth, rules; sink slinks as much out of sight as possible because, IMO, not only is it not nearly as handsome as many are encouraged to think to justify expensive hardware, but it tends to collect uncharming detritus around it. Let the eyes just pass on by, which is happily an era-compliant look. They didn't know a sink was supposed to be, even could be, a wow! feature back then. BTW, they also didn't tend to know about large, deep 1-sink sinks into which a whole dinner's worth of mess could just disappear. I LOVE mine. BTW, the stove doesn't HAVE to rule, of course; that's a more current idea, and it actually often wasn't a feature at all in those days. Your kitchen might benefit by letting it also disappear into a handsome unified design meant to rule as a whole. My own (sort of traditional kitchen) is a drop-in cooktop with drawers beneath--so the counter and counter line are straight and uninterrupted. The oven's under counter elsewhere where it's not very visible from outside. (In my case, attention goes to the decorative wood vent hood above the stove and the windows flanking it.) I'd definitely keep to a simple open galley, as symmetric as possible--most attractive and space efficient of all layouts when it must be totally open (except a very symmetric U, which takes more space and may have function problems if not equipped with an island). A galley is also among the most highly functional of all layouts. If there's nothing going on at the right end of the island, why not slide a stool around there? Then someone could sit without presenting his back to everyone else in the room. I love white kitchens and have one, but if you're going to do flat-panel simple cabinets to go with the architecture, wood, even very light wood, I think is more handsome than plain white, which usually seems to lack something, even for me. (There is a higher-end high-gloss that looks very good, though; my DIL is trying to talk our son into it, and I'm on her side.) In any case, although I've never wanted wood, in your case I'd at least consider seeing just how light I could go with Ikea flat-panel wood for the lower cabinets, blending with a similarly pale honey-colored maple floor (one of my very favorite features from that general era), and then go white or off-white for the uppers to blend in with the walls. BTW, I don't remember her name offhand, but someone just posted a picture of her simple modern kitchen with green stone counters that's just gorgeous. Shot my "I-would" wad. I'll enjoy seeing your personal vision for your new home develop.
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Comments (11)
I am so sorry for you and your family experiencing such a traumatic event. I see in your Ideabooks, exterior elevations that seem to lean to a two story farmhouse kind of style. Of course, you need a licensed architect to bring your new hopes to fruition. However, you can do some good homework first. Start a collection of pictures from Houzz, magazines, home tours and get a large 3-ring binder and save as many hard copy pictures as you can to help “communicate” these looks to an architect. This is very helpful. Your architect will need a survey of your property and a trip to your site to help determine “siting” and then h/she can begin designing rooms and overall layouts for your new home. There are a thousands of decisions you will be making over the span of many months so having as much definition as possible will help ease that crunch. Start also interviewing architects and vetting their references. You want some competent but also someone compatible with your personalities. You will be spending a lot of time with him/her so make sure it feels right. I have developed a document I call “New Homebuilders Checklist” that I would be happy to share with you. It will give you a kind of roadmap of how many items are coming toward you. Just email me at manganflo@gmail.com and I will send it to you. Hope it can help.
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Comments (1)
Sounds like a gorgeous home. Function informs form. You are going to need some type of lighting at night when the sun won't help you out through your lovely windows. The traditional fussy chandeliers are not as popular as they once were. There are so many options available now. It's hard for us to recommend a style without seeing photos and knowing what type of style you are after. I like to point people toward Visual Comfort & Co at Circa Lighting just because the quality of light from those fixtures is extraordinary. I wouldn't skip putting in lighting in all those places, but if you pick similar styles, then they should blend. No one really looks up at your light fixtures much, to be honest, so it's the effect of the light itself that is critical to get right.
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annkh_nd
8 years ago
I'm not used to seeing closets on outside walls. Is the master bed really going to be in the middle of the room, in front of the closet?

The garage is really small. The dimension shown - 22'6" - appears to be the larger dimension. Our garage is 22'x22'. and there is not much room for storage, and we have to park our vehicles at an angle so get in and out without banging the second car. We have a minivan and a small SUV. And I agree with marthaelena about lack of mudroom. Does the closet backing the guest bath open into the entry? That helps a bit.

I don't know that I would want to clean 4 bathrooms. How often do you have guests? I think I'd combine guest bath and powder room. The guest room closet is shown as a walk-in, but doesn't have any more hanging space than a reach-in; eliminating the PR give you more space available for that closet.

Speaking of closets - none of the bathrooms has much storage space, except perhaps bath 1. I'd put in one sink - kids (assuming those are kids' bedrooms) rarely use the bathroom at the same time. Storage and counter space tend to be more important.

The kitchen doesn't appear to have a fridge or a stove :) Do you need all that island seating right next to the dining table? If so, making one end of the island round, so you can put seats around the corner, allows people to see each other at the island, rather than lined up like birds on a wire.
dekeoboe
8 years ago
The island seating and the dining room seating are too close together. The chairs will hit when you pull them out and if they are not pushed back in, you will not be able to walk between the two.
palimpsest
8 years ago
Check all the closet depths. I know in SF you don't need a lot of heavy coats but 24" deep is minimum for regular clothes. To me there is nothing worse than shallow closets where the clothes hangars are literally jammed up against the inside of the closet doors. Give your clothes some breathing room.

The guest bath seems way too big, and the toilet is next to the door, while the shared bath seems small for a shared bath. The fixture layout in all the bathrooms seems kind of random.

I get the floating bed idea, it creates a dressing room behind, and some people put a little office area that can be closed in a closet in spaces like that as well.

The two TVs in the same general open living area are not going to work very well unless you watch the same thing on both.

Also you say TV/fireplace in those locations but you have no wall thickness for a fireplace in the living room for a fireplace.

Also the powder room is back by the bedrooms and the laundry area. Casual guests not staying overnight should not have to go back to the bedroom area/utility area to use the facilities. This should be more accessible to the public part of the house like off the entryway.

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