Planning An Avocado Grove, Any Advice/Suggestions/Feedback?
badfish8696
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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badfish8696
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Floor Plan - Any suggestions?
Comments (32)I don't think your kitchen situation is that dire. There is plenty of storage with the double row of cabinets in the island and the cabinets in the dining room. It's just not a kitchen where more than one person can cook, but maybe that's not something you do in your family. The sink and range are back to back. And there is limited counter space. Have you seen mythreesonsnc's kitchen. It's very similarbut she has a separate butler's pantry and prep area. She also has a banquette. I've linked it below. You will get a lot of sotrage out of the dining room built in. Here's ours: Thanks for the compliment on the floors. They are wide plank pine. I highly recommend in an open floorplan like yours, to use a single flooring type. I know you mentioned carpeting in the family room. Where are you going to transition to different flooring? Uniform flooring just ties everything together. You can always get a big area rug for the family room. And that way you can keep the door where it is. A few more pics, then I will shut up :) Here is a link that might be useful: mythreesonsnc...See MoreHouse Plan feedback/suggestions please?
Comments (20)About the house plan: - It's a lovely exterior. Just my style! - If family gatherings are a priority for you, I think you'd want a larger dining room. 13x13 won't hold a very large table. - Still on the subject of dining, do you really need a breakfast table AND island seating in two separate places? - U shaped kitchen don't particularly work well with islands in this configuration; they "trap people" in the U. - I would not place a desk in that spot in the kitchen. Imagine someone's sitting at the desk ... his chair will block the path into the kitchen, annoying everyone else in the family -- plus you have an office just around the corner. What I think you might actually want in the kitchen -- I'd want it a bit more out of sight /towards the entry -- is more of a family control center: A designated place for a calendar and kids' sports and school schedules, a place to stick the tickets to next week's Halloween carnival to a bulletin board, a shelf where phones can sit to charge, a place for sunglasses and car keys. And I want NONE of that in my kitchen. - Do you barbeque often? I'd want a more direct door to the backyard. As it is, you'll have to carry platters of meat around the peninsula, past the breakfast room table, and into the great room to reach the porch ... then you'd have to turn right and navigate the porch furniture to get to the steps on the far end. - Covered porches are wonderful (I have one on my current house and plan one for my next house too!), but 8' isn't wide enough for a porch that'll really be used (though 6', even 5', is enough for a show-only porch, as I suspect your front porch will be). My covered porch is 12' wide x 30' long, and it's perfect: We have the grilling area on one end, a table in the middle, and seating on the far end ... and we can walk straight to the steps without furniture being in the way. - I do not like bay windows under covered porches, but that's personal preference. - Speaking of porches, why do you have a set of steps on the far left of the front porch? It's not near the garage /driveway. - The laundry room is far from ALL the bedrooms. Note that to put away clean clothes in your master closet, you'll have to carry those baskets about 60' (half the length of a football field) and through four doors. Most people on this board seem to prefer the laundry near the bedrooms since that's where people change clothes, and keeping the rooms near one another = fewer steps. If you anticipate a large family, I'd consider a second laundry upstairs; it wouldn't be out of sync with a house this size. I would suggest a laundry chute from the upstairs bath, but the clothes would land in the great room! - I'd flip the washer/dryer to the opposite side of the laundry room. This will allow you to keep water in only ONE wall (and with the refrigerator on that wall, you're probably going to want water for an ice maker). - With the kids' bathroom upstairs, the downstairs powder room will see heavy use. This super-narrow set-up is not comfortable -- remember, you're going to use this room for potty training, which means you'll sit in there for long stretches at a time ... and that door is set up in such a way that you'll have to be in the room with the door closed so you can watch the child ... I guess you'll be sitting on the sink. I'd make this area into a large reach-in pantry and carve out a more comfortable powder room using some of the laundry room space OR some of that storage in the garage. - Since you anticipate a large family, I'd add some organizing items in the garage entryway. The size is already plentiful, but a bench where kids can sit while you put their shoes on /coat hooks /places for bookbags, etc. would be useful. In this same area, I'd add a door to close off the kitchen ... in a house of this size /expense, I wouldn't expect to see the garage door from the living area. - At 24x24, the garage is a rather ideal size. That's a large storage area in the garage -- do you need it, or will it just collect junk? Keep in mind that you have significant storage upstairs over the garage too. - The family room is plenty deep, but it's only 15' wide ... and about 3' of that must be used for walkway, so you actually only have 12' of space for furniture. This doesn't seem to be in keeping with the rest of the house. - How do you plan to use the office /homeschooling room? I'd add a second door into this room over near the master bedroom entrance, and I'd use real doors on both. The rest of the house is open; I'd want this room to have both visual and acoustical privacy. - I'd decrease the master bedroom width. 19' is very wide, even with a king bed, yet you don't have the right set-up for a seating area on one end. The windows in the master bedroom are very nice. - The master bath could be so much nicer! It's an odd shape: as you walk in, the around-the-corner part won't be visible, odd. Consider, too, the pathway necessary to reach the toilet: Through two doors and around a corner. The shower looks small; I think I'd make the current toilet-closet into a shower -- a shower gets daily use, and a large one is a nice luxury. The master closet isn't particularly spacious -- I might use some of that excess bedroom space to enlarge this. - Upstairs, the three bedrooms and bathroom look good, and all that linen storage will be great for kids' sleeping bags, etc. ... but why do you need a rec room AND a family room?...See MoreFinal Plan's, Any suggestions before we submit for permit's? Thank You
Comments (39)Thank you for showing the overhead shot, "one picture is worth a thousand words" so it answers a lot of the questions. So, you are on a hillside, and the house behind you is higher, the house across the street is lower, and even the street is lower, right? So the big windows in the master bedroom and bathroom are less of an issue, but still, you'll never have the window covering by the tub open. And the "covered entry" is in fact the front door; that wasn't clear in the first plan. It also answers my unasked question of why so few windows on the south side, but there's probably not as much light anyway because of the hill and houses, and you don't want the uphill neighbors gazing down into your public spaces anyway. What kind of sight-line separator do you have from the house behind you? We live in a flat area but with enough of a slope that from our upstairs window we can look right into our neighbor's new pool kitty-corner behind us. They have an 8' stockade fence and will be planting trees, and I sure hope they are 18' cedars so we can't see the pool. How will you use the space between the garage and house? Seems like a great spot for a courtyard patio, but it's kind of inaccessible from all but the closets. You could have a personal hot-tub there, though :) Views: my favorite views work like this: When I am in a room, I'm usually doing something. Dressing, working, reading, cooking, cleaning, whatever. When I am moving between rooms, that's when I appreciate views. I love a glass passageway, with some kind of view. Or I love a dining or desk area with a view. Bedroom, not so much, I'm hardly in there with my eyes open lol. Speaking of desk area, do you need a home office? And are the two storerooms enough storage for gear?...See MoreAny feedback on this family home plan? has anyone built one similar?
Comments (54)Rachel please do yourself a favor and ignore DE. She really is someone who is here just to stir the pot. Plus she acts like she knows all about design and architecture but anything she has learned is just from one or two books. In fact each time she opens her mouth she more than proves her lack of knowledge and understanding of architecture and design. Better off listening to our excellent architects, Virgil, Mark, architectrunnerguy, RES as well as some of our contractors, Worthy, Millworkman, Jeffrey Grenz to name a few. In fact my house is as good as it is because I listened to Mark, architectrunnerguy and RES. Additionally are some very talented designers who regularly post....See Morebadfish8696
8 years agobadfish8696
8 years agoSo I finally got around to this project, took awhile to get everything ready and moving but it's finally nearing completion.
Most of the big trees came from Maddock, at $54 they are a great value. I also sourced from Durling who had great value at about $50 for similar trees. Most of the rare varieties came from Atkins and Persea and while small I was just glad to be able to find them, hopefully they catch up with the others.
Hopefully this photo displays ok, will probably be hard to see the small trees in the back.
Starting at the left, in the front and going back...Column 1: Carmen Hass on Dusa, Lamb Hass on Zutano, Sir Prize on Zutano, Hass on Zutano
Column 2: GEM on Zutano, Lamb Hass on G6, Sir Prize on D9, Hass on G6
Column 3: Kona Sharwil on Zutano, Pinkerton on G6, Nimlioh on Zutano, Queen on Zutano
Column 4: Reed on D9, Empty Hole (Jan Boyce still MIA), Fuerte on Zutano, Nabal on Zutano
Some trees are showing shock with some leaf drop but that is to be expected. I have them on drips for the time being until they get established then I will go to microsprinklers.
Thanks for your advice guys, hopefully these trees take off and I'll be swimming in avos in no time.badfish8696
8 years agofireduck
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agobadfish8696
8 years ago
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