3rd round floorplan critque.
Sat down with the architect and worked up a 3rd revision of changes based on the great feedback we received.
We started this process at round 1, and made some great changes to make it to Round 2
So here we are in round 3......
Starting with the main floor, we decided to get rid of the soaking tub. Neither my wife or I are bath takers, and the kids will be getting baths in the upstairs tub, so we removed it and feel we have a nicer MBR. I want a toilet with a window, but we also have an option to have the sink with a window....my vote is for the toilet with the window.
The kitchen we took a little bit of dining room and a little bit of garage, and changed that wall to a 2x4, this will give us 3'6" between the island and the counter tops on either side. The cook top will move down a bit so we will have a full upper on either side of the stove. We will also have a large upper and an appliance garage flat against the wall on the counter with the sink. We removed the banquette, the space is big enough for a decent table and chairs, but we wanted to leave that spot flexible enough to figure out in a few years how to best utilize that space. Ultimately it may turn into a banquette or command center or what have you, but I think making that decision in a couple of years will make the most sense for us.
Bonus pic of the front elevation. Change we made here was to decrease the pitch of the front facing peak. We had it matching the garage, but we feel this slope makes the house appear a bit wider and not so tall.
Would love to hear thoughts and opinions. And to the folks who were in the situation of considering buying a stock plans and making some modifications, spend the little bit of extra money and work directly with a architect/draftsman. Taking our ideas working with an architect/draftsman has been one of the best purchases I have ever made. I am not saying that tweaking a stock plan is a bad way to go, but for our situation we would have not ended up with "our" plans without the help from here and the architect/draftsman.
Comments (16)
ILoveRed
8 years agoLike your house a lot. I have not read the previous discussions so I apologize if I'm being redundant.
Just two things I would do if it were my house off the top of my head.
- you have the potential for a seriously awesome mudroom/drop zone/friend's entry if you extended your cubby area out and make that garage door a door into the house instead. See pic. With two kids, possibly three in your future...I think you would love the extra space for the carp that follows them in. I know you have the closet, but it's not enough and it's too far away for such a nice home. Put a door from the garage into the mudroom.
- I would put windows in that stairwell. Especially if the stairway is to the south.
good luck! Great house.
Puritan Avenue · More InfoRelated Discussions
please critique 2nd round floor plan :)
Comments (13)kats - thanks for your suggestions. Nope, we're no where near finalizing anything, unfortunately. I've actually told my designer that I'm taking a break for a few weeks to reconsider everything. This plan just does not wow me at all and if I'm going to spend a bunch of money building my 'dream home' I want to really LOVE it, kwim? I have been rethinking the steps to the master, and I think I am going to nix them. I love the idea of something different like that, but I think it probably should be eliminated for practical reasons (I really hate being practical though!) I don't really care too much about resale at this point, because we plan to be here for at least the next 15ish years. And we're on 10 acres of land where land in our area is a definite premium and highly sought after. But even so, I'm not going to build something totally undesirable for the next person. chisue, we are building in central IL. weedyacres, thanks for your thoughts about the bathroom. I do like your suggestions about rotating the shower. I'm still undecided on a j&j bath. Some people love them and others hate them. So I'm not sure... I definitely agree with you on the storage issue! I need to add LOTS of closets and built-ins. Unfortunately, we can't dig the foundation lower since we're so swampy around here. We're not in flood plain, but our sumps run CONSTANTLY in our current house. So we were thinking of other ideas on how to still have a basement (we need one due to tornadoes) but possibly not going down as far. any other ideas? My dilemma is what to do with the center of the home. Most all plans I've seen have the great room in the middle of the home, but we want ours bumped off the back with lots of windows. We don't need 2 great rooms, so what do we put in the middle? I also need to have my kitchen on an ext. wall because I want lots of windows above my sink. I do agree with you on the choppiness though, so I'm probably going to nix this plan and start over. ugh. the e-space is more of a homework/blogging space for my 3 kiddos and I. I don't want them to have computers in their bedrooms, so I need for this space to be centrally located so I can keep an eye on their computer use :) thanks again for all the input! I keep surfing house plan sites hoping I'll stumble upon the perfect plan, but after 3-4 years of searching I'm not very hopeful......See MoreWe sure would appreciate any input on this floor plan!!
Comments (20)Here are a few links to alternate plans to check out and think about. As you look at plans, think about how you could modify what's there to meet your needs. Not wild about the bedroom sizes, but nice layout: - http://www.mascord.com/plan_details.asp?PlanID=1149B&PlanGraphicID=4985&np=true Option for a basement, open floorplan, decent sized bedrooms: - http://www.garrellassociates.com/floorplans/high-country-cottage-08141 Don't like the garage being so far from the kitchen, but otherwise a nice plan: - http://www.garrellassociates.com/floorplans/high-country-cottage-08141 A little unique, but nice: - http://www.garrellassociates.com/floorplans/diamond-creek-cottage-07440 Probably the one I like the best on this site, but I would make the island completely parallel to the angled wall with the range on it: - http://www.garrellassociates.com/floorplans/crested-butte-08070 If you could swing ~2000sq ft, this one might work--you could push the dining room back flush with the front door, then close off the doorways from the foyer and family rooms and make that a large laundry room. You could then make the current laundry room a nice large walk-in pantry. One of our neighbors built this one as shown in the plan and it was beautiful and seemed to flow well. - http://www.frankbetz.com/homeplans/plan_info.html?pn=3896 Here's another you could modify-make the dining room a den/office/potential 3rd bedroom on main floor & leave upstairs unfinished: - http://southernlivinghouseplans.com/plans/SL1746 Hope these help!...See Morecritique 3rd round please
Comments (30)With reference to your new guest bath layout. What will do you think will be in that closet? To me you are turning it into a hallway. I really think you had the correct layout in your 2nd round drawing. I know you said you needed the wall space in the study - so just switch the bathroom door from access in the study to in the hallway/foyer like the current drawing. Plus, others always say to put more closets in than you think you need. You have the option to have multiple closets in that area and to me you are pretty much eliminating them all. The walk-through closet sounds cool, but in reality it is just a hallway. Also, have you had a change to read through the post "Small thing that get forgotten"? I have linked it below - lots of good points/ideas. Here is a link that might be useful: Small things that get forgotten - Building Advice...See MoreNeed floor plan advice / ideas - Craftsman bungalow addition
Comments (18)For those asking for pictures, here's one from the street: I totally understand Virgil's (and others) concerns -- rest assured we have already spoken with a few local professionals and we're very close to hiring an experienced residential designer. Reading over several threads the past few days (special thanks to ArchitectRunnerGuy) has helped me to understand the design process better. It has also allowed me an opportunity to see things from an architect's point of view -- I get how it could be frustrating to always have clients bringing in their suggested floor plans... what was the phrase I saw on here somewhere? It was like "bringing a fast food burger to a gourmet buffet" :-) I think for us, attempting to draw up our own ideas was just an exercise to force us to consider all the details and the push/pull of different needs and wants... and we figured they would be a good jumping off point for discussion with whomever we hired. As I was searching for different perspectives, I stumbled upon this site and saw some amazing threads where people were collaborating and building off each other. That's what inspired me to post our "armchair architect" layouts. Even if we hire the best architect we can find, some creative and wonderful idea may come out the collective wisdom on this site that could have otherwise been missed... One thing ARG's other threads have helped me to understand is that even having a few sketches of ideas still doesn't effectively communicate all the reasons why to an architect. You can't just hand over those ideas and say "here, start with this, but make it 10 times better". The design charrette process he described is really the key to getting everyone on the same page. I've definitely learned better questions to ask when evaluating potential architects and designers ("Tell me about your process"). Getting back to question answering: Rockybird - this is in Georgia. There would be windows in the master, and the spare bedroom near the studio (although in Take 2, there's barely any exterior wall space left for one -- I caught that, but was out of ideas on how to make it better). The shared bath would technically be the only interior access to the Studio -- the whole idea is for my wife to be able to have clients in the studio without them having to come into our house. The shared bath is really just for cost savings... BTW, the current house faces north. As I've read more about the importance of south facing windows and light penetration, I see that both our ideas haven't been considerate of that and we would have some dark areas... Quinn - Wow is all I can think of to say right now! Thank you so much for your thoughtful and creative ideas. We had not considered layouts with the studio in the front of the house - that could definitely work, and yes the studio could be an L shape. One of the only reasons we were thinking it would be new construction was also due to cost savings -- other than a few more windows and HVAC, the studio space could pretty much be the same fit and finish as a garage -- bare concrete floors, etc. So we were hoping the cost per square foot to build that could be cheaper... I like your placement for the garage and "bumping in" the L shaped addition to be more respectful of the original house. And I love that the squirrelly hallway bothered you so much you had to come back the next day and make it better. I'd love to know what software you're using... seeing exterior renders really helps me visualize what the completed addition could look like. We are in complete agreement about hallways - we tried our best to eliminate them too. As for keeping things on one level -- for the studio it's pretty important. We have a two story house now and some of my wife's equipment is upstairs. She has tons of gear (lights, backdrops, etc.) and sometimes travels to clients. She is quite tired of the multiple trips up and down the stairs... Depending on the cost savings, we would be willing to consider putting the game room and/or a 3rd bedroom and bath upstairs. I think that's all for now. Thanks again to everyone for contributing, and I'll be sure to update this as things progress....See More
User
8 years agoFred M
8 years agoIloveRed,
Thanks for the suggestions. The plan is to use that space in the garage as an unconditioned mudroom of sorts with large cabinet/closets, shelving and trashcans. I do like your idea though, the service door outside the garage would have to have the step-up externally to the house, and we would still want an entry from the garage into the mudroom. Maybe a window where the service door is and the entry 90 degrees to it inside the garage. So in your picture the door would be a window and the entry to the garage would be to the left. Only downside would there would be no entry into the garage except through the garage door and a little tighter for the garbage cans and entry into the mudroom with cars in the garage and minimum step-up. Great food for thought though.
For the stairwell there are two windows, but they are at the second floor height. We wanted them at the landing but because of the elevation below it was simpler to leave them on the second floor. The below elevation faces east.
Fred M
8 years agoJDS, We actually had the elevation with a full brick veneer first story, and while the front of the house looked alright to us, over on the other elevations it looked like entirely too much brick for our taste. Below was the original from elevation.
ILoveRed
8 years agoILoveRed
8 years agoFred M
8 years agoILoveRed
8 years agoFred M
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
Rear faces south
and by process of elimination right faces West.The basement will have a slider and a patio door mimicking the nook and the great room. It is planned to finish the basement and have the patio door down there enter a mudroom aswell.
cpartist
8 years agochisue
8 years ago
bpath
8 years ago
junco East Georgia zone 8a
8 years agoBB Galore
8 years ago
AnnKH