My farmhouse plan, nearly final, feedback requested

8 years ago

We are in the first phases of building. Our foundation is in. I just started following this forum so I am have not posted my plans previously. Looking for feedback, the only change we have made from these that is important is that the roof over the third stall will now be a 3/12 pitch shed roof rather than the gable as shown. I just could not get used to the varying heights of the roofs over the breezeway, main stalls, and third stall. I think this change will already improve things. This is the same roof slope as the front and back porches.

The inspiration for this plan was taken from Historical Concepts and modified as needed for our use.

It will be white LP SmartSide, roof will be galvalume over the porches exposed fastener, garage eyebrow and shed roof over the third stall, shingles elsewhere.

Hopefully my fist try at posting works.....

Elevations

Main Floor

2nd Floor

Featured Answer

speaktodeek

8 years ago

The plan suggests a family with older than toddler children already. (Infant or toddler children would presumably have resulted in a bedroom on the main floor for them.) But if so, what if one of the kids breaks a leg and needs a main floor bedroom for a while? Or you take in an in-law who cannot do stairs? I always like a spare room on the main floor that could function as a bedroom, just in case. I think the lack of one will affect resale, too. I really love the elevations and proportions and plans other than that - lots of good features.

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Comments (7)

chicagoans
8 years ago
I'm going to post your pictures in line as it can help get more feedback.

I'm going to let the pros give their feedback (I'm not one.) But I will recommend that you also post your plans on the Kitchens forum to get great feedback on your layout. Right now, your island is a barrier between the sink and the refrigerator, so you might want a prep sink near the fridge. (Think ice - water - stone - fire. Read this thread. ) Also, the placement of the DW looks awkward; I think you'd like it better next to the sink. Most people prefer to the right of the sink.
Jeff Cater
Original Author
8 years ago
chicagoans- Thanks for the help on the pictures. When I tried your method it kept telling me I had too many characters? Odd.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. I agree with you regarding the DW. We have moved it to the right of the sink on the final kitchen plan which I didn't post. However, largely it looks like the above with the DW moved.
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Lavender First I forgot to answer the snow question. We got six to 8 inches on top of what we had. Not a lot of melting going on as last week we were very cold at 6 degrees to maybe 16 for the high. Snowed a few inches today but we are cleared out at the house so all is well.Joe just bought this Blade for the side by side and can plow us out in less than half an hour and we have lots of driveway.OH and you can see some of the snow but this is before last storm. There is lots more now.We usually end up with three to four foot on the ground. Just getting started. Yes we did get the porch. Love it. It is only 8 foot wide and to any one I would suggest 10 foot wide for porch a better size. but 8 foot works. Also the porch faces the street so we enter directly into what is supposed to be the dinning room. The living room door goes out to what we call the court yard. We added 3 stretches. Two foot across master bedroom end and two foot across in living room kitchen end and 16 inches in the middle across the two bedrooms. OH wah your link will not load right now.Said try later. I really like the large master bath and you will enjoy your large hall bath. We had the option to put door between kitchen and laundry and almost wish I had done that. And we can later. A pretty French door would be wonderful. This would have made it possible to include our hall bath with laundry room and make it feel larger too. Still working on that in my brain. With just us I can leave that bath/laundry room door open and this keeps from steaming up the bath when I shower in there ,which I do some times when we both need to get ready in a hurry. Course then I have to keep a curtain on the laundry room door to outside for privacy. We really are comfortable in this house.I will keep checking in on your link. I even tried the Marlett website and it seems to be down. Our last MFH was a Marlette. They are very nice. Here is a link that might be useful: Plow
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"I would love to have a central hallway or something that opened up to the back of the house from the entry, just not sure how to do that with my rear garage". Solving these kinds of apparent insolvable conflicts is exactly what creative thinking is. A creative designer, when given the chance, will provide a design that can give a client nearly everything, or in some cases all, of what they want but often in ways completely unexpected. And I've written here before to please note I didn't say "architect", I said "creative designer". Don't know how creative your architect is but if a garage/view conflict can't be resolved on a 5 acre level lot I can't help but question his/her ability to BEST spend a healthy six figures of your hard earned money in an endeavor with no "do overs". And I don't have a horse in your race either as I do all my design face to face with the client present but I might suggest getting someone with a "fresh set of eyes" to sit down with you and any other decision maker to look at your house. As a model I posted a summary of one way here, not my first post with the colored drawing but my second post 11 down: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3178541/question-for-architectrunnerguy-or-others Another item I'd look at is the stair. I haven't seen the second floor but the stair appears to wind around with close walls on three sides, a minimal landing and likely no natural light. Simply just a way of getting to the second floor with no other qualities. Great stairs connect a house while poor stair dissect it and interestingly, both cost the same to build. The staircase is often the most under designed space in a house so your designer needs to pay careful attention to it. Look at the stairs in those houses in my "ideabook" again to see what I'm talking about.
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bpath
8 years ago
I see why you might want a laundry at the foot of the stairs, convenient for the kids to bring their clothes down and up, but not so convenient for the doing part, where you have to go in and out to sort, wash, dry, fold...unless...the kids do their own laundry? huzzah!

The kitchen seems a bit dark. It has one window and it faces the garage. Maybe you'd like to have a window facing my front, too, that isn't through the pantry.

Consider a door from the breezeway to the front as well as the back. I know it's a lot of doors in a breezeway, but we really like our service door opening to the front.
Jeff Cater thanked bpath
cpartist
8 years ago
I agree you need to post your kitchen in the kitchen forum. Right now it's a lot of steps to do everyday tasks and is very inefficient.

I'm wondering why you didn't repeat the board and batten somewhere else on the house? It reminds me of those builder specials where they put stone on the front of the house and then just put vinyl siding on the rest of the house. I would bring the board and batten around to the other sides too. Honestly, I'd probably eliminate one of the sidings from the front too. You have four different materials, board and batten, clapboard, shingle and brick.

In your bathroom, make sure your toilet door opens out. It's a safety issue for it to open in.

Bedroom 4 has a WIC that is too small to be of any use except to throw things in and shut the door.

You have the same problem with the storage area on each side of the back. They're listed as 4' but that's from stud to stud so it will really be less than 4' wide. Considering you ideally need 3 feet to walk comfortably, what do you plan on storing on a 6"-8" shelf in such a long narrow closet? That's basically 32' of space that will not be able to store very much at all.
Jeff Cater
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks for all the great comments!

Yes we have 3 kids, 11,13,16. So not as big of a concern about 3 BR's up in our case. We did look at a plan with a a MBR and aniother on the main floor but ultimately decided on this one,

The window in the kitchen is south facing and is 3 2'x4' widows mulled. Hopefully that let in enough light. I do hope to carry at least a little light thru the large pantry window as well. It is 3'x 6'6". We will likely have that door open more often than one would think.. Teenagers arent the best with closing doors and drawers :)

I like the idea of limiting front materials. I will have to think about how to do that.

Thanks for the suggestion on the bathroom door, that is an easy fix.

As far as the upstairs storage areas, those are only there bc the roof line creates them. Seems a shame to not put a door in to access an area for storage even if it isnt terribly useful. But I agree, I wont be. However we will have an upstairs heater in the one to separately heat the upstairs. Our basement will be unfinished and will function as the main storage area so storage isnt a huge concer.. Additionally there will be a workshop above the garage with 8 ft ceilings that isnt shown very clearly on the plans.

The 4th BR closet is quite small but it will be for my 16 yo boy who doesnt need much room. We could look at chewing into the BR space a bit to make it bigger for sure.
cpartist
8 years ago
n the kitchen is south facing and is 3 2'x4' widows mulled

Wow, what were they drinking? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

My farmhouse plan, nearly final, feedback requested

speaktodeek

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chicagoans

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My farmhouse plan, nearly final, feedback requested

speaktodeek

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