Need help with House Plan, please
Hi All! We are working on the plans for our house and we seem to have almost everything figured out. However, we have some issues that we can't seem to figure out how to solve. This is the background:
Background
1. We are keeping 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms from the existing house and we'll be using those for the next few years before moving to the second story.
2. We want 2 big relatively open spaces: (1) formal dining room and living room; (2) kitchen, family room and breakfast nook.
3. We want 3 bedrooms in the second story (initially we will use the master as a playroom, one of the bedrooms as an office and the other one as a guest room)
4. We want a 3 car garage
Unresolved issues
1. The foyer with the powder room and stairs seems to be wasting a lot of space, forcing us to push the family room wall further out (instead of keeping it in line with the dining room).
2. The breakfast nook is not fully integrated with the kitchen and family room as the pantry, mud room and laundry room are taking some of the space.
3. There's no direct access to the mud room from the outside (you have to get in through the garage).
4. The walk-in-closet in the second story master bedroom is not next to the bathroom.
Any thoughts on how to resolve these issues? We are maxing out the square footage so we can't add unless we get rid of some, and we want the 3 bedrooms downstairs and the 3 bedrooms upstairs.
Thanks a lot for your help and input!
Comments (20)
User
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
speaktodeek
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoRelated Discussions
Audio/Video Planning in a new house david_cary please help!
Comments (17)Cat5e will work fine for HDMI, and indeed, probably for anything you'd need in your house. That said, the primary expense in cabling is the labor, not the materials, so running Cat6 is generally not dramatically more expensive. I personally prefer to run Cat6 for future proofing, unless the cost is dramatically different. Cat6 is somewhat harder to work with and terminate properly than Cat5e is, so you'd want to make sure your installers are capable of doing it correctly. My multi-room TV solution is not the best you can do, but it works for us. I have coax and network run to each room with a TV, and a Tivo there. That allows me to watch live TV, and I can also watch recordings from any other Tivo in the house, as well as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu etc. I also have a file server that has some saved video and audio content on it. The Tivos can play that over the network from any room. And I have a blu-ray player in each room for playing discs. It's not what some would call a "whole house" solution, but it works really well for us. Yes, it would be more convenient to not have to put a disc in every time we want to watch a blu-ray. But the alternatives for that are either a pain or expensive (or both). The coolest way to go is something like Kaleidescape, which gives you a true whole-house movie library with no discs. But it's insanely expensive. You can rip your DVDs, but it's time consuming and most of the solutions for playing them back aren't that great in my opinion, especially if you have non-technical people using it (which is true for most of us, and even those of us who are technical don't necessarily want a challenge when we're kicking back to watch a movie). You could have a central disc player and distribute the video, but then that leaves you having to go there to put in the discs, and the only real benefit is that it saves you the cost of a player in each room. Blu-ray players are cheap. There are tons of things you can do, but I think a lot of it is overkill for most people. A Tivo and a disk player in each room with cable and network is a good way to go. Or even skip the disc player if you don't watch many discs....See MoreThird round of house plan ideas- help please!
Comments (45)What a pretty piece of land!!! And since you have a corner lot you have all sorts of options regarding exactly which way to face your front door! On the other hand, because of the corner lot, you're also going to want both facades that face a street (south and west) to be "pretty" enough to be a front elevation. You won't be able to get away with thinking "well, this is the side of the house so if it doesn't look terribly well balanced, well, no one will ever see it anyway...." In fact, it appears as if people will also be able to look across the pond and see the east face of your home from the road as it curves back around the pond. So even that side can't just be left "plain" like one sees with the back and sides of many tract houses. So, all my comments remain tentative until we see the upstairs and basement plans and can start getting a sense of what the exterior elevations will look like. LOL! With either option, you should bear in mind that if/when you have children, it is going to be a long hike from the master bedroom to the bottom of the staircase and an even longer hike to junior's bedside when he wants a drink of water in the middle of the night. Other than that tho, as far as the floor-plan goes, both options look pretty livable although there are a few minor tweaks I would recommend. Eg., with both options I would suggest swapping the locations of the toilet and shower in the master bath. You don't want noise from the toilet waking your spouse up in the middle of the night so it is better not to have the toilet up against the bedroom wall. I'd also personally prefer having the vanities on either side of the tub instead of shower and toilet because vanities don't "box in" the tub as much as a shower unit and the walls of a toilet room. I think a garden tub looks prettier when it is more "open." In my mind, boxing a garden tub in with shower and toilet room walls recreates the typical "alcove tub" found in every tract house in the country. On both options I'd probably also want to reposition the powder room a little bit. It isn't terribly bad where it is right now but I feel like you would still have a little bit of a view of the toilet while standing in front of the kitchen sink and that would bother me. On both options, I'd definitely make the island a little bit smaller so that the aisleway between kitchen sink and island was wider. Since you might have someone squeezing past to reach the master bedroom while you're washing dishes (even tho there is another way they could go!) I would want 4.5 feet of space there. On both options, I'd probably want a second door directly from garage into the pantry in order to avoid the walk around carrying groceries. On both options, you have a "door conflict" between the closet door outside the laundry room and the laundry room door. On both options, the master bath area/master closet area is HUGE. If you find yourself needing to cut some square footage, I'd start there. BTW, I'm curious as to whether the square footage of either option is anywhere near the 2500 sq ft max you mentioned on your earlier post? I like the two double garages of option 2 but would want a man-door somewhere on that side of the house to make it easier to access the detached garage. I'd also want a man door into the detached garage. Who wants to have to open two garage doors to get to a car parked in the detached garage? I think I prefer the location of the office in option 1 to its location in option 2 and I know I prefer the larger front porch on option 1 to the small front porch on option 2. I suspect the front facade of option 1 can be made to look nicer than the facade of option 2 which, to me at least, seems out of balance with the office sticking out almost in the middle of the house but not quite. I like the u-shaped stairway of option 2 better than the C-shaped staircase of option 1 but wish there was someone to turn it so that you could have the landing up against the exterior wall so you could have a landing window. On both plans, I don't like that the only way to reach the powder-room from the office, lving area or dining room is to walk right thu the kitchen. Just my 2 cents. I'm sure you'll get opinions from lots of others....See MoreHelp with House Plans...Please!!:)
Comments (4)What is your budget? When do you plan to start building? ============ Those long halls are killing the layout by wasting space and creating bad traffic flow. I strongly suggest that you spend a lot more time looking at professional house plans that have the size and features you want, concentrating on how traffic flows through the house and how the components are laid out in relation to each other. Do your planning on paper if your husband is "sick of the changes", or learn AutoCAD yourself, but this plan is not livable. It may be buildable, but you'll hate it within a week. As I read it, the ONLY way to get to that bedroom to the right of the entrance is to go out onto the porch (that upper long room), then into and down that long hallway? And there is no way to get into the room to the left of the entrance without going through the MBR and down the hall? To get to the closet you have to walk through the master bath .. which means if you want to get dressed and husband is using the toilet ... ???? If you are a guest and need to use the toilet ... you use the one at lower left by going out onto the porch, into the MBR, across the MBR, through a door, down a hall and through another door to the bath? Or you go out to the porch, into the right-side hallway and to the bath? You have THREE bedrooms sharing a single toilet+shower room while the favored child across the house gets a full bath to him/herself? Walk through ordinary living tasks, like I did with the using the toilet, and see how far you have to walk, and how it "works". See what it takes to get a queen mattress and box spring into any room. ======== Just tacking up a loft over the kitchen complicated the build and adds the expense without helping the living area. For the 5 bedrooms you apparently want, a standard 2-story house would work better....See Moreneed help with new build house plan... please critique!
Comments (9)The best houses are 1-1.5 rooms deep, absolutely no more than 2 ("rooms" include garages and covered porches). Light and breezes have a harder time reaching interior spaces when the house is fatter than 2 rooms. Because of this, the best course of action, I think, is to toss this plan altogether, sorry. :-( The Philippines is a beautiful, friendly country, with a rich culture... Would you consider hiring a Filipino architect to design you a great place that works with the spirit of the locale? You could really get something awesomely special! Side notes: -- Bedrooms on corners are awesome, but take care to place windows where you have enough space for drapes... extending the curtain rod 8"-12" on either side of the window is best, to make a window look larger, and to allow the fabric to be pulled completely away from the glass. -- Most Americans will think it's strange to have an outdoor laundry area, but if this is normal/expected in the Philippines (it was where I spent most of my childhood, outside the US), then having a powder room instead is a good idea, I think. :-)...See MoreSsubo
8 years ago
cpartist
8 years agoscone911
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoSsubo
8 years agoThanks Scone911 for your thoughtful comments! I'm attaching a copy of the current house as there are some restrictions we need to deal with... Given the lot's shape unfortunately we can't rotate the garage as you suggested (even though I love the idea!). Regarding the powder room, we want to have something close to the living room / dining room as we entertain a lot and wouldn't want the guests to use the kid's bathroom.
I'm also attaching another alternative (work-in-progress) for the first floor. What do you think?
Tks again!
Existing house (we are going to keep the Master Bedroom, the Master Bathroom, and 2 bedrooms on the left and the full bathroom.
New WIP Design
Ssubo
8 years agoscone911
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoO.K., got it. I have an idea that might work for you, gives you lots of flow, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than putting on a second floor. I realize you originally just wanted a few tweaks, but just try this on for size.
Your place reminds me of the homes by a designer/builder named Cliff May, active in the mid-20th century. He built a home for himself called Mandalay. Here's a link to a blog post with lots of pictures:
It has a lot of big open spaces, skylights, etc. and interesting circulation. Your house has a very strong "spine" as architects call it, and I think it would be a shame not to capitalize on that feature-- it organizes the whole house. That's why the original design does not flow. (Of course, it doesn't have to be designed to look like a Cliff May modernist house, it could be more like the Don Gardner houses in your pictures.)
With that in mind, below is a very crude and rough sketch of the idea I was talking about in my last post. I've improved it a little, leaving the powder room and laundry as is, to minimize costs. Essentially, I've just re-used the garage space for your office/playroom, and put in a master suite. The office could have a closet and a fold-out sofa, Murphy bed, etc., for use as an extra guest room.
The "dotted lines" between the new kitchen and the dining/family room could be columns, a big beam, or some other solution. That's part of your bearing wall system, so something has to be there. I would vault the ceilings in the kitchen and dining/family area, and maybe put a dormer window in the kitchen. The final look could be a little like the Don Gardner design called Satchwell. Here's a link: http://www.dongardner.com/house-plan/967/the-satchwell
All this is just food for thought, and needs development. I sure had fun doing it. HTH.
Ssubo thanked scone911
PROMark Bischak, Architect
8 years ago- PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
8 years ago Ssubo
8 years agoAgain, thanks for all the feedback. I've been reviewing all the posts you shared and suggestions and we created a new proposal taking everything into account plus the problems we wanted to solve for. What do you think about this design? Tks again, especially to scone911 for amazing suggestions. Also, regarding chisue's comment, yes, we are in CA so keeping part of the original house is important.
Ssubo
8 years agoThanks Scone911 and Cpartist. Some answers to your questions:
1. Style (scone911): maybe I should have started with this! We are not big fans of the ranch style, so we are trying to change that. We like the french facades, so probably the more formal symmetrical layout with open spaces (see draft 3D view below).
2. Views (scone911): we have awesome views to the hills, that is why we want a second floor (plus the french facades lends itself to a second floor as well).
3. Nook (cpartist): good point, we can expand it a little bit (see updated draft below).
4. Kitchen placement (cpartist): we know that we have to walk through the kitchen to get to the family room and we are ok with this given how we currently use the house. We entertain a lot, formal and informal. With informal guests we typically use the nook for the adults and the kids play in the family room or watch TV there. With formal guests we would use the dining room and great room.
5. Family room (cpartist): good point about entry into the room, so we pushed it out to the garage (see updated draft below).
6. Mud Room (cpartist): we are ok with the size and acknowledge it is on the narrow side of the spectrum.
7. Small bedroom (cpartist): this is the part of the house we are not going to change as we want it to be a remodel and not a new build. Eventually this room will be a gym room when we move upstairs in the next 10 years.
Things we still need to resolve
8. Game room entry (cpartist): we need to figure out the best access. We'll have a bathroom here as well that we are going to use for the pool, so direct access from the outside is key.9. Downstairs master bath (cpartist): we need to figure out the most effective layout.
Thanks again for all the comments and feedback. The more changes we make the more excited we get!
Ssubo
8 years agoscone911
8 years agoOaktown
8 years ago
scone911