Stock House Plan with Modifications - Good Idea?
rantdiva
8 years ago
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Comments (46)ok, muddbelly: Hard to tell if you are just yanking my chain.... but if your toddler has a cell phone then yes, you are giving them too much, and taking away a few "toys" is probably in order. The toddlers will have more fun with the box it came in anyway. =0) I never said don't give your kids ANYthing... I said it don't give them EVERYthing. Obviously you can't teach you child by not giving them anything, anymore than you can teach them by giving them everything. There's a balance that must be achieved. Having your child expect the best is fine, so long as you have also taught them to pay for it. I pay for a week long summer camp for two of my children (the others have not expressed a wish to attend), if they would like to go to another camp during the summer, they have to pay for half the camp fees for that additional camp. I give my 12yo "spending money" for camp (not as much as he wishes I would), but my 15yo must earn and bring his own. The 12yo can also earn his own and add it to what we give him. Next year and the year after we will only match the funds that he earns. Then when he's 15, he'll be earning all his own spending money. For this particular camp, we will pay for it until they no longer desire to attend, because it is a camp my husband and I actively want them to attend. Yes, we want to give our children the best of everything. By that I mean the BEST of EVERYthing. Not just the best stuff. My young children are probably a little spoiled, but as my children enter middle school and high school level learning, then I figure it's my job to make them into productive members of society, not future welfare recipients. Productive members of society work. It's just a fact of life. I want my children to be able to survive after I can't bail them out anymore, and the only way to do that is to teach them well, and to be there when they fall and teach them how to get back up. I'd much rather it be when they're 15 and it's a summer camp they're missing out on because they didn't budget well, than when they're 24-25 and it's a house that's in foreclosure. I know mine is not a popular opinion. I simply do not care. In the future, my children will be the ones who are doing the bailing out, not those in need of it. berniek: Yes, the second, third, and fourth articles are about actual criminal fraud. I could not get to the first, for some reason it kept freezing up my computer. But that is not the category of folks I was talking about. Still, I must say the only victims of those frauds were the folks who had their names and personal information used without their knowledge or consent... and the lending institutions. Everyone else knowingly lied in some form which doesn't make them victims, it makes them accomplices. I was speaking of those who signed up for a higher interest rate than they qualified for, who got an ARM, or an IO loan, and possibly some of those with 80/20 loans that they are now finding that they can not pay while maintaining their current lifestyle. Those who are yelling "fraud" because they did not get the best rate/loan type/terms and now it's time to pay the piper. Those that overbought. Those are the folks that I refuse to call "victim", or believe that they were "scammed" or that there was "fraud", they simply made a bad decision....See MoreSending my floor plan modifications to the architect. Ideas?
Comments (30)BTW I don't know how you'll be able to easily get large furniture into the master the way the entry is. I understand the need for it, but you need to make sure you can get a king size mattress in there or a wide dresser etc. without having to try to do it through a window. The same goes for the boy bedroom. The way the entry to that area is along with the linen closet and the door placement it seems like it would be hard to get furniture in there. At least the first part you can lift over the railing, but then that turn around the linen closet is awkward. You could straighten it out and have more space in the room with something similar to this. I'd still try to find a better spot for the linen closet or use a cabinet there with cabinet doors instead, or just make each kid have their stuff for the bath/sheets in their closets....See MoreFloor Plan Modification Suggestions
Comments (33)First, comments on changes other people have already suggested: - The utility room /mudroom enlargement circled in red is nothing short of brilliant. it takes space that's already planned, already under-roof and makes it into a much more functional area. Note that the main house door is now right next to the trunk of the car ... perfect for unloading groceries, and everyone will have room to "spread out" a bit as they enter the house (as opposed to be crammed into that little hallway space. Do note that you can have a whole world of shelves UNDER the stairs in this space, making it a fairly large storage area. This could be a spot for the gun safe; it's a little more private than the hallway-just-off-the-great-room, and guns are something many of us like to keep private; plus you'd have the counter space for bringing guns out to check, clean, whatever ... and with the gun safe moved to the utility /laundry, you could use what's now labeled as "gun safe" as a pantry. I don't think I'd want an exterior door in this spot though. It'd be out-of-sight-out-of-mind and very easy to leave unlocked. - Second, the area circled in blue ... I'm less enamored of this area. This house isn't large, and you don't have any other space to act as an office ... yet we all know we need a space to store bills and other mail, a spot for a printer, a place to charge laptops, etc. That's what I'd do with this "media room" ... I'd use it as a pocket office. It could be closed off with pocket doors. Pocket doors for a pocket office. If you do away with the little office space, here's what I'd do with this spot: You don't need two hallways, one running on each side of the gun safe ... it'd look kind of weird from the great room ... and that nose-to-toes powder room is too small for comfort. If you go with a pedestal sink, you can have a slightly-larger-but-still small powder room accessible from the "back side" of the house ... and have a coat closet opening towards the living room. Alternately, you could have a little indented niche for a hall table ... or you could have a set of built-in bookshelves. Other thoughts: - Thoughts on the hall bath -- look at the changes I made to the full-floor-plan above: You really don't want a pocket door on a bathroom. Pocket doors are perfect for doors that stay open most of the time ... like the utility room in this house ... you'd keep it open most of the time, but you want a pocket door so you can shut the dog in there occasionally, and so you can close it off when guests come over. Pocket doors, however, are harder to close than regular hinge doors, and they do wear out more quickly than hinge doors (and when they wear out, fixing them means breaking into the wall --expensive. However, if you put a hinge door on this bathroom, one of your two sinks (you really should ditch the duplicate sink ... expensive and no point) is behind the door. What I'd do is move the toilet so it's kind of behind the door (slightly more privacy) and go with one looong sink vanity. You'd have so much space for drawers and storage; you could use a portion of this long vanity as a linen tower. I like that this bathroom has a window. - No, this plan doesn't have a foyer, but you know you'd place the sofa opposite the fireplace, and it would create an entryway. I've lived in a house like this, and it works fine. Place a sofa table behind the sofa, and it becomes a drop spot for visitors' keys and purses. I don't 'specially love this example, but it'd be easy and inexpensive to do something like this ... do install a floor outlet in the appropriate spot so you could have lamps as shown: - The dining room is narrow. I'd do two things: First, I'd go with banquette seating, which requires less space than a traditional table. Something like this: Second, I'd go with a sliding door (the newer styles are called gliding doors) instead of a French door. The slider requires no in-swing, which will help with your tight space. - The master closet is only 5'8 in the shorter dimension. A hanging rod with clothing will take up 24" ... and you must account for the wall thickness ... the reality is that you're going to get L-shaped clothing storage, not the U-shaped storage that's shown here. You could use the other wall for hanging accessories. Measure your current closet and see what I mean. I'd steal some space from the bathroom and revamp this whole area ... something like this: Your whole bathroom /closet area is 15-4 x 15-6 ... I'd give 7' width to the closet, which would allow you 2' on each side for clothing a 3' walkway down the middle ... I'd also open it on the end so it connects directly to the laundry. This would give you approximately 24' linear clothing storage (which could be half hanging space and half folding space, or whatever suits you) as well as good connections to the bedroom, bathroom and laundry -- so convenient. I'd simplify the bathroom and take out the corner tub (which is pretty, but not so practical). 6' for the tub and 6' for the shower -- both large enough to be luxurious -- leaves 3' for the toilet, which is tucked away in a corner but isn't in a claustrophobic, hard-to-clean stall. This gives you space for long 9' vanity with loads of drawers for storage ... plus a 3' linen closet. Your walkway would be about 3' wide. I'd put windows over the tub and toilet ... and another window at the end of the bathroom so you have a nice sightline when you enter from the bedroom. - Your plan shows a patio off the covered porch /by a kid's bedroom. I'd rather have that patio off my master bedroom. I'd put a door on that side (which would also give more light than the two windows that're shown) and have backyard access from the master. Final short thoughts: - I agree that the main living areas, which area flanked by bedrooms and covered porches, will be dark. - I agree that fake dormers are weird, but I also think that if you remove them, the roofline will be missing something. You'd need to do some other adjustments to the roofline if you remove the dormers....See MoreDream home plan and modifications
Comments (39)Part of me wonders if it would be less expensive to buy an extremely old house and redo it from top to bottom instead of finding craftsman and paying a premium to make a new house look old. My knee jerk is "probably not, and only if you were to find an old house that was excellently taken care of and didn't require a lot of fussing with to become workable for modern lifestyles." That said, there is a whole "new old house" movement. There is a "magazine" (published once a year, but with an annual kitchen and bath issue, and a source guide) called New Old House, a number of online articles on the topic, and some excellent books by Russel Versacci, among others. (I'm particularly fond of "Roots of Home," but I haven't seen his newest one yet). Now, I, personally, don't have the budget to really to it up right and use all authentic natural materials, etc. But it is possible to gain some helpful tips and develop you "eye" for what makes a house look more authentically "old."...See MoreMark Bischak, Architect
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agorantdiva thanked Mark Bischak, ArchitectUser
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Mark Bischak, Architect