I'm not planning to redo plans, but am trying to come up with something close to what we want, to take to the builder or designer.

If you go to a good designer or architect, they will sit down with you and do their job which if figure out what you want and need. You may or may not bring them a preconceived plan.

Architectrunnerguy is an architect who gives free advice on this site and is quite knowledgeable (as is all the architects on this site). Here are some helpful comments and links to threads:

"...but there's not a thing in the world wrong with looking at internet plans. Where they fall short is when it comes to special criteria and then it's a slippery slope into a "square peg/round hole" situation.

And not a thing in the world wrong with collecting internet plans and bringing them to a person of design talent and using those as a starting point towards maximizing the positives of the site. Folks bring internet plans to me all the time and they're great points of departure but not necessarily where we end up. Look at the link I cited that has a photo of an actual design session with me, the client and the builder. That session started with client ideas represented by internet plans they brought in but then we worked towards something better. Just don't get hung up on "Here's what I found, now draw it up!!".

As another example go here: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3865411/project-design-update?n=11 And now please go to the embedded link to see the client plan we started with but came up with something much better. "

And this one:

Thread 1

"Ok, had some second thoughts about posting here as it might be interpreted as hawking for work which I'm not being plenty busy, but on the other hand I want you to be in a situation where you're spending a healthy six figure chunk of your hard earned money the best way possible and I write this advice for the lurkers too! Especially since there are no "do overs" in building a whole house.

So with that said and in lieu of a massive retype by me, let me point you to a coupla threads......

Get somebody CREATIVE to sit down with you for a design session as CP described above. Doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming. Here's a link to one: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3887104/what-should-i-expect-from-my-architect-long?n=17 Scroll down to my 5/12/16 post. And there's a photo there of what one of these sessions looks like. It's not a bunch of hocus pocus "man behind the curtain" stuff. And while you're here, scroll down 2 posts to my thoughts on trusting a CREATIVE designer and the place for preconceived ideas. My guess is, and I'd agree if you said it's pure speculation, with all the cutting and pasting you're doing you haven't realized that a leap of faith is required on your part for the best outcome.

And here's another link from someone on this board who did exactly that: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3598813/we-fit-an-architect-into-our-budget-and-it-was-so-worth-it?n=17

And, for a little self education, here's a list of great books on good home design: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3281434/book-suggestions?n=10

And last but not least, here's a great thread on what makes for good home design. Get a cup of coffee, a comfortable chair and spend some time going through it. It's long but worth the read. All of us design folks chimed in there (along with many others) so you get all the great thoughts and ideas in one convenient location http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3285825/what-makes-a-house-have-good-design?n=39"

As for the plan itself.

It will be quite expensive to build in terms of the roof line and all the jigs and jogs.

The kitchen (and most other rooms) will be a dark hole as there is no natural lighting and depending on which direction the house faces, it could be even worse in terms of light.

Bedroom 2 will get absolutely no light at all the way it's situated.

The corner fireplace in the family room will be a waste as there's no way to arrange furniture around it with the entry to the family room right next to it.

Anyone coming from the garage will be walking right through the center of your work area in your kitchen, not around it.

The room you want to turn into a dining room is too small for a dining room

Even if you move your master, if you need to use the laundry room, it means again walking through the center of your kitchen carrying loads of laundry. Same from the other bedrooms.

Where the doors from the game room are now (where you want your master) means you won't have much room for furniture placement in your keeping room because you need room to walk through.

All those angles in the rooms will wind up being wasted space.

rjing,

With the changes you want, you will be "redoing" the plans.

Basically, the only thing that will not change is bedroom number #2, and such room is the one with the worst shape.

The exterior elevation will not change too much.

Will there be kids in the (potentially moved) bedroom #3? I would be concerned about having a patio door in my children's room. Depending on age. And if they are older you will have to worry about them sneaking out haha! (jk)

I agree with cpartist completely. And each jog you make in the foundation that isn't square is going to raise your costs considerably.

I also agree with the advice about architects. If you bring this plan to them and tell them what you asked us, they can physically make the changes and show you how it will look. They can also offer great advice on what to/not to do. You can also take a 3D walk through so that you get a physical feel for the flow as if the home was already built. Hiring an architect to do our plans was money well spent. I would scrap this forum and just take this right to them.

Sure, plans can be adapted /tweaked /made your own ... but that works when you're talking about rearranging kitchen cabinets, making a closet door open into the hall instead of the foyer, or adding a couple feet (in the direction that doesn't disrupt the roofline). When you're talking about bigger changes -- like swapping whole rooms -- you're looking at alterations to the structure (including the foundation and roofline), electricity and plumbing. When you're looking at changes this big, it's not realistic to alter -- it's time to start from scratch.

If you make that guest room into a dining room (which I assume would also remove the adjacent bathroom), you'll be looking at an 11'x18' dining room, and those proportions may make it feel like a bowling alley. I think you'd want more than a pass-through: I think you'd want an actual door between the kitchen and the dining room.

I'm lost on the garage thing.

The corner fireplace in the family room will be a waste as there's no
way to arrange furniture around it with the entry to the family room
right next to it.

I know corner fireplaces don't get much love on this site, but I like them and think they work just fine with the right furniture layout. As with most greatroom layouts, the biggest issue seems to be balancing the two focal points: fireplace and TV.

All those angles in the rooms will wind up being wasted space.

Totally agree about angles.

Other thoughts:

Bedroom 2 is really oddly shaped, and I don't think it'll hold much more than just a bed.

The real problem spot here is the kitchen. You essentially have three cabinet runs that are too far apart /don't relate to one another at all ... and then the refrigerator literally around the corner in a weird way. Nothing about this kitchen works -- except that it has plenty of space. As someone else pointed out, the kitchen is also forced to function as a hallway -- this can work in some plans, but in this case it's dividing the work areas. I suggest you throw out the whole kitchen and start from scratch.

I know corner fireplaces don't get much love on this site, but I like them and think they work just fine with the right furniture layout.

The problem is the corner fireplace is right to the left as you walk into the living room so please explain how to arrange furniture when it's also your entry into the room.

You are about to spend a serious amount of money. Figure out a way to get good professional guidance on how the home relates to the land (since the land here is the star) and your specific needs. You shouldn't be settling for tweaking when you are spending this much and getting it right is HUGE.

That may be an architect that works on some design meetings but at least get something that is customized to both your life and your lot.

One of the builders we met told me that he could design the floor plan we want, show us the 3D options etc. Another said if we choose what the exterior will look like he can build anything around that.....my husband is an engineer and feels like we should have a plan (I guess what he's really saying is that we should have a PLAN, as in an idea, not necessarily an actual floor plan, but an idea of what we want so we know what to ask for, instead of going into this completely uneducated).

One of the builders we met told me that he could design the floor plan we want, show us the 3D options etc. Another said if we choose what the exterior will look like he can build anything around that.

Be very careful about that. That is exactly what my builder told me and I am a designer in the sense that I had seriously considered becoming an interior design major in college and have been a professional artist my entire life.

I knew basically what style of house I wanted and how I wanted it laid out. If I had to do it over again, I would NOT work with just a builder, but would hire an architect to help create exactly what I want.

By not working with an architect I was extremely frustrated in that the builder and draftsman had no clue what I meant when I said i wanted a craftsman house, had no clue about good design and good flow, etc. If it wasn't for the the architects and some of the folks here helping me I would have wound up with a frankenstein house.

As it is, instead of the process taking a few months, we started in early March of 2015 and are just now in permitting. There are quite a few threads here showing the ongoing problems I had not just with the draftsman but with the city. Many of those problems I think might have been alleviated if I had worked with a true professional and not just a draftsman.

What I might have saved in architectural costs, was eaten up in the time I had to keep redoing the bad design the draftsman gave me. Luckily for me, I was able to show him changes because I have photoshop skills and can also draw with paper and pencil.

If you want to see what I went through, look in this forum for my saga.

rjinga-well you can have a plan/idea but make sure you don't box yourself into it to the point you can't see past it's flaws or a could be doable/mediocre plan and go to great with what the architect can do for you. By all means DO NOT RUSH. I could repeat that a million times over to myself as we did just that. Too large of a monetary, physical and emotional investment to rush it. Don't do it. Did I already say don't do it? Don't do it.

Just my personal experience thinking we'd save time if we had it all but figured out. I think that stifles and shortcuts the creative process. I am no engineer but I am methodical and visual. I didn't realize what hours of pouring over floorplans can do to the process. Don't get me wrong it can be helpful but what I think you should note about the plans you see is more - bedroom needs to be in a quiet area not sharing a wall with the greatroom and realize that detail is what you are liking about a plan. I ended up with big picture similar to what I wanted but missed those details which were what drew me to the plans I liked. Our bedroom is in the same 'geographic' location of the house but I missed key details about door placement, and it's not bumped back so it IS sharing the wall with the living room and TV. That is just an example to explain what I mean about missing what you like about something you see. Good luck!

With a water view AND a 3 acre lot I'd get all of the bedrooms looking at the view. You proposed moving BR#3 but let's also give BR#2 something better than a scenic view of the driveway. Same with the guest room.

Let circulation define the plan, not the other way around and don't have all trips from the garage to anywhere else in the house go through the kitchen.

I'm not planning to redo plans, but am trying to come up with something close to what we want, to take to the builder or designer.

Nothing wrong with taking an internet plan to a designer but expect any GOOD designer to say "That's great but have you thought of this......?" They'll likely do it in a freehanded fashion, drawing as they're thinking while you're sitting across from him/her. Nothing time consuming or elaborate but still getting the idea across. An example I posted here a while back that started out as an "internet plan" but was a great place to start towards something better http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3962571/advice-john-tees-new-may-isle-cottage-southern-living-plan-1905?n=18 Scroll down to my 6/19 post.

And good luck in your build. Exciting times for sure!

I equate looking for house designs to take to an architect to have them design your home, to opening up your own chest cavity to take to a heart surgeon to have them transplant your heart.

Take a list of your wants and needs to a local architect and discuss with them about designing a home for you that fits your needs and your site.

Mark..lol

Mark does it again...! :-)

That's an interesting analogy. I had always equated architect with having the artistic talent I lack, rather than a scientific-type skill like surgery. After all, a lay person can spend a significant amount of time looking over codes and then "design" a house that may not be inspired, but will suffice as a roof over their head. The part that people on this forum seem to be focusing on when they push people to get an architect here is the vision and functionality aspect, rather than the nuts and bolts.

And I think that actually might explain why people want to have something to take to their architect to show them what they mean. I know I'm not artistic, and I would have a hard time putting a "vision" into words if I couldn't also point to it and say "sorta like this". Perhaps a closer analogy would be that of taking a playdough model to the person you're hiring to create a statue?

You take a list of wants, needs, and must haves along with inspiration pics and let the architect do his job. You do not take him a full set of plans from a plan service and say here. That is basically handcuffing his ability from the start and most won't even continue the conversation.

I know I'm not artistic, and I would have a hard time putting a "vision" into words if I couldn't also point to it and say "sorta like this".

But you'd be perfectly capable of saying I need 3 bedrooms 2 1/2 baths and I want as many of the rooms to face my gorgeous pond out back. The view to the back is SE. I also prefer my kitchen is separate from my other rooms and want a formal dining room. I don't want my master bedroom next to the kids rooms, but want our office near the master. I prefer to walk through my bathroom to my closet...

I need to have...

And here are pictures from houzz of what I like. I like this roof, this porch, and am in love with this kitchen.

Just by letting an architect or designer know the things that mean something to you vs showing a plan that may or may not work for you, you are painting a picture for him/her.

Cpartist's response should become a forum "sticky" so that a link to it can simply be posted or that it could be cut and pasted into a new thread. This comes up all the time.

Or, we could simply have Mark standing by for an on-the-spot open heart surgery procedure...

I bookmarked it Virgil so next time it comes up, I'll just copy/paste my answer.

Mark will have to copy/paste his own. I don't want to be responsible for someone wanting to do their own open heart surgery.

I worked for a large hospital for eight years. Nobody ever came to me with a floor plan and said this is what they want when I designed a surgical suite. Instead, I put on scrubs and watched part of a surgery through glass from an adjacent room and asked a lot of questions. I hope that is the only open heart procedure I ever attend.

I feel taking a preconceived design, for someone else someplace else, to an architect to have them design a home for you for your site is counterproductive and detrimental. And by "architect" I mean a person or persons that trained and experienced to come up with a design that is aesthetically, structurally, functionally, and environmentally sound. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Bernard Maybeck:

"There is something bigger and better and more worthwhile than the things we see about us, the things we live by and strive for. There is an Undiscovered Beauty, a Divine Excellence just beyond us. Let us stand on tiptoe, forgetting the meaner things, and grasp of it what we may."

With regard to bringing "internet plans" to an architect, as had been said here before, everything has context and context is everything.

I have to disagree with the other architects here as to the act of bringing a preconceived plan through my door but where it goes after that we may find more to agree on. If it's "Here, draw this up", they will be referred to a permit drafter. If it's "Wow! We never thought of that" when I say "This is great but have you thought of this....?" then the plan is serving as a great starting point and we'll have a relationship. And nearly always when that happens, we have a different house but one that had a starting point in the "internet plan".

Some of you have seen it happen on this forum when a preconceived idea is "sketched over" and it happens in "real life" downstairs all the time.

In lieu of a massive retype, I'll C&P a thought I posted here before about working with an architect, preconceived ideas (ie: internet plans) and trust:

A good architect, when given the chance, will provide a design that can give a client everything they want, but often in ways completely unexpected. But for that to happen it takes a critical element necessary on the part of the client in every successful project and that element is trust.

Often during our initial meeting, the client will reveal their ability or inability to trust others. If I feel the element of trust is not there they will likely be referred to a permit drafter. A creative person should explore other approaches with you in the spirit of "That's great but have you thought of this.......". But for that to be carried forward successfully it takes a trusting client to not only allow the architect to expand on alternative ideas but to objectively look at other approaches in a collaborative effort with the architect. And that's an intangible that all successful projects are born out of.

And as an aside, that's why the charrette process works so well in that ideas can be explained, heard, modified, explored, remodified and evaluated all in their rough form and all in real time. I can't tell you how many times a client sitting across the table from me has said "Wow! We never thought of that. We like the kitchen idea but how 'bout if we move the entry here and the...." As I hand them the pen. In some of those design sessions the client commands the pen almost as much as I do!

Just be ready to expect any preconceived ideas to be questioned. They may in fact turn out to be perfectly valid but at least they've been evaluated against alternates as any good architect should do.

Finally, regarding preconceived ideas, I've quoted on this board before these two quotes by two creative people.....

Henry Ford observed "If I had asked people what they wanted they would have told me "A faster horse".

And Steve Jobs mused “A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. Everyone wanted an iPhone when they first appeared, but no one could have described what they wanted before seeing one".

So put trust in your architect to carry you through the process in the spirit of Mr. Ford and Mr. Jobs and you'll have a home that is the very best.

A bad expensive plan, plus another bad expensive plan, plus another bad expensive plan, stitched together in a Frankenstein visible seams compilation by a yes-man drafter, is a recipe for a giant waste of a giant pile of money.

I do not know if it is bad, but it would be expensive to build. Massive foundation, massive roof system, angled parts, spread out plumbing, spread out hvac, high ceilings, massive front porch, massive exterior cooking patio, outdoor lounge, massive pool and pavements. I am sure it will be a pretty house, but will you have money to finish it.