The rule of good design is behind the plane of the home. Or a separate.building. Or a side load. No front loads in front of the house.

Move the house forward. Or do a side load.

Ditto the above. The focus should be the house, NEVER the garage!! However, 9 times out of 10 you will see it the other way around. Without exception, it will detract from the house.

I can assure you I wouldn't do a snout house if I had another, viable option. I can't do a sideload as the lot is fairly narrow. I also really don't want to move the house forward as it will be very close to the road. Even with a slight snout it will be closer than I want it, however I don't want a giant garage in front of my house so I'm compromising on that distance.

And there are other creative choices other than a snout. Like a U where the lesser used public rooms are at the front of the lot and the more private spaces at the back.

But what is the point of purchasing a lot big enough to have a well and other rural amenities if it isn’t actually big enough to place a well designed home on it? It might as well be a city lot then.

Sophie - A well doesn't mean that it's rural or large, it just means that there isn't another water source, which could be for a variety of reasons. Our lot is on a lake - not lakefront (a few houses up), but with lake rights and a dock. I would take a snout house any day if it means we get to have lake living.

I understand that what I'm describing isn't ideal - it certainly wouldn't be my first choice - but I was hoping for suggestions on how staggered to make the house and garage. I guess what I'm hearing is stagger as little as possible.

Plan for a porch on the home that is the most forward point. Even if the garage is in the same plane as the home, the porch draws attention to the home and doesn't allow the garage to be the snout.

It is hard to speak in generalities. Specifics of the individual lot make workable suggestions a lot easier. But this is what your architect should be sweating over. Creative site placement is one of the huge reasons for working with an architect.

Sophie - Not an option. But thank you anyway.

AllieM, I know exactly where you are coming from. We have 79 ft of lake frontage that pies out to be close to 90 ft by the road. Many lots on our lake are only 50 ft of frontage. We were working on a design with a front load also for several reasons. We must fit a well and septic on our lot. Also, a side load is not convenient for us to back the boat into. Lots of people on this forum are against attached garages and front load garages, so you are going to get lots of comments supporting side load and detached garages.

Lindsay - Thanks for your reply! I'm trying to work with what we have (and keep things in perspective - slight snout is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and a small price to pay to be near the water!) and was just wondering if there was any general rule of thumb regarding proportions. Good luck on your build!

Maybe seeing a design in 3D will help so that you could see how far garage protrudes from house? I am a very visual person, so I know that helps me.

OK...you don't want to move or reconfigure the shape of the house or garage...I get it...you like the area so much you bought a highly restrictive site on which to design and build a custom home.

Compromise No. 1: a carport! Much less visual bulk and no large walls and doors which bust the scale of the house...notice its in front of the house façade on the left...

Compromise No. 3: Put the garage behind or away or under the front of the house. Bob likes how the scale and proportion of the house is the primary thing his eyes sees. Be like Bob...

Sophie - Not an option. But thank you anyway.

Why is it not an option?

Virgil, how would you use Compromise No. 3 on a lake (i.e. high water table) with a flat lot?

Okay, folks, she's made it clear she understands this isn't ideal. How about discussing the possibilities and letting her decide what's best instead of shutting down the question?

We need pictures.

First, let's look at everyone's favorite website: McMansion Hell, which is a fun website because it explains things. This is easy to understand: The house is taller and has more mass than the house -- it looks backwards.

This one's better, but they're not wrong when they call the large single door a "big gaping maw". This could be better if that door were divided into two smaller doors and if they were wooden to fit into the overall color scheme.

Then they show us proportions that work.

Some houses are just plain overshadowed by the garage -- since you're looking at a very wide garage, this is a danger. This example is about a bad as it gets: Note that the garage door is a bright white, making it stand out, and the garage partially hides a gable. Finally, very little of the house actually shows -- one bitty porch with a door. Ick.

Same house. I'm thinking this entire garage protrudes out in front of the house.

This house, again, has too much garage door for the size of the house, and the front door is hidden. You don't want to see the door first.

This house still has a protruding garage, but note that the garage door is divided into two, the gable is nicely centered, and the white doors aren't as jarring in this light-colored color scheme. We can see more of the house, making the whole thing look more proportional. I wish we could see just how far this garage sticks out. I think it sticks out just as much as the first house, but it does look better.

You could say all those same things about this house:

Once upon a time.... I lived in a wonderful subdivison in Winnetka IL that had spectacular views and lots, but the way the lots were, you had to have a front lode garage. The best home builder in the area was famous for his garage doors, that looked like windows, entry doors, etc. There are ways to make it go away. The attached picture is not of my former home, but one built by the same builder.

Lindsay wrote, "...Virgil, how would you use Compromise No. 3 on a lake (i.e. high water table) with a flat lot?..."

Easy answer: Flat lot and high water table...I wouldn't. But, on the other hand, if I had an uphill lot and no water table, it might make good sense... :-)

Ms. P wrote, "...We need pictures..."

Good work, Ms. P. Bob likes 'em too--very informative for the OP.

Disguise the doors.

http://www.californiahomedesign.com/sites/default/files/screen_shot_2011-07-12_at_9.24.00_am.png

Sophie suggested hiring an architect. You said it's not an option. I asked why hiring an architect is not an option, not why the garage has to be set forward.

90% of the houses constructed in this country in the past 50 years have front-loading garages, most of which are indeed snout garages. Build what is going to work for your situation and don't worry about it. I suppose the rule of thumb is the snout garage, just look around you.

Allie- just make sure you are considering all options. Sometimes it is easy to get stuck in some mindset and forget other options. I might have missed some details because Bob is cracking me up but what I here is a garage almost entirely in front of the house.

My first question is - why do you not want the house "so close to the road" but you are ok visually with the garage so close? This matters because having some house over the garage can minimize the visual impact. I like to point out our city code - no front facing garage may protrude in front of the habitable space of the house. If it is more than 50% of the face of the house, it must be 6 ft behind the front plane. Sneaky people down the street just built a new house with a room over the garage and I guess that counted - not really the purpose of the code.

While it isn't horrible, it doesn't fit with the street. While you certainly don't have code issues, it isn't a terrible "rule". I honestly am happy this house is on a completely different section of my street - a terribly snobby attitude. But that section also has significantly lower resale values.

My viewpoint on this discussion is that we (US upper middle) spend a lot of money on curb appeal - from brick, stone, trim, copper downspouts etc. It does not make sense to ruin this with a snout garage. But a front loading garage is most practical so the best thing to do (on a narrow lot) is to disguise the garage in the mass of the house, have double doors, and make them blend as much as possible with materials, color etc. Your rule about not having house so close to road limits that option. Having 30 feet from road vs 47 makes little difference in noise - certainly nothing better windows couldn't fix. Visually the approach from one direction will be very objectionable with your plan so always consider the approach of visitors.

Design constraints are actually good because they give the designer something to work off of. That, and they result in creativity.

A key is to design the house in such a way that the garage reads as it's own separate mass.

Another solution is to actually detach the garage to create an inner courtyard. Aside from a bunch of design theory mumbo jumbo concerning arrival sequence, it gives the front of the house itself a lot more lot because 20' of it is not taken up by garage.

And to be honest, from looking at the design effort of your designer from another previous post of yours, somehow I think he/she is in way over their heads and not anywhere near capable of pulling off anything close to a great house. Sure, it will have four walls and a roof to keep the rain off of your stuff with all the spaces neatly labeled, but it won't be great.

I added the 7 for the porch. Distance from road is super dependent on local issues. Here 30 is typical but there is 10 in some areas and 60 in others. Given what you use the front of a house for, 60 seems like a waste to me. Partly because I am forced to build at 60. If 60 is normal and 40 is the setback and you have the width, why not courtyard?

Here is a screen shot of what a lot of the homes look like on my lake because they have 50 ft wide lots and need room for a septic field.

As you can see, lots of front facing garages. In many cases, you can only see mostly garage from the street.

Okay - this is entirely different from a snout house. This is how houses are built in Malibu - one only sees the garage from the road and that's fine. I have no objection to this at all - it's a way for privacy for your house and for as much house as possible to face the lake. I do always worry about what the rooms that abut the garage are like - seems like they would be dark. I wonder if these couldn't be two separate buildings with a heated breezeway linking them, so the rooms on the back could have windows, greenery outside those windows and light.

I do fully agree with you about an attached garage in the NE. My DS almost bought a very large house with a detached garage that was some distance from the house. I asked him how the heck his wife was going to get two young children (only 13 months apart) and the groceries into the house when it was raining or snowy and slippery. That would be a serious deal-breaker for me.

It's always a conundrum as to which comes in first with babies/toddlers: groceries or children. I tried both ways. When they were very little, I brought them in first and tossed them into the playpen that lived in my kitchen for years (gasp! a playpen! how "confining"!), then the groceries. I could get them put away and then deal with their snow suits, jackets etc afterward. If they were asleep in their car seats (which they frequently were), I brought in the groceries first, put them away, and then awoke and retrieved my children.

Anglophilia, are you talking about the houses I posted? I was curious as to people's opinion of this style because as I said, there are many of them on my lake. I don't think they look bad either, but I didn't know if it is because I am so used to looking at them.

Lindsay, the design challenge of garages--snout garages in particular--are well known, and have been discussed endlessly in threads on this forum.

Your photos are one good alternative to snout and other front facing garages since all that is visible is the garage shell, which is admirably reduced in bulk and scale by the creative use of two smaller single door garage openings, with doors which are further detailed to reduce bulk and mass. The windows and that detail in the gable above the doors also helps refine the façade.

Not every house design and site, however, lends itself to this design technique. The design guidelines cited by David Carey are another good way to have "front facers"--both garage and house which are visible from the street--in better harmony with one another.

There are many, many other good design strategies, ranging from detached garages (connected with a breeze way, or similar device), garages in back accessed by an alley (or corner lot with two street faces), "L", "C", "U", "T" and angular shapes houses. These houses reflect their site specifics and incorporate innovative site planning as well as architectural design. Design by Olsen Associates.

I think you missed my point slightly. It wasn't about a detached garage, it was about skillfully breaking down the house form so the garage can take on it's own character without overwhelming the house.

It's great to "get some thoughts ahead of time as well" but if you're giving your designer a bubble diagram and criteria list (program) as is typically done, initially I'd just write "Important to us is, while the garage may be half the width of the house, we want it to be creatively integrated so it doesn't dominate the house" and see what she comes up with based just on that. You can always see what that yields and show her other examples you like later.

Good discussion, Virgil. So, in the style of house that David posted where the garage is mostly under the same roofline of the house, does that limit the amount of living space that you have on 1st floor since the garage is taking up a lot of the space under the roof? It seems like it would make 1st floor space a lot smaller and be good for plans with second floor master suites. I could be wrong though.

Well Allie, you're entirely welcome. And the best of luck with your build. Exciting times ahead!

If your designer didn't have your answer, perhaps you have the wrong designer.

Lindsay wrote, "...So, in the style of house that David posted where the garage is mostly under the same roofline of the house, does that limit the amount of living space that you have on 1st floor..."

No, Lindsay, not necessarily. It's really all about how one organizes the spaces important to be on the first level. Non-thinking tract homes simply attach one end of the garage to the front of the house and create the dreaded "snout".

Thinking folks might simply integrate the garage into the rest of the first floor instead of creating a "snout".

On the other hand if one has a small urban lot and ground space is tight, here's a common solution:

Bob reminded me...building on ARG's good idea for a garage to have it's own character at the front of the lot, and the house to be developed behind the garage...Bob likes this approach...Bob is a colorful guy--that's his truck!

Be like Bob!

Design by Chris Hawley Architects.

I understand your concern completely. We were looking at a narrow lot that would dictate that the garage would have to be pushed forward also. On the other hand, we would also be fine with that if it meant near lake living!