What does the roof look like?

If you're on 150 acres why do you need the garage attached in front like an appendage? With the land you have, there are better ways to incorporate a 3 or even a 4 car garage. I wish I had saved the plan one person had done where he had I believe a 3 car garage that was attached but it wasn't what was first noticed.

Also please post the plans here on this thread. It's easier than having to go back and forth on different windows.

Don't have time to look at it in detail, but that closet sure is in the wrong location from more than the view standpoint. Think about how you get ready in the morning. That closet is a long walk from the bathroom. The bathroom is also a long walk from the bed in case of a need to go at night.

We liked the approach, it's position is inline with the top of the ridge that the driveway will come enter from, and it allows us to keep the entrances having a western exposure which is a must have in our climate. I really don't feel like the garage will be an eye sore as drawn, but I do understand the concern. Most people don't like big garages on here and I get that, and in most situations, I agree 100%.

However, I'm open to suggestions for sure.

Why do you think a western exposure is a must? Normally southern exposure is the best and western the worst.

This appears to be another "I don't want professional help, but I'll crowd-source it for comments which I may like" threads.

Based on your comments, without a critique of the design, it appears you will have a substantial redesign to address your comments.

Good luck on your project.

Southern exposure is definitely the best, but given the topography, facing the garage with that exposure would require a significant amount of excavation to get the driveway in (not to mention adding on more length). With this house layout, it's either a Western exposure or a Northern exposure (depending on how much the house is oriented). If I had to choose, it's going to be the former. I should have worded it differently.

Thanks, Virgil!

You don't have to get an architect. But you need a person, amateur or professional, with some talent for design if you want a better plan. And despite your comment that "I'm open to suggestions for sure", the reality so far seems otherwise.

There is nothing that says that prospective homebuilders have to post here, have to take into account the comments and suggestions made, have to hire an architect, and/or have to change their plans. But most people who post their plans know on some level that their plan isn't working well. The "open season" is kind of cute, but also implies that posters here are like hunters looking for targets which I think does the talented amateurs and professionals here a disservice. I say this as someone who has benefited greatly over nearly 10 years from the collected wisdom on this and other GardenWeb boards. This forum is more like an open clinic with free diagnoses from skilled doctors. One doesn't have to accept the diagnosis or the treatment plan, but life will probably be more pleasant if one does, especially since it was the realization that all was not well that brought one to the clinic in the first place.

A lot of people can't see the flaws in their own plans. You can. Any flaws you get stuck with in your build are going to drive you (increasingly) nuts for as long as you're in that house. I'd try to come to terms with getting some professional assistance, even if it's a paid long-distance project with one of the architects on here.

Becky,

The title of the post was not intended to offend. In fact it was, as you stated, we know on some level that our plan isn't working well, and am anticipating a lot of comments.

I've gotten a lot of help from individuals on here and am grateful. I'm also aware that some get easily offended by the harshness of the criticism of some. I'm not. If it sucks, just tell me why you think it sucks.

I even commented to my wife we may have to start over (boy, that was not a good look that I got ) :)

What is that second floor space (above laundry)?

I love, love, love the skewed walls at PR and Play.

Where is the guest room closet?

So, you think that the biggest issue your have with that closet is that it is blocking the views?

There is something that I could credit you for...

"Non architect designed."

It shows.

"No plans to use one (I did try)."

Try harder.

Don't think of an architect as an extra expense, think of them as an investment in your life.

What is that second floor space (above laundry)?

Where? The space marked with an LVL? Just "attic" space created by the LVL supporting the roof structure. I think that's odd as well. In the truss/framing diagrams, I see the necessity, but I was hoping for a better solution.

I love, love, love the skewed walls at PR and Play.

Yeah, I'm not a fan either. I think my wife wanted something like that originally to keep a line of sight to the kids from the kitchen, but that was with the old plan. Now with the room sitting back more, it doesn't make sense. That should probably be squared off.

Where is the guest room closet?

There isn't one at this point.

So, you think that the biggest issue your have with that closet is that it is blocking the views?

There is something that I could credit you for...

It's not my good looks, is it? :)

In all seriousness, what other issues are you seeing?

I always insist that my extensive designer wardrobe of Walmart Tees and promotional baseball caps get the best room in the house!

The title of the post was not intended to offend.

It's not that it's offending or offensive. It's that it seems to indicate, along with the term "bashing", that the process is beginning from a negative and defensive position, rather than a flexible one, open to changes and critiques.

I can sympathize with your wife. We worked on our plan for several years without some assistance, and with assistance for another for few years. But our house will be so much better for the extra time and work put in. Good luck.

Becky,

Thanks, and you, too.

I suppose if the lack of constructive feedback so far in this thread is indicative of anything, it's safe to say there's no salvaging any aspect of this plan.

Your home is larger than you want it to be and has several flaws you've identified and a lot you haven't. Have you considered that someone who knows what they're doing could get the size down and create a home you'd be proud of?

Not what you asked, but I would consider making your pantry a walk through so you can come in through the garage directly into the pantry from the mudroom.

OK...this design isn't really a custom design for a 150-acre site. It's a rather standard design for a suburban sub-division which is plopped onto your property. There's nothing about this design which suggests the richness and special quality of building on such a unique property.

Many architects feel strongly, that appropriate residential design always begins with an understanding and appreciation of the land and site for a house. This is the case whether the site is a 25-foot wide urban site or a 150-acre site. This house design is just another sub-division house.

And it isn't really "designed" in the true sense of that term. Instead, it's "drafted", most likely starting with an existing plan and modified to fit your family situation. Did you or the builder start with a similar plan and subsequently "modify" it to fit your family needs?

The concerns you have described are certainly valid ones. The location of the closet on the exterior wall of the second floor, and the maze of corridors and doors at the other end of the second floor are simply examples of the lack of experience and judgment of the drafter responsible for the drawing.

Unfortunately, to clean these up, to respond to your other concerns, and to improve the overall design means a substantial revision to both first and second floors, since what happens on one floor impacts what happens on the other floor, as well as the exterior.

Sorry to say, but from the quality of your plan, whomever is responsible for it does not have the skill or ability to improve their effort.

If you really want a higher quality design, you need to start over with a person of design talent and experience. If good enough is good enough, just have the drafter respond to your concerns.

You really can do much better. But you have to want to do so.

Good luck on your project.

Virgil, that's fair. Hard to swallow, but fair.

I suppose if the lack of constructive feedback so far in this thread is indicative of anything, it's safe to say there's no salvaging any aspect of this plan.

The lack of plans posted in here definitely doesn't help, even if you don't like the Houzz resizing. As cp wrote above, "it's easier than having to go back and forth on different windows".

Becky,

I'll try. It was kicking the two floor plans out with an error message.

I love how the guest room bathroom is stuck onto the outside of the house. Heck even in the elevation it looks like an outhouse. :)

And what's with the guest room having a door to the office. I guess that's so someone who's in the office doesn't have to maneuver around the house to get to the powder room?

Why are the guest bath toilet and tub are in a separate room?

Like I asked. What does the roof look like?

Why does the master closet get the best and largest space in the house? I assume that's your wife's? And you get the small one?

What's with the odd layout of bedroom 2?

I'm sorry but this house looks like someone said to a draftsman, "these are the boxes I want checked off so give me this."

Even down to the exterior with the 3 different siding materials, the faux craftsman details and then the windows that will wind up looking like gaping holes in the exterior. Oh and the "required" gable over the garage so the emphasis is on the garage instead of the entry.

Of course that's better than the right side view of the exterior. The right side view has absolutely no sense of balance.

I can't get past the first elevation. Needlessly busy with a gigantic garage that overwhelms everything else. The windows are all over the place and don't create symmetry rather confusion.

We built a home on a farm with lots of open land. We chose a large two-car attached garage for the good cars and a separate 2-car with lean-to for the tractors, equipment and larger trucks. It kept the house from being overwhelmed by the storage needs of the farm. We had plenty of room above the attached garage for a huge multi-purpose room.

I don't care how far out in the boonies anyone lives, there is an architect that will design you something that actually fits on your land and doesn't look like it belongs in a sub-division.

I know that you are tired and worn from the process already. No one likes to spin their wheels. Respectfully, you are being penny wise and pound foolish. Ask around. You know someone who knows someone. You just haven't found them, yet. We can hook you up with someone if you are interested. Not trying to drum up business for someone. But, you can do better.

Just a first pass thought here, I will look further.

I'd not put on a gignormous garage attached to the house if you are on 140 acres. I am on 52 acres, and I have a simple garage, with plans to build a detached garage for farm equipment. No reason why these should not be separate.

I may have missed where you are located geographically, but generally you don't want your window/sun exposure to be highly west-oriented. Sun drops down, high heat of day... everything overwarms.

Agree that door sizes should be 3 - 0.

I like that you are thinking about geothermal. I put in forced air heating here, in hopes for geothermal, but now (after all the construction was as slow as molasses) I may not be able to get the rebates for geothermal, so this is a dream for me for down the road. Think about that, and may be you can do it, or maybe also it is a dream. (I did get the solar in, on time for 2017. Barely...)

When we built on the farm, we wanted to go the geothermal route. Our GC put some numbers together for us. We ended up spending our money on really good insulation and windows. These were passive after the first expense. Our HVAC bills were minimal even though we had no shade in the middle of a pasture in Middle Georgia.

All it takes is for one of the components to go bad and your pay back is shot. Unless you are placing your home near a pond so you can drop your coils into it without cattle crushing them, the cost of drilling holes may make it cost prohibitive. Crunch the numbers very carefully.

Homechef, I’m all for suggestions for an architect. Would love to hear who you recommend.

As for the Geo, we definitely will run numbers first. It’s not set in stone at this point.

Artemis, would like to see pictures of your home if you don’t mind. A PM is fine if you don’t want to post them publicly.

Now, that's a reply, Mrs. Pete! I actually agree with almost everything you said. Great suggestions and we will discuss it tonight when my wife gets home.

I fear so much driveway is going to be much too dominant and further unbalance the house. Another vote for a separate service garage, maybe at a right angle to the everyday garage & sharing a paved entry space. I recommend a second double garage designed to coordinate with the materials used in the house, but more restrained.

Too, I once had an over-the-garage storage area like that and we despised it as too inconvenient to use for all the standard equipment & supplies necessary for a rural family.

DIY landscaping is fine, but I would recommend a consultation with a skilled landscape designer, which is NOT the local garden people (like me). Maybe you want a planting design or not, but I'm not seeing effective interaction between the house and outdoor living spaces on this plan. I would want access to the basement level in the rear and more circulation planned around the exterior. house.

Will read the rest and look at plans, but for now I couldn't get past this sentence:

"Building on 150 acres (won't own it all initially, but plan to buy it all from my dad eventually)."

Just want to make sure that you will own the piece you are building on and that it has direct road access, or with a recorded access easement. We all love our family members, but sh*t happens and you wouldn't want to find yourself with a house on land you do not own.

One way you might be able to decrease the square footage is to tighten up the size of the now guest room/will be play room. 16 x 15 is pretty large, even though you say it might eventually become the master bedroom down the road. The now playroom/ will be office is also pretty large at 12 x 13. Of course when you make that area smaller downstairs it will affect the upstairs too. So, you might be able to take a foot or two off the width of the laundry room and make the walk-in closets in the secondary bedrooms 2'-6" deep reach-ins. A 4" deep walk-in closet will be really tight anyways. By doing this, you might also get a little extra room in that bathroom.

Another thing I noticed is that your powder room is tucked in a corner of your mudroom. I wish I could come up with a great place to put it ( I can't) but IMO it's not in an ideal space.

Hope I didn't "bash" too much LOL. It will take a while, but keep at it and you will get your perfect plan.

mgh_pa, You need to turn on your messaging ability in your account.

Done. I had it on, but only for those that I follow. Thought I had it turned on. Sorry about that.

Non architect designed. No plans to use one (I did try).

Homechef, I’m all for suggestions for an architect.

mgh, can we ask what happened with the "try"? That might help everyone here on this thread with the process, and help you too going forward.

I can't remember if it was on this thread or another recent one where I recommended the book "Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect" by William J. Hirsch Jr., which is under $10 as an ebook on Kindle. Architect Sarah Susanka's books, and her "Not So Big House" concept, are also helpful for people who want to live large in a smaller house.

I understand the non-negotiables. We farm too (500 head of cattle, some sheep, and a bunch of noisy chickens and geese), and made some compromises for the sake of function over form; on this quarter section, besides the house we have various established pastures, fields, and a corral system we can't/couldn't change. We're in Alberta and so also have an extreme climate, very cold in the winter (-40 F) and increasingly hot and humid in the summers (we're also, as of late, in a hail zone) which means certain concessions to the climate. That's why it can often help to have a fresh pair of eyes, especially if that person is experienced and creative.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned from so many threads in this forum, and from our own experience is that at some point to get beyond the "box" approach -- meaning, both the boxes you tick off and a layout that looks like a bunch of boxes stacked next to each other -- you have to be willing to trust a bit more. Trust in someone who might actually know more about designing a house, a house that works and flows and gives you what you need. Trust in someone's creative vision enough to close your eyes and take a leap to find out that you can soar rather than crash.

Ok, just as an update, I believe we're going to scrap this plan. I sort of hate to do that because of how much time we have into, but it's probably for the best. Where we go from here, we don't know.

Thanks for the input.

Ok, just as an update, I believe we're going to scrap this plan.

If it makes you feel better we ended up doing that too after posting here. We don't regret it for one moment. We moved into our house in July and are very happy with the house. Comparing the first one to this one can say that we would have regretted many things with the first design.

A good local architect may be your answer.

Mark,

I did contact a "newer" firm that was recommended to me by a member here. I haven't heard back yet, so we will see.

While it may be ill advised, we have been playing with a version of a single story that we may build some inspiration from (would be on a full ICF walkout basement).

Both this one, and the smaller version. I've managed to eliminate many of the bump outs and rearrange the master bath better to include a soaking tub and a walk in shower with better lighting than what's on the original. I've also bumped the second sink area down to eliminate traffic coming from the garage/bedrooms to interfere with that workspace in the kitchen.

We really actually like the general layout of this plan much better than our drafted two story.

A few major issues with a plan like this:

• Lack of multi-wall windows in the bedrooms (Bed #3 could easily have windows on either side), but not the MBR, or BR2.

• The stock plan's placement of the stairs for a semi finished full walkout basement are awful (I do thing that with some nudging, an open staircase could be added to the foyer (U-Shaped) to allow for good lighting both up and down.

• Double doors are unnecessary for entry to most of the rooms.

• Garage is less appendage like, but still not great.

• No coat closet off of foyer (I added one in my quick sketches...would require sacrificing a little space from the office, but the office is larger than we have now, and we have plenty of space).

• Just some thoughts.

Find an architect and let him/her do their job.

Working on it. Isn't easy. Plus I'm already burnt out and as such, my wife and I aren't super excited about building right now after our initial experiences. We're actively searching the real estate market for existing homes as well. Might just keep the land as an investment.