If you are having this production builder doing the building, then I doubt they will let you change anything in the plan. Their plans are already approved and they won't do any changes that will require having the building plans approved again.

- ask if they will do a bigger counter on the island to give you an overhang for some counter sitting.

- You could have a custom banquette built into that corner (by master linen closet and laundry) so that your dining area won't take up so much of your great room.

- Is this in Florida with zero lot lines?

- I would want more windows in all the bedrooms.

- Garage won't be big enough for 2 cars if you need to add storage, water softener, central vac, extra fridge, etc. How about bicycles, golf clubs, etc.

The center rooms in this house will be very dark.

Stay 'away' from a track builder if at all possible. They give you the 'cheapest' house possible to make the 'most' profit as possible!!!! I would suggest to go to the local lumber yards and get recommendations. Can you buy the lot and use your own GC?

Wouldn't want it.

Going through both a long hallway and the kitchen to get to the living/dining?

nope.

Bathrooms and laundry room without windows?

nope.

Garage and fumes from garage entering main hallway/foyer beside two children's bedrooms?

nope.

Whole lot of hallway space?

nope.

Toilets w/knee knocker doors and not handicap accessible?

nope.

I agree with everything suezbell mentioned. And would like to add there is no good guest bathroom. The one bathroom that is accessible without first going through a bedroom is still in a very very private nook that feels like entering a bedroom or other private zone.

Everything above, plus - you've got room in this plan for an en suite bedroom, and yet the Master opens right into the main living area? Nope. As much hallway as there is elsewhere in this plan, why have people watching TV, looking right into your bedroom?

In two words?

Horrible. No.

Bad plan for all the above and a closet that is accessed through the bathroom always bad planning.IMO separate toilet rooms in the actual bathroom are just plain silly. The kitchen plan needs a redo.

I assume this is on a narrower lot. I get it, we have narrow lots here too and our new build is a narrower, longer lot with a narrower, longer house going up. A lot of people on here seem to have access to much wider lots, and often cheaper land!

But your floor plan is a very good example of why I typically prefer multi-floor homes for narrower lots. When you try and get all those living spaces and private spaces (including four beds, three full baths) it starts getting what I call “squirrelly” with hallways, and traffic flow from one place to another, and rooms that become hallways to other rooms. Honestly, you can probably get a much better flow with two stories, even if you keep four bedrooms. So much space on your plan is spent on hallways and such and it is likely going to feel and “live” much smaller than its ~2300 sq ft.

Did you already purchase lot/sign agreement with this builder? You could try and modify this plan but I understand not all builders are quite as amenable as ours was to many floor plan changes in their master plan (our builder charges nothing to move, remove, or even add interior walls for example as long as all was done before things went for permit.) But this may be a difficult one to start with as a base. What is it I suppose you LIKE about this plan? Does the builder have any models that might not be same, but at least similar, you can walk through?

- the attached garage by bedrooms does not bother me, but I am assuming you have similar code to we do for attached garages. I have had attached garages most of my life, with doors opening to front halls/flyers, used them to actually park vehicles, and fumes and smells have never been an issue inside the house with the code requirements for the wall/door spaces between garage and house

- the bedrooms at front of house ARE a bit odd to me unless you plan to use these for other purposes, like an office. I personally would not want to sleep right at front of house on ground floor.

- do you need four bedrooms? If you could go down to three, and lose one full bath as well (can still keep a smaller guest bath/powder room) you could free up a lot more space to create privacy for example between living spaces and master, etc. but again it might just be better to start with a new plan altogether.

- it looks like there is no basement so storage is going to be an issue as while that garage is okay for two cars, once you start adding room for mechanicals, lawnmowers, bikes, camping gear, or even larger vehicles, it is going to get cramped real quickly. Do you have room for a separate storage shed on property?

- that front hallway is, well, a lot of hallway. I am not totally anti-hallway, even at front as they can create some separation between public access and private spaces (and in my climate, from the cold!), but that is just a looong hallway. It won’t feel very inviting.

- I get what others say about more windows, but to me this also depends on what is on sides. On narrow lots, where my neighbors are an arms reach away, I don’t feel a desire to have a lot of windows just to look at their siding, or into their bathroom (or them into mine). I’d rather have more blank wall space for art or mirrors than an extra window with a view of their air conditioning unit. You need to consider your lot and what works best for it.

- I know it is a popular layout, but I really do not like WICs that have to be accessed through a bathroom. Same when it comes to these small separate toilet stalls. They feel to me like going into a fancier outhouse. The ones with very tall ceilings just feel odd to me. Like being in a small silo. Put a door on the bathroom instead and use it!

Bad, bad plan for all reasons already stated.

First is the fact that the house is a lot of hallway compared to the square footage. Note how much space is devoted to hallways and that doesn't include the needed path between master bedroom entry and master bath or the walkway you'll need to access the sliding doors to the covered patio.

The kitchen is just poor design with that corner pantry cutting off work space on the perimeter.

The separate door leading into bath 2 won't work with the door swinging in since then the person will have to step aside from the toilet and practically into the bath just to get out of the room.

The person at the vanity closer to the door will be constantly getting bumped.

In the master, why would the door to the master bath be optional???

Again the toilet room as designed will mean it's rather difficult to get in and out of the toilet room.

Additionally, I would do lots of due diligence regarding DR Horton. Buyer beware.

Here's the exterior.

Thank you everyone for your comments. We sincerely appreciate the thought you put into looking through the floor plan. To be honest we are really not in love with the floor plan, and you guys pointed out many things that we weren't even thinking about. In order to live in the area we want, we pretty much have to go with this builder or hope we find a resale home we like. There isn't really an option to buy a lot and get a GC.

There is another floor plan we considered, but we were really hoping to not have to get a two story. With this plan it is only a 2.5 bath so we are missing a shower.

The second is a much better floorplan. Much more living space and the bedrooms make way more sense. In the first plan, you only have one living room. In the second, you have three! The great room, the den and the loft. Way better for a family with kids.

On the first floor, where they have the half bathroom, there is plenty of space to add a stall shower later on. No need to worry about it now.

Was there a designer or architect involved anywhere??? Not good use of space. No hallway (s)....disconnected = bad living space. The "shotgun" style looks like it is for a very narrow lot.

The two story is a vast improvement - but still has many of the issues of the first one, like the door swing problem in Bath 2.I would ditch double vanities in favor of more storage and counter space. The corner pantry is much less invasive in this plan.

The tandem garage gives you much-needed storage space, but a garage 20' wide is going to be tight for two average-sized vehicles.

As auntthelma said, the additional living space is a huge plus. How many people will be living here? How old are your children?

If these were my only options for a new home, I'd be looking pretty hard at existing houses to buy.

The second one is much, much, much better!

The first tract/production home we built was a DR Horton. If they will allow, add windows to every exterior wall that you possibly can, with the kitchen being a priority (windows flanking the stove). Also, ask if you can move the fridge to the other counter run, so that it's close to the dining room (this will also give you another window opportunity in the kitchen along the courtyard side).

Are these attached townhouses? You haven't given us any information about the site conditions or other "houses"...if these are townhouses, end units are always better, with light and view on three sides.

I like a lot of things about the second one, like the courtyard that seems to open up the first floor as you progress through the hallway. But, it will be a covered courtyard, and I imagine there's a house pretty close next door, with a wall in-between the two, so will the courtyard won' be bright and sunny (well, you don't want sunny) and, saying this because I don't know you, neglected? Or will it be used?

The first plan at least has the wall of cabinetry on the wall opposite the kitchen, which would allow you to eliminate the walk-in pantry and have more counterspace in the kitchen. The second plan, I don't know where you'd put a pantry. But you do have great storage in the garage and a kind of secondary space in the loft for kids.

Do you need all three kid bedrooms? In the first plan, can you use the bedroom behind the kitchen for other purposes and open the wall to the hall?

No the second one is not better. It's only bigger.

Honestly I just looked at every single plan offered and I didn't see a decent one. They are all bad with those long hallways and lack of natural light.

What is the makeup of your family and what are the lot sizes?

I would personally try and find a resale. Maybe one with good bones that just needs updating to make it "pretty" again. My reason is you will probably have better resale in fixing up an older house in an established neighborhood with good schools, than in a new development with hundreds of homes.

What happens is that in a new development, until every single home is sold, if circumstances change and you need to sell, you won't get back what you paid for the house. Why? Because people buying into a new development want new. It's similar to a new car and how once you drive the car off the lot, the price of the vehicle goes down immediately.

Unless you're building a completely custom house where each house is totally different from the next and even then, it would depend on whether there's a phase 2 or 3 after they sell out of phase 1.

I'm just curious. You say you have to go with this designer in your area and are showing us 2 plans, yet he hasn't build either of them so you can actually walk through them? That seems really odd that if he is established and has built in the area you should be able to walk through a couple of his designs.

Do you need more than 2.5 baths? You didn't say what your family make up was? Growing up we had 6 in the house with 1 bathroom, not ideal but you make things work. Do you need 4 bedrooms?

While #2 is better because it feels more like a 2500sq ft house from looking at the designs, there are still some fatal flaws for me.

skinny hallway

long walk with 2 turns to carry groceries from the car

only 2 windows in master br

plus what some others have mentioned.

Unless you have to live in this exact subdivision, and are being forced to build this year I would look around a little more. Also I would consider smaller houses, unless you really need those 4 bedrooms and a den. Sometimes dropping down to a 3 bedroom can add more space where you really need it.

And for my 2 cents seeing just 2 designs, I don't care for the options. If I was locked into one of these 2 for a house I would pass. So ask your self how long will you be here? If its just a few years maybe you can live with it, and hopefully sell it to someone else. This doesn't look like a rest of your life home to me.

Lindsey, it's an excellent thought and it's what so many of us did back in the day. I'm 63 now but when I was first married, my ex and I found a 2 bedroom, 2 bath fixer upper. The house had been beautifully maintained. Electrical, windows, roof all up to date.

We wound up having 2 kids in that house and moved when my oldest was starting kindergarten and the baby was 1 year old. Up until that time, the house was more than enough space for the two of us with a small eat in kitchen, fairly large living/dining room, front foyer/playroom, and two generous sized bedrooms. The master even had built in closets and a space we were able to add in a walk in closet. Our master was 13' x 21' with an ensuite.

Slowly over the 6 years we lived there, we pulled up ugly carpeting to find gorgeous maple floors, painted all the rooms, wallpapered, and redid the kitchen with Ikea cabinets.

Our lot was a tiny 40 x 100 but we were 7 short blocks to the Atlantic Ocean and a wonderful boardwalk. It was our next house that was our "dream house" and was over double the size.

The advantage was we could afford it by then, and we didn't have to compromise.

I personally like the second plan better than the first. If you want a shower on that main floor you can likely remove that entry/closet way and rearrange bath for the same, or steal space from that "tandem" garage which looks really small anyway. 20" wide for a garage is tighter than the original plan, though. If you can add 2-4" feet width, I advise it. I am not saying choose that plan, as I think if you really want to build here and are tied to this builder, you should take some time to really look through all the available plans, and find out if you can tweak things or not, before you settle on one. Are you able to hold the lot with a refundable deposit or anything while you decide? Knowing what lot you are building on will affect what plan may be best, too.

You have not said if you are a first time buyer, or in what you consider a "starter house" or not already. I don't want to assume this is your first ever house and therefore maybe you need to start "smaller" or should go for a fixer upper. As for planning a house for future kids, @lindsey does make some very good points, and it is true you never know what the future holds and whether you will or will not be able to conceive, but there are of course other ways to add to your family other than by conceiving yourself (be they human or the furry kind), nor does not having children at all mean you need to choose a small house, or devote your free time to home renovations, and be moving in under 5 years to accommodate a growing family (where unless you sell in a hot sellers market and move to a buyers market, you may be losing money anyway...especially if you sunk money into many renovations).

My husband and I are in our late 30s and early 40s and child-free by choice. Still, we recently took what was originally a four bedroom plan with our builder and arranged things to fit our needs (i.e. removed a wall in one bedroom to make it a media room, changed another to be a large laundry/utility/sewing room). Either one or both can be converted back to bedrooms rather easily if a future family needs or wants it, but we aren't worried about that, that is something to concern ourselves with later. It is not a large house by comparison to many houses I see on here, under 2,000 sq feet, though it feels large to us, and we put a lot of thought into what worked for us, and we plan to be in this home for as long as we are able. I know a few couples (without children, or whose children have left home) who have "more bedrooms than they need" because they use them for offices, or hobby rooms, gyms, or create a reading room or library in one. Lots of options to use bedrooms for things other than bedrooms, when you don't need them as bedrooms. You need to think about how you live. We are also building new as, quite frankly, we don't have the time or desire at this point in our lives to be doing renovations on a "fixer upper". A bit of been there, done that, and based on our looking at the resale market for a good length of time, and a bit of we prefer to spend what free time we do have outside of work traveling or doing other things other than home renovations. It is okay if you don't want to be ripping out carpets and redoing kitchens either, for whatever reasons.

I will say I definitely have not had experience of lindsey with 50% of my friends, peers, and colleagues in their 20s and 30s having trouble conceiving or unable to. In my experience as a childfree person, who is now in their late 30s, it was/is actually rare through my later 20s and right through my now 30s to meet people who don't have children. Even if it took a few months or years longer than planned (but years is rare among my friends who have kids, most conceived in under a year...a year is considered normal length of time to take before seeking medical help; a couple couples I know chose to adopt). So no, you can't predict, but the majority of women DO indeed have children, by some means so it is not unreasonable either to be considering that in the shorter term. According to 2016 stats (which do not distinguish between childless by choice or not) 30.8% of women 30-34 in the U.S. are childless, and by 35-39 that hits 18.5% and between 40-44 that drops to 14.4% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/241535/percentage-of-childless-women-in-the-us-by-age/)

To me, as human beings, it is normal to "plan" and dream; sometimes those plans come true, sometimes not. For example, I can also tell you of people I know who spent a lot of money to build a forever home planning for wheelchair access and all sorts of things with dreams of retirement and aging in place, and then had to sell in a year or two because "life happened" and the home they planned to be able to age in place in, was not longer suitable for them. A realtor friend of mine is actually in this situation now; he and his wife, both in their 60s, built a home - architect designed with fantastic views - for one-level living (hard to find here) less than two years ago which was their dream home with beautiful finishes, but now are selling due to other family obligations, and are having difficulty selling, despite there being a larger "older" population here, partly due to price to try and recoup what they spent, but also I think (having seen the home myself many times) because the layout is too specialized and not "mainstream enough". And it does not work for younger families at all, which are the other big buyers segment here.

It can be hard to keep some perspective sometimes on this site with all the promotion of getting architects and having nice large lots with south facing views, and in no way am I saying those aren't appropriate considerations, but also quite honestly many people live very happily in tract or production homes too. For some that is their "compromise", and for others that IS their dream - for many people it will always be a dream. It is a privilege to even be able to consider home ownership at all, in my opinion. And area matters too as to what is realistic or not - I have many friends in a nearby city who have to pay $500,000+ for a tiny 0.7-0.9 acre zero lot line property, before they can even build or tear down, and so many compromises are made when it comes to the actual house, compromises that others would likely criticize on here when it comes to layout, or windows, or the number of stairs, but compromises that allow my friends to also have their dream of a home in a location they desire (rather than a 1-2 hour one-way commute)...and they are happy with their homes.

Yes, resale can be a factor when you are building in a new area where there is still lots of active construction, especially if you are buying into it one of the earlier phases, but this is also market dependent. I watch the market around here a lot, out of personal interest but also my career, and construction that is 1-5 years old, where new builds are still going up down the road, still sell well if they are competitively priced, have been maintained and have other benefits a new construction does not (i.e. landscaping, upgrades, decks, etc). You have the advantage of being able to price for less than new builds, in that you paid 1-5 year old prices for labour and materials...new buyers are paying current prices which are more apt to be higher than lower). Here on new builds you also pay taxes, so that leaves some incentive for some to buy "slightly less new" if they can; your area may vary. If you build, go into it planning, and hopefully, staying in it for 10+ years though. But remember what I said about plans ;)

There is a builder here that has some plans with a courtyard space like the second plan. Here are some photos of how they have set it up in one of their former show homes:

I would want to walk into a mud room from garage. Have bathroom on the outside walls & include a window. Other than that, looks nice.

Have you looked carefully at the site plan for the development? It appears that a majority of the lots are long and narrow, as a means of plopping the maximum number of houses on the minimum amount of land.

Have you looked carefully at both floor plans? There are no windows on the sides of either plan, I believe. The only windows are on the ends of the plans, ie, an interior tunnel with light at both ends.

Is this the sort of development and sort of house you could enjoy for 10 years or more?

I couldn't.

The fact remains that neither of those plans is good for a growing family for many reasons. So if you're planning for a family, you can do better.

And neither is particularly conducive to the way I would imagine a couple with no kids will want to use their home. (admitting that I have only been part of that "couple with no kids" demographic for about 10 months lol) There is no room for entertaining friends, the first plan has good space for guest room/hobby rooms/office but the second doesn't. The second plan has a practical guest bathroom. In both plans you need to walk 30 ft before you get to a spot to hang your coat or put down the bottle of wine you brought! And good luck getting shoes on and off in that bottleneck.

@Rai Kai you mentioned that just under 2000 sq ft feels large to you and your partner. This plan has 600 sq ft more than that. That's worth a large living/dining room or 3 bedrooms and a bath, none of which these plans have. I would hate to pay to build that much extra square footage just to end up with a house that doesn't meet my needs now and won't in the future, either.

I live in Phoenix. I know home prices have really gone up but I would not want to live in this crowded subdivision. I dont find the house designs attractive. It is blatantly obvious that this subdivision is all about the bottom dollar for the developers. I would prefer to buy an older home on a large lot. But everyone is different.

If your lot is really narrow, encouraging the long entry hallway, consider putting two or three bedrooms with bath(s) upstairs.

If I were living in one of these homes, I'd resent the developers for artificially creating such an awkward layout because they wanted to squeeze in as many lots as they could.