What do you think about this floor plan on 2.5 acres in the country?
dhliggett
5 years ago
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Virgil Carter Fine Art
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What do you think about our floor plan?
Comments (1)This appears to be a repost....See MoreWhat do you think about my house plan?
Comments (5)Are you sure you have an ARCHITECT working with you and not just a draftsman???? An architect should listen to you but he/she SHOULD have ideas - LOTS of ideas - about how to make your desires/dreams into a reality. On the other hand, a draftsman is someone who merely takes your plan and creates a clean, properly scaled drawing that can be used as a building guide. If your "architect" is expecting you to have all the ideas right down to the placement of closets, doors, and windows, he/she is NOT providing you with the architectural services that you are paying for. You need to fire them and get someone else. If you are actually working with a draftsman and want/expect to design your own home, please be aware that while it is not impossible for a non-architect to design a beautiful, functional home, it does take a lot of study, a lot of thought, and a lot of work to get there! Unfortunately, it looks to me like you're trying to START at the finish line...which is fine IF you have a good architect. Not so fine if you're correct in saying that the person you're working with just "does what YOU say." I'm sorry but the plan you have sketched above is simply not very good. Among other things, the way it is laid out forces you to waste far too much of your available square footage on hallways. You've sketched a masterbath with a garden tub (whirlpool tub) and no windows to look out of while enjoying a soak. You've got a powderroom opening directly off of the kitchen so that anytime the PR door is left open, you'll be staring at the toilet. You've also obviously given no thought whatsoever to what the exterior of the finished home would look like. And, given that in a previous post you mentioned that your husband wanted something a bit different and not just a plain box, the last thing I would think you would want to do would be to build a house with no style. Have you given any thought to what style you would like your home to be? Do you already own the lot where the house will be built? If so, which direction will the front door face? Where are the best views? How wide and how deep is your available building area? Do you have room for a side load garage or must it be front facing? Are you in a cold climate or a hot climate, a wet or dry region? Is the land essentially flat or sloped? All of these things should be taken into consideration when designing a home. If you don't already own your land, you're probably getting the cart before the horse anyway because, what if you design a house that is 85 feet wide and wind up with a lot that will only allow you to build 70 feet wide? Before beginning to design a home for you, an architect should know how many people will be living in your house and what kind of lifestyle do you have. Are you formal or informal? Do you entertain a lot or almost never? What do you like about your current home (even if you're renting) and what drive you nuts there? What are your MUST HAVES and NICE TO HAVES? How many bedrooms? How many baths? So you dream of a big whirlpool tub or a huge shower? Do you lust after his/hers vanities? How much closet space do you want/need? Do you want a formal living area or an informal family den? (or both???). So you want a formal dining room or would you never actually use one? Does your family gather in the kitchen while you cook? Do you need space in your kitchen for multiple cooks? Do you want the kitchen/living area to be open to each other or would you rather be able to hide the kitchen mess? Do you lust after a kitchen island? Will you be unhappy if your kitchen sink isn't under a window with a view? Do you need a large pantry? How many garage bays do you need? What size cars do you drive? Does your husband want space in the garage for a "shop." Do you need/want a mud room? Do you have pets and need a space for number of garage bays? attached/detached garage? porches? office? playroom? bonus rooms? Do you need/want a spacious laundry room or just a small spot for the washer/dryer? Is it important to you that certain rooms get lots of natural light? If so, which ones? Is it important that some rooms be tucked away where they'll be quiet even if the rest of the house is noisy? Do you and your husband tend to keep similar hours or is one of you a night owl while the other is up at the crack of dawn? Does your family all tend to gather together in one room or does everyone scatter to their own space? Is it important to you that your home impress visitors? Do you want soaring lofty ceilings or cozy nooks? Do you drawn toward traditional decor, country chintz, clean modern lines, Victorian froo-froo, or some other decorating style entirely? All of the above (plus more) is the kind of information that a competent architect would get from you so that he could help you put together a "program" that would then guide him in designing your home. If your person hasn't yet asked the questions above yet, RUN. Based on what I've seen you post thus far, I honestly think that at this point, you would be better off searching through all the plans that are available online and finding something there that you could live with. (I'm not saying that most online plans are great - and certainly they aren't "custom" - but it doesn't look to me like you're getting the kind of custom help that you have a right to expect from an architect. If nothing else, searching thru the online plans would help you to begin thinking about how you want your home to LIVE and what you do and don't like. After you study about a thousand online plans and try revising them to be closer to what you would like, you'll be much better prepared to start trying to sketch your own from scratch. Or, come back here with several that you "kind of like except for..." as well as answers to the questions I listed above, and perhaps some of the folks who frequent this site will be able to help you put together a workable plan. In the meantime, invest a couple of dollars for some graph paper and do your sketches on that so that various rooms will be at least close to "in scale."...See MoreWhat do you think about my new open plan home?
Comments (28)I spent quite a big chunk of my childhood living in Argentina, with a similar culture and lifestyle to Paraguay. We also had a live in housekeeper with her own bedroom and bathroom, but years ago people did not entertain in their kitchens, so there was only one kitchen, which was a separate room with doors. It seems the open concept house, with most of the action taking place in the kitchen, has also become a concept for those in some areas of South America, hence the need for 2 kitchens. Did you know that many of the mainland Chinese immigrants with larger homes also have 2 kitchens. The second kitchen is quite small and called a Wok kitchen. All the greasy/smoky cooking is done there. You will see these quite often in CA. Since the parilla is going in an "indoor" room you will need to use a vent hood above it to remove smoke and grease. I miss a good asado de tira and mollejas! Any plans for a basement? We had one under part of the house in Buenos Aires and it was a great space for storage and my father had a small workshop set up for himself. The floor in the entry was glass block which let light into the basement area. It was a very modern house at that time. You could do much better with closet placement in the bedrooms and storage (pantry, linen closet, utility closet). The maids room needs a closet. What are you storing in room "deposito"? I know that in many area of South America closets are done as furniture pieces that buyers will add after they buy a house, but since you are building it would make sense to build them into the plan....See MoreWhat do you think? (Floor Plan)
Comments (28)I don't mind my laundry on the first floor, and if I were building, with kids, I'd probably do it again. I spend most of my day downstairs and it makes it easier to tend to. Although, if it were upstairs the kids might actually tend to theirs better. In this plan, the laundry room windows are there for symmetry from the outside. Inside, they will be awkward, covered, and the corner between them and the machines will be cluttered. Not to mention the dryer will vent out next to the front door. Does your two-acre lot let you move the wall where the mudroom coats are now out a bit to the left, and move the machines to that wall? You might even open the wall at the foot of the stairs for a "two-way stair" so that you can get between garage/laundry and the bedrooms without walking all the way around the house. (I'm remembering mornings getting out the door, someone forgets something and has to run back in and upstairs for it, tracking through the house because they are too much of a hurry to slip off the shoes.) Make those windows part of a "secondary foyer" (that creates a nice circulation of traffic) and if that space is expanded enough you can put the powder room there, too....See MoreMark Bischak, Architect
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