Where is the second floor and the elevations?

Do either of you have lots of clothes because there is hardly enough storage in the closet for one person.

Aisles in the kitchen need to be a minimum of 42". 48" is better.

Where will you park the car and bikes? Is it attached, at leas via a breezeway? Close to the laundry room door?

i wonder if you need the tub in the first-floor bath, since the kids will be downstairs. If they need to sleep on the first floor for some reason (sprained ankle?) they can use your tub.

Am I the only one who wanted my kids far away from me? Having them on another floor is blissful. (Yes all the way from birth).

I think the second full bath is a waste of space. Who is going to use the tub/shower? I would make it a powder room.

Overall, it's simple and economical. Specifics I'd address:

I assume there's a front-facing garage and the family entrance is through the laundry? Otherwise, I wouldn't like two doors side-by-side.

The foyer is very wide ... I'd take some of that space into the office, where it'd be more useful. I'd also want the office to have a larger door ... French doors, to mimic the ones at the back of the house, would work well.

As for the French doors at the back, in Canadian winters, I don't think you want doors that open outward.

With only one bedroom downstairs, I would downsize the full bath to a powder room.

The master bath and the laundry both have wasted space. I'd get rid of some of the middle-of-the-room space and add more closets. Consider this:

- Get rid of the toilet-in-a-closet and instead open the powder room so it serves both the master and the household. Only one toilet to install /clean each week ... and it almost doubles your master closet ... you also have space to enlarge the master linen closet ... the tub and shower are larger ... and you still have two sinks in the master, and this makes more sense than side-by-side duplicates.

- I'd also open a door between the master bath and the laundry room, which will be a step-saver ... and I'd move the washer/dryer so they're on an exterior wall /the vent can run down the side of the garage wall ... and you have room for two large closets /one for the laundry room and one for the foyer ... or you might prefer the one in the laundry room to be a cabinet.

Do you want kids that young that far from you?

I have no problem with it. By the time this house is a reality, the youngest'll be two ... and my kids were younger than that by the time they were escaping the crib and able to find me during the night without trouble.

You need a new "designer". Immediately. Seriously. The stair landing is quite large. The foyer looks like wasted space. No natural light in the secondary bathroom. Only one window in the master bedroom. Will there be a stove? The laundry is quite large. Will there be any windows on the front of the home? Those two doors on the front of the home will make this look more like an apartment or duplex. The master bathroom is very awkward.

One thing that always strikes me about all these virtually interchangeable house plans posted on GW, is that there is no space for people to get away from everyone, other than their bedroom. Now I love family living and I love my family, but there are times I wanted to talk on the phone to a friend or relative when my husband was watching a sporting even on TV. Yes, I could have gone up to our bedroom, but I preferred the option of another "public" space to do this. There were also times when we were entertaining other adults and our children needed a place to watch TV or play while this was going on. Thus, we had a separate LR (an "adult" room) as well as a family room/library. And we had a finished basement where our children could play and have tons of toys, when they were young. I certainly did not want all those toys in our LR or family room!!!

The entire "open concept" thing has come from builders trying to build houses with fewer square feet and at a lower cost. We have greatly lost "livability" in these plans.

One thing that always strikes me about all these virtually interchangeable
house plans posted on GW, is that there is no space for people to get
away from everyone, other than their bedroom.

The office? And I don't have a problem making a phone call from my bedroom.

About the garage, as economy is a big factor we are building without a garage but in the future would plan to add a garage by the laundry room.

I wouldn't do this. In part because you really don't want a house with two front doors side-by-side; it'll look like a duplex. Also because when you do set out to add the garage, you'll have to cut into the roofline, and that'll end up costing you more in the long run.

I insist on my sink being by that south window.

The sink is the most-used appliance in the kitchen. It'd be better placed on the wall "behind" the island. Why? Because you want your food to "move through your kitchen" in a straight line. That is, you want it to come in /be stored nearest the family entrance ... then go to the sink to be washed /chopped ... then move on to the stove for cooking ... then to the table. Where your sink is located now, you'll take food from storage on one end, move it all the way to the sink for washing ... bring it halfway back to the stove ... then move it across the island to the table.

If having your sink on the south window is an absolute must, i'd say flip the house and move the kitchen to the corner ... this'll allow you to place the sink in the right spot.

Groceries will come through the "farm" entrance and go into fridge and pantry.

I don't know what that means.

Also what would be a suggestion for how to arrange the laundry room to make use of that outside wall.

Go back to the picture I included earlier ... the red line indicates a vent hose that could be run down the side of your garage.

The advice I would have would be larger than a "tweak" and would involve an architect.

I rarely get into these things mainly because most plans are posted as if they're like the Starship Enterprise, floating in a black, featureless void. In other words, not on the site. But for here I'd at least switch the kitchen and the living room and add a door to the kitchen side. Reason being, the future garage has to go somewhere (and again I don't know where because there's no site info) and if on that side at least it's close to the kitchen for food hauling, etc.

The two doors on the front doesn't bother me per se but they do have to be handled a lot better so the main door is clearly defined. I had the same situation in the house I just sold. House could only be 30' wide because of the narrow lot and we wanted a front door (of course) as well as a door into a mud room (muddy pet feet. etc) and here's how we did that:

Other concerns like an in inordinate amount of space given over to foyer and hall (the "T" shaped space) for a small house. In a small house a valuable square foot spent somewhere is a valuable square foot not spent somewhere else. The whole thing could be better done but I'm too busy this AM to fix it. Maybe later.

But the best of luck in your build. Exciting times ahead!

I don't have much talent in the layout arena, but I do have a few suggestions. One- Make sure that your basement is built to best practices regarding waterproofing and energy efficiency. Northern Alberta sounds very cold, so the foundation needs to be well insulated (maybe ICF?), the slab needs to be insulated, and you might want in-floor heat.

In addition, you really want to go overboard on waterproofing. It begins with proper design. Top quality waterproofing, plus dimple board or equivalent to allow ground water to drain swiftly. A drain system at the bottom to carry water away. Backfill with gravel to promote drainage. Grade the surface soil away from the foundation. Lastly, a good gutter system to collect rainwater and direct it well away from the house. Sounds like a lot, but a damp or wet basement is not livable, or even usable except for growing mushrooms.

Still on the basement- Will your topography allow for a walk-out basement? It will make it much more livable. I'm not sure about Alberta, but in the US, a habitable room has to have egress, which means a big enough window to climb out of. This usually means large window wells with built-in ladders to climb out. If one wall of the basement is on grade, you just put in regular windows.

When you say facing north, try to situate the house it it isn't lined up exactly north/south east/west. Any side facing dead north will be cold and uninviting. The siding will develop mold or algae. Snow and ice will linger there longer, something you don't want for an entrance. We rotated our house about 30 degrees, and it made a huge difference allowing the sun to hit the back of the house.

If the kitchen is important to you, seek advice on the Kitchen subforum. There are a lot of helpful people on their, and they are wizards at working with what you've got.

Good luck on your project, and please share pics as you build. I'm excited for you!

I am in Michigan. I always recommend finding a local architect to work with, realizing "local" is for you to define.

Create an airlock entry to discourage cold air blowing into the house. Minimize circulation space. Not a fan of bedrooms in a basement unless there are windows (more then one and on different walls) in each bedroom without areaways and not shaded from a deck above. Have one door leading out to the deck to minimize air infiltration. Layout furniture in all the spaces to see if they are sized efficiently. I don’t care for corner pantries.

Hello from west central Saskatchewan! Your situation is very similar to my own- my family is also on 160 rural acres. I get where you’re coming from in terms of optimizing space and money. We went through the same thing over the last 2 years- and are very happy with what we ended up with, but it is light-years away from what we first thought we wanted/needed.

As you said this is just the first draft, I think you have a lot to think about- good points and advice being given above.

Looking at your plan, I feel a disconnect between your desire for economy and usability and what you have drawn right now. Being rural, and northern, you need a really hardworking entry/mudroom. Yet you’ve devoted a lot of space to 2 entries- I think cpartist’s version of the new entries makes better use of the space. I had thought that having a laundry room on the main floor was a #1 priority for me- turns out, it isn’t. It ended up in the basement and I’m quite happy with it there, especially since it’s not in a major entry to the house.

To my eyes, your bedroom suite is huge for the size of this house. When we were first planning our house, I fell hard under what I now call the Houzz influence- I thought I needed a much more luxurious and spacious retreat than the humble bedrooms and bathrooms of the houses in our area.

How much space do you really want to allocate to your bedroom- what type of furniture will you have in there? My bedroom is 12x12, and with a queen size bed and large dresser and high boy, it is rather tight- I have a small closet (think 1928 version). Do you want all of
your clothes in a walk in closet? If you had a very large closet, and didn’t need the extra furniture for clothes storage I think 12x12 would be very comfortable space.

Would you rather have more space in your public, entertaining areas, or in your bedroom?

For your bathroom, would you rather have a great shower, a great bath tub, or a mediocre compromise to have both in the same room? As Mrs. Pete noted above, there is a lot of
open space between the vanity and the tub/shower. It’s not like there aren’t other bathrooms in the house that you could use if you needed to use a tub or shower. Maybe not the perfect, ideal Houzz solution, but a reality when money and space are a consideration.

When planning our prospective RTM, I was adamant that the kitchen had to have south facing windows. I had a crappy plan/orientation (I realize this in hindsight), and the
kitchen was the only place I could get south facing windows. Now, with the house we have- I am so glad that I don’t. Our kitchen is in the north-west corner of our house. I have 5 windows in the kitchen, 2 on the west wall and 3 on the north, and I love it, there is no lack of light in the winter.

I still get the daylight, but without the heat in the summer- which is a very big plus for me. Our house gets loads of winter sun warmth in our public rooms, so much so that the furnace doesn’t even cut in during the day. Don’t discount having windows on the east side of your house- they’ll help warm up your house and bring in the sunlight a lot quicker than waiting for the sun to make its way around to the south side. Or, consider mushcreek’s suggestion to slightly angle your house to the south east.

Here is a comparison of a rough plan we had considered building (dining/great room would have faced EAST), and the house we ended up with.

Layout · More Info

Gardenweb Posts · More Info

Your kitchen is a very good size, but not most efficient as drawn. Cpartists’ version is a good start. Definitely check out the kitchen forum for nailing down your kitchen layout, they are very helpful over there. The new to kitchens thread is very helpful to
get you thinking critically about how you want your kitchen to function. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4306041/new-to-kitchens-read-me-first?n=325

If he's up to it, maybe have Mark draw you a conceptual plan you can take to a local builder or draftsperson to complete. ARG makes a good point. If a garage is in your future, plan for it now.

CP's plan is pretty good and solves a lot of issues.

I'll jump in with my boots on. I don't know exactly where you are in Alberta but is your house built to survive? I was born Tornado Alley (TX, lived in Kansas and NM and own property in Oklahoma). If I were building, I would want the roof and walls hurricane strapped. I would also put a safe room in the basement.

Have you thought about fireproofing? Firewise . Do you have a pond or lake on your property that could be used by first responders to put out a fire. Grit and Mother Earth News have lots of articles.

Do have at least 2 ways off your property in the event of fire, flood or other natural disaster?

Hi felllow Albertan! My husband is originally from up in rather rural Northern Alberta :) So while I don’t know your land, I can guess as to what you are dealing with in terms of surroundings, climate, what is “normal” for exterior elevations...much often function rules over form with all these considerations.

So I love the idea of using the office as a flex space for visitors. We are doing something similar in our two story build, with idea we may ourselves need to sleep in there one day as our master is on second floor. So we also made our “half bath” into a full bath. But it is right across a little hall, disguised from front door and main flow of rest of house.

This would involve some rearrangement of stair plan. At least instead move the door to that office to be by stairs than rather right by the front door for a shorter walk.

Just something to consider. I’ve lived most of my life in Manitoba (my home province) and Alberta, and there is nothing pleasant about walking by a front door during a Canadian prairie winter in the middle of night to use a washroom! Over time even new front doors get drafty, etc. Plus privacy factor!

Plan for the garage now. An attached garage is a lot more complicated than just adding it on side and putting door through wall. It affects roofline, foundation, and in Alberta there are requirements for the barrier between home and attached garage that would need to be considered now (to account for fire risks etc). It will be costly to add on later. Honestly, it would probably be “cheaper” to put attached garage on from start. As unfinished space (just dry walled and taped) it is a lot less than finished space.

I like ARG's thought to put the kitchen on the right, with the garage off of it some time. While you're at it, put the laundry there, too, maybe swapping with the office. Then the secondary entrance can be on the side, and when you add a garage you have some options for connecting it.

No false dormers. Keep things real. I do like the simplicity of the materials. No need to gussy it up with frou-frou.

What's the front view look like?

On the south view I'd make the windows larger.

Put a window in the stairwell going down.

Have you considered a door out from the basement too?

Great advice above from many. I'm no pro so I'll just add this: please check your local codes for the French doors onto your deck, to see what they say about exterior doors being in-swing or out-swing. I'm pretty sure in my area they have to swing in, so that they won't be blocked by snow in the winter. (In some areas they have to swing out due to wind.) I'd prefer a pretty French slider so you get the full effect of a nice glass door, but it doesn't take up floor space.

ETA: I really like ARG's example of making the front door stand out.

Do some extensive research on passive solar construction, and how that affects home siting. The very first consideration for building a new home on a large property is how to site that home on the property.

A square plan plonked down without consideration to orientation for the best solar gain in winter, or sightlines and views, or the prevailing winds and snow drift, will always fail in a home’s most primary objective. You have to start with that part correct to get to any further steps at all. You cannot skip straight over ABC in your alphabet.