ptreckel

Yes my wife agrees with you and that was the first thing she pointed out. We are going to have to figure out something here. Thanks for suggesting the internal hall to help make this happen.

Actually your path to the laundry room is WORSE than mojo drew it. Here it is drawn correctly. Now imagine taking loads of laundry baskets to and from the laundry room. Not only are you having to wind your way past the furniture in the living room, but you're also having to walk through your kitchen area.

Very rough idea moving rooms a bit, creating a path across the house keeping circulation out of the individual rooms. Dining moves to back between kitchen and living. Entry shrinks, room to left of entry is new.

Not shown is a hall as suggested above to the master suite and front bedroom.

And yes, the laundry location needs to change.

They are still dodging living room furniture to get to the bedroom. Can the bedroom door be at the other end of the LR, into a hall with the bath and closet? That also makes it a shorter schlep with laundry.

Lori,

We are looking for the stairs to look like this with the opening leading into the living room. I cant imagine how else to place the stairs with the setup we have.

Wayne, I hope you are able to develop a layout that makes using the dining room practical and convenient. I am a firm believer that family meals - sitting at the table looking at each other, not lined up like strangers in a diner - are a tremendous way to foster communication with kids. Eating at an island implies (to me, at least) eating on the run, not comfortable conversation.

It would be a shame to plan that possibility out of a new home.

Wayne - stairs look good. from plan it was hard to see how open it was.

For the master bath, is it important to you that you see the free-standing tub from the bedroom? That you have a grand, symmetrical entrance to the bathroom? (All that is fine, but reconsider the double doors. Whether they open into the bedroom or into the bathroom, they are a pain to use and where is the light switch?)

For the stairs, the inspiration looks nice. Our foyer is similar except that the stairs don't make that turn so you walk under them. But, our stairs do drop us right in front of the wall, as your plan does, We have a kitchen to the right, with a table in front of the door, so when we come downstairs we have to make a 145-degree turn to enter the kitchen/get to the garage and laundry, or 180-degree turn to go to the living room (which we use). We've gotten used to it, but would prefer a simple 90-turn possibility. With your stairs, the kids will run downstairs and probably angle through the dining room, dodging the table and chairs, because it's the most direct route between their rooms and the kitchen, laundry, garage. Just something to consider.

If you move the bedroom suite entrance to where the media closet is and rconfigure that whole side, you define the private areas better. But at the same time, it may be possible to configure the guest bathroom so it can also be a "powder room" so that guests don't have to walk through/past the working part of the house (laundry, garage, mudroom, laundry) to use the pool bath.

Your "pantry" is far enough from your kitchen to suggest rethinking the kitchen walls/cabinetry to include more storage there.

Personally prefer windows -- even if it is only a tiny high one -- in every bath and powder room as well as the kitchen and laundry room -- any room with plumbing.

You're walking through the bathroom to get to the walk-in closet. That cunvented windowless loset is positioned to hold bathroom smells.

You have a lot of exterior wall angles that, with some adjustments to interior room sizes, could be totally unnecessary and unnecessarily increasing the cost of your build. Are you doing that to add McMansion gables?

Actually, your laundry paths are worse than the one mojo posted. :(

I love the laundry/mudroom at the garage end, and it makes for easy grocery haul, but I'd hate to haul that laundry. I'd have a roller basket for sure!!

I'd stick a stackable in your mst area once you get the extra space figured out in the bathroom!

Good luck!

I'd almost want to swap the laundry and pantry. When we do laundry, it doesn't get sorted and move from hamper to washer to dryer to ironing board to hamper by itself (yet...invention in the works!) I'd want it closer to the household action. The pantry location depends on how you use your pantry, is it where all your dry food and unopened beverages are kept? Or is it stock-ups, the less-used small appliances, paper goods? If I'm not in there multiple times a meal, it can be further away. I think there are some improvements to be made on that side of the house, too.

In fact, do you have/need a study/home office? Where will you store home and family records? What about an "away space"--and I don't mean the tub lol!

Start over.

Make a list of thing you must have, should have, & things you could live without.

Make a list of how you're going to use these spaces & your traffic patterns in your day to day lives. ie: I get up, let a dog out the bedroom door. I go in the mst bath, brush my teeth, etc. I let the dog back in. I go to the laundry room, feed dogs, grab some clothes that may or may not have made it to be put away. I go back to the mst. bath & my closet. I go to the kitchen, make kid lunch, & morning java. Back to the mst. bath/closet, finish my morning getting ready. Let dogs & in & out some door before leaving. (Our master, laundry, garage entrance is on one side of the house, the main areas take up the other side.)

Walk it in your head, & through your plan.

Think about what could make it better or worse. Maybe it would change your routine, or maybe the plan should change.

I think it is a mess myself and agree with Mark B. You might find a better home plan than that right off the shelf. Consider putting the laundry where the mess happens. Out by the garage is where it was in the '50's, not today. Positioning it in or near the master bedroom can allow for a laundry chute from the 2nd floor so the kid's laundry can be easily dropped down. Check out some threads here on kitchen efficiency and circulation. Don't walk yourselves to death making a meal. Keep private areas of the home private. Consider sight lines through the home.

Suezbell,

We are contemplating connecting the pantry to the kitchen in another area or sliding it from where it is. Just playing around with that at this point.

As far as windows go i think there are windows in most all rooms with plumbing. I see where we can add one to the guest bath now that you point it out.

For the master bath we are playing with rearranging it, I currently have a closet that shares a wall with the toilet as is shown here and have never noticed "Bathroom Smells" in it however.

I dont get what you are asking here.

"You have a lot of exterior wall angles that, with some adjustments to interior room sizes, could be totally unnecessary and unnecessarily increasing the cost of your build. Are you doing that to and McMansion gables?"

There is a house exterior we have found that we like and plan to model the outside of our house after the styling. The house does have a gable roof but i don't know that, that is any more expensive to build than a hip roof. I currently have a french county style home with a very steep gable roof that i know cost a good bit to frame and roof.

damiarain

Thank you for that, this is very helpful to see what all of the various comments look like. I really appreciate everyone's input and ideas. It has really helped point out things to think of that i had not even though about.

damiarain well done!

As I was thinking that damiarain's hall to the guest room could steal a foot from the closet for bookshelves or display space, I noticed that in all of the iterations, there is no wall space in the living room, and only one partial wall in the dining room.. Do you have any artwork you want to display?

bpathome

we are trying to work the space to have 60" built-ins on each side of the fireplace. I think i am going to get rid of the media closet to do this and place the DVD player etc. in the bottom cabinets of one of the built-ins.

"...No art work..."?

Brother, you need some help, and I know just the somebody for you...! :-)

^^^ Yes he should see me. ;)

How much land do you have to build on?

This house really doesn't work as you designed. Damiarain did make some good changes but there needs to be more.

For example, you shouldn't have to walk through any part of your kitchen work zone to get to the garage/powder/laundry/pantry area. In both yours and Damiarain's version the path of least resistance to those spaces is through the dining room.

In both cases there is an oversized master bathroom and a guest bedroom with only one window because the bathroom is taking up the preferred corner spot.

Also in a guest bedroom, there is no need and shouldn't be that the guest or child should have to go into the bathroom to get to their clothes etc.

Here I rearranged that wing of the house using Damiarain's version and also managed to put the laundry on that wing so it's a lot shorter distance from upstairs and from the master bedroom to get to the laundry.

The question is do you need a huge pantry or would a smaller one work?

If it were me, I'd rearrange the whole left side of the house too so there was more of a direct path not through the kitchen or the dining room. I'd also personally make the dining room right under the kitchen and have it opened to the kitchen.

cp, that's a huge improvement.

cpartist,

Thank you for taking the time to provide some valuable input. I really appreciate all of the feedback given here so far. For the most part the comments i am receiving is what i expected. The majority of the comments are around items we didnt feel were right but just didnt know how to fit it in. Other things were issues we had not even thought about.

We have 1.2 acres to build the house on. Currently the whole lot is wooded.

The master bath is an area we flet there was excess room but we just couldnt see how to get rid of the space appropriately.

I like what you have shown for the guest bath and this enables more windows as well as easier access for our guests.

We dont really need a huge pantry however our current pantry is tiny and we didnt want to have that happen again. We would like base cabinets and a counter for small appliances and plenty of shelving.

Thanks again for your input and floor plan arrangement.

Ok since you have the room, can you pull the garage away from the house a bit? That would help you to rearrange the mudroom/kitchen/pantry/dining area. That whole side needs to be rethought.

Here is a version pulling the garage away from the house and creating a separate mudroom/pantry/powder room entry. This actually is less square footage. In reality if you don't need such a large pantry, I'd probably switch the pantry and the powder room so that there can be a window in the powder room.

Notice how how much more light would be entering the house and how now you're not walking through any cooking zones to get to the rest of the house?

We 'live' in our "Breakfast Room". Seldom use the stools at the counter. Seldom use the official "Dining Room".

We are happy with a short hallway connecting our MBR to the MBA. Flanking the hall are our walk-in closets. This gives the MBR and the MBA *windows*, and no one is 'breezing through' the MBA while someone is in the tub or shower.

We have almost 3000 square feet of HVAC'd space on one level on our 1.3 acre lot. It seems that you may have more land upon which to build. This house plan reads 'thick' and dark to me. The living area is a thoroughfare in the midst of it all.

The forum often talks about creating 'idea bubbles' for an architect. You could do that with different spaces, then let him or her put them into a cohesive plan -- one with more natural light, for one thing.

I would stop messing around altering aspects of this plan and start over. Now is the only relatively cheap time to get it right! I'm glad you asked here and glad you're open to hearing our concerns.

For the master bath layout we are looking to do something else here possibly.

Totally agree. All that empty, wasted space. It's going to add up to a cold bathroom. Bigger isn't better; right-sized is better. It's like shoes: You don't want the biggest shoes you can find -- you want the ones that fit.

I think simple is always the right answer. Consider this:

- Turn the closet and bath sideways ... bring the closet to the center of the house; this reduces your (usable) linear closet space from about 31' to about 24', but that' still pretty big.

- Get rid of all the empty floor space in the bathroom ... this could be about 9' x 12', a comfortable size ... and set the tub in a bay window to make it special.

- The bedroom remains the exact same size, but is pulled "forward".

The front porch isn't.

Call it a stoop, and you're telling the truth. Front porches tend to be "for looks" anyway. Are you happy with that? I have a stoop over my side door, and it's okay. It adds nothing to the house in terms of looks, but it is highly functional -- just enough space to avoid the elements, stand under a lighted roof, and unlock the door.

I personally wouldn’t want guests to have to go through my mud room to get to the powder room.

Yeah, the whole mudroom needs work. The zig-zag hallway will assure that the place is dark, and all those turns won't be comfortable when you're coming in with bags.

Personally, I'd rather see the master bedroom on the garage /mudroom side. I'd like to be able to come home and go straight into my own bedroom. This also takes care of the keep-the-laundry-near-the-master-bedroom issue.

add two doors in the master bed to patio

I like this idea. Well, I don't know that it needs to be two doors, but a connection to the outside.

Yes we eat dinner daily together at a table, earlier when I mentioned eating at the island I was thing of breakfast when the kids are up getting ready for school and running around. we will utilize the space shown as a Dining room. we just didnt want a breakfast area space and a formal dining room.

I think stools-at-islands are grossly overrated. If you're going to do them, I'd say do just two. That's enough that 1-2 people can sit down, and -- as you said -- it's not a place for family meals.

For the master bath, is it important to you that you see the free-standing tub from the bedroom?

We stayed in a hotel once that had a set of shutter-doors between the bedroom and the tub area of the bathroom. Would I want that in my own home? I don't know, but it was kind of cool. It allowed a person in the tub to open the shutters and watch TV.

My other thoughts:

- The kitchen is too big. Yes, you can have too much counterspace. This much space will cost a fortune (cabinets and countertops), and everything will be much too far apart. Consider your sink: It's the single hardest working item in your whole kitchen, yet how many steps will it require to take vegetables from the refrigerator and carry them to the sink to be washed?

I suspect you enjoy cooking and were thinking, since this is a priority, we must make it large! NO! What you want is a functional kitchen, not a large kitchen. Functional and large are not synonyms!

We dont really need a huge pantry however our current pantry is tiny and we didnt want to have that happen again.

Yup, sounds like you're using the same thought process when it comes to the kitchen: We haven't really thought out the space we need, but we sure don't want it to be too small! Take time to calculate what you actually need /want -- don't just plan more, more, more.

Repeat after me: right sized, right sized, right sized.

I'm a professional baker, and the kitchen I'm planning would fit in this one about three times! My new kitchen will be significantly smaller than my current kitchen, yet I know it'll be more functional.

- I would like to see the dining room closer to the kitchen. Consider carrying all the dinner plates, etc. to/from the dining room. Consider walking back and forth to refill a glass, to get the catsup, to carry the dirty dishes the length of the (oversized) kitchen to reach the sink /dishwasher. Kitchens and dining rooms need to be close together.

- In the great room, I'd move the backyard door to the edge of the room /near the kitchen. Why? Grilling out -- you want your door near the kitchen. Furniture placement -- you want your pathway to the door to be at the edge of the room, not behind the sofa.

- Lots of wasted space in the foyer.

Lots of improvement:

chisue

Thank you for providing your input. We have about the same amount of property as you do as we are at 1.2 acres but are going with a 2 story so our foot print wont be as large as your 1 story. We plan to take these "Idea Bubbles" and present them back to the lady we are working with. I think this is going to be a good first round of ideas and comments to get us on our way. We have been provided a lot of very good info in this post.

Thanks again.

cpartist

Thanks again for your input, i like the idea of bumping out the garage to make a nook for the pantry and mudroom area.

Mrs Pete

For the master bath layout we are looking to do something else here possibly.

I see what you are saying there for the bathroom, we are looking for a “toilet closet and two vanities” but I do see how we could get rid of some of that wasted space.

The front porch isn't.

Yeah we were not looking for a “Porch” just a little inset to keep the sun and rain off the door. Or as you put it a nice place to stay that is well light to lock and unlock the door. We use our front door on our current home about 10% of the time anyway.

For the master bath, is it important to you that you see the free-standing tub from the bedroom?

Not really, I think it looks really nice but I have seen many other layouts I like just as well.

The kitchen is too big.

The overall kitchen flow doesn’t bother me too much but I do see what you are saying about walking all the way from the “dining room” to the sink, that would be a daily hike.

I suspect you enjoy cooking and were thinking,

Yes I enjoy cooking and having people over for the holidays. But can see the overall flow that people have pointed out.

I would like to see the dining room closer to the kitchen. Consider carrying all the dinner plates, etc. to/from the dining room. Consider walking back and forth to refill a glass, to get the catsup, to carry the dirty dishes the length of the (oversized) kitchen to reach the sink /dishwasher. Kitchens and dining rooms need to be close together.

Yes I see what you are saying here, I had not thought about that.

In the great room, I'd move the backyard door to the edge of the room /near the kitchen. Why? Grilling out -- you want your door near the kitchen. Furniture placement -- you want your pathway to the door to be at the edge of the room, not behind the sofa.

Another good point here.

Thank you for your input, there was a lot of well thought out information here. Thanks again.

Yeah we were not looking for a “Porch” just a little inset to keep the sun and rain off the door. Or as you put it a nice place to stay that is well light to lock and unlock the door. We use our front door on our current home about 10% of the time anyway.

A porch isn't a necessity. Sure, lots of people want a porch, but you can build with a small stoop.

I'd think guests would use your front door more often than you, the residents.

The overall kitchen flow doesn’t bother me too much

Respectfully, the lack of kitchen flow SHOULD bother you. Good flow -- meaning that everything's laid out in a sensible order so that you move easily from one spot to another spot in a logical way -- will make cooking more enjoyable. A well-designed kitchen will save you steps and make your life easier. You can find LOTS of reading on this topic.

I do like the idea of reworking the garage side, but I'm not a fan of walking thru the mudroom to get to the pantry.

Def improvements & learning moments here!!

Also I'll get skinned by the architects here, but do you have exterior inspiration ideas? Elevation likes/dislikes.

Most of the time inside & outside are designed together, however, I'm here to tell you it can also be done well separately. If you're keeping the same footprint, and have the other elevations to share, please do. :)

Here's showing pathways for your original design:

Lori Wagerman_Walker

We have not seen the elevation yet but we did identify a few homes we saw online of things we liked and wanted start there for our home . We were really inspired by the house here. We know the elevation wont match 100% but like the overall look of this house.

P.D. Schlitz

It does feel like you could fit a whole separate room (or gain significantly more closet space

We thought the same right away.

I do not see the need for multiple shower entrances

We have talked about this as well but seemed weird to have the shower centered with a dead end wall in one end. I need to look around and find pictures of what this would look like. I have seen some inline (shower tub end to end) setups I like too though. The tub in front of the shower just looks so pretty but do other setups.

I can see where the back door entrance to powder room makes sense with a backyard pool, but it would make more sense to me to have the entrance to a combined laundry and mudroom area, making the powder room feel more private and less of a thoroughfare for guests.

Yes I had not thought about traffic traveling through the bathroom only thinking of it for one use or the other. The idea was to not have wet kids / adults walking through the house to get to a bathroom.

Thanks for all of your input.

Lori Wagerman_Walker

I'll get skinned by the architects here, but do you have exterior inspiration ideas? Elevation likes/dislikes. Most of the time inside & outside are designed together, however, I'm here to tell you it can also be done well separately.

We have been told so many different ways to do this it isnt even funny. We found a handful of elevations we like then set out to make a list of the room and types of areas we wanted.