Please help critique my top floor plans for custom build.
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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- 6 years ago
- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
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Can you please critique my lower floor plan
Comments (44)Apologies for the length. The thing I don't like about the GIANT OPEN FOYER is that there it offers no real separation of public and private spaces and there is no adequate focal point at the end of it. And that's why I like the shifting of the stair that GD did. It provides a focal point to the home's entry, and would give you almost the same effect as your wide open space, but with better partition between the public and family areas. (Put in some french doors at the end?) In your design, the lack of separation between the formal and informal feels rather exposed to have the family room completely visible from the front door and street. I might tweak the family room to have the fireplace be the "come hither destination view" glimpsed from the foyer through french doors. Or just place french doors in line in the family room, and use windows elsewhere instead of more french doors. That would be cheaper as well. Separating the two spaces well, but leaving a glimpse of them is like a lace garter that you catch sight of briefly as an attractive lady seats herself. You know you're dealing with the professional aspect of her (the formal entry and living room) but you've now got some curiosity about the private (the glimpse of the fireplace or garden). I also have to say that I think that adding a powder room by the family entrance is a MUST, especially if you will be using part of the garage as a workshop. Who wants greasy hands to walk all the way through the home to the single powder room where you have it located? For your bay with the lift, have you investigated how tall the ceilings will need to be to be able to have the lift be operable? We have an Eagle, and vaulted the ceiling of the bay where it was located, and it's still not really tall enough to extend the lift to full height with anything but one of the the Corvettes on it. And we started with 10' garage ceilings to begin with. The lift bay is probably 15' foot. You want minimum of 6' ceiling height over the full extension height of the lift. Otherwise, you may be doing some bodywork if you forget! What we would do differently if we built today (beyond making it even bigger!) is make the majority of the shop 8' instead of 10 foot and raise the roof pitch and reinforce the bottom chord of the truss to gain that extra 2' back as attic storage. We did put in insulated access doors (the shop is heated and cooled) to the attic from the vault over the lift, and strategically reinforced those areas adjacent to it to be able to store heavy items like engine blocks or transmissions. We just load them on the lift and raise it up to access the hatch doors and slide them across into the attic. We can't store too many things this way---thankfully! I'd also really like to see a full bath downstairs. I don't think GD's plan does it right, but it's in the right direction. You never know when someone will have issues with climbing the stairs to the bedroom floor. It's just better to have at least a shower on the main floor. And adding a closet to the study would make it work as a guest room for elderly parents in the future. The closet as shown is too big, as is the living room and pantry. Perhaps that portion of the home could shrink and keep the added space you put in the kitchen. The kitchen is much better off at that size for sure! Make the front of the home line up with the dining room and then do a gable over the entryway? Add in bay or box bay windows for both the study and living room?...See MorePlease critique my floor plan
Comments (23)Garage/home walls have to be fire rated. It would function better if the garage was set apart from the main house with either a courtyard or breezeway between the two so that you could get more natural light into the house and still be able to utilize the visual connection between the two. A garage that needs to house two cars stacked on a lift will need to be taller than you are planning to account for not smashing the lighting on the ceiling. You might want to house something beyond lower height sports cars. Our 4 post lift in our garage won't allow a tall vehicle like a SUV on it and then raise to full height, and we vaulted our already 11' tall ceiling to 15' in the lift bay. Even with Corvette stacked on top of Corvette, it's really tight with the lighting when the lift is up enough to get that second vehicle under it. Only Formula cars without the wings would really work to have the double stack be comfortable at that height, and they have issues with the ramps, needing longer ones to get the ground clearance for the chassis. We also climate controlled our garage area, as that keeps the vehicles in much better shape, and it's a much more pleasant working environment. While you plan on having guests here, this isn't a very guest friendly house. There isn't enough room allotted for them, either in the public or private spaces. I might suggest the separate garage have a second floor guest suite(s) and make the main house more about your groundfloor space on one side, and the public space on the other, linking to the garage space visually through the breezeway. Double height space is very difficult to heat and cool, so I would suggest having hydronic radiant floor heating for winter comfort so that the people in the rooms are closer to the heating source.(We did that in our garage, so if you happen to need to be on a creeper under something, you don't have a giant cold mass of concrete sucking the warmth out of your body.) For summer, if you rarely get temperatures above 85, then I probably wouldn't do AC at all since you are in a low humidity climate. I would focus on doing some type of cupola with operable vent windows that will allow the hot air that rises to be vented externally. That's an old fashioned technique, but very effective in climates that don't heat and humidity to need full time AC. Overall, you really need a good architect to take these ideas and make them more functional and designed specifically for the site, to take advantage of it's positives. You will need that anyway for permitting, and in CA there are plenty of creative people who would love to be a part of an interesting build. Take a look at some back issues of Architectural Digest and see if you come across any designs that you like, Then contact a couple of those folks. This needs a large amount of technical expertise to wade through the red tape of building and permitting. So, you need someone local as a builder, well as an architect whose work you admire to work as a team to accomplish this build. Hire good people, and then listen to them. A good design is an interactive experience that makes the work better. Good design is "invisible" You don't even notice that things are where they need to be and work the way they "should". Bad design is obvious, especially if you live with it. It makes life harder. Don't make your life harder!...See MorePlease help critique this floor plan.
Comments (25)Lots of nice pictures from several people! Different variatioins of this plan seem to pop up constantly, and I do like this one better than some of the others, but still the kitchen is the weak spot in the whole layout. Its unusual layout means that you have a small area for "all the action" and then acres of outlying cabinets that are not particularly useful. The space has to also function as a walkway to the bedrooms, and you're going to have a "bottleneck" near the island -- as a result, the kids are going to cut through the kitchen's work zone. But then, you have a triangle of useless space to the left. The shape of this room doens't lend itself to a functional kitchen. Is the breakfast area the only place to eat? Are you okay with having only a small table? Is that a door on the far left of the breakfast area? If so, I'd lose it -- once the table is in place, you won't be able to open it. Instead, I'd count on a door in the lodge room to access the back yard. I'd consider flipping the whole kids' bathroom. That is, bring the sink area closer to the kitchen, and move the tub /toilet towards the back of the house. This would allow you to have a window over the tub, whereas you're not going to have a window by the sink anyway. How are you going to vent the dryer from the center-of-the-house laundry room? How do you see the furniture being laid out in the office? With a window and two doors, you don't have much wall space left. Personally, since I'd want quiet and privacy in the office, I'd keep the foyer door and lose the barn door. I'd rearrange the master bathroom so that your sightline upon entering isn't the shower and the toilet. You could easily move the tub to this spot, which would be much more attractive -- of course, then you have the problem of a front-yard view into your tub....See MoreFloor Plan Critique..Help Please :)
Comments (27)The front porch does help unify the exterior. is the third floor dormer functional? i might skip it if it is not a real window your stair tower is at right angles to both the inspiration photos. The inspirations have windows from near ground all the way up because the stairs run alongside the window. Your stairs run up to the window so it’s in back or front of you. Mentioning this in case that specific design element is very important to you. I notice you drew another window below your stair window. I dont know much but the inspiration sideways stair orientation feels more modern to me while the window-on-landing seems a bit more traditional...See MoreRelated Professionals
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- 6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoJessica P thanked Virgil Carter Fine Art
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