ARG House Plan Feedback pt 2
Previous thread: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/arg-house-plan-feedback-dsvw-vd~5556857
Good morning! We are moving forward with getting our buildable plans drawn up and I'd like some advice on door placement. The current drawing has double french doors. Regardless of placement, we plan to do a single door, not the double.
In the kitchen/living area, should we:
A) Put a door on the horizontal wall (green), close to the kitchen corner. If we chose this option, we would do windows on the vertical wall.
B) Put a door on the vertical wall (red). If this option is chosen, should we:
B-1) Do a single french door
B-2) Do a sliding glass door in a "french door" style with grids.
Door on horizontal wall pros: outside of kitchen area
Door on horizontal wall cons: reduces furniture placement options in living area
Door on vertical wall pros: flexible furniture placement in living
Door on vertical wall cons: traffic in kitchen area
I'd love to hear any thoughts on the issue!
Comments (21)
just_janni
5 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (24)Love your style--we have lots of similar photos in our inspiration books (you may have already seen our design, but I think our homes could be siblings with ARG as a shared creative father to both of them!)--this is going to be a great house! So light-filled and I’m all about your sight-lines to the front and back from the kitchen (I have the same thing in my house). I'm majorly impressed this is your third build--this is our first and the process has been pretty all-consuming and often overwhelming to me! -Yes I would only cover behind the mudroom and do pergola over the area behind the dining if you want so you don’t block light coming into that area—if light is a priority, you will truly regret a fully covered patio! (And I see zero problem in terms of how it will look from the outside) -As everyone else has advised, don’t open up the left kitchen wall. Not only is it nice to have a little bit of a buffer btwn the entry and the heart of your home, but I love having some walls in my kitchen to hang kid’s art work, quotes I want my children to think about, a family calendar, etc.—my current house is very open concept with tons of windows, which is great, BUT I have very few walls to hang things on and I miss them! You can also put up some cute shelves or do the decorative window as an architectural element. I think you will actually love having this wall there. -I would personally go with one big island perpendicular to the way yours are drawn in now. I have yet to see a two island kitchen that flows as efficiently as a one-island (with the exception of when people take a massively long island (like 16’) and essentially cut it into two with an aisle that goes between them). Easier flow from the dining table to the kitchen when setting and clearing the table (vs walking around an island). I’d put a sink in it too. -I wouldn’t mess with closing off the pantry—so great for flow and makes it easy for kids to grab a snack or water bottle on their way out to the garage, etc. Consider doing an big shelf (or enclosed cabinet) in the garage right next to the entry into the house –my friend has that w/ a huge shoe rack for her kids—so convenient to have that with a little bench, rug, and hooks to hang up coats, etc. (when it's winter and we've got lots of snowy/muddy boots, it's so nice not to even have those come into the house!)...See MoreFeedback on Modern Farmhouse 51754HZ
Comments (42)Consider putting an exterior door across from the laundry room to open to a patio outside the breakfast room. Consider putting a door at the bottom of the steps to the bonus room. Heat rises, and heated automobile exhaust smells with it. Whether summer or winter, you'll want the better control over your heat exchange and any heat/ac bills. You could put a door (perhaps a frosted glass French door or pocket door) on each/both side of the fireplace to access that hallway behind the chimney. This addresses not only visual symmetry but adds an extra door for sound privacy and potential fire escape access. Rather than make your pantry separate and walled off from your kitchen, you should make your "pantry" a walk thru butler's pantry by increasing the space for the pantry by having less of an indent between front porch and garage. The butler's pantry is a short hallway with floor to ceiling cabinets on both sides through which you may access the dining room directly from the kitchen without going through the living room. You could have an 18" countertop beneath the butler's pantry window and floor to ceiling 18" deep cabinets on the rest of the walls. You could make the built ins on each side of the fireplace be more shallow so they could serve as bookshelves for the living room side and linen and/or shared game/toy storage closets for the children's hall side of the wall. You could save some cost by straightening the exterior walls of the home. If you straighten the back wall of the house, you could add a roofed indoor/outdoor living area -- any combination of pergola w/semi-clear roof and/or sun room and/or open porch and/or screened porch the full back width of the house from the master bedroom wing all the way to the left back corner of the home. You might want to swap the locations of the laundry room and powder room, putting the powder room closer to your master bedroom -- the better to enable both his/her powder rooms for the master bedroom as needed. Flipping the locations of the laundry room and the powder room would also move the smells of the powder room farther away from the door to the breakfast/eating area. You could also make that powder room a 3'-4' wide "L" shape, with the longer side against the master bedroom wall and a pedestal sink in the corner angle of the "L" and the toilet in the short part of the "L", enabling you to have more room in your laundry room by keeping you from having an inaccessible base cabinet corner in the laundry room. On the left side of the house for the children's bedrooms, do straighten that left exterior wall of the house (rather than having those unnecessary angles at the front and back corner. Then, rather than three small bedrooms, build two larger bedrooms with a bath-and-a-half and the closets for the bedrooms between them. More sound/privacy issues addressed. (Depending upon the gender of your next child, you could make one of the children's bedrooms larger than the other. As the eldest child becomes a teen, the bonus room above the garage could become an extra children's bedroom.) The bath-and-a-half would be three small connected rooms: a single shared bathtub w/shower in the center room accessible from each side via a powder room, each of which would be accessible from one of the children's bedrooms. Then add a larger closet for each of the children's bedrooms between that bathroom (bath-and-a-half) interior wall and the children's hall wall. (House rules: everyone rinses out the shared tub/shower after each use and no child leaves anything in the tub room other than their towel drying on their assigned towel rack on the back of their own powder room door and/or exterior wall and no one ever leaves the doors to the tub room locked from inside unless they're actually in the tub room.)...See MoreDoug Burke (ARG) & Nick Entrekin new home plan
Comments (28)Work has kept me away from here for a while but I'd like to follow up with a brief outline of background. A fun project for a fun owner. She was great to work with. She consults with her clients out of her home so a major part of the design effort was the space she would use to make that happen, how it would be accessed without a client traversing the house but how, in the event of a future sale, that space could be marketed and used as the third bedroom. The site is a corner lot with some mature trees along one side. Nick and I looked at several site layouts and thought the best approach was an "L" shaped house with the garage entrance being off of one street and the public or client entrance being off of the other. The site aerial and for brevity, a typical site conceptual drawing: The joint effort with Nick worked very well. He did most of the heavy lifting when it came to exploring floor plan options with regard to the office location and I did most of the initial conceptuals/site planning work. There was much discussion between Nick and I and then us and the owner of the pros and cons of each approach. Here are three: And, as an aside, here's the final of rear of the house to go with the front drawings at the top of the thread: But an enjoyable experience. I know Nick and I broke some of the standard "Houzz" rules which is always scary when posting here....LOL....but all good and helpful comments above. Thanks everyone. And thanks Nick. Great job....See MoreP M
5 years agojust_janni
5 years ago
cpartist
5 years agoP M
5 years agocpartist
5 years agoCan I be blunt? Compared to the rest of the house it feels a bit clunky and not as intuitive.
For example, if you insist on that design with the angled closet and hanging on 3 walls, (why?) I would flip the bathroom so the door to the bathroom opens in the same line as the door to the hallway. This way you aren't cutting across the bedroom to get to the closet and bathroom which will leave you more and better designed wall space there.
Here is the path you have as you have it designed:
Additionally, I'd reconsider an angled entry and a closet that has storage along the walls like that with all that empty middle space. Seems a bit wasteful.
Lastly if your bathroom door opens into the bathroom, whoever has the sink closest to the door is going to be bumped multiple times.
I'm guessing there's a better way to incorporate a closet into the bathroom and have a better designed closet too. One where the whole closet is an efficient use of space. I'm sorry but this isn't it.cpartist
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoHere is what I'm talking about regarding flipping the bathroom entry although I still think you could have a better designed bathroom and closet.
Also you say you have lived this arrangement. Have you ever lived the arrangement that Doug proposed?
P M
5 years agocpartist
5 years agoHave you considered having the closets on either side of a hallway that leads to the master bath instead of directly in the bath? What I'm explaining is what we have in our house.
Conceivably we could have put the door to the closets/bath right at the master bedroom where the closets start and then the closets would have technically been "inside" the bathroom.
In our case my DH doesn't need a walk in closet. Instead his is over 6' long and has a closet system inside including a laundry basket. His dresser is in the bedroom. My WIC does have a dresser inside it, hanging on 2 walls and shoe and handbag storage on the third wall. (A big advantage to this arrangement is I don't have to look at DH's mess in his closet. ;) )
How big is the closet as you have it drawn now?
I do hear you on the privacy issue. Just realize it will mean less usable space in the bedroom.
As for pocket doors, they're fine if you have no intention of closing them often. However if you're intending to constantly close and open them, I'd reconsider. And half doors are worse because they won't keep noise out of the bedroom.
You are building a custom home by a top architect. Make sure everything isn't just "good enough" but is done right to work for you and your family.
PROMark Bischak, Architect
5 years agoP M
5 years agoHi Mark!
When I say french door, I mean a door that instead of being solid, has panes of glass in it. Is this the wrong definition? It wouldn't be the first time I said one thing and meant another! I mean something like this photo attached.
kmg11
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoFor the door placement, it kind of depends how your family lives..
Do you have frequent gatherings? Like to grill or dine outside?
Is cooking and being in the kitchen where most of your time is spent?
Kids regularly play outside?...Run in for drinks from faucet or frig? A snack? A container for the caught frog? Quick hand washing, etc?
A door in the kitchen does provide closer access for these things. If choosing this route, I would opt for the sliding door. No need than to worry about clearance issues or a door hitting anyone while carrying the iced tea or barbecue sauce. :/
If your goal is to try and keep traffic to the minimum from your kitchen zone, than having one in your living room might be the better decision. This also gives you a straighter shot to the powder room. But, I would definitely measure and account for your furniture layout, even on your patio. Consider door swings as well.
Maybe the answer is both? You could lock the one to make everyone use the other. Or you could lock all when you want no one in! :D
Another quick idea- if just having windows in your kitchen, a pass through with counter outside...
-Off the topic, I do agree your master bath could be better arranged to function for you :)cpartist
5 years agoP M
5 years agoP M
5 years agocpartist
5 years agoP M
5 years agocpartist
5 years agocpartist
5 years agoP M
5 years ago
Virgil Carter Fine Art