Sounds like you have it right.

Remember ideally you want windows on at least two walls in all public spaces and bedrooms.

Show the plan once it’s designed

Hoping you get a speedy settlement without any hassles

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Is your insurance company going to agree? The existing foundation and utilities have a great deal of value when rebuilding.

@Seabornman, we will be allowed to do whatever we want after the insurance agrees to pay according to our agent. Our new house will sit only slightly back and angled from the original house so we will be able to use the existing septic system. The electrical and HVAC systems of the existing house have been condemned/deemed unrepairable which is contributing towards us seeking to have the house totaled. The existing basement was a damp dreary dungeon with short walls and no exterior entrance so digging and pouring a new basement (and using that dirt to fill in the old basement) definitely seems worth it to have a larger and taller poured wall basement with a walkout (we will put in two garage doors on the end).

What climate/location are you? I would imagine a house needing cooling and shade would be positioned differently from one needing winter warmth.

@LH CO/FL, we are in southern Kentucky so not deep south. We still get a lot of hot and humid days in the summer and winters are variable.

Consider wide eaves on any house you build. I put on 32" eaves (the max I could do without compromising the hurricane strapping since I'm in FL) and it definitely helps in the hot summer.

@cpartist, I discussed deeper eaves with the builder yesterday and we settled on 16" since we are building a one story house and will have porches on the front and back. This is the proposed house plan that we took him and he's going to work out the kinks, if any. I'm not really sure I want to post it for critique....lol.

The exterior will be board and batten and will look similar to this but will not have the front window awnings, exposed rafter tails, and will be a shingle roof instead of metal:

"Best house orientation for natural light?"

That's a loaded question. In designing a home it should be responsive to the site. Its spaces arranged to relate to each other and take advantage of the desired features of the site. Natural light, direct and reflected, comes from every direction. Once it is determined the arrangement of the spaces, windows and be sized and located to meet the needs. One of the hazards of plopping a preconceived design onto a site is deciding which compromises you are willing to live with.

"One of the hazards of plopping a preconceived design onto a site is deciding which compromises you are willing to live with."

Agree 110%. I've learned enough over the last year on these forums to recognize that. It's definitely a give and take because there are always constraints of some sort. One of our big constraints is that we want a basement wide enough to fit a two-car garage and ample secondary living spaces. That is something that we have missed in our last two houses that we had in our custom build 15 years ago. The two-car garage and our house site, however, limits us to having bedrooms in the basement with window wells. Being situated in a rural area begs a houseplan that doesn't look like a city house on a small lot. Our existing driveway and utilities require certain things and on and on it goes. As much as natural light is important to me, it does come secondary to some other things.

We may find this house plan totally exceeds what we are willing to spend because of our mental budget constraints and have to revise from there. We have found ourselves in a situation that we never expected and we are having to make decisions on a time crunch because this particular sought-after builder (after seeing our desperate state right now with a house being destroyed) has agreed to squeeze our build in with the neighbor's down the road starting in April. If we aren't ready to go by then, we get pushed to the bottom of the list with a start date a year from now.

How old are you? I ask because your laundry in your plan is clear across the house from the master. I know I wouldn't want to be shlepping laundry clear across the house.

I also personally would and do value light in the house more than most anything else except for excellent flow.

Do you have kids in the two bedrooms on the lower right? If so are they going to be ok hearing one another making noise? My kids had closets between their rooms and the walls were 6" plaster walls (1898 house) and my kids still were constantly doing the "Mommy his radio is too loud," "Tell her to shut up and stop singing." "I'm trying to do homework" etc.

What about when the kids get older and want to hang out in the living room while you want to sleep?

If you have kids, how do you plan to all get through the hallway to the garage at the same time (because it's way too narrow!) and also how do you expect them to actually go into the mudroom to drop their stuff?

Is HE ok with a closet where he can only hang clothing on one long wall? (To hang clothing on two long walls you need a minimum of 7' of space.

Not much storage space. Where will guests hang coats?

I agree it might be nice to have the laundry closer to the master, however if on a farm it really helps having laundry where you enter. Maybe consider if the master can go on that side instead and kid bedrooms on the other side.

One note on the plan is you need to flip the laundry space so your dryer can vent out the shortest route. The current placement has the washer against the outside wall.

Also not sure the laundry will really be used for mudroom space as it makes it hard for anyone entering to actually go in that space. Most people will just continue straight in and not wear off to the side and then go back out again. Really think of how you intend the mudroom to function and design it so it will do that for you.

I think it would be nice if you could get windows into the master bath as well as the toilet closet. Maybe fix the door entry to the closet if you don't make his wider. Then hers can have the closet in the hallway (if keeping existing layout) and his could enter center for easier access.

You raise some good points. The little offset in my closet will be plumbed in case I ever want to put an apartment stacked washer and dryer in that corner.

As for kids minding noise, we will insulate those walls and also the floor as bedrooms will be underneath those two rooms as well. We did that in our custom build 15 years ago as well as used noise dampening ceiling and it worked extremely well to muffle noise. The new owners of that house actually approached us recently as a local restaurant to comment on how they were impressed with some of the things we did with that house construction wise with the biggest being that they cannot hear upstairs noise in the basement because of the insulation and ceiling :) But, I won't even begin to argue that there may be some of the "tell her to shut up and stop singing" going on because it goes on now....lol. I'm not sure I want to eliminate all character-building opportunities from their lives :)

My kids are ages 10-16 so not "youngish" anymore. The basement family room is where I plan for them to hang out and watch t.v. We're a family of fairly early risers anyway because, well, we farm and animals need their breakfast. Again, insulation will help. I would definitely prefer a bedroom that is a "wing" like I was planning in the remodel but for the basement, we need to keep the house to as much of a rectangle as possible.

Good point about the hallway. I don't particularly find 54" narrow but 60" would be better. I think I can squeeze some inches from the adjacent rooms without too much of an impact. The mudroom is more for our dirty boots and is accessible from the carport entrance. Most of my kids are homeschooled which means we don't have a lot of backpacks, etc. Just lots and lots of coats and shoes that be stored by the back door.

In our last house, his closet was only 6'6" and it worked okay. I'll agree that it's not ideal in that location and could be subject to change. He will also have a huge closet in the basement off his office to store his offseason and hunting items.

As for guests hanging their coats (which is rare to ever have), they can go in the mudroom or they can be laid on beds somewhere. We are a family and community of informality. No one will care :) I had thought about putting a coat closet off the foyer but decided I'd rather use that space in the pocket office that will get a LOT of use versus a closet that MIGHT get used once a year and would otherwise be for storing random crap. For storage, there will be a large area over the bedrooms that will serve as our storage area. It could be finished at some point as a bonus room if we needed it to be.

Not everything is 100% set in stone. The whole plan could even change depending on what the builder estimates. One thing I'm debating is making the pantry pass through from the kitchen to the back hall/carport area for ease of groceries.

Sent you a message. :)

What if you moved the master bathroom to the front of the house and create a hall way between the master bedroom and the master bathroom? The hallway would become in essence his dressing area with closet on the outside wall, and closet and entrance to her closet on the opposite wall. You probably know how I feel about clothes closets only accessible through a bathroom.

Haha, Mark, yes I know how you are about closets and I feel just the opposite ;)

I‘m keen on exploring your idea about the master bath. I’d thought that having the vanity on the eastern wall with a window would be nice to have in the mornings when getting ready for the day.

Thank you, Mark! What do you mean for the E to be?

Entry, unchanged from original plan.

@shead The rough sketch Mark did, creating the second path to the kitchen, is exactly what we are doing (and what I worried others would consider odd).

It's only roughed in now, but I can tell you walking the path and pretending to unload kids/groceries feels great! You should definitely consider it. We're very happy with that path.

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@cd7733, yes, I definitely think the alternate pathway is something we will do. I’m contemplating eliminating the hallway portion currently between pantry and kids bedrooms and bring the kitchen all the way to the dining room. I think if I do that and move the master bedroom door towards the back wall, I’ll have a few more options in the master bath which I’m not 100% happy with anyway.

I was going to suggest a door into the pantry closer to the garage and keep the other door too... but Mark's plan is much better.

Edited to add: That's because he's actually an architect and I just play one on the internet.

Edited to add: That's because he's actually an architect and I just play one on the internet.

I say you're even since he plays a comedian on the internet.

@cpartist, I just spat out my coffee...lol. Mark sure keeps things lively on here with his insert of sarcasm at just the right times :)

I play a better architect in real life than a comedian on the internet.

Thankfully for my patients too, I play a better doctor in real life than an architect on the internet.

And Mark, they say laughter is the best medicine!!

Glad to hear it Mark and Doc.