The neighborhood is transitioning and gentrifying. There are a lot of older bungalows of different styles, empty lots, ‘interesting’ flips, and homes left to deteriorate into blight by investors who picked them up for a steal during the last recession.

It’s one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods, but spent a large amount of time in decay due to lack of investment, crime, and neglect. Now that the east side of town is saturated (read: $1M townhomes when a 3/2 bungalow could be had for $300k 10 years ago), developers have focused their attention to the westside for its (currently) cheaper land and connection to Westside Park and the BeltLine.

So there’s not really a set style like craftsman, Victorian, cape cod, prairie, etc, though all of them can be found in the neighborhood.

Just saw the additions you made to your comment.

As to the “Some people like to work in their sterile commercial environment and come home to their traditional residential designed house” comment... the same can be said for the inverse.

Living in a Tudor, Victorian, or Arts and Crafts home would be a personal nightmare for me, but I’m not going to knock someone for building one next door to me if it’s their dream home and they can afford it. If I wanted to live on a street with slight variations of 3 house plans, I’d live in a planned HOA community.

Clean lines don’t have to be cold and weathered corbels don’t have a monopoly on character.

I am completely open to constructive criticism, but I feel as though I addressed why I think it is appropriate to build a modern home on the site in my original comment. As for the size of the house, banks won’t lend money for a build of the same size. I believe the lowest I heard was 2,500k. It’s just not a good investment on their end otherwise.

Thank you for your time and feedback.

Did you mean to include pictures? If so make sure you wait until they are no longer grayed out before posting.

@lyfia: Several pictures are in the imgur album at the top of the post, including floor plans, site location, and design inspiration.

Sorry for the confusion, but I didn’t think Houzz would let me upload multiple from my phone.

You can, but you do have a limit of 4 though. Most around here are lazy and don't want to click somewhere else.

I don't have an issue with it being a modern house, but I do think it is going to stick out like a sore thumb due to the height of it. It is going to tower over all the houses in the area and stick out from that perspective. Modern houses can be awesome especially when made to work with the property and the land.

I'm confused by the floor plans. So many kitchens and lots of ways to have to walk to different areas. How do you envision using the spaces in the house? Also lots of open spaces but they appear to me to be a little too over sized. You obviously don't want too small and you want spacious, but you seem to have put both in which is jarring when moving from one space to another. The stairs appears very narrow for example as compared to hallways and other circulation space.

For the extra bedrooms, if you want to have room-mates I would think they'd want some privacy and not share walls with the common areas or another bedroom. A good way to do so is putting closets as separators and other space in between. For example in one bedroom they'll be able to hear when someone is in the master closet. The other bedroom has even less privacy as it shares a wall with the other bedroom and the hallway. Sound travels as well so for someone who wants to sleep in this is less than ideal. Doing something to provide some separation there won't hurt even for a kids room as most people don't want to wake their kids unless it is time to do so.

Thanks, @lyfia! This was a first post with photos so now I know going forward.

The height is bothering me somewhat, but my city’s code limits the footprint homes can have on their lots, forcing homes to build down and up. Also the school on the other side of the park is going to be at a slightly higher top out. The house to my right is a teardown and the house to my left is a $1,000sqft bungalow. I don’t see these houses (or their tenants) lasting 10 more years and I’d kick myself if I built a home to match the height of my current neighbors, only to have developers come in a build even newer houses at my proposed height.
I designed this floor plan thinking of 3 things: my ‘forever my home, roommates, and resale. I’m a big cook and sharing a fridge and cooking space with another adult can get annoying. That matter only gets worse when you add two additional adults. That’s the reason for the spice kitchen / roommate kitchen / prep kitchen / kosher kitchen / butler’s pantry. Let’s roommates have their own cooking space in the short term, and if resale ever happens, opens me to a wider pool of buyers.
The formal living and dining room will also offer separation for roommates who want to have their own sub set of friends over to hang out away from whatever is going on in the great room. Also one of my biggest pet peeves when hosting dinner parties is being able to see the mess in the kitchen while eating. Additionally, having such separation from great room makes it more of an intentional experience than just having dinner.
The stairs do bother me a bit, as well, but they are 4ft wide I believe. So not terribly small but not terribly wide. I made the hallways 5 foot wide to make moving furniture as easy as possible and to help avoid the maze feeling homes without double height ceilings can get.
I agree with you on trying to make the floor plan as roommate friendly as possible. I originally had the bathrooms and closets between the two rooms, but it made the secondary bedroom in the top right feel cramped compared to the other secondary bedroom. I am using double stud construction with insulation, however, and hopefully that will cut down on noise transfer between rooms. I could maybe even make that a quadruple stud wall to dampen sound even more.
I expect this home to have some curious lookyloos peaking in the windows, despite needing to take stairs from the street to the front door. That’s why the front door opens to the coat closet and console. If I’m relaxing on the couch in gym shorts on a Saturday morning, I wouldn’t want strangers to be able to look directly in on the main living area lol.
Thank you so much for taking the time to give me feedback! I’ll definitely add the concerns about the secondary bedrooms to my (extensive) list to discuss with my architect!

Find an architect who specializes in the style of house you like and then bring him your needs, wants and wouldn't it be nice to haves. The house you designed has lots of wasted space and lots of redundant space. A good architect will give you more and better proportioned than what you have.

@cpartist what do you mean by wasted space and redundant space?

Ronald I’ll show you in the morning

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Ronald, no disrespect intended, but you sound like a guy with just enough knowledge to get himself into trouble. Find an architect that likes working with your type please. You'll both be much happier.

Saw your other thread.

In the middle of a modern build with a lot of steel and glass - if you are hiring this out it's a $4+m build.

This:

A lot of people hate moderns [....]

and this:

I designed this floor plan thinking of [...] resale.

Are incompatible, unfortunately. :-( If you go too far outside the norm for your area, you either have to (1) ignore resale, or (2) compromise on what you want. I totally get this. :-)

My family is weird, so I'm prepared to ignore a few resale elements in order to tailor my future custom home to us. Architectural style isn't one of those things, because it's a huge part of "falling love" with a house for most people, and for a lot of folks, buying a home is an emotional thing. It not only affects my house, but all of my neighbors, as well, when they go to sell their houses.

[...] I also need to have a home that will A) be attractive to a family for resale purposes [.... and...] Let’s roommates have their own cooking space in the short term, and if resale ever happens, opens me to a wider pool of buyers.

Designing a single family residence for a typical family, and designing a single structure for a roommate situation/apartment/duplex, require 2 very different -- and often incompatible -- approaches.

Instead of putting everything all under a single roof, explore the idea of having a detached casita/mother-in-law house/granny suite in back. This would help keep your main house at a size comparable to your neighbors' houses, while giving you *and* future buyers the flexibility of either renting the "house out back," housing adult children/extended family, or keeping it locked up with minimal maintenance/heating/cooling costs during vacancies.

You’re backing sideways into a very unwise large expenditure of unrecoupable expense.

JG, Are you pulling our leg? Are you a polygamist and need a kitchen for each of your several wives? Are you going back in time to the 1960s and building a commune? Is this a communal living apartment unit that would not meet zoning unless you can pass it off as a single family home? This can’t be for real! You certainly have a good imagination.

Are you a polygamist and need a kitchen for each of your several wives?

Would the answer to this question matter? ;-) I mean, if JG answers in the affirmative, I might say, "Make sure you don't pick favorites, and give one wife a really nice kitchen, at the expense of the other ones."

Are you going back in time to the 1960s and building a commune?

If we had more communes available for purchase, I wouldn't have to build my own. :-D (I have several special need children who are unlikely to leave the nest completely, if at all, so I'm planning a small family village.)