Main Floor - open concept or not? Floor Plan Included

3 years ago

Love all the feedback this group provides and I'm ready to ask questions now that we're venturing down the path of building a new construction home. I have two separate questions for two separate spaces, but will post them separately to ensure the discussion stays focused.

We have an open concept main floor option and I'm open to hearing other feedback about the space as you see fit.

Question 1: How would you use the great room? Should that be a casual eat-in kitchen space or a sitting area (with no television for hosting)?

Question 2: Would you separate the great room from the living room with the two sided fireplace or leave it open concept and put the fireplace on the exterior wall of the living room?

THANKS in advance!

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Comments (5)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
3 years ago
Houses often have a mind of their own about how spaces get used as do the outside spaces. I would actually have my DR where the great room is and the LR where the DR is then use what you now have for a LR as TV space to not interfere with nice adult type conversation. I don't know about you but I hate pantry space a hike from the working area of the kitchen and I much prefer true pullout pantries to walk ins .Who designed the kitchen I sure hope not the architect or cabinet sales person.
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bpath
3 years ago
While houses have a mind of their own, when you are designing the house you can shape that mind. Do YOU want/need a casual dining space, and a formal dining the same size? Do you want/need an entertaining space without the tv, and do you prefer it near the kitchen, or apart?

How do YOU live?

Since you asked, I do like the fireplace separating the two spaces.

And I’d swap the powder room and pantry.

Why is the mud room so far from the entry points? Or is it, in fact, to come in muddy from the back yard, or for the dogs? In which case, I don’t think I’d want the laundry room there, too.
extremesuburb thanked bpath
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jkent9024
3 years ago
The answers to your questions will change based on how people live--which may be different from how you or I live.

My current home has a formal dining room at the front of the house, similar to your floor plan. We use that dining room once a year on Christmas, and only because I feel obligated; the other 364 days of the year are spent eating meals in our eat in kitchen, even when we're squeezing 10 people around our kitchen table. For our new, downsized home (we're in the final sketches with an architect) there will be no dining room, and a very large eat in area for a table in the kitchen. Because that's how we live. So in your floor plan, I'd turn the dining room into the living room as Patricia suggested, and put a table in the current great room.

Whether you do that or leave the dining room at the front of the house, I'd personally leave the fireplace as a separating wall between the great room and living room. If you remove it, you'll then have a huge cavernous space (30'x20') that would then be broken up into different seating areas anyway. The fireplace just makes it easier to break up those areas and provide more of a barrier for times when someone might want to watch TV in one area while someone else would prefer to read or listen to music in the other area.
extremesuburb thanked jkent9024
extremesuburb
Original Author
3 years ago
Appreciate all of this helpful feedback! I like the ideas of swapping the great room and the dining room and the pantry and the powder room, brilliant! And like you've all mentioned, the home will take on the best shape for how we plan to use the space.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting - any help/feedback on the kitchen design would be helpful too
PRO
Mark Bischak, Architect
3 years ago
This is an unfocused comment, and I am restraining myself from from making other unfocused comments, but unless I am reading it wrong . . .

Do not put brick or stone only on the front facade,