Pay more attention to the side and rear elevations than you do to the front elevation.

Would he prefer your guests stand in the rain?

Hello all,

I probably misunderstood the original comments when suggested having a gable roof as I thought it was one direction at the front and another for the back of the house. I will re-evaluate it.

@ cpartist, I didn't explain myself properly. . I meant the side front porch in front of the window and not the main door porch. LOL

@ RES2, we are rethinking the whole floor plan as I tried, tried but couldn't picture myself living with such long hallway.

@Mark Bischak, Architect, would you be able to explain more what you mean by "Pay more attention to the side and rear elevations than you do to the front elevation." What type of attention should give to those sides?

Thanks again all

opps.. I forgot to add the roof layout I thought it should work for our house.

Pretend each elevation faces the street. The designer of the house below did not.

@Mark Bischak, Architect Thanks,

@res2architect, reading your suggestion again, what do you mean by "A small porch and a pent roof (the small shed roof over the porch) will add more charm than a third gable and shorten the interior "corridor from hell". I thought you suggested not having anything.. and how a front elevation can "shorten a corridor from inside'? Sorry if I am asking too many questions. I am confused and would like to learn from you all so we can make a educated decision.

Make sure you understand the cost of the curved wood. We thought about going that route as well, but were told it would add $$$ to the cost for little benefit. You have curves nowhere else, and the straight ceiling won't detract from your home. I would go straight.

@anj_p, was your a timber frame or curved plywood with shingles? We aborted the idea of timber frame due to the cost. For sure if the curved plywood with shingles will add $$$, we will not go that direction either. I am having some difficulties on finding an estimated cost for the porch. How did you find this cost difference? Your roof trust company or your framer?

Thanks again.

You should get rid of the phone booth-sized portico. Then. if you want more than one big gable on a 41 ft wide house, you'll need to nest them. Another thing to avoid on a narrow facade is corner boards. Hardie Artisan horizontal siding can be mitered.

The garage doors and interior ceiling heights are 9 ft. to lift the big roof.

Theres a shingle flare above the 12" horizontal frieze board.

@res2architect

All your ideas seem to show the garage forward from the right side. This is the plan from the previous thread. Are you suggesting the plan should change?

The OP said. "... we are rethinking the whole floor plan as I tried, tried but couldn't picture myself living with such long hallway."

The easiest way to shorten the hallway, assuming the width of the house is fixed, is to move the garage forward. I pulled it forward 12 ft.

The back part of the house will be a difficult design challenge but the solution can't be any worse than the current one.

I would put the study upstairs.

As far as I understand from reading both threads, you are buying into a development, and have chosen this plan with elevation options from the builder's standard portfolio of homes in the subdivision. This is a typical, and very popular, floorplan layout of "lifestyle" homes (those 55+), built a dime-a-dozen. If you are requesting additional elevation changes and the builder is obliging, good for you, but you will pay dearly. Think of it as a chain restaurant, you can ask Olive Garden to hold the onions or add more meatballs on a menu item, but if you ask them to make you a burrito it's going to be a challenge.

You seem to be spinning and lost from some comments suggesting a 180degree turnaround. I don't believe the recent changes are offensive or wrong, they will never meet all guidelines of perfect proportions and architectural theory that you can get closer to on a custom build. And they shouldn't, given the scenario of this build. At some point, the more little things you change to the elevation without re-conceiving the entire project, will start to look bastardized and hurt your ROI.

The OP said: we sent our front elevation back to the design team to make changes", and "we are rethinking the whole floor plan".

That suggests a substantial amount of control over the design. If that's not the case, I would advise the OP to get out of the deal if possible.

I haven't seen such poor design work since Gravel Girtie and B.O. Plenty moved into the sales office at the abandoned Sunny Dale Acres development.

Hi all,

Sorry for not responding earlier, I agree we are totally lost and we changed the floorplan layout following RES2 suggestion, now the garage is "totally" pulled over, We have control of the design and as 3onthetree suggests, it will cost us $$.

@res2architect, thanks for the front elevation idea, The colour is what I was thinking, now I will share it with my better half. :) ;)

We are also thinking of totally different roof, one with much lower pitch. but not sure if it would look good with Hardie Board, I can also use stucco ( see how I am totally lost :) :))

I will post the new floorplan and possible elevation as soon as I have it. Thank you all.

Trying to design everything at once is the most common pitfall of inexperienced designers. Its a habit probably developed from searching through images of fully developed designs when they haven't yet learned how to separate the elements of those designs into parts in their minds.

Don't think about the exterior wall cladding or colors until you have a functional design scheme with a preliminary shape and a massing you like and works with the plan.

Then select the exterior materials and details to reinforce the main ideas.

Hi, I hope everyone is well.

So, I would like to thank you all for your attention and time explaining many things to me. I've learned a lot since I started posting questions in this wonderful platform.

I would like to share the final elevation my husband decided. This will give me the sense of some closure.

Thank you so much.

The siding material on the front of the house is different than the other three sides of the house?? it is a sculpture, not a painting. Fire your husband.

If you're going to all the trouble to build a custom house, then Mark is right: you should pay equal attention to all faces of the house. What you've got there is a very expensive tract home.