1st Floor Layout
Jenna
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1st Floor basic layout
Comments (5)Hi GreenDesigns... Unfortunately this house will not have a basement, but I do agree it is prime real estate. I think that with your comment we may put it upstairs and make the space downstairs a bedroom. We were wanting to put it on the 1st floor just in case we have to move to the downstairs area only in the future. I think I will just have the house plumbed and wired for moving it into the garage if we had to. THANK you for your suggestion! The media room will be more a of a game room for the kids. We are hoping that most of the toys and the boys spend time in their as opposed to the main family room....See More1st floor layout floor plan opinions?
Comments (26)Hi Allie , Looks like you've gotten, 'Houzzed!' That syndrome where a bunch of people beat you up for not going to architecture school, or have they budget they pretend their current clients do have. Let's see if we can actually help you - which I've been assured by my Houzz representative is the actual point of the forums. Being you have no design experience - that actually gives you greater insight to what a homebuyer wants as opposed to a designer/architect whose main want is to be published. So step 1: Forget so much what the other houses are doing, and ask yourself what YOU would want in a new home. Start with 5, 'must haves,' then toss in 5 'nice to haves.' A quick call to the realtor helping you sell the property will confirm, remove or add to that list. A good plan doesn't show ALL we know, it shows WHAT we know, basically saying quality of space over quantity. Currently it looks like you're cramming in amenities. Step 2: Prioritize. Is a tiny dining nook in the middle of a walkway to the stairs really more important than 3 oddly sized bedrooms? If yes, go to 2 nicely laid out bedrooms (1 true master) and 1 decent sized dining room. If not, lose the dining room - its in the middle of the kids running up & down stairs anyways. Step 3: Organize. Would you live in a master bedroom that buts up against the garage? Is the privacy a master bedroom needs really achieved by having it as close to the front door as it is? Would it be better if the kitchen were pulled back so that when you pull your car in to the garage you can easily get your groceries to the fridge? Step 4: Simplify. If your floorplan is doing a lot of left & rights and parts of it looks like a maze, it will be as hard to build as it is to look at. We have a term, 'acrobatics.' I.E. there's oa lot of acrobatics to get a linen closet, hallway bathroom & laundry room near the entry of your first floor. This kinds of sums up all the steps - 1, would YOU squeeze into a bathroom that size? 2, is the linen closet really worth it there? 3, Do you want your guests getting a towel from next to your master bedroom door? Hope that helped. I know it was a long answer, its usually why we start every project with a free 15 min. strategy session. Just hit us up on our profile! I'll even go a step further - send me a message here on houzz & I'll sketch both upstairs and downstairs in the same exact footprint for free. Thanks,a -frank build beautiful...See Moreadding extension - reconfigure 1st floor layout
Comments (40)I recently added a little more than 300 sf one story addition to the back of my 2 story house (similar to yours and about 90 yrs old). Extended tiny kitchen by 5 ft, added an office (I work from home) with plans to turn it into my bedroom after retirement (aging in place, here I come!), a full bath. and storage closet. I also took out the load bearing wall between kitchen and DR to get more light and openness. Oy! that was a messy surprise. Had to move/replace all the pipes (including old iron sewer pipe) electrical, radiator pipes, etc. The cost of the consultation with an engineering architect for that one wall alone was almost 1k. Anyway, I also looked into buying a different home (with main floor bed/bath) as an alternative as it definitely would have been cheaper overall. The addition cost almost 160k (an hour from to DC). As luck would have it, nothing suitable was popping up on the market in the area so I bit the bullet. I live in a very desirable small historic district which I adore and wanted to stay. plus I got to pick out everything myself! So I get wanting to stay in your location. I wanted to share my experience, cost, and the plans (below)with you. I only wish I had made the office larger so it would be a more spacious bedroom later....See MoreHelp with horrible kitchen/1st floor layout
Comments (12)Photos of your current space might also help bring in a few more comments from people. It sounds like you are planning multiple architectural changes with walls taken down and built with a general reconfiguration of several rooms, and you still have an upstairs bathroom situation you don't like. You'll find this out as you move forward with getting quotes for the project, but just to give you a heads up, this could billow out in costs to more than you might be anticipating. I would guess easily over $100K depending on labor costs in your area, and that's with economy cabinetry and finishes and even doing some of the work yourselves. You'll probably need to hire a structural engineer for the wall reconfiguration more so than just an architect. People have gotten burned using architects for jobs that required structural changes. Pushing the kitchen more toward the living room will involve plumbing, electrical and possibly gas line alterations, which will further expand the budget. When someone is considering making this many dramatic alterations to the layout, you will start to see comments of people here in Houzz threads suggesting perhaps a move to a home better suited to the family's needs. The money you put into a renovation on this scale cannot be recovered at sale, so this needs to be a long-term home or valuable to you in some way to make the loss of investment worth it. Assuming you want to proceed, here are a few suggestions: To make the budget go as far as it can, avoid moving walls around in those small areas like the closet and powder room. It will cost a lot and won't make a dramatic difference in your space, especially since you seem to have lots of room to work with in the main areas. If you're needing more of a mudroom area for snow melt, would it be possible to build on a small entry room and expand rather than trying to reconfigure existing space? It's generally more cost-effective to not add on space, but a vestibule area might not be too expensive in this particular case and would spare wall re-configuration costs. Sounds like you're not one of those people who wants or needs a large overhang for seating in the kitchen. Make sure you do keep adequate space for a dining table, though. I'm wondering if you could move your dining area to what is now the open space next to the kitchen and then keep the existing kitchen space and also expanding the kitchen into what is now the dining room? You seem to be seeking more kitchen space, and you'd have to move the stove to a different place to do this, but this would give you a huge kitchen and make the need for a separate butler's pantry obsolete. You could put some arch or other division between the newly-expanded kitchen and relocated dining room to give you the quietness and privacy you are seeking. If you get the expanded kitchen space you need and keep the cabinetry budget under $35K by choosing an economy line, you'd have $65K of a hypothetical $100K budget for the other work which would go fast but might get you where you wanted to be with the extra windows. Hopefully some other more experienced layout people will comment. Post some photos of your current space if you can, please....See Morekandrewspa
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