Layout furniture to scale in all the spaces to evaluate the spaces.

Draw in the clothes hanging in the closets to scale also, you may be surprised about how little space they think you take up when finding a shirt.

If the fireplace is on the right, and you will probably have the tv above or beside it, there weill be a long, long, view from the front door to the back door. And if someone is up late watching tv or gaming, the sound might be more likely to disturb the person sleeping.

If the fireplace is on the left or the corner, you can have a sofa and chairs on the bedroom wall to break up the long line. OTOH, will they block the back door?

Do lay out furniture to scale to see what works, and don’t just look at it from the overhead view, but imagine the 3D, what it might look and feel like as you walk around the house.

Corner location is a furniture arrangement nightmare. I like it where it is. When you’re sitting in the sofa facing the fireplace you’ll also have a view out the dining room windows.

Either leave it where it is or skip it altogether. A 17.5 x 12 family room is fairly tight and I think you’ll be shocked when you get your furniture in there.

I’d skip that outside door in the family room upper right corner, too. It complicates your furniture arrangement space.

19.5 x 20 is also a small 2-car garage and it will be tight if you both drive mid/large size cars/SUVs.

Adding to everything that master closet is too small to have hanging clothes on both sides.

Have you actually walked through this floor plan? Or just picked it from plans?

Also in the US a stove cannot be under windows! And move the dishwasher to the right side of the sink.

As for your question, it's in the best location but I agree to not have one at all. You're really limiting your family room floor arrangement with the fireplace.

The reason I say to leave it is corner fireplaces are a nightmare to arrange furniture and if you do it on the opposite wall, it cuts into your walking path from the front of the house to the outside. That right side is your walking path and you'll lose 3' on that side so in reality your family room is only 14'5" x 12. Then if you add the fireplace you need at least another 2' in front of it so now you're down to a 12'5" x 12 room. Small.

I would put it in the corner so i could put the tv on the outside wall.

unsolicited comment: I would have a door from the closet directly into the bedroom. But it is not a deal breaker. Just a preferance.

In this case, a corner fireplace might not be so bad. It allows the tv to be on the wall, not above. I had a corner fireplace, and the tv beside it was the old fat kind, so it really threw off the balance. But with the flat screens, it should be much better. You can ignore the fireplace as a focus, and it will become ambient.

The master bath is totally bonkers, but there is not much you can do about it: even if they let you redesign it, they will charge you plenty, and if you do it after, it will cost you more than you will want to spend. Save your money for the Container Store Elfa sales for the closets.

After looking at the gallery, I’ve changed my mind about the corner.

How often will you use the fireplace? Where will the TV go? The answers will go a long way to determine the location of both. As others have suggested, cut out pieces of paper scaled to the furniture you will have in the room and move them around until you come up with a reasonable layout.

If you can customize, I recommend going at least 2' Wider and Longer and adding 4' to the garage for storage. That gives you a little more room for furniture placement in the living spaces. You need to accommodate at least 3' for traffic pattern going straight from the foyer to the back yard reducing the actual room sized (imaginary hallway). Your patio is not a very useful size. Can you enlarge it to 15'x 15'?

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your suggestions and feedback. It's a lot to consider but having your input has been meaningful so thank you. To help drive this discussion forward, I've provided a few details and answered your questions in the order initially posted.

1) I wish I could lay out our furniture to scale however we lack competency in this area. If you have any user-friendly suggestions for apps we can leverage, please do let us know.

2) primary closet - we currently live in a 1400 sq foot home which we are renting. the primary closet of the floor plan shared is actually a lot bigger than the one we have currently, so we are happy with the size of this one. of course, it would be nice to have one thats even bigger but at this time it's just my wife and I along with our bulldog tucker. wed eventually like to grow our family and think this space will do once that time comes not the closet hehe but the entire home :). additionally, homes in our area (north texas) are averaging around 480k. this one here has a base price of 400k for a little over 2100 sq ft and we will more than likely top out at around 515-520k after structural and design upgrades. having said that anything higher than 2200 in a nice community is easily starting around 450k and higher for a one-story new build. For a base 400 home this closet will do just fine.

3) fireplace - after reviewing your feedback regarding the fireplace, we have decided to leave it where its at. our builder is very custom friendly so we can move it to the corner, the opposite wall and even remove the back patio door but we do like the placement of it currently. we could replace the back patio door for sliding doors but that will cost us 16k and we would rather use that money elsewhere. we will likely use the fireplace during the winter months, but my wife also likes to decorate it throughout the year based on the season. tv will go right above it and the room will feel empty if we dont have a fireplace at all, especially after having one for the last 5 years. on that note, we would like make a few mods around it. what do you think about us adding 4x7 windows to both sides and placing 1x3 fixed transom windows above them? is that too many windows?

4) garage - we discussed the garage and decided to add in a 3rd car garage at a cost of 17k for extra space. we will likely have one suv and one sedan. its unlikely we will have 2 suvs.

5) the floor plan - we actually did get to walk this floor plan and tbh it was better than the others first texas had to offer at the 400k price range we wanted to start at. again, we are currently in a 1400 sq foot home so this is a nice step up for us. plus in the dfw area here in texas,

one story home prices are high. anything over 2200 in a nice community is easily base 450 to 500. its slim pickens out here especially if youre trying to live in a certain area of the metroplex. heres the matterport: Edgewood Creek - Inwood Model - Virtual Tour | Matterport Discover

6) master bath - master bath is quite different, but we prefer the separate sinks. we are extending one sink counter and the other will be extended to the tub which will have a sitting/make up are for my wife. instead of the free standing tub we will go with the traditional tub so we can have jets. my wife likes her bubble baths and so do i.

7) stove window and sink placement - this is interesting. the window above the stove is a fixed window and comes standard. it looks quite nice actually. is it really not allowed? i wonder why they would offer this if it wasnt. Also, is there a benefit in having the dishwasher to the right of the sink vs left?

8) additional sq footage - we thought adding more but its $140 per sq foot and can get expensive really quick. also we are adding more sq footage already by adding in a custom upstairs gameroom for 20k to house our pool table bar etc etc - if anything we will add a foot in length to the master or add a bay window there though we are still thinking this through.

9) back patio - we decided to extend the back patio so it will be 17x10 covered. wed extend the depth even more but need to preserve the limited yard space for landscapping and other things.

happy Friday everyone

Cheers,

M&M

stove window and sink placement - this is interesting. the window above the stove is a fixed window and comes standard. it looks quite nice actually. is it really not allowed? i wonder why they would offer this if it wasnt. Also, is there a benefit in having the dishwasher to the right of the sink vs left?

Since it's a fixed window it may be allowed. However where will your vent hood hang in relation to the window?

Instead of a window behind the stove, what about instead doing windows on either side of the stove? That's what I did and it works better since more time is spent to the side of the stove prepping than in front of the stove.

Also put the dishwasher to the right of the sink so the left becomes a prep area. BTW how large is the island and the prep space there?

Oh it’s a tiny undercabinet window! that makes more sense but is sad. think about how especially with large covered back patio there will be less light coming in to space. it’s not how i would design the space but at least there is a window which is better than many!!

for dw think about wanting to use space left of sink to wash and prep veggies. if the dw is there you can’t have someone doing clean up at same time. also will behard to open fridge while dw is open.

i would want closet door opening to bedroom - it’s a little labyrinthine otherwise and seems like toilet room door will be in the way.

for mock up i would just draw to scale on graph paper and cut out to scale shapes for table/couch/chairs. but i’m low tech. :)

Thank you both the dw suggestions make sense. The vent hood will sit above the window. Its a nice little touch to bring in light right? And we love the idea of having windows on each side but there will be cabinets there so thats a challenge.

lighting is a concern so we are thinking of keeping the fireplace in the middle and adding 4x7 windows on both sides to bring in extra light. my concern though is having too many windows. any thoughts on this?

the house will be facing north. not sure if thats a good or bad thing, and the house would be built as the floorplan suggests: dining/living on the left with master/other bedrooms on the right. we will have no neighbors on the left since the house will sit at the end of the street.

Where will the stairs go for you 2nd floor custom game room/bar area go? Smart move to add extra square footage that's separate from the 1st floor. It will be a great for resale (retired Realtor).

Your master bedroom is large enough for a king size bed. It would be smarter to use the money to increase the size of your living areas. Find out how much it would cost to add 2' along the left side of the house and the cost from the kitchen to the family room. If it is still cost prohibitive, I would at least add a bay window to the dining area. $140 sounds like a lot, but you would never be able to add onto a house in the future at that cost. We made that mistake of not extending the living space on our first build and we always regretted it. The 3rd car garage will give you a place to put your storage (another great resale move). I would still make sure you can park your SUV in the garage. Maybe you could actually pull it into a garage already built to make sure you can walk around the vehicle.

So the staircase will be placed between the garage and 3rd bedroom. to do this the builders will have to move the garage forward by 3ft. we also have the option to have the gameroom sit above the garage or 3rd bedroom.

Its about 10k to extend the left side of the house by 2‘ and about 5k for 1’. this includes the family, dining and kitchen areas. to increase the entire left side by 2’ its 16k and for 1’ its 8k.

would a 1‘ extension help for living dining and kitchen areas? the cost seems more budget friendly than to extend by 2’. the bay window to dining area is an opoption for the cost of 2.5k. knowing the cost for the extensions vs bay window, im curious to know what you would do. any thoughts on this what we should do here?

finally, would the shape of the house not look awkward if an extension is made to the living dining and kitchen areas with the study room excluded?

our plan order to make final structural changes is sunday. were excited and anxious at the same time, but everyones guidance has certainly helped so thank you!

Thank you both the dw suggestions make sense. The vent hood will sit above the window. Its a nice little touch to bring in light right?

Yes but it won't bring in much light. I actually did the same thing but at my prep sink. (see below)

And we love the idea of having windows on each side but there will be cabinets there so thats a challenge.

Can you post your kitchen floor plan and are you able to make changes if needed? I ask because if all your lower cabinets are DRAWERS, you'll have a lot more storage and won't necessarily need to be always reaching up to get something. You might be able to get away with only upper cabinets along the fridge wall.

Speaking of the fridge wall, it's not ideal having the fridge in the middle of the work area. Ideally it should be along the outer edge of the kitchen.

my concern though is having too many windows. any thoughts on this?

I love natural light so I have windows on almost every possible wall with the exception of those facing west since I live in hot Florida.

the house will be facing north. not sure if thats a good or bad thing,

That's a good thing since your backyard will have southern light and so will your living room. The only issue is if you're in a climate with snow, your front yard may take longer for the snow to melt. (Ask me how I know. LOL)

The only negative is that the afternoon sun will stream into your main rooms since it faces west so it may impact heat and light in the later part of the day, but because you're on a corner, you absolutely do not want your bedrooms towards the street.

would a 1‘ extension help for living dining and kitchen areas? the cost seems more budget friendly than to extend by 2’. the bay window to dining area is an opoption for the cost of 2.5k. knowing the cost for the extensions vs bay window, im curious to know what you would do. any thoughts on this what we should do here?

I personally would not add a bay window but would absolutely increase the width of the house. Do the 2' if you're able to financially. Otherwise do the 1'. You won't regret the extra room in the house.

finally, would the shape of the house not look awkward if an extension is made to the living dining and kitchen areas with the study room excluded?

No it won't.

I’m worried that the window over the cooktop will be a bear to keep clean.
And yes, there can be too many windows! My husband went nuts with the “light issue”. We have 26 windows, 6 double French doors, 2 single French doors and a front door with sidelights on our first floor. Furniture and art placement would be so much easier with a little more wall space. I might do the windows flanking the fireplace, but definitely not the windows above it. Do an arrangement on good old fashioned graph paper, and see what you think. You will also need window treatments for privacy on those windows as they are on the street side, that’s another cost to consider. I think expanding the kitchen/dining/living space is a better choice than more windows. We live in a southern state too.

Agree with AC M that if it's a choice between more windows or expanding the actual space, go for more space.

As to furniture arrangements, you don’t have to go high-tech. Do what I do - get two sheets of oldfashioned graph paper. Draw your house out on one, assigning a value of 1’ (or even 1/2’) per square. Draw in all windows, walls, and doors.

With the other sheet of graph paper, cut out squares or rectangles to represent your furniture, appliances and fixtures. Use the same scale you used that you drew your house.

Lay the squares/rectangles in their places on the floorplan and study it. Do you have room? Can you easily walk around and go in and out where you need to?

$10,000 for 2' or $7,500 for 1' + a bay in the dining room. IMO I would choose the 2' bump out. Verify with the builder that they are going to give you an extra 2' of cabinets & counter space in your kitchen for that price. Everyone can use more counter space! If you are using the front room as a bedroom, it is large enough for a queen bed. You can always put a dresser in the walk in closet if you want more floor space in there. Let us know what you decide!

For what it is worth, I did not like the design.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

Since this is your first build, be prepared to have a lot of patience through the process. It may take months just to get the layout nailed down. Take you time on this - tweaking the layout doesn’t cost anything. Once you start building, those changes turn into change orders and cost money.
If you take your time and think through how you will live in the spaces, you will end up with a house you are really happy with.
Fireplaces in the corner look horrible, so don’t do that!!