Review Floorplan For a Spec Home
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Please review/critique my new house floorplan
Comments (1)Congrats and good luck on your build! I too am an engineer and we're just finishing up the build of our custom home (close on Dec-2!). I can tell you that from an engineering standpoint your drawing is very thorough but from a garden web standpoint it is very busy and difficult to read! We're building a two story so I can't comment on much of your layout, but I would consider knocking down the seperation between the kitchen and the living area. Take functionality over symmetry. As the designated cook, I like my time in the kitchen much more when I'm not seperated from friends and family and football. I love the mudroom, keeps the clutter and mess out of the rest of the house. I also love the 3 car garage. That is, unless you have 3 cars, then you need a 4 car garage....See MoreWould you please review kitchen floorplan? 1880s house
Comments (21)Nothing like getting construction estimates to clarify the thinking. I'm in New England so the prices are high. So back to the drawing board. We are now trying to see if we can get much of what we want with the current space we have. So if you look at the architectural drawings, there will be no bumpout of the eating area and the door will not move. We would like: 1) amazing light (hence all the windows)--they are the main driver of the renovation 2) workable nice kitchen for people who cook 3) defined eating area. We are down to 2-3 ideas and I would love your thoughts and input. As mentioned before the footprint of the kitchen is 11'10" x 18". There is also a separate butler's pantry which stays in place and will continue to house: the refrigerator, the dishwasher, a full sized sink and the dishes, glasses, cutlery as this space works perfectly for us. The main kitchen is meant to be a light space with a full sized sink, range, good counter space and reasonable storage. Eating area will contain a banquette. We played around with a 3 sided banquette but I think it will be too claustrophobic with our current space so we have 2 remaining options which I sketched out in the attached drawings. OPTION 1: we turn a current window into a door in the middle of the kitchen to separate the cooking half of the kitchen from the eating half of the kitchen and (Bonus!) I get direct access to the garden, which I would love. Cons: we lose a bit of counter space and/or a bit of banquette length. In this version the kitchen run containing the range is about 7.5' long and the run of banquette along the back wall is 7'. OPTION 2: the door does not exist and the room is split into kitchen/eating areas that abut each other. This allows the kitchen counter to be a bit longer and the banquette to be longer, ie each could be 9' or any reasonable division of 18' into two parts. My concerns with this plan is that it runs together and of course, I don't get the garden access. Husband likes this one as he does not understand for garden access....See MoreHome Floor Plan Review and Ideas
Comments (17)I probably should have given more information up front. It will just be my wife and I living in the house with 2 small dogs and a cat. We will be in south east Alabama as I had said so there may be some things done differently in building down here then where others live. We are close to Florida and close to Hurricane possibilities and tornadoes. We want the whole house to fit under a symmetrical hipped roof. These types of roofs stand up better to the high winds, plus they are cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain and have less places to fail or take damage or leak. Also we lived in a house almost exactly like this (minus the garage) for four years and we very much enjoyed the floor plan. That is why we are looking at creating the same one for our forever home. It was said that there are better floor plans out there. I was wondering where you might find one that had a simple roof like this and an open lay out? If you could direct me, I would appreciate it. I have not been able to find any that don't have multiple roof lines and that have the guest rooms separated from the master. The garage does need to be smaller. We want to keep the size of the house down since there is just two of us. I had thrown a big garage on the end because I like big garages, but you are right that it should be smaller. It will be the same depth as the rest of the house and the walk door will now be on the side of the garage for better curb appeal although we don't need curb appeal because we are building in the middle of our 120 acre wooded property. I suppose when I wrote this I was actually thinking people would give me ideas of ways to better make use of space, but most the recommendations have done the opposite. That would be okay if the house was very large, but not when it is small (I know the dimensions were not clear in the picture, but I did say the halls were 4 feet wide and all doors but one was 3 feet wide so it would be relatively easy to interpolate the general size of the house from those measurements. Pocket doors save space. Having the closet doors behind another door saves space. If you were to flip the closets as suggested you would lose 12 feet of usable wall space. So for us, they don't have the same problem, but rather they have the same solution. We would rather have usable wall space than easier access to closets. The master doorway being where it is also saves us space. It allows us to put a wood stove (the dashed lines next to the master door and master closet) in the corner where it can be better seen and positioned to radiate to the whole living, dinning and kitchen area. The door to the hall provides for energy efficiency and guest privacy. The only people staying in those rooms will be guests and being able to close that door allows them to separate themselves from the rest of the house while still being able to use the bathroom. When it is just the two of us as is the usual, we can leave the door closed so that we only have to heat and cool the main area that we are using. By having the HVAC in the attic we can have shorter lines to the vents and have two returns, one in the hall and one in the main area by the master, allowing us to more efficiently cool the house even if the door to the hall is closed. When we don't want to cool beyond the hall door we can close the vents in those rooms and close the doors and limit the flow of cold air and return air to and from that area. When we are just using the wood stove the door keeps the heat in the main area if that is where we want it. Concerns of the HVAC leaking are the same as if it were on the first floor over a basement. If it were to leak it would damage the ceiling below it in either case. In the attic it is set on its side in a metal pan that will collect any leaks and has an auto shut off switch if too much water were to build up. Having the water heater in the attic saves space and would be similar case with the HVAC if it were to leak over a basement as I mentioned earlier. We will not have a tankless water heater. We will have a propane tank water heater because we prefer the faster supply of hot water to the faucet when you turn it on. With a tankless you have to wait longer for hot water at the faucet. We also prefer the consistency of temperature from a tank when hot water is being used at multiple sources. Tankless water heaters can have significant temperature changes when two faucets are drawing hot water at the same time. Also, even though a tankless water heater only heats the water when you are using hot water, it requires much more energy to provide that hot water than it does to just keep hot water hot in a tank. Probably around three times as much energy, and propane is very quick to reheat water in a tank. The up front cost of tankless is more and it ends up using about the same amount of energy so there is potential depending on how you use it that you could spend more money up front and more money over the long run. If you were to save money on energy it would not make up for the up front costs. I lived in a home for 6 years with a propane tank water heater and I lived in a home for 4 years with a propane tankless water heater and I watch my my energy consumption very closely. The master closet is a hurricane and tornado shelter so it would be expensive to widen and we are frugal people with not much need of a large closet. It can be very hot and humid in AL and there are lots of insects and critters so we do not keep our garbage in the garage. We compost all vegetable, and fruit waste as well as replant it. Any meat or non compostable food products are kept in a container in the freezer until trash day and other trash products are put in the garbage next to the sink. Once a week on trash day I take the trash to the large can and the county comes to get it. Also, walking 20 feet from the garage door to the refrigerator is insignificant to us. Our kitchen table is only 4 feet by 6 feet at its largest. The island is 4 feet by 6 feet just to give you an idea of spacing, so it should not interfere with getting to the utility room or bedroom when it is fully open, but it is normally only 4 feet by 4 feet when it is just us. In the spare bath we will keep both sinks but expand the vanity to 6 feet wide vs 5 feet wide and make the linen closet 2 feet wide vs 3 feet wide. We think that would be a better use of space. We like to have two sinks in the spare bath because the people using it are our guests. Whether it is just a husband and wife visiting or a family, we generally all tend to got to bed at the same time and the two sinks get used at the same time every time. I think I covered most things and our reasons for doing them. I appreciate everyone's input and anyone's future input. This post was edited by ReinitoDePiedra on Mon, Dec 8, 14 at 14:38...See MoreReview 3-level house floor plans
Comments (7)Where do you walk out on the first floor to the outdoors? Where are the windows? You don't have enough room for an island in a kitchen that is only 11' deep. The living room/dining room is narrow. The stairs are an afterthought instead of being considered another room. What do I mean? You're walking up staring at a wall. It will be dark as opposed to walking up and walking towards light. What is the property width and length and what are the set backs? Minimum sized powder room should be 5' square. The main floor bedroom closet is barely large enough to put a single dress in, let alone more stuff. The rental kitchen/living area is only 16 long? Not very conducive to living. And only 1 closet in the whole downstairs space? Where in the master would the bed go so you're not walking around the bed in the middle of the night to get to the bathroom, or not straining your head to one side to see to the deck? Angled walls to me say the person doesn't know how to design a house. The master is narrower than 7' wide which means you can only have hanging along one long wall. You need 2' for each side for hanging plus 3' for an aisle for a total of 7'. Laundry appliances stick out 30" if you get full sized appliances. That means on a 72" room, your standing and sorting room is only 42" deep. And if the laundry room is that small, there is no room for things like brooms, linens, etc. In fact where downstairs is the broom closet or other closets? Where upstairs are the linen closets? There is a reason architects go to school to learn this stuff for years and then have to apprentice for another 3 years before they're even allowed to be licensed....See MoreRelated Professionals
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