Modernish floor plan for initial review

14 years ago

Background - Modern/Contemporary/MCM/FLW open floor plan. Butterfly roof ( if we can ever get it by the arch review board ), stone and stucco exterior

Our architect abandoned us to become a mercenary (ok - so he became a civilian contractor in Iraq). First floor was somewhat designed, second floor wasn't well laid out, so I took a stab at that. Want to get some refinements before we either find a new architect or a home designer.

Two people in the house all the time, aging parents visiting and probably at least one living there in the future. Various young adults spending summers here. Entertain a lot and have big family gatherings. I cook a lot and mainly work from home. DW grills a lot. We will spend a lot of time in/by the pool.

We want master down and guest down. Target was 4 bedrooms, one used as exercise room - currently at 4 bedrooms plus exercise room and 5 bathrooms.

Lot is pie shaped - 162 wide at street, 96 wide 120 feet in and 300 feet deep at the end of the pie. Front of house faces due south and lot slopes gently to the north. We are in a heavily cooling climate, so few western window, controlled southern windows, and lots of northern windows. Good views to the north - nature preserve - ok views to south if you get high enough to see city lights.

First floor

firs floor zoomed

second floor

Notes:

1 - the four car garage is really 2 cars and a 2 car workshop.

2- the study to the right on the entrance is a hallway library, with shelves along the wall.

3- The upstairs square footage was largely driven by the first floor layout and makes the house larger than intended. We ended up with more rooms than needed, but this is relatively cheap footage.

4 - Need an inside/outside bathroom - doesn't have to be where it currently is located.

5- the rectangle at the top is a pool.

6- kitchen and Master bath/closet layouts are very rough.

Need help with layout improvements in general and places to reduce square footage. Open to pretty much anything.

And I am still obsessed with adding a roof deck like in the wonderful house below:

A house by the Park

But I haven't found a clean way to put a stairway to get up there.

Thanks for any comments!

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Comments (6)

arch123
14 years ago
Nice house - I don't understand the far wall in the kitchen - why the gap between the counters from the refrig to the stove? Also I don't like the entry to the pantry - Maybe move it to the other end of the wall or opposite the wine storage.
palimpsest
14 years ago
You could shrink a bit by not having such a wide dedicated hallway space between the LR and DR proper. The margins of those rooms and "hall" could overlap a bit.

If you are planning for a butterfly roof you will need to have water runoff management at that juncture of the roof which I am assuming would be approximately where the entry is, so you will need some kind of scupper/gutter system planned in this area, and I don't think you want a random gutter running down especially on the back near the windows.

I would have a better bathroom/bathroom access for the exercise room.

Why are the stairs turned so the back of the flight faces the front door, and you have to walk to the study to go up? To deemphasize the presence of an upper level? If so you may want these stairs elsewhere altogether.

Is the downstairs office private enough? Do you want an office with no windows? Is the windowless front facade of the house intentional?

In a house with such strong axes, the near-miss of the alignment of the stairway wall to the kitchen-bedroom hallway is off-putting.

Post the kitchen layout in the kitchen forum once some of the other kinks are worked out. I would also tuck a point of service fridge in the master complex and upstairs somewhere in a house this big.
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chicagoans
14 years ago
The upstairs plan looks like it's missing a door into the bedroom at the lower right.

With all that open space on the 2nd floor, be sure to research how to efficiently heat and cool the space. (There have been some threads about recirculators, fans, etc. so that the downstairs isn't very cold with all the heat going up.)

There's a great deal of unused space on the 2nd floor. Will you get much use out of the study space there? If not I'd take that space for BR closets or have 2 bathrooms there instead of one jack and jill bath.

All the jogs on the outer walls on the first floor provide good opportunities for windows and make it interesting; however more jogs = more complex roof lines and foundation, which usually means more costly build. That may not be an issue, but it's something to be aware of.
sedona_heaven
14 years ago
I personally would prefer not to have a bathroom blocking my living room pool view. Could you fit it into the office/stair area? Or even by the guest bedroom. Or switch the guest bath/bed locations and use guest bath as pool bath too?
whitney_c
14 years ago
You mentioned possibly having an elderly parent move in at some point. Just wondering if your doorways, especially to the guest room and bathroom, are wide enough for handicap accessibility.
kirkhall
14 years ago
I really am not great with Modern design.
That said, in the (downstairs?--the more scarce floor level), you have a bathroom door swing that needs to reverse. As it is, you have to cram yourself into a corner as you open the bathroom door, swing it past you, then walk in. (it is the "north" door if the plan was oriented cardinally)