This is the exterior:

Original Main Floor:

The floor plan is called Buttermilk Bottom and this is our version:

The one thing that stands out to me is the master suite....I would swap the bedroom and bathroom to get more windows on bedroom.

@Michelle1973 any ideas on what the layout would look like? I'm kind of stumped there.

We are building a house right now and our porches are 9 ft tall. They seem to be fine. We are also in Louisiana. I like your house plan.

Does your garage dimension say only 20' deep? I'd want at least 24. I like your changes, it should make it a little more affordable (fewer corners) and I like that you got a mudroom at the garage entry.

You've lost the stairs. Are you foregoing an upstairs?

@JDez we are building in Youngsville. Do you have any pics of your build? I'd love to see your porch.

@Kirkhall thanks for mentioning the garage, I really didn't pay any attention to those dimensions. We are doing away with the upstairs, we don't have a need for that space.

I really don't have a decent pic of the porches. I'll have to fix that...lol. When I get a better picture, I'll try to remember to post it. We are in DeRidder.

Here's another one

Thanks JDez! Your home looks awesome! We have similar tastes. I'll have to show my DH when he gets up :)

I fell in love with this 11ft porch and after seeing yours, 9ft looks proportionate.

Y'all can drive over and see how it feels if you can't find any 9 ft high porches over there. Just email me through my GW page. That is, if you are unsure about it before you start building.

You know, I'm wondering if I'm reading this picture right... What do you gather the height to be? The beams used are 10x10 but the illustration say 9ft main floor. I ain't well equipped in understanding all this just yet :)

A little closer look... And JDez that was truly nice of you to offer us to come over!

I suggest you layout furniture in the dining area to see if what you have will fit. The room becomes smaller because there is a hallway of sorts coming in from the mudroom and then you need a path to the back porch. This also means the table will probably not be centered in the room.

And, the view when you come in from the mudroom is into the master bedroom. Are you okay with that?

It looks like 9 ft high on the front porch.

EDIT: I just wanted to remind you that, since you're building on a slab and will not have a basement, you will need to designate an area for HVAC and hot water heater. In our case, HVAC went in the attic and the hot water heater went into the utility/laundry room. Just make sure there's room somewhere because most house plans assume they will be in a basement.

This post was edited by JDez on Sat, May 10, 14 at 8:37

I would just flip flop the master bath and bedroom so that you can have windows on two sides in the bedroom.

@JDez, good looking out. Most builders down here put both in the attic. We've purchased 3 new builds in this area with the same setup. Hopefully with eliminating the top floor of this plan we should be able to do the same.

@dekeoboe I've considered making that room larger for those reasons as well. I want my layout to be similar to this room and it's actually smaller than my plan area and it has the double doors to the porch:

@JDez, good looking out. Most builders down here put both in the attic. We've purchased 3 new builds in this area with the same setup. Hopefully with eliminating the top floor of this plan we should be able to do the same.

@dekeoboe I've considered making that room larger for those reasons as well. I want my layout to be similar to this room and it's actually smaller than my plan area and it has the double doors to the porch:

{{gwi:1449969}}

@dekeoboe I forgot to answer your other question - what you see walking in from the mud room doesn't bother me at all honey! :)

@michelle1973 I'll play around with the layout and see. Thanks!

I would not like the only acces to the laundry to be through the pantry. I'd want those 2 rooms to migrate to the mud area at the back of the house, but keep the food away from the hot moist laundry. The two rooms need to be separate, not joined. The mud and laundry could be joined, or when the master area is reworked, the laundry could go there adjacent to the master bath to add more of a buffer between the master and other bedroom. Back to back bedrooms with no closer or bath between is a huge design mistake, usually by a novice designer. Also, the two subrdinate bedrooms can share a bath just fine, with the laundry fitting in the space of one of those baths.

Good morning!
I am in the lafayette area, also. And we built a mitch ginn house, too.
I like the changes you've made so far.
Our porch is ten feet, but so is the interior first floor ceiling height. Could you do ten feet inside, too, if you want ten on the porch?

@hollysprings you have me thinking... But I'll have to be honest and say that the laundry in the kitchen never really bothered me as it's been there in all of my other homes. I would like it closer to the master for convenience, but I have a concern as to how much sq footage that would add.

@chilibeans hello! I'm thrilled to talk to so many Louisiana peeps on here! Mitch has been really great to work with so far. Thanks for pointing out your ceiling height - Mitch e-mailed this morning and said raising the porch would require raising the main floor - which can easily be done. Do you have any pics to share?

Not gonna add any square footage to swap the master bed and bath and get rid of the smaller bath to put laundry in it's place and shift it north also between the bedroom and master. I'd shift the other bath there also so the bedroom could occupy the corner and have windows from two directions instead of having that prime spacebe occupied by a bathroom. You're swapping spaces is all. You will gain porch space where all of that used to be though. Same with just relocating the pantry to next to mud area. You're relcating conditioned space, not creating more.

I have pictures from when we were building/ right after we started moving in here:
http://s67.photobucket.com/user/cvazqu/library/?sort=3&page=1
I need to update my photos I realize now! :)
I'm posting from my phone, so hopefully the link works.
We enjoyed working with mitch and David, too. And we have been very happy with our house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our house

@chilibeans I love love love your home! Your color scheme is exactly what we want. Did you guys self-contract or did you use a builder?

@hollysprings I wish I was a drafter to draft out your great ideas. However, keeping the two bathrooms is a must for our boy and girl. I shared a bathroom with my brother growing up and it caused my mother plenty of headaches from our screaming fits... I don't want that drama ;)

Klewis8- we used a builder out of eunice, though we had no restrictions regarding 'what' we could get for the house and from 'where' like I sometimes see mentioned here. I'd gladly recommend him to you. I think I am email-able thru this site if you'd like his contact info. Thanks for the compliments on the house. We are very pleased with it. And our exterior colors (in case you are interested) are SW oyster white for the body and trim and BM Essex Green for the shutters and porch railing top. :)

@chilibeans I don't see a link to email you. Mine is krysmoni@me.com - thanks!!! I'm originally from Lawtell so I may know the builder.

Emailed you! :)

I've been designing houses for a very long time and I can tell you that it is difficult to get any sense of architecture from a 1 story building especially if a porch roof obscures the entire front of it.

Therefore I don't like one story houses and I would never put a bedroom off a front porch but that's what my father grew up in but the house wasn't painted, there was no running water and the nearest town was a day's walk. With a little imagination I think it might be possible to do better than that.

Adding a small gable on the front only emphasizes the need for a larger more architectural facade . A second floor is cheap space and offers a great deal more privacy and security not to mention resale value.

I like the exterior and the general size.

I'm glad you squared off the garage -- I see no point in setting the garage at an angle. It costs more and for no point.

Two things I'd do in the kids' bedrooms:
- Give the larger room a second window.
- The front bedroom is small and its closet is small. I'd annex that small linen closet to enlarge this bedroom's closet. Adequate storage is the secret to keeping kids' rooms neat.

What about a linen closet? Read on:

I think you're over-bathed for a house this size. You literally can all be in the bathroom at the same time -- is that really a need? Is that really a good use of money? Two kids can easily share a bathroom -- mine do, and I can't remember a single fight about it. Sharing things is how kids learn to compromise and learn they aren't the center of the world. You have the space to make them one good-sized bathroom with a linen closet instead of two cramped bathrooms. I personally would stick with two baths total: The master bath and the kids' bath, opened to the hall so that it would serve guests as well.

If you lose one of the kids' baths, you'd have space to move the laundry to that area. Someone else mentioned not minding having laundry in the kitchen: I agree -- I don't mind it being in the kitchen either -- not at all. What I DO mind is carrying the laundry from the bedrooms across the whole house. And you're talking about carrying baskets past the island, through the pantry and into a small room -- it will be a hassle.

You're going to hate that your master bathroom door and your shower door hit one another.

Last thought on bathrooms: Note that you have plumbing in every corner. This is literally the most expensive plumbing option you could choose AND it opens you up to the greatest possibility of a plumbing leak somewhere in the house AND your hot water will be slow in reaching the more distant areas. Your plumbing costs will be through the roof!

I like the kitchen much better with the stairs removed -- I like the open floorplan and the island size is in keeping with the wide-opened space. I think like the alternative kitchen with the L-cabinets and peninsula better than the just-the-island kitchen.

I would do away with the pantry doors . . . and instead have a pocket door into that whole closet area so the whole thing could be closed off.

I like the idea of swapping the master bedroom and bathroom/closet to get great windows in the bedroom . . . but how would that work out with the bedroom door? I'm not seeing an easy way to fix that. It sounds like a great idea that just doesn't fit this plan.

I don't love the three vaulted ceilings. If you have ONE vaulted ceiling, that room will be emphasized as "important" . . . but three of them within view of one another definitely lessens the impact.

I agree with the choice to enlarge the eating space a bit. It's also your main entryway walk way, so that little bit of extra space will be valuable.

How big will your table be? I'm wondering about the usefulness of that back door in the eating area. I'm wondering if you'd be better off to remove it . . . and make the window nearest the kitchen into a single glass door. I'm thinking that would better serve the great room AND the kitchen (useful if you're grillers) . . . and people wouldn't have to squeeze by the table to use the door.

I'm not loving the mudroom though. It's a lot of space, given that you only gain the lockers and three doorways.

@Renovator8 thanks for your feedback, but in my area at $125-$185 per sq ft - nothing here is considered cheap space. And to be honest we have a huge movement of TND developments with this exact same look and folks are making a killing on this! I went into the wrong business! Lol

@MrsPete Thank you! Loved your feedback - very useful!

Hi klewis8 - my husband and I really like this plan as well with some similar changes. We are shooting for a white cottage style farmhouse. We toured the farmhouse idea house in georgia (dining room above) and want to do the same and place it back by the screen porch and make the front an office. How did you obtain the detailed pdf version of the plan, we would like to study it more. Did you have to buy the whole plan?? Thanks

klewis8, do you have any pictures of the finished product? Would love to see how it came out. Love this type house and my wife and I are considering building something very similar in a few years. We are right down the road in Milton. Curious to know who you went with for the build and what the cost per sq ft range was. In the early stages and trying to wrap my head around it all. Hope y'all are enjoying the house!