The 15 year old could be with you another 10 years and there's not really anywhere for the younger generation to hang out. Will that work for you? My teenager who is away at school and home for holidays and summers hangs out in her bedroom, but it's big enough for a couch, a chair, TV, video games, etc. I don't think we could survive if she didn't have her on little world apart from us despite the fact that we are a very "together family" eating meals and playing games together every day.

I agree that the entrance to the third bedroom should have a more private access to the bathroom. I think you'll be able to work something out like you suggested.

I think it is a very nice plan & will function well. I prefer more of a hallway rather than walking thru the family room to the bedrooms. Have you thought of widening the foyer and putting the piano and curio in the foyer. Another idea would be to have the kids' bedrooms with walk-in closets. We love all walk-ins, but it would add some square feet. I love windows & natural light and would add them anywhere I could---especially your great laundry room. Makes me happier to fold laundry while looking out and feeling a breeze. Also a small window above the shower in the kids' bath might be nice. Overall a very nice, liveable plan, best wishes!

ncamy - I can't imagine my 15 year old or 17 year old being there 10 years! In any event, really the family room is mostly for the kids while they are here. Dh and I spend most of our time in our study.

As for the entrance to bedroom 3 -- I think we will take a foot or so from the family room to move the bedroom wall in a bit.

mommyto4boys

Oh, yes, there will be a number more windows. The designer is going to put most of those in when we work on the elevation.

The original plan actually had a long hall beneath the family room and I removed it for this plan. I don't like halls since they seem like wasted space to me.

I agree that you need to drop a wall down from the edge of the masterbedroom to where the door to bedroom 3 is now - but, I would NOT steal a foot from the family room to do it. Your family room is none to big right now - especially if you want to accomodate TWO sofas. Plus, I think you need to move your kitchen island toward the family room some because the kitchen aisleways are too narrow - particularly in the corner where the pantry is. So, you need to steal some space from your family room for that. If you start taking a little space from both edges, the family room is going to wind up being way too small.

So, what I would do is:
1) Pull the front edge of bedroom 2 forward so it is even with bedroom 3. This will save you money because it will eliminate two "corners" from you house and thus simplify the roof line. And it will make bedroom 2, a foot wider allowing for the next steps...

2) Pull bedroom 2's closet forward also. (i.e., keep the closet the same size just move it forward.

3) Drop a wall from the left edge of Bath 2 down INTO bedroom 2 about 4 feet and then over to the closet. This creates a little "hallway extension".

4) Put the doors into bedroom 2 AND bedroom 3 off the little "hallway extension" you just created.

5) Now you can drop a wall from the edge of the masterbedroom to where the door from bedroom 3 used to be. It'll create a nice "backhall" and, if you put the opening from family room to hall up near the masterbedroom door, the bathroom door will be offset from it so that no one will have a view into the bathroom from the kitchen.

Now, about the kitchen...

First, the corner by the pantry is too tight.

Second, I don't think you're going to be at all happy having your refrigerator way off around the conrer from your sink and stove. The fridge just gets accessed way too often while cooking. It would be much better to swap the wall ovens and fridge locations. You're won't be getting in and out of the oven nearly as often as the fridge so it is usually okay to have it a little further away. And, if your ovens are on WHILE your otherwise working in the kitchen, it can be nice to have them a little further away so that you're not feeling the heat from them quite so much. Even with modern ovens, the area in front of an oven starts getting a bit warmer after the ovens have been on awhile.

Plus, the fridge would be more accessible to breakfast area if it were where the ovens are now. But, be aware, unless you spring big $$$ for a "counter depth" fridge, modern refridgerators are VERY deep. Many are nominally 36 inches deep. I hunted hard to find one with the interior storage I needed that was only 32 inches deep. And still, because one must leave a couple of inches of room behind the fridge for air ciculation, the body of my fridge sticks about 9 inches beyond the edge of my countertop. And then the door handles stick out another 4 inches or so. Thankfully, I had planned on positioning my fridge so it wasn't in a narrow aisle area.

So, I would swap fridge and oven location, then push the island about 10 inches closer to the family room. And even then, you might want to round off or "angle off" the corner of the island nearest the pantry door to save your hips.

I agree with you that a larger pantry would be nice. Depending on what furniture you plan to have in the study besides the U-shaped desk, you might be able to extend the pantry into the study a little bit. If all you plan to have in the study is a built in U-shaped desk and maybe a small bookcase and a single comfortable reading chair, you COULD turn the desk so that the bottom of the U faces the front wall and runs under the windows. (I'm assuming you plan on having some sort of windows on the fron of the house and that they just haven't yet been put on the drawings yet!) Then, you could extend the pantry down 2 or 3 feet into the corner of the study. I think you would still have room enough for one comfy reading chair or maybe a love-seat. But, if you had planned on two reading chairs in the currently open half of the room, none of this would work. Was just trying to think of a way to enlarge your pantry....

On the other end of the house, I do think you've gone a bit overboard in planning the size of your master shower! I have a closet that is 7' x 7' (still mostly empty) and I just walked into that to try and get a feel for having a shower that big. I'm a pretty large person and I hate dinky shower stalls, but even if it had two shower heads, my 7'x7' space would be way too big for a shower. I have a roll-in shower (no lip on the floor, no shower door, no curtain) that is 4' x 6.5' and that is big enough that DH (also a fairly hefty person) and I can comfortably shower together. With a slightly smaller shower, I think your masterbath could be redesigned to have a bit of symmetry and seem a bit less haphazard.

I'm sure you've aleady considered the fact that, with a large covered patio blocking sunlight from the windows, your family room and masterbedroom are going to get very little if any direct light. Many people like a dark bedroom so, while that would be a deal breaker for me, you might actually see having a dark masterbedroom as a plus. On the other hand, most people want plenty of natural light in their living areas. So, you might want to consider installing some sky lights in the roof of your patio so that sunlight coming thru the skylights helps brighten your family room.

Finally, I think you're going to find that your two car garage is simply not big enough. Remember that your garage needs to be long enough so that you can walk either in front of or behind a car that is parked in the garage. Find out the bumper-to-bumper length of the longest car you think you'll ever want (SUV, van, extended cab, long-bed pickup) and then add at least 4 feet and make your garage at least that deep. My garage is 25 feet deep and when my brother visited with his full size pickup, it barely fit. DH and I both like small cars tho and we don't have any kids so it is extremely unlikely we'll ever own an SUV or a van. Wit two kids, I'd guess you probably will want/need larger cars.

With 4 ft of extra lenghth, you can store junk in two feet of the space and still have a couple of feet clear to slip by.

Speaking of storing junk, I see no where for bicyles, lawnmowers, tools, etc. Will you have an outbuilding for all that junk? If not, you might want to bump the utilityroom/drop zone wall over to the left to create storage space.

Next, for garage width, you need the width of the vehicle plus at two feet on each side for the car doors to open. In a two car garage, two feet of space between the cars will work b/c you don't normally try to open doors on both cars at once. You can get by with a little less but getting in an out of your vehicles will always feel like trying to get in/out when someone has parked too close to you at the grocery store!

You could gain extra garage width by pulling the front garage wall foward so that it is even with the study. (Again, you get rid of corners which simplifies the roof line so this might actually save you money.)

And, since you're thinking ahead about possibly needing handicap access in the rest of the house, give some thought to handicap access to the cars in your garage. And also about how you will get a wheelchair from the garage up whatever step there is into the house. We only have about a 4 inch step up from our garage to house level and, instead of having a step, I had them put a 4ft wide, 18 ft long ramp across the front of our garage leading to the door.

In order to get two couches and an elect piano in the family room and be able to pass through it easily you might consider putting the corridor back or at least a portion of it.

Circulation space is not necessarily wasted space. IMHO everything in this plan seems tight except the master bath and breakfast area. I would recommend greater space in the areas you use the most and where the most people might congregate.

I would also try to get the door to bedroom 3 to be entirely out of the family room possibly sharing a vestibule with the other small bedroom and bath.

Since corners and wall zigs and zags tend to increase cost (more complex roof lines among other things) it's worth just asking your builder how it would affect the price to make the lower right of the house more squared off: bring the bathroom and BR2 over to be even with the right wall of the master closet and don't have that little jog between BR3 and 2 on the front wall. Then BR 3 could be wider, so the door would open into the hall rather than FR; maybe split the extra space between BR3 and BR2, and make the bathroom a bit longer, too.

You'd be gaining space and might not be increasing your cost at all because the rooflines are simplified.

Here's a mockup of what I was describing for the lower right of the house.

{{gwi:1479224}}

My shower is 7' x 5' approximately. It is HUGE. I don't think I would make it smaller if I redesigned, though. We have two shower heads along the 7' wall... with room on the adjacent wall to hang towels INSIDE the shower. I don't need a towel warmer... the shower does it ;) I don't have to open the shower door to grab my robe/towel/etc. I like that serendipitous feature a lot. It looks like the same could apply for you above the shower seats.

For your shower area, if you haven't already, do a mock up of the space.... You might find you have a bit too much space that could be added to the vanity areas...

Kats - Great floor plan. Do you have any pictures of the elevations? Also, what's the overall s.f.?

Thanks for all the great feedback. To respond in general:

Current SF of house is 2527. DH has agreed that we can add 6" of width to the master bathroom. The purpose of this is that the tub with decking is 42" wide. I want it 48" wide so I can, frankly, sit on the decking on the edge of the tub while I dry my hair. (I don't like kneespaces and don't want a vanity table). The 6" will keep the walking area between the tub and the other side of the bathroom wide (this will also necessarily result in 6" added to the vanity that is next to the shower. Note that is DH's vanity and he doesn't actually need that 6" but it was either put that extra 6" in the vanity or the shower and we didn't need it in the shower.

Size of shower - DH and I did measure this out on the floor and stood as we want to stand in the shower and wanted nice sized benches and the result was this size. Actually it was 7 x 7 and this is 8 x 7 but we couldn't find a way to keep it exactly at 7 foot x 7 foot and have the walkways in the bathroom the width we wanted them. Still I will look at it again.

Eliminating corners and pricing -- I will check with the builder but I don't think it makes a difference. Builder had a base standard plan that was $X. Every SF we add above that is a certain amount per SF. It really doesn't matter if that extra SF causes corners or not.

We are using builder's designer to do our plans. We could have him do a plan totally from scratch that is totally custom and was very custom. However, in generally, the base price is more for a totally custom house as they haven't built it before so they charge a bit more. I am meeting the builder this afternoon and will ask him though if having a square house makes a difference.

I do like chicagoan's plan and bevangel's ideas both for the lower right of the house. I probably will work on bevangel's as that adds less SF to the house (basically adds 14 SF). However, one obstacle I have is that DH really, really doesn't want a house above 2500 SF. With the 6" width added in the bathroom we are at 2540 SF. DH doesn't think having bedroom 3 open into the family room is a problem at all. I don't agree and he is willing for me to fix it but wants it to be a fix that doesn't add SF hence taking footage from the family room to do it. I may be able to talk him into adding 14 SF to bedroom 2 but that is probably it.

Kitchen -- I am going to look again at the refrigerator issue. I am inclined to bring the island 10" toward the family room as suggested by Bevangel.

One reason, however, that I didn't want to move the refrigerator was that I liked having the long workspace next to it (make sandwich or salad for example) so that it didn't share work space next to the cooktop. We use our cooktop and refrigerator the most so having those close to each other may result in a lot of collisions particularly with the sink there. The oven will be used less. The advantium more often but that doesn't require much counter space.

That said I do agree that the refrigerator where it is needs more space between the refrigerator and the island but I can't add space to the kitchen so I'm not quite sure how to resolve this.

Study -- bevangel I did like your pantry idea. However, that study is going to be full. It sill have a recliner in it and an exercise bike. I have thought about recessing the pantry somewhat into the garage area but have no other ideas.

Garage -- The garage dimensions shown do not include the walk way areas around the actual parking area. Not worried about storage. We are on an acre and have a 40' by 20' metal building on the property.

DCRanger -- Elevations will done after we get the basic floor plan. Lots of windows, btw will be added at that time.

I think you could add a little vestibule/hall in the existing plan. Build out the wall so the built-in bookshelf/entertainment center is bounded by a wall on the living room side, then T-out a little wall on the bedroom #3 side and next to the piano. Narrowing the opening into that area.

Would not require changes to the floor plan at all, but will give a little more privacy to the area.

Here is a crude drawing

I really like your plan, and it seems it will function well for your family. Just a couple comments, and these are very personal opinions.

I would check the scale of the furniture mock-ups you are using. They don't seem consistent. We have 2 guest rooms that are 12X12, and they are TINY! A queen bed with a night stand on each side completely fills the room. Depends on what size beds you're using in these bedrooms whether they will be too small.

Master vanities seem small, but I seem to have alot of stuff spread out on mine when I'm getting ready in the morning.

Love your laundry room, and the use of a pocket door is perfect.

I am not a fan of corner pantries. To me they take up alot more space than the storage they provide. But I don't have a solution for you. Just my thoughts. As for the aisles in the kitchen, if they are indeed 46 inches, they should be adequate. Mine are 48" and they are plenty wide. Is the counter on your island two levels? So you will have high stools. I had a grandchild tip over sitting on one of those stools, so for that reason I like a regular height stool. I agree with another poster about the placement of the fridge, but I wouldn't like it where the ovens are either because it would interfere with traffic between the kitchen and eating area.

I like the idea of having a more private hall in the bedroom area. And that large linen closet would be so handy for extra bedding etc. And if I'm reading the plan correctly, it would also make that small bedroom just a little bigger.

Good Luck, Kat! It's going to be beautiful!

Lyfia -- That is a nice idea. I was all set to go with Bevangels but I like yours as well. I will draw them out on scaled paper and see what I think.

Joyce_6333 - Island in kitchen is all level, counterheight. This was a major issue for us early on but we decided to do that height.

Secondary bedrooms -- In our old house that we recently sold we had huge secondary bedrooms. Right now we are in a rental with secondary bedroom that are about 9.5 x 10.5 width which is too small. DH points out that are kids won't be here that long and all they really need room for is bed, one nightstand and a small desk (which they have now in their current rabbit hutches). So there is that.

Master vanities - they are currently 4' long which allows for a sink and then a bank of drawers on the right.

Feedback on my last post:

Met with builder this afternoon and asked if it saves any money to build the house more square with fewer angles. Basically the answer is no. They don't really like square boxes so they don't really design them. They have basic plans you can start with and then customize to whatever you want (or you can do a purely custom plan). You get charged $X for extra square footage you add on and it doesn't matter if that square footage creates an extra angle or a bumpout or if it makes the house more square -- there is no savings to make it more square.

DH and I talked afterwards. We've come an agreement that we can add a reasonable amount of square footage to solve issues of cramped rooms or clearances.

For the kitchen, right now we are thinking:

1. Move the refrigerator to where the oven/Advantium currently is (it will be counter depth refrigerator.

2. Move the oven to the wall where the refrigerator is now but place it next to the pantry

3. Make the pantry larger by recessing it into the garage by a couple of feet.

4. Move the island about 10" closer to the family room.

5. Add 1' depth to the kitchen to have better clearance from the pantry to the island.

I am opening to adding a bit more square footage to the kitchen if necessary but hope this will be enough. I am uncertain if I need to add a foot to the family room due to moving the island closer.

how much room would be between your couch and your island counter after you move the island??

5 ft 2 in between island and couch -- if you consider 2 ft for each stool then it is 3 ft 2 in from back of stool to back of couch. I'm thinking of adding a little width to the family room so that isn't so close. Maybe 6" or a foot?

We have 56" from countertop to the couch. Even when sitting at our stools (which are oriented like yours would be,) there is a large, comfortable walkway behind us. My stool is not pushed in at all right now and I still have 36" behind me... Since this space is only a walkway, it is fine.

As for adding room to the family room... if your DH will go for it, do it. I don't think it is something you'll ever regret.