It's hard for me to see a lot of the construction notes, so bear that in mind. You have a potential problem with excess humidity in your master closets because they are part of your bath. If you moved the entry door there to the bath itself you would solve most of the problem, assuming you will use your bath exhaust fan during showers.

Since the master suite and library (?) are in a private area you could save the cost of one door being framed in, and gain some wallspace for the MBR by closing off that door to the wetbar (?). You have pretty close access to it from that foyer into the MBR/library. (Unless you need a drink really badly!) Although, if you actually want totally private access to the wetbar from the MBR you would not have it without putting a door at that foyer to the MBR/library.

You could easily make that master suite wheelchair accessible later on by moving a few small walls. But you'd need to rearrange your toilet now to accomplish that without a big, disruptive expense. And add blocking behind the walls in the bath for grabbars. Then you'd have one accessible bed/bath suite. Otherwise, if anyone in the family needs to use a wheelchair you'll probably need to move.

Are you happy with the amount of coat/dropoff zone storage in the entrance from the garage into the mudroom? I see you have a walking corridor to a human entry door beside the garage car doors. Can't see your dimensions. If there's enough space there you could rob from it to bump out your entire mud/laundry area for better storage. One foot would make a world of difference for wallhung hanging and shelf space.

I only see the one floor's plan, but stairs. I'm assuming that the second floor up is just a bonus room over the garage? If so, I have to say you have a lovely facade and I guess you know already what it's going to cost you to build. You will be spending a disproportionately large percentage of your construction budget on the non-functional, decorative aspects of your facade including the roof's structure. If you have any budget concerns, or want to find more money in your budget for interior finishes, improved mechanical systems/insulation/windows, etc. you could find a LOT by reworking the non-functional elements of your exterior and roof structure.

Very nice, liveable floor plan. How exciting to see big machines on the land!

LOVE your safe room....but is it ok to have one on an outside wall? Seems like you would want more walls between the outside and the room...but Im not sure how they work.Very nice plan.

Looks beautiful, I love your front elevation! Congratulations on having large earth moving machines there. That is very exciting!

Amy

Wow, folks actually build safe rooms? I thought that was only in the movies. Are they for weather related stuff?

Found the plans a little hard to read, but I like the layout. I would think about added more windows to the office and the bedroom next to the garage (but I like windows).

hey. Yeah we live in a tornado alley in tennessee. I am deafly afraid of storms but it cost's a lot more to build one underground, so we opted for doing one inside the house in the closet. We will be having poured blocked walls with rebar in between it for stability, and a metal interior door, but u won't be able to tell it is even a safe room because they will put up sheetrock over it and have a regular interior door in front of the metal one.

Thanks mikeyvon I like the idea about maybe adding another window in the office.

Hi pinktoes, We thought about the wheelchair accessibility but i think we are gonna chance it. We will be making the toilet door catycornered like the entrance to the shower that might help some. That is a very good idea about moving the entry door to the master bath that makes good sense. We think the small closet off the mudroom will be enough, especially b/c we have an extra coat closet off the foyer. Actually the plans called for that closet off of the garage to be where the water heater goes, but we wanted the water heater placed in the garage in case of leaks. So we made that space a closet.We are having a bonus room above the garage with a full bathroom and a linen closet and walk in closet and access to our attic. That is mainly the reason we opted for a bonus room. I hate pulldown stairs to get to attics.

Thanks everyone for the opinions, keep them coming, cause we have plenty of time before we begin to build to make adjustments. If anyone has an idea about maybe our bathroom that is in between the two bedroom on the right about maybe a way to change it up some so that the door inthe bedroom won't have to be shut in order to get into the bathroom so they don't overlap?

Coming from California, we generally do not think about weather related stuff. I would be afraid of tornados also. Safe rooms make more sense now. Since we are in the middle of a forest, we worry about fires. We are making being forest fire safe a priority.

We are also risking not having a wheelchair accessable house. If that happens we will deal with it then.

Your property and home plan are both beautiful. Can't wait to see your progress! BTW, I didn't know what a safe room was...I thought it was a room for an actual safe! LOL! (Slapping forehead and saying "DUH"!)

Good luck!

I remember "safe" rooms from atom bomb/Red Scare paranoia of the '50s, and '60s race riots. Thanks for bringing back the memories!

You might consider double closet doors in the right rear bedroom...nice wide closet, but narrow door to get into it.

we are about to start on our house in about 3 weeks if weather permits. We are getting very excited. We are about to sign the papers on the construction loan in about a week. If anyone has any more suggestions about our house we would greatly appreciate it. Thanks! also i would like to see more pictures of houses with a brown brick and a lighter stone if anyone has anyone. I will post what color of brick i am wanting, and need a stone to match it.

Good Luck with your build!

Your safe room must seem like a really great decision after the week your state has had with tornados. We lost a very large barn on out property 20 years ago to a F5 tornado. We don't have a safe room - but I live in basement country - we have a large basement.

Hi, my in-laws built that exact same house about 3-1/2 years ago. It's a Frank Betz house isn't it? Anyway, they made a few changes to it. One big thing they did they are glad for is they took out the wet bar area totally between the MBR and library. (They wouldn't use this.) This gave them extra space.

Also be careful in the 2-car garage. The stairs that come down from the door to the house took up so much space they could only get one of their cars in comfortably. May want to enlarge the garage or reconfigure this if possible. They also put in a pedestrian door to the right of the garage door so they don't have to open the garage when they want to walk outside that way. Looks like you may already have this, wasn't sure.

Also in the kitchen, rather than stick-build a pantry, they had a built-in cabinet pantry made with their cabinets with pull-out shelves. They feel this is much better use of this space, rather than a walk-in pantry.

Wasn't sure if you were going to have the upstairs BR and bath added. They did and one thing they wished is that there was a separate HVAC unit for upstairs only. It gets really hot in summer up there. The one unit for entire house is zoned, not separate.

Anyway, some things to think about. Just preference mostly, though. After the fact, they would have done something different with the jack and jill bath. If you'd like to know, feel free to ask.

Hope this is helpful.

yes are definteley ready to have a safe room. The tornado's that just came thru hit a town 30 minutes from us pretty hard. The subdivision we are building in has to been known to sustain tornado damage if one comes thru our town.
HDMG, Yes, this is pretty much the carrollton plan of frank betz, we just made a few changes to it, made it a little bigger. We are making the garage a lil bit bigger to a 24x24 the man who drew our plans messed up a lil on the dimension of the garage. What did they do with the wet bar area, because there is a closet on the other side of that wall so we didn't know what that area could be changed to. I would love to see some pictures of your in-law's house if it is possible, any ideas that we could do different would help. We are new to all of this and want to make sure this is gonna be layed out the way we need it to. Tell me some more about the jack and jill bath also. Our inlaws have a jack and jill and she said she hates it now that her kids are getting a little older. This is something we have been studying on about possibly changing.

also we are having a conflict about our flooring we are wanting to use. We are on a budget because we are doing a turnkey job and our floor allowance is 12,000.00 we really want to get the handscraped hardwood the real hardwood not the engineered b/c of durability, he says we are gonna go over the allowance quite a bit at the price this hardwood is, we have found it at 4.99 a sq. ft. Any one have an opinion on this? We have been told too that the stone is gonna run us over on budget too but it is something we really wanted looks wise, but we don't want to go over budget if possible. I know we can't have our cake and eat it too, but we are torn on what to do about these two things.

here is more pics of our plans if it helps seeing it better on these.

Smart thinking about the garage. Making it bigger I would think would do the trick.

As far as the wet bar is concerned, I believe what they did is brought that wall of the MBR adjacent to the wetbar and made that a solid wall. They then moved the MBR door where it came out between the builtins by the fireplace. Next to the MBR doorway, they made a coat closet that is right there accessable to the foyer, nice and convenient. (Again this is on the left as you come in the front door.) The doorway to the library is almost immediately to your left after you come in the front door. Of course, there is no door. I beleive it's an arched entryway (open) from the foyer into the library. On that back wall of the library (between MBR and library) they made a partial wall of built-ins. So basically instead of having the entry to the wetbar/library/MBR, they brought that wall completely even with the LR/foyer left wall and made doors to MBR, coat closet and then made an arched entry to the library. Hope this is clear!!

As far as the jack and jill bath, they HATE it. They don't have kids at home anymore but do have family/friends use those guest rooms. When someone from one room locks the both doors and forgets to unlock them, then someone from the other room can't get in and must come out and knock on the first person's room to get them to unlock the door for them. That is sometimes in the middle of the night. Inevitably someone forgets to unlock the door!! They have thought if they could do over again, they would split the vanities and make the door to the bath come out in that hallway. HOWEVER...then you have a problem if you need to get in bigger furniture in that back corner BR. You have a really hard time turning the corner at the end of the hallway to get especially big bulky furniture into that BR. Otherwise you can go straight through that bath from the one BR to the other and get furniture through.

So many things to think about. It's just something you have to decide based on the needs of YOUR family.

I hope this helps. If I can sometime I'll try and take some pics for you.

I will say it is a BEAUTFIFUL house. No doubt you'll love it. Congratulations on getting your new home!

The only thing I think that would really bother me is that the to get to the two bedrooms on the right, it is necessary to walk through the breakfast/kitchen area instead of having them come off a foyer, hall or other. But that's just me.
Otherwise, I think your site and plan look really nice. Good luck!

what about using copper opposed to shingles above the left front window, we really want to do copper there and planned it that way but our designer drew in shingles instead. What about hail damage to copper, anyone had an experience with that happening? And what about the upkeep with copper?

here is a pic of our lot completely cleared off and ready to start! One more week and counting!!!!!

they broke ground today!!!! WE have a footer now!

THAT is exciting!!! You're off!!

Congratulations,

Amy

update on our build, we are almost done with the blockwork, hopefully they will finish tomorrow all they lack is the rest of the pillars! My saferoom/closet was blocked up today.

It's coming along! It looks great. Rarely do I see cement blocks anymore, looks really solid. With the weather you all have had this year, I'll bet you're glad you have the safe room. Keep us posted, and congratulations!!

Amy

were making some progress now, i am so excited to actually see a major change!
the shop is almost framed up and the house is completely floored.
Crossing fingers for the rain to stay away!

About flooring... We are building Chandler Park and in the kitchen/breakfast/keeping room we are scoring and acid staining the floors. We have friends who did this and it is just lovely. Not sure your subfloor, but if you have slab, it would be pretty!

we are also building in tn. We live in what might be called tornado alley. needless to say we have a saferoom in our poured basement. we have a lot of excavation work yet to be done outside, but the inside is nearing the trim and painting stage. loving building our tennessee homes, right?