Niamia, okay lots of good information! Building in the southern US means you will want to minimize the direct sunlight/heat. Western sun in the afternoon could be brutal, especially in the summer so you might want to orient the house so that the western afternoon sun faces the least used rooms. Northern light will give you the most light without stark sun, and of course eastern sun will give light in the morning. South facing rooms in the south could be very sunny and warm most of the day. You should consider houses with verandas or large overhangs to block out direct sun as well.

I understand that you would like to downsize, but if you have lots of overnight guests, you need spaces where they can stay, so it's up to you to determine whether those two extra bedrooms would suffice. I think that Felix's plans look like a good alternative, where the kitchen is moved to the keeping room area. I'd put the range/cooktop on the far wall between the windows. To keep it central to the cooking and the dining area, the refrigerator should go on the end of the cabinet run on the wall that abuts the bedroom. The wall ovens would go next to the refrigerator--no problem with the insulation on these appliances today--and the sink would stay where it is facing out to the backyard. If that area is indeed 14' wide, you should have enough room for a 3' wide island, keeping 42" between the island and the perimeter cabinets. You would also have room for a second sink in the island. Your kitchen then has windows on 2 sides, but when you have windows, the tradeoff is that you don't have upper cabinet storage. Before you commit, take inventory of all your kitchen items and figure out where they can be stored, making sure that they are stored as close to where they're needed as possible. It's a lot of work, I know, but I recently renovated my kitchen and I had many lists of EVERYTHING I needed and where they would go. My kitchen is set up great now and it was worth all the effort.

As far as the original dining room being a secondary living area--maybe this could be a media room/guest room? Media rooms are well placed on an interior area so as to minimize sun glare, and you could have a pullout sofa for overnight guests. In addition, you now have the entire back of the house for dining and entertaining without electronic noise (!)

I agree with sootsprite--you aren't really going through the closets to get to the bathroom, you merely have to go through a short hallway. One thing that bothers me though is not having a door on the toilet room--one of my pet peeves. It's hard to tell from the floor plan, is it a pocket door? or nothing?
Regarding steam from the bathroom, if you get a good vent fan this shouldn't be a problem. We have Fantech--there's one in the shower and one in the toilet room--and they are fan/light combinations, very powerful and only 3" in diameter. The motor is in the attic. If you are going to be in the southeast, you'll most probably use the fan and air conditioning concurrently.

In the first plan, I would knock out the kitchen wall one foot and instead of having it with a bay, I would square it. Bump it out as a square with a box...Then you can have ceiling to floor windows and slider. You can also add two sky lights to the bumped out part. You can put a lovely table that can be opened for 12 but closed when you aren't entertaining.

Also, I would close in the dining room with french doors and make it an office or just a room with a comfortable, oversized chair and make one wall a wall of windows so it looks like a sun room. You can also have built ins on one side for storage and books.

I would put wood floors throughout the first floor. Be careful not to pick really dark because it will show everything. I know its in style but you will be crazy. I would do the wide planks but put a neutral color...even a light wood color...Then you can have dark cabinets in the kitchen and a lighter granite. Its good to contrast.

thanks for listening.

charlenenaso@gmail.com

chazzy

Open floor plans present a challenge in arranging furniture. There are so many openings and doorways/walkways and no walls except for the fireplace wall. I have a similar layout but the TV is in another room, and I'm not sure the room dimensions are the same. Your only choice for a TV if not above the fireplace is either on that same wall to the left or right of the fireplace. I'd place the sofa and coffee table facing the fireplace/entertainment area, and two club chairs facing each other perpendicular to the sofa. Anchor the seating area with a large area rug, and place small accent tables next to the club chairs. You could also put a console table behind the sofa with table lamps. Make sure you have a floor outlet to plug in the lamps. You also need to make sure that there is enough room between the sofa and the dining table-you should have at least 3 feet around the dining table to allow for seating, but you'd need more in this room since the living area is so close.
You should do a furniture plan layout on graph paper to make sure you have enough room for everything.

If your going to buy canned plans, you may as well buy an existing house. You're just using up more of the earth's natural resources to make another mundane characterless vanilla house and letting another house sit on the market for another year. The plan is cookie cutter and has absolutely no response to the site or people that inhabit it. Perhaps sometime in the future all the people that built this house can have a reunion to see how they remodeled the house to meet their needs or how they adjusted their lives to match the house's inefficiencies. There are people out there that realize how one's environment can influence their lives and personal development. A home is a reflection of the character and integrity of those that live their lives in it. Do yourself and everyone you interact with a favor and hire an architect to design a home for YOU.

Two things I noticed for privacy: I liked squaring the bay are in the kitchen or if you go with Felix's kitchen, I would somehow add a little wall so you don't see from the kitchen right down the hall to the bedrooms and bath; and I was wondering about having a tub with a window that is right by the front door. Would you use a bottom-up shade there? And if you bathe at night would you see a silhouette through the shade?

Mark Bischak, Architect, You are right in what you are saying, but your manner of saying it is very off-putting. I’m not sure where your underlying anger originates, but it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be directing it at people on Houzz or in person for that matter.

I am sorry anyone was offended by frank truths. Thank you Adalisa for recognizing the truth and speaking up. Thank you Diana for asking the most basic information, "where is North?", did anybody else think of that? I am equally offended by those that spend hours of their time and hours of other people's time trying to solve multi-thousand dollar questions relying on a mixed bag of free good and bad advice by people that do not know all the information it takes to design a home.

Somehow many people think architects are expensive and they do not realize what value an architect can contribute to one of the most important factors in a person's/family's/community's life. I do not understand how anyone can skimp on such an important thing. Most architect I know do what they do because they are good at it and they enjoy it. They put forth the effort and cost to get the four to six plus years of required education, the three to four years of require work experience, and the continued education so they can design functional, efficient, safe, attractive structures for other people.

Contact a couple of local architects to see what they can do for you and see if the value they bring to your project is worth the expense. Try it, you might like it.

@ Mark - Your opinion is just that - your opinion - certainly not a frank truth. Obviously, folks have different tastes and opinions than others. I happen to LOVE some of Donald Gardner's plans. No, they were not exactly what I was looking for in meeting my needs, so I hired an architect and had him create something that would work for me. However, for many, the "canned floorplans" match pretty well as to what they want. In those scenarios, just a bit of tweaking is all that is needed. No need for anyone to adjust their lives to match the house's inefficiencies. Oh, and I would love to have that reunion you mentioned - sounds better than a reunion with a bunch of smug, self-righteous architects. If you are so offended by folks asking for free advice - then I would suggest you don't bother reading some of these posts. Niamia was looking for a bit of guidance, no need for your attitude.

@ niamia - the width from the fireplace wall to my kitchen countertop is 19 1/2'. I have enough room for a 4+ foot walkway behind the couch and stools that go along the island counter. The length of the room is 25' - there is 4 feet walkway along the French door wall and another 4+ feet to the foyer area. I think the size is perfect. Roomy, but still cozy.

last comment to Mark...No one said that an architect is not needed I have a niece and nephew that just graduated and became architects. We are proud of them. However, not all of us can AFFORD an architect. And, for your information, when one wants to live in a certain subdivision, you DONT HAVE A CHOICE, you buy the lot and home from the builder. Again, we all try to do what we can. I have a couple of people in my family that built custom homes, the land was 200,000, the architect's charge was 100,000 and that didn't include if they wanted him to oversee and be the project manager. Not everyone has that kind of money before the house even goes up. Get over yourself...how unprofessional you are acting like a bully to this nice woman.

To expand on Marks observation "where is north??", that's a great question. Always think of the house and lot as one. Show us the house sitting on the lot. Design should stop at the property line and only there because it has to, not at the exterior walls as your plan implies. Long ago for some forgotten owner I posted a few examples of this in an "ideabook". Go there to see what I'm talking about.

And as far as "canned plans".....they are great starting points and I have clients coming to me all the time saying "Draw this up". And I always encourage a little "have you thought of this?" session with the "canned plan" serving well as the relationship diagram. After all, there's several hundred thousand dollars of the client's hard earned money on the line in an endeavor with no "do overs" and this is just lines on paper, to be accepted, rejected or modified so why not??? And it's not expensive. It's three or four hours in front of the owner with them as an an active participant and almost always ending with a " Wow, we never thought of that!!"

In doing this I always think of a thought by Henry Ford, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me, "A faster horse"".

It's a rare event that I put pencil to paper here on Houzz but here's a 30 minute example of suggested improvements to a "canned plan"..... not my post with the colored drawings but my post with the black and white sketches about 15 posts down. And from reading Bebexangels reply to my suggestions, it appears she feels she got more more than the "faster horse" she was initially looking for: [https://www.houzz.com/discussions/need-help-on-floor-plan-details-for-new-build-private-bathroom-dsvw-vd~941477[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/need-help-on-floor-plan-details-for-new-build-private-bathroom-dsvw-vd~941477)-

Three things said are very interesting:
1) ". . . so I hired an architect and had him create something that would work for me." Good idea, why didn't I think of that?

2) " . . . a bunch of smug, self-righteous architects". I don't like those type of architects either. I like the architects that can see outside the box and encourage others not to look at things the way they are, and ask why... but to dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

3) " I have a couple of people in my family that built custom homes, the
land was 200,000, the architect's charge was 100,000 and that didn't
include if they wanted him to oversee and be the project manager." Your comment is misleading, you fail to state what service were provided by the architect or the cost of the structure; they may have built a 6,000,000 home on the property and the architect's fee was a bargain.

I only wish to encourage Niamia and anyone else to seek a home where life can be lived to the fullest. Look past my harsh statements and see the intent of a better state.

Think about this:
"There is something bigger and better and more worthwhile than the things
we see about us, the things we live by and strive for. There is an
Undiscovered Beauty, a Divine Excellence just beyond us. Let us stand on
tiptoe, forgetting the meaner things, and grasp of it what we may." - Barnard Maybeck

I don't get the fee thing either. I continually read about these exorbitant fees people have supposedly paid here on Houzz and frankly, don't understand it.

Now, at the risk of sounding like bragging but really written in the spirit of "What's up with these fees?": I've been self employed, doing exclusively residential architecture since 1980, live in a waterfront house in a nice neighborhood, take two nice vacations a year (just got back from a two week trip to Belgium and Germany), have provided all the income for my wife, family and myself, like eating out at nice restaurants, and I haven't won a lottery, haven't inherited anything substantial, was not a member of the London "Jewel Heist" gang and haven't sold a Picasso (nor do I own one). Basically, a well compensated fine life at not anywhere near the fees put forth here on Houzz.

The only thing I can figure it's all possible because we don't have cable TV!

There is a number of things that I find problematic in this floor plan. First, is the porch which is a fake stage front. Its width does not respond to the truth of the space inside the door.

The foyer is of two minds. It opens wide toward the two secondary bedrooms and contracts toward the great room and the kitchen. It should the other way around.

Having a pantry on the hallway shared as access to the master bedroom takes away fron the processional experience toward the heads of the household, and unpractical for the cook.

Once in the master bedroom, I like the symmetry of the two wic but entering the master bath to find the tub is off center would do a job on my blood pressure every single time.

This is just a quick review!

Hi Niamia, regarding a second bathroom that your guests can use. In the first floor plan proposal I posted there are two bathroom facing the secondary bedrooms with the idea that the top one could be used as a guest's powder room when you have visitors. Let me know which plan you have settle on and I will be glad to take a look. Cheers...

P.S.: I will be quite busy this weekend but will not fail to respond to you.

Hi niamia. Just want to say I reeeeally like Felix's open concept modification that you posted above. It works perfectly within this plan, because unlike most open plans, one doesn't walk in the front door and see the kitchen first thing. Plus it makes the plan "feel" much more spacious. Would add however that it would be important to raise the ceiling as high as possible with an open plan, to add a balancing sense of upward volume as well. Altogether it says "smaller house with big house attitude". Agree also with Chazzy that the bay should be squared up; it's a more updated -and more elegant- profile. The original dining room space I would turn into a study/library, with some built-in shelving, TV/computer capability, and a nice pull-out sofa to provide an extra bed if needed.

Whatever you choose, just enjoy the process! Few things are more exciting than building a new home.

I like this plan. Can you put in a skylight to lighten up the kitchen area a bit?

I made some edits to the 2nd plan, notably I removed pantry from hallway and gave that extra space back to the kitchen, as well as slightly widened the kitchen. I revised MBath and closet (same linear feet as original closets plan) but didn’t add any sf to the original plan - this area larger than your Great Room... I also revised the 2nd BR to accommodate a double vanity in 2nd bath. Small green and grey closets are for coats @ either entry.

Here is a rearrangement of the spaces in plan 2 that solves some of the problem areas I highlighted before. Cheers!

As a builder I have built several plans found on the internet and in general I find them lacking. Plans designed in one area don't necessarily fit with the environment and lifestyle of folks from other areas of the country. Many times it would of cost my clients $1,000 of extra dollars if I didn't know what to look for. Here's a perfect example, windows sizes are different for different areas. I frequently found odd sized windows on internet plans that didn't fit southern homes and because of the odd size they cost 3 times the cost of windows fabricated in the south. I could go on but the point I'm trying to make is that you need to find an internet plan that was designed local to you or a local architect. I work with several architects and in the long run they can save you thousands in construction cost. Another example, one internet plan had a call-out for 12:12 roof pitch. The architect reduced the roof pitch to 12:10 saved hundreds of dollars and didn't effect the overall appearance. Architect are like builders the good ones will provide a positive collaboration, valued experience and beneficial outcome. It's the most important financial decision of your life. If you were having a surgery would you have someone that just read about how to do surgery or one that actually has.

Mr. Blake, I could not agree more. The third dimension nature of the space, elevations, proportions, materials and details are vital. Extensive know-how and research is required to build a proper home in the most cost-effective manner.

This comment will serve as my second 'like' for Mike Blake's comment.