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rob_2610

Getting close!!!! Need some help/opinions on home plan!

rob_2610
8 years ago

My wife and I have been searching for the right set of plans for a while (she has looked at thousands!) and thankfully met a builder who has offered to create custom plans. This is the third draft. Apologies in advance for the lack of measurements; in the previous version the Great Room was 20 x 22.

Our wish list -

  • Optimize water view
  • 4 br, first floor master
  • Open floor plan, large Great Room
  • Cathedral ceilings
  • Walkout basement

Current issues -

  • Any constructive feedback welcome!
  • Our biggest issue is the stairs to the basement. We initially wanted the foyer to have a cathedral ceiling (all the way through the great room), but the builder recommended keeping the flat ceiling to define the spaces better and allow for closets when you walk in. We initially just had an open railing where the two closets are to allow for more light into the basement.
  • Not really a fan of the half wall and two center columns between the foyer and Great Room, which we would probably exclude. Maybe just keeping one column on either side, only a foot or two away from the wall(?).
  • We would also like the kitchen a little more open to the great room.
  • Slightly concerned that there isn't enough room for a kitchen table to the left of the island.


Comments (20)

  • millworkman
    8 years ago

    Pretty much impossible to tell much of anything without dimensions Who draws plans without dimensions? What about elevations?

  • sandradclark
    8 years ago

    I do like the posts between the stairway & great room. They define a hallway & allow for room for furniture placement as well. Most of the dimensions can be estimated by the sizes of bathroom fixtures.

  • sandradclark
    8 years ago

    What is the overall square footage per floor?

  • sandradclark
    8 years ago

    I would certainly be happy to live there.

  • rob_2610
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    previous versions had dimensions. We changed the plans pretty drastically after the second version, so this version was probably done quickly to avoid spending too much time at the computer (our builder is father son team who does most of the work themselves)

  • rob_2610
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Thanks Sandra! We agreed that the posts and flat/non-cathedral ceiling do help define the hallway, so we may end up keeping them. Total square footage was around 3500 on the last version. There is no second floor (just main floor and walkout basement).

  • rob_2610
    Original Author
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Thanks suezbell! I forgot to mention that there's no second floor! (budget reasons) I think we want to keep the deck open for grilling, but I definitely like adding more glass/view!

  • flopsycat1
    8 years ago

    One small thought. If you moved the French doors from the kitchen to the porch over to one side or the other, would you then have space for a table? An L-shaped banquet could then be placed in the corner adjacent to the porch doors.


    rob_2610 thanked flopsycat1
  • suezbell
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Edited.

    That's not an open floor plan you've posted; in fact, it seems really chopped up into too many smaller separate spaces -- the master bedroom on the main level seems especially tiny.

    Invest in a pad of graph paper and rough out your own ideas in four rectangles:

    1st rectangle: You want the master bedroom with the lake view, so that room should be in the upper left hand "water view" corner of your graph paper representation. You don't need your walk in closets, nor the hallway between them leading to your master bath, nor your master bath itself (1 & 1.5 bath with another opening to your bonus room -- study/nursery, as needed), nor your study to have a lake view, so put those room between your master bedroom and your garage.

    2nd rectangle: To actually have an open floor plan, you want an elongated triangle for your "great room" -- living room (w/lake view), dining, and finally a kitchen.

    Note: Because you will want your master bedroom wider than your either your bath or bonus room and because you will want your living room and dining room wider than your kitchen, you should be able to use the difference in width to put your washer and dryer in a mud room on the garage end of your kitchen that will serve as an entry to your garage.

    3rd rectangle: Draw a your guest bedroom with a lake view with a single walk in closet and a small bath on the exterior wall (w/small, stained glass window), with an entry hall along side the bath and closet and between that and your kitchen wall and that leads to the guest bedroom door and that leads to the living/dining part of your 2nd rectangle, with the stairs in the entry.

    4th rectangle would be a two-part wrap around porch. You could have an open front porch that is both beside the guest bath and the entry and that also wraps around the front corner of your home to serve as your front porch in front of your entry. Between that open front porch and the exterior wall of the water view side of your home (along side the third rectangle), you could add either a screened porch and/or sunroom (accessible from the second downstairs bedroom), all along the rest of that third rectangle and extending at least 4' beyond exterior wall of the lake view side of the house -- in this way, the screened porch is accessible from the water view deck.

    For practical use and full enjoyment of your deck, you will want your deck to be as long as the entire water view side of the house -- the length of all the water view ends of the rectangle and accessible from the master bedroom and living room and preferably even the guest bedroom because that would leave you the option for the guest room to be a downstairs rec room or to serve as a music room, a tv room, a billiard room, a hobby room, a larger office at the front entrance if you ever work from home (and/or if the bonus room / study / nursery is in use as a nursery) or as guest bedroom or, with the sun room serving as their sitting room, as an in-law suite.

    Note: Whether the screened porch/sun room between the front porch and the exterior wall of the water view side of your home extends the exterior wall of the water view side of your home by only 4' (to enable access between the water view deck and the screened porch) or extends a full 8' or 12' -- whichever your deck might extend beyond the exterior wall of the water view side of your home -- will depend upon whether or not you want to block access to the deck from the end of your home (for privacy sake) or you want a boardwalk on the lake view side of the house alongside your screened porch or sun room for an emergency exit from the deck for safety reasons (with, of course, a gate that could be latched or locked for privacy).

    The lengths of the various rectangles and how they meet (side by side) could be moved to facilitate the look you want and/or to make the upstairs suit your purposes.

    The upstairs could easily end up with three large bedrooms (girls, boys, parents bedroom/rec room) with a bath and a half on each side of the center parents' bedroom or more if you added made most of the bedrooms smaller and or also put rooms above the garage.

    You could put your upstairs rec room over the garage (best for noise) and let it have its own bath above the bonus room / study / nursery and a second bath over the downstairs bath, leaving the rest of the upstairs for a long hallway on the front of the house and a row of bedrooms on the water view side of the house.

    Alternately, by moving the rec room to over the garage, you could have your living dining room a two story vaulted ceiling visible from a long upstairs hallway on the front side of the house and even include sky lights or a glass ceiling above this great room.

    rob_2610 thanked suezbell
  • User
    8 years ago
    For me I would want the great room, kitchen and dining to be more open to each other. They feel very closed off. I also think, based on the plans, the master bedroom looks tiny.
    rob_2610 thanked User
  • suezbell
    8 years ago

    Consider a barn style roof and you could add your upstairs bedrooms within it later or just have two sleeping lofts -- girls (above 1st master suite rectangle) and boys (above the 3rd guest bedroom rectangle) -- open to the two story vaulted ceiling great room (2nd rectangle). Perhaps you could put the rec room over the garage with access from the garage -- best for noise anyway.

    To have three main floor bedrooms now without an actual upstairs, you could put a bath and a half between two bedrooms in the third rectangle.

    For budget reasons, you could wait and add a side porch or sunroom on the end of your home later.

    If your outside walls are more of a rectangle with less angles and your roof not chopped up with a bunch of gables, you could save money on exterior walls and roof labor and materials, perhaps enabling you to be able to finish either your basement and/or upstairs (within attic of barn style or other roof) sooner.

  • suezbell
    8 years ago

    You should know that with a vaulted ceiling and/or two floors connected without at least French doors to control the air flow and/or without separate heat/AC systems, your heat/AC bills will be higher. Also, if you're not building with a large attic and/or have insufficient venting, you could end up with all the heat from your basement floor creating a need for much more AC on your main living floor.

    Do have your contractor use the stronger electrical boxes to accommodate ceiling fans as overhead light fixtures so you'll have that option to circulate air flow as you finish your home and for any later remodeling.

    rob_2610 thanked suezbell
  • suezbell
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    I gather your second floor is your basement rather than your upstairs. Again I stress, if you're operating on a budget, consider straight lines for your exterior walls and have your main floor exterior walls atop your basement walls as that expedites plumbing/wiring and can reduce labor and materials cost. It also makes creating a deck above easier.

    As to my barn style roof suggestion in another post, If you were to use that style, your upstairs walls could be over the downstairs walls, you could forego the steep slope of the barn style on the water view side of the house -- only adding it on each end of the home as an overhang -- and have the steep roof over the front of your home cover a long porch along the full length of your home from the garage to the other corner of the home.

    Hope y'all are able to get the dream home you seek.

    rob_2610 thanked suezbell
  • tiffany66
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    If you haven't already, I would suggest you seeing your floor plan in 3 Dimension. It will certainly give you a more real world expectation of the finished product. In creating my own floor plans, I have resolved many things before construction ever happened. With all the floor planning software on the market today, it shouldn't be a problem.

    A couple of my personal observations of your plans are:

    Master Bedroom - seems a little small, especially compared to the bath.

    Master Bath - It might be better to see the lovely vanities rather than the toilet and closet from the entrance. Moving them would provide privacy to the toilet area, and possibly making the wing wall unnecessary. Added benefit the entrance door wouldn't be banging into your nice vanity cabinets.

    Bedroom #2, Closet - It looks like the bedroom door will have to be closed first before you could open the closet door. I can see that this would be a nuisance for an adult, but even worse for a child's room.

    Upstairs Bathrooms - Same door situation for both upstairs bathrooms that doors will meet back to back.

    Laundry Room - would it make sense to have a door to the outside here rather than a window. It might be a nice short cut to the bathroom when outside. You could then even use this room as a mud room or to at least wash your hands.

    This room limits a technician doing repair work on your washer and dryer. If you have a front loader with pedestal and he pulls it out how does he get around it to work on it? If he cannot do the repairs in this space, where will he have to move it to? You certainly do not want him dragging it through your house to repair or when you need a new unit. I know this because I have a laundry room in the center of my house with no access to the outside. It is impossible to work in. Not to mention that the technician scratched up the appliances because there was no space.

    Mechanics Room - Is the doorway into this room wide enough for any equipment that could be needed to move into and out of it in the future? I would also want to see a floor plan on how the equipment will fit into this room and to make sure it too can be worked on in the future.

    Suezbell, although staircases like the one you posted are compact and pretty, they are not always functional. Sometimes people have family members of all ages and I cannot even imagine how some elderly folks could get up/down those stairs comfortably and safely.

    Rob_2610 As you view each room on your floor plan, visualize how you will function in it. That will help you find problem areas while they are easy to correct.

    rob_2610 thanked tiffany66
  • lrmom05
    8 years ago
    Great plan! looks like you're down to only a few final tweeks.
    #1 - Seriously consider expanding the breakfast nook wall into the porch space. .... or use a very small 2-3 person table. To decide, lay out the furniture you'd use in your porch and nook. See which is the most important. :-)
    #2 - I would definitely open the kitchen wall to the great room (possibly with a column that flows with the hall columns look?).
    #3 - I know the hall closets block light to your stairs but it does define the foyer/hall space (and provide storage - something no one ever had enough of -ha).

    I really like your plan. I could see our family in it (likely turning BR 2 into our home gym and adding our theatre big screen to the rec room vs a separate theatre). nice work!
    rob_2610 thanked lrmom05
  • lrmom05
    8 years ago
    oops - I see the kitchen columns now, but - to clarify - I meant to open the kitchen all the way to the corner.
  • lrmom05
    8 years ago
    ... corner of the great room. (Sorry, poor phone typing)
  • rob_2610
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    lrmom05 - Thanks! I agree that the kitchen table space looks tight. We're thinking about bumping the exterior wall out a few feet toward the river, and then also in the bedroom to open it up some as well. I'm with you on the kitchen being more open to the great room, at the least, we'll open that wall up to the corner.

    Tiffany66 - I appreciate the detailed feedback! I agree that a 3D view would be really nice. I'm going to look into programs now, or check with our builder to see if he has that capability. Great idea with the laundry room door, we currently don't have any door on that side of the house and I think that would be more functional. Also, love the idea to flip the bathroom layout, I'd rather tuck the toilet in the corner so its not the first thing that you see when you walk in!

    Suezbell - Thank you for all the ideas! We do plan on putting a few ceiling fans in the cathedral ceiling, I don't like the fact that we're adding the extra space that needs heating! (but do like the look/feel). I think the barn style roof is a good/practical idea, but I don't think we'd be happy with the look from the outside...? I'll see if I can find some pics online to see how it turns out. You're right that we didn't end up with a completely "open floor plan". I mainly just want the kitchen very open to the great room (which we're going to try to open up some, more than you see here). We were on the fence about having having a formal dining room (which is very closed off), but ended up adding it as my wife thinks that we may regret not having it and we ended up having the space in the plan there for it. Regarding the deck, I like the idea of having it run the full width of the river side of the house, but we were afraid that it would block light from the basement bedrooms and rec room.


  • Roger Dodger
    7 years ago

    I like the plan. Looks expensive to build though. Lots of zigs and zags. I'd finish the basement myself to save big bucks. We squeezed 4 bedrooms on our first floor otherwise it would eliminate the benefit of having a ranch (no stairs required). My wife wouldn't go for bedrooms in the basement, despite having a walkout. Best of luck!