Is this some sort of factory-built "double wide" house?

The tip-off for a poor plan is when one opens the front door and immediately steps into the living room.

Sorry, but my advice is...start over1

Not a fan of wardrobe closets inside master bath (humidity, mold?). Master opening from living room is not ideal. Are you set on a builder stock home? Plan seems "blah" overall...

Can I have a dollar every time someone tells you to start over?

I think I that’s the third time I have seen that floor plan today. Looks like a double wide manufactured home or a modular home.

Why do you keep starting new threads asking the same thing about this bad floor plan?

You should start over.

Mark, here's my dollar.

Agree that an entrance off the living room is not ideal for a bedroom, I'd want a hallway to give some privacy.

The house we live in now has a front entrance directly into the living room, so I never thought much about it. I don't consider that a "bad floor plan". I might consider adding a small hallway for master bedroom entrance though.

I personally want the MS BED to face the backyard.

The good- it's a simple plan. A basic box is the cheapest shape to build. It's a shallow design, so all of the rooms have outside walls, instead of being buried deep in the house. I like a separate master suite.

What I don't like- it would be nice to do something different with the entrance. With the LR serving as an entrance, you lose a lot of space due to required clearance for traffic. I would swap the master BR to face the back yard, depending upon views and privacy. No to the closet in the bathroom! Depending upon the property, I would want a lot more windows.

Without seeing the land, there's no way to know how well this plan would work. Good design starts with the property that it will be sitting on. Topography, views, climate, and energy efficiency all come into play.

Why do you want to build on a crawlspace? I ask primarily because budget is always an issue and crawlspaces cost money. When the discussion comes up, it is interesting to see where people's biases come in. And regional considerations. But I ask you why? (If it isn't obvious, it is so I can explain why that reason is a terrible one....)

I live in an area where crawls are the most common. One of the most expensive builders has switched to slab. He builds custom and spec - $1.3M & up. I was planning on a crawl but switched. Started off $14k below budget.

Which way is North?

There certainly could be more windows.

This is a very basic house for not that cheap. Depends what the price includes of course - like site prep/utilities/permits etc. Sounds like they do really inexpensive things like buy unfinished wood cabs and paint on site. Not the most durable. Seems like modular would be better value but I am sure that is regional. Most modular houses would have 2x6 construction and this does not.

I just saw the builder is in LA. Probably forget the slab comment. What is standard foundation? I don't like how the HVAC is not mentioned in specs.

Building in middle TN area.

Looking at that company's website, can I just say I'm glad OP didn't choose THIS one? http://www.manuelbuilders.com/sterling-french

(that exterior, yall)

dhliggett
We are in North Alabama and complete projects in Middle Tennessee on a regular basis, if you like to discuss-having custom plans drawn over stock home plans.

OP?

Original Poster

Oh, so that's me then. LOL. I don't like that plan either. And, I think we're changing from the Camellia Farmhouse plan, too. Thank you all for your comments.

Dhliggett, trying to be positive. I think the problem is at first glance the plan looks a little boxy.

However, the interior pictures are really nice.

I think bedrooms 3 and 4 for the man cave, then the bathroom can stay where it is.

Good luck with your decision.

P.S. O.P. = Original Poster.

Interior pictures are always very nice, because they're a marketing tool; they're also enhanced with camera lenses and Photoshop etc to make rooms look larger and better lit than they are in real life.

Builders and plan factories know most people choose based on aesthetics -- and increasingly cute names (much like wine labels) -- and not on whether the actual plan is livable or efficient, in terms of energy, traffic flow, room placement, furniture placement etc. So you get charming looking, charmingly named houses, and nowadays often "farmhouses", that check off all the boxes on Pinterest and HGTV but won't be all that great to live in, both 1) from the way the rooms are arranged, in relation to each other and within those rooms, and 2) the build quality, which seems to be not even a small step above builder basic. But one pays a lot for the "look".

If you're paying that much, you should be getting a well-built, fully functional family house.

dhliggett, what is your property like? What part of the country?

"and increasingly cute names"

Same with subdivisions. Like "Valley View Farms" (I just made that up!), where there's no valley, no view and no farm.

When I worked with residential developers, I often made suggestions on subdivision names. Some of my best suggestions included "Demented Acres", "Arid Land Properties" and " Giant Scorpion Ranch". I was particularly fond of the last one.

I'm still waiting for a return telephone call...

My MIL always named her houses - it was an upper class, eastern thing that came over from the UK. Her California-born SIL thought it pretentious - she was a crusty old public health nurse who had never married and put up with no guff.

So when Aunt Crabgrass (her nickname she gave herself) bought her first house, she named it "Stonybroke on the Bank"; her 2nd, a bit larger, was named "Grander Manor". She did have a great sense of humor!

All these stock house names and subdivision names are to me far more pretentious than my late MIL naming her houses. At least they had a relationship to the house/location etc.

Overall thought: If this is to be a "starter house", it's okay: it's a simple rectangle, simple wall lines, nothing horrible; however, those houses are easy to find ready-made ... and they'd be cheaper than building this house.

Specific things that lead me to this conclusion:

- Apartments and small entry-level houses have doors that open straight into the living room. If this were the only issue, you could put the door on one of the living room corners and "create" a foyer with furniture placement.

- The three secondary bedrooms are perfectly acceptable ... except that I'd give the two on the corners windows on both sides.

- The secondary bath makes no sense ... with this simple layout, all the water should be in one wall ... also, I'd downsize to one sink so you can have drawers for storage (otherwise you have none at all in the bathroom), and this end of the house has no linen closet.

- On that subject, each bedroom has a modest closet, and you have a pantry ... but no other storage. Think of all the things you need to store. Ideally you'd have a cleaning closet for the vacuum and other cleaning items ... a coat closet ... storage for hobbies, etc.

- You should have backyard access through the dining room ... you don't really want your guest to walk through the laundry room.

- Since the laundry room door will stay open most of the time, it'd be a good spot for a pocket door.

- The kitchen is a decent size, but the appliances and pantry are just sort of tossed into the mix with out attention to cooking function.

- I agree that the master bedroom lacks privacy. Again, this bedroom needs windows on two sides.

- I don't like the master bath at all ... too much stuff crammed into a small space.

- The living room is a modest-but-workable size, but with windows only on the short side and those windows being under a porch, the room will be somewhat dark and uninviting.

We also want to combine 2 of the bedrooms to make a large "man cave". Not sure whether to combine bedrooms 2 & 3 or 3 & 4.

I don't think this is a good idea. It'll create a room that lacks proportion to the rest of the house.

Interior pictures are always very nice, because they're a marketing tool; they're also enhanced with camera lenses and Photoshop etc to make rooms look larger and better lit than they are in real life.

I teach photography, and -- yes -- these pictures are professional images with ideal lighting (note that in every pix, the lights are all on and they have no window coverings blocking light ... I promise, they have spotlights and reflectors shining into this space too). They've carefully composed the pictures to make the rooms appear as large as possible.

Note, too, that the materials in the pictures don't match the materials on the list. For starters, none of these layouts has a fireplace. Note that they say the floors will be laminate and carpet ... but the example pictures seem to be wood-look tile. They're showing you the gussied-up version of the house with all the bells and whistles; including these things will be significantly more expensive than the base price they've showed you. Lots of things in these pictures are clearly builder-basic quality.

Why do you want the master Bed facing the front street instead of backyard. REALLY??? Even if you're out in the country. Makes NO sense.

Actually, our MBR faces the front. The street is 350' away, and on the other side of a hill, though. Since we don't hang out in our BR, we couldn't see the point in having it face the view. We actually have a pretty nice view to the front, too. That's why the house design starts with looking at the land.

Why do you want the master Bed facing the front street instead of
backyard. REALLY??? Even if you're out in the country. Makes NO sense.

I wouldn't care a bit about this.

My bedroom faces the "front", on acreage. It overlooks the pool and the courtyard. Well placed windows mean I see what I want to see, and still feel "protected" in the bedroom. I prefer it to the bathroom front and center. ;-)

Giant Scorpion Ranch

Hey! I used to live there!!!

I promise, they have spotlights and reflectors shining into this space too). They've carefully composed the pictures to make the rooms appear as large as possible.

Plus they use wide angle lenses to make every room look larger. Notice how some of the appliances in the kitchen appear a bit "stretched".

My favorite name was Buckingham Club Mobile Estates.

I like that the house is going to have a simple roof line. It presents nicely to the front. I've been enough homes without foyers that not having one doesn't worry me -- if it were a large home, that would be different. I like that there are no internal rooms that get no light (but the place does need more windows... especially the master bedroom, and bedrooms 3 and 4, which are on corners of the building and could easily have windows on two different walls. I'm not crazy about the door from the living room to the master, some privacy would be nice.

I do like that you only have two interior eating places rather than three.

A coat closet is lacking. The kitchen has enough problems that a trip to the Kitchen Forum is advised... I mean, if you really do decide to go ahead with this plan.

Bedroom 3, if you remove the closet, could be sufficient for the man cave. If it is for TV in a darkened room, you could consider Bedroom 2, which really can only get light from one side, again no closet if the man wants to have a maximal man space.

Bath 2 - when you open the door to the toilet/tub area, you will have to get up, jump off to the side or into the tub, so that the door doesn't bang you on your way out. I am not a fan of a master bath containing closets for clothing at all.

I do think you can do better, but I will note this is an improvement on many of the stock plans out there.

A lot of the design for your place will depend on topography, where any views are, and what you intend for the balance of your land. So, often a stock build will not help you address these things.

And as Mushcreek noted, your lay of land may indicate your master works best in the front, but this is not usual. If you are far enough off the road, you get more flexibility, certainly.

And, as Mrs Pete and CP noted, you can do a lot of things if you are skilled in photographic principles.

How many are there of you?

PS: Crawl space... really HARD to access if you need to go down and repair things. Back when I was house hunting in 1991, and I was young and physically ready for most anything, I knew enough not to consider something with a crawl space. (Wish I'd been smart enough then about kitchens, too...)

PPS: If you do have a crawl space or a basement, where are the stairs to it going to go?

If you stick with this plan, you need a lot more land. There's a small 1,000 acre ranchette for sale in Giant Scorpion Ranch if you hurry...

Virgil, I so seriously wanted to build in Demented Acres! (No scorpions here...)

There used to be a Morning Wood subdivision out in the country in MS. When the city expanded to the country, a whole bunch of streets and things got renamed. Memphis still has theirs.

As well as a ESL Christian Center.

OMG - Morning Wood.... killing me....

Morning Wood? Gotta be photo shopped! Ha ha ha ha ha!!

We have a local tree removal service called Morning Wood.

Oh geez! LMAO