is there a house there somewhere? All I see is massive garages!

To be honest, I prefer the top plan. I don't care at all for the arched garage doors.

What dort of look are you trying to achieve? Do you have abpn inspiration pic?

How willing are you to hear advice you do not want to hear?

First, is your home under construction now or is this to be built?

Second, jmm1837 asks an excellent question: what are you looking to achieve? Different style? Different colors? More space? Something else?

I think that a general issue is that in 2D the porch looks lovely and inviting... but in 3D perspective (the picture), the porch is dwarfed by the garage and comes off looking much smaller and less inviting.

The elevation drawing show what I think is too many siding materials (perhaps in an effort to 'set apart' the house??). Less might be more. Anything you can do to simplify and take interest away from the garage may help with the porch.

The design challenge here is clear: The garage is 75% of the elevation and the actual, visible house is 25%. One can do almost anything to the house, and the view will still be dominated by the much larger garage mass.

It would help the garage if the two door opening was recessed and the one door opening was forward. It would also help if the garage doors were painted to match the siding and did not visually contrast with the siding so much as in the photo.

The front porch is so recessed and small, compared to the garage element, that virtually no change to the porch will have much visual impact.

Perhaps if you added a welcoming pergola, with landscaping, it would differentiate your house from others in the tract:

Sorry all I see are garages and a different porch won’t change that

A personal preference for me would be to have straight columns not the slanted craftsman style.

Be careful of adding too many little windows.

The recessed garage (without the window above) looks better.

No arched windows.

Virgil has an excellent point about the dominance of the garage. Is there any way you could put the garage on the back of the house? Most architects would have done that, I think.

Paint your garage doors the dark grey color. And then create a lovely path tp the front with pavers and some long pasting blooming plants, and some lighting for the evenings.

The light color is causing them to pop. And you want the to recede.

It's hard to envision this all done at this stage - all you do see are the garages. Paint and landscape - those are your real options. The pergola only works if you take OFF the porch and don't think you want to do that.

Actually, the pergola begins at the porch fascia and extends to or beyond the face of the garage. The pergola is a free-standing structure.

Is this a tract house or a custom house? I ask because my advice will be different depending on the answer. Also what is the size of the lot?

How deep is the lot? The garage IS very overwhelming no question.

Have you started building yet? Where are you in the process and do you own the lot or does the builder?

I'm asking all these questions to determine how much you might be able to do. :)

A 3 car garage needs at least 30' wide (shudder).

Do the setbacks apply to the garage (and I've never heard of them not)? I ask because from looking at your elevation it seems the porch/front door side is wider than the 10' left over from a 30' wide garage. It appears just as wide as the garage door which would put it at 16'.

Have you considered working with a REAL architect instead of a draftsman? Someone like architectrunnerguy to create a plan that doesn't make the garage quite such the hulking item it is? He works remotely and has designed quite a few narrow lot properties overlooking water, including the house he lived in and just sold.

I'm thinking even if you could separate the double and single and somehow maybe turn the double sideways it would help? And what does the house plan look like? I'm hoping it is narrow and only 1-2 rooms deep so all major rooms take advantage of the light and views?

How do I get ahold of someone from Houzz w/o doing the public comments?

Ok, assuming the 32' wide garage is a given on a narrow lot, I'd visually break it's from into something apart from the house. Right now it appears (could be wrong, I'm assuming) it's crudely stuck on the front of the house (Lord knows what's that's doing to the front to the house with regard to natural light).

At the risk of right now hearing dozens of phones switching over to play Candy Crush because I just posted this here a few weeks ago, I had the same problem in our 50' wide waterfront lot we just sold in Annapolis. The house is 30'wide. Now for this house the garage is completely detached but don't get side tracked there, the same concept would work with a small connecting wing if connectivity is desired like the sketch shows. It's all about sequence Gate---Trellis---Walk---Court---Porch---Front Door

we did get the plans drafted so we've already spent the money on that. I realize this may mean a "do over" but from looking at the front that may not be a bad thing.

But whatever you do spend some $$$ on a garage door. The one in the photos is about as cheap as one can go. I used high end Clopay for mine and here's another example

Edit: Just saw CP's suggestion. I wrote this not to promote myself as I'm plenty busy but since I already had it drafted up thought it not right to delete it as I avoid self promotion so it's not about that.

I must agree with the "no arches or curved anything". Your rendition has FOUR types of cladding, please eliminate one of them. The second story large single pane window should appear to be a double hung. Skip the gussied-up garage doors and their multiple pane windows, you do not want the garage to be prominent. The addition of unnecessary frou-frou is turning your home's facade into a McMansion...not good.

We were going to use LP Smart Side I believe, and because the garage door may be drawn with windows, I don't know that we were going to get a garage door with windows. We haven't picked that out yet. We were going to do cedar shakes - and not necessarily the colors in the real-life photo.

To message someone just click on their name. When you do, you'll see a way to message them in the upper right hand corner.

I've looked at yours (cpartist) and the architectrunner and not showing ability to message. Do you have that turned off?

It is overwhelming, I get it. Just remember that landscaping will add the biggest bang as far as curb appeal. A Plain Jane home with fab landscaping is a winner every time.

Believe it or not, this is a very common issue. I have many clients call me baffled by exterior renderings. They're not completely happy but don't know why or how to articulate changes to the builder, etc. Consider getting a designer involved, someone who's taste you love and words you trust- if you're not visual and struggle.

Ok I see what happened Lucy. They changed it up a bit so now it's harder to find. Here is what you see when you click on Architectrunnerguy's profile. It just took me a bit to figure it out myself and I've been here for years.

On it I circled the place you now need to click on in red and show it with an arrow. So click on where it says Activity.

It will then pull up this screen:

And now you can see where to message Architectrunnerguy. I'm imagining if you want to message me, you have to do the same thing?

In the meantime can you post your floor plan?

Found it now, that's quite confusing! Thanks for figuring it out CP :)

I would look at ARG's idea of the free standing pergola which would extend out(forward) beyond the front of the garage. Maybe a designer could do a 3-D mock up for you so you can see how it would really look.

Have they actually started building the house? Perhaps some tweaks to the garages would help.

Wait. The lot is 180' deep and that's the house? Is there wetlands, slope, critical area or light air and view issues?

Lucy do you see something not quite right when the garage is larger than your downstairs living area?

Personally I like almost nothing except the windows about this plan. I do like that the rooms have lots of natural light.

Ok a few more questions before I explain why I think you can do so much better.

What is your family makeup? Is it just the two of you or do you have kids at home?

What is your age range?

Do you have any hobbies that would need space?

Just to give you an idea of why I think this plan is poor and this is just one thing. I could go on with more both upstairs and downstairs.

Your upstairs master closet looks like it says it's 5' 4" wide. In that space it's showing hanging on both sides. Not possible! At all. Hanging space takes up 2' of width in a closet, so if you put hanging on both walls, you'd only have 1'4" of walkway in and out of the closet.

Will you be able to see around the barn and trees on the property to your left?

Where on the land where you planning on putting the house?

Seeing the land, yes you can do a lot better!

The master closet I had to make a concession on. It was either have our bedroom facing the river or the bathroom. We switched the location of the bedroom/bathroom so we could have our room facing the river, and that means that we had to cut space off of the closet. I'm not the type of gal who has so much clothes and shoes that I need a huge closet space so that didn't matter much to me.

See that's the thing! A well designed house doesn't need to make concessions like that!

Where will your children play? The only space downstairs is the living room.

This house is fine as a weekend cabin, but I don't see it as a family home.

I don't have time right now, but will explain later why i think it's not a good plan. Hopefully others will come along and explain too.

Also couldn't your husband build a shed elsewhere on the property to do whatever he does inside the shed?

"I like every single thing about this plan."

That opinion may be based upon lack of understanding of what the drawings show.

I avoid:

1. Designs that do not relate to the site.

2. Closets where hanging clothes turn corners.

3. Windowless walk-in closets.

4. Kitchens with overly large work triangle.

5. Large expanses of exterior wall without windows.

6. Walk-in closets that will be difficult to walk into.

7. Hallways less than four feet wide.

8. Stairs less than 3'-6" wide.

9. Freestanding tubs that do not have sufficient space to clean around.

10. Powder room off main entry

11. A powder room where you can sit in and carry on a conversation with someone in the living room and have visual contact with.

12. Powder room window that opens to a front entry porch.

13. Master bathrooms with little counter space.

14. Bathtub/shower with a window.

15. Closets with doors that insufficiently provide full access to the closet's content.

16. Dimension that go to the center line of walls.

to name a few.

This house design is one for a very narrow urban lot, or a tract development of narrow lots which enable a tract builder to put as many houses as possible on a piece of land. It's hardly a design which takes your particular land into consideration.

You've said your property is 180-feet deep (I believe). How wide is it? If you have more than 50-feet of buildable width, you can do so much better than this plan, if that's important to you.

Good luck on your project!

I like the look of your home. Build for your rear view and enjoy knowing when you pull up to the garage what awaits you inside.

Lucy.....that house is ALL garage!!! .....period! You can find allot better houses with 3 car garages than that.