No. 2 baths upstairs have no natural light. Laundry should be directly vented to the outside. The kitchen will be dark. The master/entry doesn't seem too peaceful in relation to that super high traffic area. This can be done better. Betz needs a lesson.

I have not bought the plan. I do like the outside look but would have to re-work some of the inside.

So, if you like the outside look, hire an architect to design a house for you with this feeling. Then, you can get an inside that will actually "work". It's a big house and will be expensive to build. You really want to get this right.

Overall I like the first floor ... find the upstairs somewhat too spread out ... and only like /don't love the exterior. Specifics:

- With the jigs and jogs around the perimeter and the multiple rooflines, this will be an expensive build.

- I'd lose the door in the dining room ... once you place a table in that spot, you won't have good access to it. Anyway, you have another door literally within arm's reach. How many ways do you need to reach the porch?

- I'd lose the fireplace on the porch. Fireplaces are quite expensive, and I doubt this one'd be used often enough to justify its cost.

- The kitchen is going to be dark. It is the weak spot of the plan. But I like the big pantry.

- I'd chop the bay-bump off the master so that the bed could sit against the back wall. With windows on three sides, the bed would be very nice.

- I like the circulation between the laundry - closet - master bath, and I don't mind a master off the kitchen. I like the master being "just off" the garage so it's quick to go to your own room upon returning home, and that means near the kitchen.

- I would flip the washer/dryer to the other side of the laundry. You don't want them to share a wall with the master bedroom ... and if you put them on the wall shared with the garage, it'd be easy to run a dryer vent down the side of the garage, whereas an interior dryer is harder /less safe to vent.

- I do not like that the plan has two doors facing the front. I wouldn't put energy /money into planning a lovely foyer ... only to have people enter through the family's mudroom.

- Do all those upstairs bedrooms really need individual bathrooms? That's a lot of bathrooms to clean every week. I'd rather see one NICE bathroom upstairs ... one that isn't minimal in size, one with space for some storage.

- While the bedrooms are all large, #2's closet is downright small.

We are about to start building this plan! I did rework the interior and actually moved the pantry and laundry. I expanded the master closet into about half of the laundry room space and made the rest of it a wider shallower pantry. The laundry was moved to the area where the random covered porch was and expanded the mud room area forward where the pantry was. Master bath also reworked and expanded so there’s almost 5 ft from the vanities to a tub or shower. Kitchen island and layout changed as well to get that weird wall taken away and no doorway. One bathroom removed upstairs and joint entry of second from back bedroom and hallway!


Keep in touch we break ground in about a month!

I sure will. We plan to break ground in a month or two as well.

Hi, Dirk! Would you be able to share any modification you made to this plan? And Christina - when you bumped out the mudroom on the second porch, did the ceiling elevation also change? How does that look? Thanks again!

Dirk are you building the Holston Farm?? Here are the outside images of our small changes... you can see where the 2nd door/porch on the front was replaced and extended out with a window... also adding a second window to the front porch area..

We also made the dormer over the garage a double size and the French doors on the back were added after that sketch was sent. I’m not afraid of the kitchen being “dark” as the majority of the back of the house is windows... took away the door also by the breakfast area and going to do a built in bench along the window with our farmhouse table... should seat at least 10 ;)

Christina! We love this! Thanks so much for sharing. So you guys also added some depth to the bonus room hallway right? My architect said that window with the bump out should make bonus room brighter.

Hawami are you building also?? I’d love to share plan ideas if there’s anything any of us haven’t thought of!

Totally! Yes we are building the smaller Ridge version. We are swapping out the entire master bath design. Would love to share ideas!

Is there a way to message directly on here? I’m very new to this app!

I can't seem to figure out direct messaging either! Christina - did you guys bump out the second floor (in the bonus room hallway area) as well? We are contemplating doing this but our builder is asking $10K for bumping out the mudroom.

For master bath, we are using the Kirkwood version with his and her WIC... We just ordered blueprint so we may revise some more after we review it.

What other modifications are you making? I wish we can do Holston Farm but it is just too expensive for us to build (builder is asking 10% more for 10% more sqft).

Neither of you have messaging turned on. Go to Edit Profile and Settings >> Advanced Settings >> go to the bottom if the page where it says Who can message me and select "allow anyone to message me"

After this a message button will appear to others on the right side of your banner.

Thank you so much!!!

Thanks Bry! I’m all set!!

We are looking at adding an attached third garage to the house facing the front. I liked the idea about the mudroom and changing the pantry. I think my wife and have decided to make that change. We are going back and forth and about making a jack and jill bathroom upstairs. We are definitely going with the one front door. I wasn't sure if another window would fit under the porch. I see it can be added.

I believe I got my settings fixed as well.

Dirk. We just got our blueprint also. Would love to share some ideas!

Hello, I’m also building this plan. Does anyone have updates? It’s a custom plan inspired by Holston. I’d be grateful for any feedback

We are using this plan as well. Love it but having a few changes made. I agree the upstairs feels a little spread out, and the bonus room is HUGE since we are adding an extra 3 feet to the garage on the side for a door so kids can get bikes, trash, etc out easily, Just trying to determine the right way to finish the bonus room now. Any ideas/success photos? The master off the kitchen does not bother me since it is kind of down a hall behind the kitchen. We are adding pocket doors to both sides of the laundry room. I hate multiple doors opening into a small space (learned that in our current house). Ha! We did remove a bathroom upstairs and turn the one in Bedroom 3 into a jack and jill so it can be accessed from the bonus room. And we reduced the guest bathroom downstairs into a half bath since we are using the guest bedroom as our office. I don't need 5 bathrooms! We added a dry bar next to the new half bath since we are moving the doors for the guest bedroom/office to the foyer (double glass doors).

We just broke ground this week! Interested to hear how everyone’s project is progressing!!!

This was as of Monday!!!

Wow awesome Christina!!! Looks amazing!!!!

So do us a favor and once the house is built, let us know if the kitchen is dark with lights off, so I can either let others know as I've been saying or amend my comments in the future.

What is everyone doing with exterior material and color scheme? We are doing stone/hardier plank. Leaning towards blue/gray!,,

We are debating the same thing - the exterior color scheme. We are doing hardie plank and a 2-3 foot brick skirt around the bottom.

I’m going a neutral brick with white mortar skirt around crawl space and then traditional white with black roof, black windows and cedar accents with metal black roof as well

@Christina Brady sounds lovely! I think 99% of holston farm is white! It must mean that architecturally, white looks best.

We are doing night gray planks, white windows with black sliding doors in the grandroom and basement living room. We are doing stone in the foundation area as quite a bit is exposed due to our house being walk out. we will do metal roof only over awning.

How much is the construction cost for all of you? Ours is really expensive and I am wondering if that’s the norm...

@Becca Bohlander did you make any modifications to the floor plan?

All done and been in about 2 months!!

I’d love to see if anyone did a different color scheme!

My husband and i are building the holston ridge plan in Tennessee. Would like to see others color schemes. We are wanting to do non-white and wanting to see what others did. We did change the plan a little. We added 5ft to the dinning room and changed the great room to a vault. We removed the bathtub out of the master as it was in the way and we dont use it anyhow. I would love to see everyone's finished products.

Update on our build. Exterior is completed. Trim and doors are starting today. I love it more and more each day.

Love the vertical board n Barton and your columns! Is your metal roof gray or black?? Gorgeous so far!!

Glad to see all the Holston Ridge/Farms on here. Here is a non white version.

Hi Christina! I googled this plan and found this thread! I tried to figure out direct messaging but was unsuccessful. I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask you if you don’t mind! :)

Does anyone have pictures of the Master Bathroom?

I am trying to understand the placement of the tub and if it could be moved under the window.

Hi Amanda! I’m sorry I’m not getting notifications and the app kicked me out of my messages and trying to log back in to get to that! Tiffany I’ll message you as I completely reconfigured the master!

Here are some shots as it’s not saying I have any new messages on the app :/ please reach out here and if you’d like to email or see a photo by photo video montage of my version I’d be glad to send it out!

We had the architect rework ours a little...

Thank You, I am meeting with them tomorrow to see how we can rework the bathroom!

Here were the drawings for ours in case that is any help! Good luck.

@Becca Bohlander, Thank you, My husband really liked your shower being all glass.

@Christina Brady Can you email me? thetiffanymitchell@gmail.com

I would love to know more about the changes you made.

Were are adjusting (or trying) the following:

• Removing second door and converting porch into a large closet with window.
• Changing up Master Bath layout .... Somehow.
• Coffered Master and Vaulted Grand Room
• Trying to remove the pole at the corner of the island
• Adding double front entry door.
• Adding French or sliding doors out of the Master Bedroom

Sent you a slideshow of our home!!!

Hi! I’m building this home as well and we are starting soon. I have made some modifications and I would love to see the modifications you made to this plan as well. Could you email me the slideshow? kkb0809@hotmail.com

@Christina Brady if you wouldn't mind sending me that slideshow as well, I would appreciate it! We are also planning to build this plan and would like to make a few modifications of our own. I love the way that you were able to re-work that master bath! My email address is: ahowell282@gmail.com

@tiffanyjarrell curious if you were able to make those changes? We were also contemplating vaulted grand room so curious if this was possible.