Designing $1M+ Home in Austin TX- Floor Plan, Elevations and Site Plan
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Feedback on new house plans
Comments (12)Thanks for the feedback. juudean - Thanks for sharing your house project. Our window exposure on the view side is mostly to the East, so the Sun will be to the side of the house during the afternoon. But I am still wondering how much light will come in through this window during the morning. As you mentioned, it is hard to control, because it's so high and we probably won't have window shades. Will there be awkward light at various times throughout the year? I'd hate to have it shining directly in our face as we sit in the kitchen or dining space. Also, we are planning for 9.5 foot ceilings in the living room, which will allow plenty of light, so nice to know that this is working for your home. We also have an 8 foot veranda in front of the kitchen and dining space, which is why we wanted to consider a window above. But maybe the transoms will be enough? If so, should we just make that attic space above? Or should we consider turning some of it into usable space on the second floor? acroteria - I'll have to look at the roof lines in more detail to see how our architect is handing these rooflines. Overall, we don't love the look of the front of the house. We feel like it is overly complicated, so we are trying to figure out how to simplify it. jhov - Thanks for the feedback. I agree that vaulted ceilings can take the coziness out of a living room. We have seen a lot of homes in this community go with vaulted 2 story great rooms. When you walk into them, they feel like an elevator shaft because the rooms aren't wide enough to handle the 2.5 story ceiling. Our Kitchen & Dining space will be a large room, so i'm hoping that the vaulted ceiling won't feel out of proportion. We will likely put in faux beams to help fill this space. Here are some examples of vaulted spaces we like. The whole reason for the vaulted ceiling was to see if we could allow light in over the shed roof covering the outdoor patio. We also like the exterior look of this house, which was our original inspiration. They don't have any outdoor covered space, which allows them to lower the dormer with the window. I prefer this look as well as the lower position of the window, but we really do want covered patio space. So with a 3/12 pitch shed roof, the dormer will be at least 2 feet higher (to accommodate the 8 foot roof run). Any additional thoughts? Thanks again for the great feedback....See MoreCritique my first and second floor house plans!
Comments (76)Hi Oak - Flair is right about all these weird doors. How about If you take the nook and expand it to include all of the current closet in BR 3 and make that the main hall bath? Relocate the door and closet in BR 3; forget about the jack and jill; forget about the other little bath. Just one large 4 piece bath with storage and maybe even a little closet with washer/dryer. Steal a little of the MB walk in closet to enlarge BR 2. You don't need a closet door in the master bedroom. Access the closet off the master bath. With the larger bedrooms you won't need a nook. All the bedrooms will have room for desks or media cabs or whatever. I think future buyers would appreciate the space and simplicity of that design over all these odd twists and turns. You're going to turn off a certain percentage of potential buyers if you do anything odd. To me, the nook is wasting space that can be to use effectively....See MoreHouse plans
Comments (30)I apologize in advance for the long post, but hopefully something that I say will be helpful for you. In my experience, the best first step to building a custom home (before finding a builder or architect or interior designer) is determining your budget. If you already have the cash, great! Otherwise, talk to a few construction lenders and and ask them to pre-qualify you for a loan. This will tell you how much they are willing to lend to you, but make sure that the monthly payment is not more than you can comfortably afford. Armed with this information, I would then suggest that you talk with a few reputable builders in your area and ask them to give you a ballpark estimate of the price per square foot to build based on the size of the house and the quality of finishes that you want. This will help you to determine whether it is feasible to build the house you want within your budget. If those numbers match up, you are now ready to select your team! I say "team", because you need to find a group of professionals that have the common goal of helping you design and build a house you love within the budget you have set. You can start by looking for either an architect or a builder. It does not really matter which you find first, because you are going to quickly identify the other before pressing forward with your project. But I agree with what BLDG Workshop said, after making sure that they are reputable and well qualified, choose people that you like and get along with. If your personalities clash in your initial interviews, find someone else. Typically a good architect will be able to recommend good builders and vice versa. The reason that you want both on your team upfront is so that everyone can consult with each other to value engineer the home. For example, on one of our recent projects (as the builder) we suggested a design change to the architect that used girder trusses instead of beams to support the roof. This change looked better and saved the client thousands of dollars! In our experience, people who work exclusively with an architect first often end up with a beautifully designed home that they love but can't afford to build. They run into similar problems starting with an interior designer. However, when they start with a reasonable budget and then select a team of professionals whose goals are to work together to give them the best value for their dollar, the projects run smoother and generally everyone is happier in the end! I recognize that this is not how most people approach the process of building a custom home, at least not in my area. And it does take more work upfront to find the right people for your team. But I think that you will have a much more enjoyable experience building your home and be happier with the results in the end if you follow these steps. Good luck with your project!...See MoreOpinion on house plan changes
Comments (24)Thanks for your comments and nice suggestions! gustaviatex I take all the bad comments as constructive criticism and I am grateful for the honesty. :) I am here to get the honest opinion on a layout that our builder and his architect thought was nice but which is not. Yes we will close off the open between the dining and the entry and dining and the pantry and use folding doors to create a separate study/play area. No the plan doesn't have a second floor and I know what you mean about tho tall roof and the dormers and how costly they are going to be to build and to maintain. If the dormers had actually opened up to the living room we would have kept them but they dont. So we'll probably get rid of them and get a new face and a roofline for the second plan with the help of a proper architect. : ) JAN MOYER I see your point and yes we will hire a proper architect to get what we want. : ) christina405 Thanks for your suggestion. Actually we did change the first plan using the modifications you suggested and some more and it turned out very bad. I had it in a previous post but then decided I would use this post to start from scratch. I am glad I did. There is no way to make usable closet space in the bedrooms after removing the jack and jill bath. Also there is no noise barrier between the master and the living room. Those are some of the issues we get with the first plan and there are many as many of you pointed out. So I decided to throw away plan1 and move on with plan2. sfweiss62 Thanks for your wishes! Yes it is an exiting and a stressful process. My husband let me take over this project so I dont want to disappoint him by coming up with a lousy plan. We are not going to use plan1. We'll use a proper architect to modify plan2 and get what we want. Thanks again everyone. This has been a very helpful and productive discussion for me!...See Morecpartist
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