Thanks! We want to finished our basement next year with 2 or 3 bedroom and 1 full bath for future kids (we don’t have any now) or guests😊

I’m assuming the width of the home is constrained by a compact lot? A 1 1/2 garage rarely gets used for parking, and more for storage. It also leaves 1 car in the cold if you are required to park in it. If you have another 10’, widening not only the garage, but other key spaces would give a lot of return. Since the indent in behind the garage does not face the street, it would be better to just go ahead and make that flush, and incorporate that space into the home. I think it would also be an ideal way to get more light into the home, and perhaps a better public room space than utility space.

I know a house very very similar to this. It’s from the 1950s! The layout is nice. Closed off kitchen, but they always wanted to open it up like your plan. And, where you have a mud room, pantry, and outside area, they have a den. It’s the favorite spot for watching tv and cozy visits. On the other hand, their laundry and overflow pantry is in the basement, and there’s no access from garage to house (even though it’s under the same roof, they have to enter by the front door). so it’s a tossup, but a cozy sitting room is sure a nice thing to have, besides the living room. Great one one wants to watch Game of Thrones but the other wants to read.

Are you building a walk out basement? If not, how will the kids get iout of the basement if there's a fire?

And where will the kids go until they are old enough to be in the basement? Trust me, you won't enjoy running up and down the stairs when they throw up at 3 AM!

No you don't want the only other bathroom in the basement either. You need a bathroom now on the main floor and it should be designed now.

I'd think long and hard about what you want if you intend to have future kids because this house screams no kids allowed. I made the assumption you were a couple downsizing on a narrow city lot because that's exactly what this house screams.

Kids can get out egress windows. You don’t need a walk out basement necessarily. Many homes here are like this layout with two bedrooms on main and 2-3 down with a rec room/family room and a bathroom. This is an extremely common layout. Kids being downstairs is no different than those who put a master on the main and kids rooms upstairs. You just go down vs up to find the vomit

No we are not downsizing. I put « smaller house » because I notice that in some country like USA, a 2500 square feet is consider a medium home. In New-Brunswick, a home that is 1500 sq ft is a medium home. It’s really common to have a basement with room and bathroom!

Also, if I ever have a kid, his room would be in the other room until he old enought to go in the basement :)

Fanny don't forget this forum is mostly US based. So everyone looks at plans through a different lens. Having lived in smaller parts of Ontario earlier in life I can fully picture the home you are building and it is going to be great. You will have a lovely large lot to enjoy and a small house to heat/cool and clean! It is ideal. Two of my good friends have the layout you are planning in their homes and they've changed it over the years how it is used. There is a ton of flexibility in it.

With 1 acre, there are several things to rethink. The 4 corners of the house are the precious jewels where you can have windows on 2 sides for more light and air. Rethink the organization that uses them for secondary or utility spaces, or doesn’t even have a window. You also have room to semi detach the garage, and have it be a side load, connected through one of the needed utility spaces, like a mud room laundry combo. That allows one more corner where you can have a room with 2 windows. That’s also a classic design element, because it’s so functional and attractive.

So, for this plan, and you have an acre and are planning to widen the garage, consider the mud room, laundry, and pantry behind the garage, and a den behind them, off the dining room. If you have a child, it will be a nice playroom (but not too many toys there), and a cozy tv room or place for video games where you can keep tabs for a while.

Thanks A S, I notice that too in others forum!! We had visit some home about this size and I think it‘s the perfect size for us !! :) The Cook’s Kitchen, thanks for your great ideas! However, it would completely change our exterior design :(. I will definitly consider adding window or put larger window in bedroom

The only reason why I didn’t consider laundry room close to the garage was because I was thinking that it would be too far away from the bedroom. Does anyone have a laundry room next to the garage? What do you think?

In this plan, it’s not that far! And it wouldn’t be through the kitchen. Ours is downstairs from the bedrooms,, through the kitchen, across a corner of a sunroom, and it’s not bad, but I’d much rather not have to walk through the kitchen. It is, however, handy for kitchen towels, table linens, and rags. That’s another benefit, you could have a proper laundry room with a sink and room for cleaning supplies.

Our laundry room is also a mudroom and right by the garage. All our bedrooms are a floor up from there. For me the laundry room location was about where I will be folding. I also love that wet stuff comes in garage and straight into washer many days. I fold in living room while watching tv so works for us.

You could access the steps to the basement from the entry thus enabling you to put a coat closet to the left of the steps going down (over the lowest steps).

You could move the steps to the left, about a foot closer to the sofa.

You could square the back left corner of your home and put your washer and dryer there.

You could have your garage / house entry door in the mudroom with a half/half door between it and the kitchen -- keeping garage sounds and smells and fumes out of the kitchen/dining area.

All of this could give you more room between the bedrooms for enlarging your bathroom.

You would have the option to create aside porch all the way across the left side of your home -- a place to park bikes and mower and pet house and a place to string a "clothesline" between the porch posts as well as a place to add an outdoor cabinet against the side of the garage near the front of the garage to store yard tools (rake, snow shovel, etc.) -- with the yard tool cabinet hiding the trash cans and recycle bins -- yet keeping those easily accessible from the laundry/mud room

The more that I think about this plan the more I agree laundry should be relocated and a powder is needed somewhere.

Budget and space permitting, you could extend your house roof or add a flat roof to add a 12'-14' "carport" along the entire left side of the house (left of the garage) that could be usable as a carport or large porch or divide to be a carport with a (possibly screened) porch behind it..

For your closets, bi-fold doors can open up a wide space without taking up a lot of room in the bedroom or closet for the door to swing open -- you could even add two sets of them side by side.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bifold+closet+doors+door&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiJ2eOn8NTnAhWJ0VMKHQ3xDwEQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=bifold+closet+doors+door&gs_l=img.3..0i8i30l4.86763.91399..93896...0.0..0.440.2296.16j2j0j1j1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i67j0j0i7i30j0i8i7i30.BcCUaiwyWpQ&ei=F5VIXsnxKomjzwKN4r8I&bih=628&biw=1366 

In a mud room off the pantry/kitchen/dining area, you could still put your washer and dryer in a closet and decide whether or not you want your pantry to be in your mudroom or on the other side of a half/half door between mud room and dining room.

https://www.schlage.com/blog/categories/2018/06/diy-dutch-doors.html 

https://www.google.com/search?q=half%2Fhalf+door&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiblc-j7NTnAhXEDlMKHbfQBr8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=half%2Fhalf+door&gs_l=img.3..0i30j0i8i30l9.1075456.1078346..1078529...0.0..2.493.2028.6j5j0j1j1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..0j0i67.1Wh1UkNSVLs&ei=3ZBIXtuyDsSdzAK3oZv4Cw&bih=628&biw=1366

We have a 2 story house and our laundry room was originally on the main floor beside the garage, with a direct door to the outside. (Raised 3 children here so plenty of laundry). I seldom use the dryer and I hang laundry outdoors in good weather. It was also a good mudroom because of its laundry tub (3 children!).

When we needed the space, the washer and dryer went into the basement and stayed there. It will be a sad day when I can't carry a basket of laundry up and down 2 flights of stairs.

I would square off the house behind the garage and add the 12' X 8' space as you see in my rough diagram. Straighten the closet so it has no corners. Bifold doors take little floor space room and you can see everything at once.

Add a toilet and sink. Great for guests or for children who won't have to track through the house to use the toilet when playing outside. Add a door to the outside too.

In the basement, be sure the windows are large enough to qualify as egress windows since each future bedroom will need one. It will be expensive to do later, i.e. cut the concrete.

Thanks everyone! I’m 24 and it’s our first house so there a lot of thing that I didn’t think off. I will totally use some of your ideas !!

I would absolutely reconsider what Cooks Kitchen suggested with the breezeway and the garage not front and center. What you have drawn right now is perfect for a small narrow infill lot in a city.

And no, I'm not saying you need to make the house larger. My first house was under 1600 square feet and was perfect for myself and our two kids when they were young and would have actually worked even into their teen years. The reason we moved was because of the schools.

"Fanny don't forget this forum is mostly US based. So everyone looks at plans through a different lens. Having lived in smaller parts of Ontario earlier in life I can fully picture the home you are building and it is going to be great."

I lived in Canada for the first 33 years of my life and the U.S. now for 20. My husband and mine's first home in Ontario was 900 square feet and that included 3 bedrooms. The second was about 1200, and jumped up to 1600 when we finished some space downstairs and then we moved to a large family size home before we moved South . It had about 2400 sq ft., but had uncounted square footage in the way of a huge finished recreation room in the basement as well as room for 2 or 3 more bedrooms. Since we weren't wanting to move them down there until they were older the unfinished part down there was used for playing stick hockey by our boys.:-)

Our first home in the U.S. was about 2800 square feet and the biggest difference we immediately found was the lack of basements where we lived. People tend to build up here with FROGs (Finished rooms over garage or Bonus Rooms, upstairs lofts etc., but we needed to use ours for an actual bedroom.

@Fanny Gauvin My daughter and her husband are similar in age to you and they bought a 1200 sq ft" house two years ago that has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. But being in the South that means no basement. She says she wishes they had one more living space. They use a bedroom for an office/t.v. room right now, but they hope to have children and by the time those children are a bit older she knows she'll wish that she had the Bonus rooms over the garage or a study/den for them to use.

Since you can build down, I think you'll be fine, but as somebody who lived with one bathroom when our older children were young, I'd consider putting in a second half bath if it will fit somewhere. It's great for guests, and great for when a child can't wait and somebody else is using the main bathroom.

A good reason to move the laundry away from the bedrooms is machines can sometimes be noisy. If you are trying to get laundry done you might be glad that the opening and closing of the doors of the machines and the running of them won't disturb a napping child.

Thanks Kat! Growing up, me and my brother lived with our parents in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom with no basement and not much storage space. When we were older, we wish we had a basement to go when our parents was watching TV or when we had friends over! I also think that it would be great to have another bathroom there and a room in the basement for storing things like christmas tree, etc. With everyone opinion, I consider moving the laundry room !

There were four kids in our house growing up and we shared two to a room with only one bath for all of us including parents . We lived in a split level so had half a basement for a family type room. We could have definitely used a second bathroom!😀

For your laundry, consider investing in a wheeled carry cart that can move your laundry hampers from the bedroom area to the laundry room. There are lots of different kinds -- pick what works for you. By the time they're teens, you'll fully understand why teaching young children to take their own clothes to the laundry room and sort/place them in the appropriate hamper can be time well spent.

You can keep a towel hamper in the bathroom -- for after the towels are dry from being hung on a towel rod or shower rod, etc.. White/light towels could have white/light colored underwear placed in the same hamper. Have each member of the family move their own clothes to hampers in the laundry room designated for dark or light or heavily soiled clothes the day they're removed and it is known they'll not be worn again until laundered.

Thanks for the great ideas Suezbell!

I just want to add that I also agree with a powder room. I think it will make your home much more valuable should you ever sell.

fWIW, walkout basements typically have doors at ground level to outside. Therefore, getting out in case of fire is no different from the main floor and better than two story. In fact, our walkout has a slider to a patio from one BR plus two windows at or above ground and a slider plus windows in the rec room. The only room without a door directly to outside is the second bedroom and it has three regular height windows. But walkouts aren’t good for younger kids and ease of escape make them problematic for teens. Also from the site picture, you may not have enough slope for a walkout.

^^^ Those were my concerns seeing her land.

I grew up in a home with three bathrooms; one was in the house and the two seater was beside the barn.

I don't see an issue with bedrooms in the basement as long as egress with window wells are provided. A walk-out would be ideal, but the land doesn't allow for it. Just make sure to plan the window wells so that you can easily climb out of them and also easily get out of the bedroom windows into the well. Not much different than needing to provide some sort of ladder to escape down from a 2 story window - just need to climb up instead of down and seems like with a terrassed window well it would be easier to get out than having a rope ladder to climb down from a second story.

Thanks Lyfia!

In the middle of winter with a foot of snow in the window well, is it still easy to get out of?

You need to make sure to remove snow during the winter to use your egress window

You can also use a window well cover

We are in the process of starting a new build and have 4 kids ages 10-16. We don't want a huge footprint on the main level (trying to limit it to 3 bedrooms on main level) and have struggled with whether or not to put additional bedrooms in the basement with window wells or in an upstairs "bonus area." We have decided to go with the bonus room for now because window wells scare me, especially for younger children. I'm not sure why as they may not be harder to get out of than upstairs bedrooms (maybe less so) but communicating a fire in the middle of the night and actually being able to open the windows and escape seems more daunting to me. A lot of MY feelings comes from having a child whose reasoning abilities aren't typical, though.

And having been through babyhood and toddlerhood with numerous children, I will say that it will be harder for the oldest child(ren) to move downstairs and away from parents and the rest of the family until about age 8 or so. We tried it with our oldest when he was about 6 or 7 and he was scared of being alone and ending up sleeping on the floor or the couch most of the time. Don't underestimate those feelings if you plan to have multiple children. Our youngest that I mentioned previously will never be able to sleep without someone else in close proximity (at least on the same floor). Without already having children, you just never know what life is going to hand you so building for the unknown future should contain some "What if....?" decisions (ie, birthing multiples, special needs, mobility issues, etc.).

I'd take a closer look at the island seating. You need 24" in width for each seating position. And it looks like you may not have that. I don't see the island measurements. But more realistically I've seen these setups. No one chooses the island seats when you have much more comfortable seating at the table right next to it.

Thanks Dan1888, I will look at that!

Honestly a lot of these comments are super personal and focused on individual poster fears, beliefs or worries about basements. People should not be planning a house based on others fears and worries. Fanny look around your area. How are similar houses built? How are basements handled? What do people do with their kids? Glean locally what is appropriate vs this forum which is likely to give inaccurate examples as the hate/love/usefulness of a basement is a hot topic and regional divided for sure!

AS I agree with you on that, but I always find these things being brought up as a good thing because it always helps me consider it and plan better for certain things so if it were my post I wouldn't mind it at all. Each poster can choose to take and leave what they want out of what is given. I would use the info that helped me make better choices or at least think through what I'd need to do to use those choices wisely. The more shared and considered the better a house likely will be in the end.

Personally, like shead, I would never want my kids in a basement with only window well egress. I'm wondering even how easy it would be for a short 8 or 10 year old to open an egress window covered in snow. (Are you planning on going out and shoveling snow at 3 am if you're having a blizzard?)

A S, I live in a rural area and new built and other home have a basement unless they have a mobile home or 2 story (even if some 2 story also have basement). Children room are usually in the basement when they are older. I think that some ideas here is really helpful, but I know that some people don’t like the ideas of having a basement. I also read a lot of forum, and realize that in some country, it’s really uncommon. I will definitely keep our basement, because I think that if I ever have a child, he will sleep in the room next to our until he old enought. If for whatever reason I have a children with special needs, we will definitely adapt our home for him.

Cpartist, I know you have anxiety for the children I don’t have right now, but having a one story home that would be bigger with 4 room and 2 bathroom like we want is something we can’t afford! It would be so much more expensive, because we would need to finish more sq ft right away and the wood and truss is really expensive.. we save 2 years for this home and we want to build our home this summer, we don’t want to wait another 1 - 2 years. Like I said earlier, I will consider some ideas like adding 2 ft in the garage, move the laundry room , etc.. but we can’t do other extensions.

Fanny

Good luck and do not forget that people tend to react according to their preference. So consider what is good for you, talk to people IRL that know you and your needs, and make choices according to your needs, not some anonymous poster, as helpful as they want to be.

Bonne chance pour cette nouvelle étape..

Merci ig22, j’apprécie ! :)

If for whatever reason I have a children with special needs, we will definitely adapt our home for him.

There are certain things that you can build into a smaller home NOW that won't cost you extra but would save you tons of $$$$$$ later should you ever need to make modifications. One of which would be a closet that is appropriately sized in case you should ever need an elevator. Another is designing the house in such a way that should you need to add on another wing with additional ADA compliant bedrooms and bathrooms, you could go off the existing house without having to drastically modify existing rooms.

I only reiterate that building when young (our first build was when DH and I were in our mid-20's with ONE young child), we made some decisions that in hindsight could have been made better if we had had some longer term thinking and guided by people with more life experience than we have. We had no idea that our plan of 2 kids turned into suddenly THREE kids when I became pregnant with twins and then four when we decided to adopt an older child with some special needs! Nor did we anticipate moving from our FOREVER house only a few years later so resale WAS important although we never thought it would be. A house in our area with only 2 bedrooms on the main level (even with a basement) would be a NO GO for resale.

Certainly, everyone's priorities are different and they also vary by geographical location. The advice given here is just some things that many of us learned along the way in this journey they call life. We each have things that we could live without and do without in a house that would differ from the next person. One thing I would and could do without is a single car garage if my budget was such that I couldn't have the interior spaces I needed. In fact, I AM doing without that somewhat in our new build as we have chosen to do a large 25'x27' carport in lieu of an upstairs garage that can double for a large covered patio if we need it for entertaining. We are putting two garages in our basement, however.

Some of it you learn the hard way
Some of it you read on a page
Some of it comes from heartbreak
Most of it comes with age
And none of it ever comes easy
A bunch of it you maybe can't use
I know I don't probably know what I think I do
But there's somethin' to
Some of it

Thanks Shead! I will keep that in mind. However, during the cold days here in Canada, I think that an heated garage is a must hahah. Also, there not many home for sale in our area. Every home that went in the market was sell fast! It's interesting to learn that opinion vary so much by geographical location. I learned a lot :)

My first house was a 2 br/2bth house similar in layout to what you're thinking of doing. It lived great for our needs. Because we were on a sand spit by the ocean, there was no basement. I grew up with basements and am a fan of them too, although now living in FL we again have no basement.

If you wait until the child is old enough to reach the window wells, etc, I can see moving the child downstairs. Or maybe by then finances will allow you to add onto the side of the house since you have the room. Or you'll decide to move. Life takes some interesting curves and turns.

I hear you on the costs regarding separating the garage with a breezeway, but what I'd do is when you sit down with your designer again, ask what the cost difference would be to put the breezeway/laundry/powder room/closet there and add the garage as an attached structure to the breezeway. You may find it's not that big an expense. Or it might be. It doesn't hurt to ask if it can be done.

Thanks Cpartist!!