Thank you. We considered that, as empty nesters there would be very few times one of us is trying to sleep and there might be goings-on in the great room. Our plan is to have the TV and other such things in the family room (formerly screened porch) on the other side of the house. One thing we insisted on was having separation between the master and the kitchen, you'd be surprised how many plans have them on the same wall or at least very close, that is the more likely scenario-- somebody trying to sleep with either breakfast or late night snacks involving clanging of pans in the kitchen.

Appreciate the feedback, it's exactly this sort of thing we were hoping to elicit.

Cheers,

Matt

Anything in bold is what is wrong.

The best homes are designed to suit the site and are a marriage of a well designed interior and exterior.

The best houses come in at or under the design target square footage

The best houses orient the public rooms towards the south for the best passive solar heating and cooling

The best houses are L, U, T, H, or I shaped.

The best houses are only one to two rooms deep. And covered lanai, porches, garages, etc count as rooms in this case.

The best houses make sure kitchens have natural light, meaning windows so one doesn't have to have lighting 24/7 to use the kitchen. (And no, dining areas with windows 10' or more from the kitchen will not allow for natural light.)

The best houses make sure all public rooms and bedrooms have windows on at least two walls.

The best houses do not if possible put mechanical rooms, pantries or closets on outside walls

The best houses do not have diagonal interior walls making for odd spaces.

The best houses keep public and private spaces separate.(meaning bedrooms do not butt up against public rooms without any buffer. Like the master bedroom in this plan)

The best houses do not have you walk through the work zone of the kitchen to bring laundry to the laundry room.

The best houses do not have the mudroom go through any of the work zones of the kitchen.

The best houses do not use the kitchen as a hallway to any other rooms.

The best houses do not put toilets or toilet rooms up against bedroom walls or public areas.

The best houses do not have walk in closets too small to stand inside.

The best houses have separation, such as closets, between bedrooms and between bedrooms and public rooms.

The best houses do not have roofs that are overly large, and dominate the exterior of the house.

The best houses do not have stick on exterior materials only on the front façade.

The best houses do not have multiple gables within gables.

The best houses have an organizing “spine” so it’s easy to determine how to get from room to room in the house and what makes sense. Meaning they don’t have meandering circulation paths.

The best houses design the inside, the outside and how the house sits on the site all at the same time.

I will add the following:

Your master closet as drawn will feel like a dark cave.

There is NO need for double doors into a bathroom? Why would you want to emphasize a bathroom?

The laundry is going to feel claustrophobic as it's barely enough room to stand in.

There is no room on the kitchen island to prep properly.

Your seating at the island will encroach into the great room.

Way too many stuck on materials on the front of the house. At least I hope it is the same on all sides of the house.

The reason to have the bedroom itself (not the closet) on the outside wall is so you can have windows on 2 sides of the bedroom, for light and cross ventilation. The whole master is a disaster (hey, I made a rhyme!) First, it's a huge room for empty nesters - we have a bedroom that size, and it is home to a queen bad, a wall of bookshelves, a twin bed, 2 dressers, and a computer desk. In your plan, so much of that space can be used for a much more pleasing master suite.

Imagine you get up in the night to use the toilet. Because of the double doors (which are completely unnecessary), you have to turn on the light before you go in - and it shines right in your spouse's eyes. You need the light, because the window is in the shower! And you have to go through the bathroom to get to the closet - while some folks think this is the bee's knees, I would hate it.

Another glaring red flag to this plan is the toilet on the same wall as the bedroom.

The garage is barely wide enough for 3 cars. There is no place for coats, boots, shoes, or a purse anywhere near the garage entrance - the only coat closet is way down by the bedrooms.

What do you like about this plan?

I don’t think this is bad like others do. Could it be far better, yes. Would it stop me from buying it, probably no. I would want the master suite to be changed quite a bit and any angled doors gone. I don’t mind the living and kitchen combo. I guess it all depends on how you live, what you want in a new house, what your budget is etc?

This is a fairly efficient floor plan and you won't get everything like you would in a custom floor plan with a larger footprint. That's totally fine and I wouldn't let the opportunities for improvement disheartened your plan to move forward. One simple change - I would swap the door swing from the garage into the kitchen so that it's easy to drop stuff on the counter without even stepping inside.

Is it ideal? No, but it's also not terrible. My thoughts:

- It has many jigs-and-jogs around the perimeter, which will drive up the price ... while adding nothing to the liveablility. For the jigs-and-jogs, the roofline is surprisingly simple, which is good, as complex rooflines are more expensive and can lead to leaks.

- The foyer looks okay.

- I'd want to turn the washer /dryer 90 degrees so they're on an outside wall. You want your dryer to vent directly to the exterior ... this is cheaper to build and also more fire-safe. I'd like to see a coat closet (for storage of family coats) and drop-spot in this vicinity ... not across the house.

- Actually, I'd turn this laundry room in to a mudroom /closet ... and I'd carve out a laundry room from the space over in the master wing. That area could be consolidated without loss of function, and having your laundry RIGHT NEXT TO the master bedroom will be useful. As my grandmother approached 100, she could still do laundry ... but she couldn't transport loads to and from the machines on the other end of the house.

- Kitchen looks okay, but the dining room is rather narrow. Is it 9' or 10' wide? Confusing? Either way, the kitchen cabinets protrude into the dining space, making it either 7' or 8' wide. You could go with banquette seating to maximize space, but -- regardless -- you don't have space for a very big table.

- A VERY BIG problem: Note that you have NO back door ... except the one reached by walking around the table, then through the back porch /note that the only back door isn't even on the close side of the back porch. This must be a PRIORITY. I'd turn the two living room windows into double doors, and I'd add an exterior door to the master bedroom ... this'll make the house more fire safe. If you make only one change, it should be addressing back yard access.

- I would not particularly like that back porch to become a family room. It's kinda long and narrow for furniture placement ... maybe steal some space from what is really a 2 1/2 car garage?. As empty nesters, do you currently need both extra bedrooms to serve as bedrooms? Could one of them become a family room? Alternately, you have a basement ... could that downstairs space become the family room?

- Are you okay with no fireplace?

- The secondary bedrooms + bathroom look okay. I wish the vanity were larger /provided more counterspace and storage, but it's for guests. I'd try to give each bedroom a second window on the opposite side ... all rooms are nicer with light from two directions.

- You have two small closets + a linen closet in the secondary bedroom area ... good. But (aside from the pantry and the master closet) they're ALL the storage in the house. Think through what you need to store: one for coats, one for a broom closet /cleaning closet, one for linens. Think about what you need to store and how these closets will absorb it all.

- Now for the other big problem: The master suite is a mess; seriously, none of it is good. The rest of the house can be tweaked, but this area needs a re-work. You have the space. First, the bedroom ... ideally you'd move the closet to the left wall, which would allow it to act as a sound buffer + would allow you to have natural light from two sides. OR push the bedroom towards the back and place the closet between the bedroom and the bathroom ... the idea being, again, to let the closet act as a sound buffer.

- Simplify the bathroom ... a single sink done well with a bank of drawers to give each spouse some good storage (drawers aren't usually standard), a toilet that'll be easy to reach even if you one day need a walker or a cane, and a good-sized shower in a simple shape. You have plenty of space to make this happen.

- What direction is North? This is very important /will affect your house tremendously.

This is a fairly efficient floor plan and you won't get everything like you would in a custom floor plan with a larger footprint.

But he's building a custom plan because this is a plan off the internet he's giving to his builder to build for him. Hence a custom plan that he can get everything he would like in a custom one.

First thing to do is to understand the copyright agreement you made in purchasing the plans.

The entire master bedroom/master bath is a mess.

The screened in porch is too narrow to be good for a family room/den.

Where do you plan to put a dining table? Great room seems too small to fit both dining area and living room area.

Will you have enough walkway space to get out to the porch/room you want to make family room with a table and chairs in the breakfast area?

The kitchen doesn't seem to have a lot of cabinets. You figure with the dishwasher and trash pullout in the island that leaves little cabinet space there.

Do you plan on having a microwave and where will that go?

If you are coffee drinkers where do you plan on having your coffee maker?

Do you plan on having seats on that front porch? It doesn't look deep enough.

Will you have a deck? If so where is the door to aceess it?

How big is the lot? So many of these canned plans have garages attached to the house, eliminating the possibility of windows on a whole corner of the house. If you have the room, a semi-detached garage connected to the house via a breezeway is a much nicer arrangement.

Windows allowing light, breezes and views would be a priority for me if I were to build a home.

Wow-- amazed at the feedback! Very thorough with a well-articulated rationale for each comment...thank you!

Some quick notes/responses:

The swing doors to the master batch are already addressed with the builder and the WIC entry is moved to the the bedroom, not the bathroom. I agree that it would be great to have a second window in the master, the idea about moving the WIC forward is something we will consider, as is relocating the laundry adjacent to the master.

The lot is 1.13 acres, downward sloping, the house will be oriented N/S with primarily E/W exposure. We are asking for a price to add a deck off the great room but our plan was to use the walkout basement to access a patio there.

The garage doesn't seem too small to me, then again I'm coming from a 1961-built ranch with a one-car garage that is barely large enough for me to open both doors in my MIata so this plan seems super spacious to me. All of our cars are smallish and at some point we will be scaling back from 3 to 2.

To meet minimum square footage requirements of our HOA we have to "grow" the plan and were thinking we would extend the rear wall by 5 feet so our dining room area is now wider and the garage gets wider, also, not sure how much to split the extra space with the porch/family room.

Yes, downstairs will be more "rec room" (with a man cave partitioned off along the front wall), the former screened porch really is more of a casual place for TV, reading, etc.

Thanks again for al the great feedback!

With a property that size have you considered going with an architect who will design the home to work on the lot, to meet your specific needs well, and to be within HOA guidelines? The house you chose is fine but totally looks like a home built in a subdivision where the lots aren’t big and only option is forward facing garage.

Do you grill? It will get real old walking all the way down through the walkout basement to grill on the patio and then bring everything back up. You are empty nesters and getting older. That is something to think about.

You can do so much better than this plan on 1.13 acres. Starting with not having a garage as an appendage to the house and everything else all of us mentioned.

I hope you consider a talented person of design talent instead of this.

On the downward side of the lot— to the east— is a pond so the rear of the house gets that view. We don’t care much about the view to the opposite side— the street— but e like getting sun throughout the day as the sun travels overhead from one side of the house to the other. When we were looking for a plan we wanted side load garage to the left, master and great room/dining/breakfast to the east for pond view, even split stairs, so it’s really fine/tuning we’re looking for

It is a mediocre plan, with portions that are really bad. You can do better by working with an architect.

Northern locales use that. Southern locales fight with that.

Actually us here in the south use it too. The difference is we have wide overhangs facing south so that in summer the sun doesn't penetrate inside the house and in winter it does.

but e like getting sun throughout the day as the sun travels overhead from one side of the house to the other.

The best light for passive solar heating/cooling is south, so public rooms should face south. South light also helps keep the house light and bright all day long.

West light is the worst in summer and also as the sun starts to set, more difficult to manage inside the house in afternoon.

Thanks, but we purposely selected a site that invites this orientation, our current home faces east/west and we like the sun coming into the house this way. We're not trying for passive heating/cooling, and having the pond in the backyard and the critical views in that direction is a feature for us

You can have both if the house is designed for the site and with the price of heating/cooling going up it's something to seriously consider.

I do not mean to be like a dog with a bone, but in the interest of your best interest, have you purchased the appropriate license or received written permission from The Plan Collection Fine House Plans to alter the designer's design? If you have not, you could run into legal issues that would make this thread pointless and inhibit you from financially building any house.

I think you could do a lot better. All angled doorways make me wonder if this was designed in the 80’s. The walkin closet will be a nightmare. The master bathroom is very tight.The toilet on the bedroom wall is poorly designed. I think this plan will live much smaller than you think. If I was building on acreage with a view, I’d engage an architect Does your contractor know of one he can recommend?

To Mark's point, it looks like all the plans sold from that site are non modifiable, except for the CAD option, where you have to call them for availability. Maybe they will meet you pay the difference to upgrade if you ask?

CAD (Call for Availability)$1450.00For use by design professionals. This file may be available. Please call or email us first so we can confirm for you. This set contains all of the CAD files for your home and will be emailed to you. Comes with a license to build one home. Recommended if making major modifications to your plans.

Sorry to be incommunicado, thanks for the continued feedback. I have already been in touch with the designer and have arranged to upgrade to the CAD license so we are covered there.

I thought the same things about the site and how to make best use of the lot but is somewhat of a parallelogram shape, the long sides are the street and pond-facing sides. We have to angle our driveway so we can respect the setbacks as well as stay clear of the septic repair area so that doesn't leave a lot of space on the garage-side of the home and the actual septic permit calls for it to be on the right-side of the house, build in the necessary setbacks there and we only really have about 10' to play with nudging the house north and south on the lot. We can build no closer to the pond than 50 feet, and after the setback from the road and allowing for a small front yard we don't have much wiggle room along that dimension, either.

Maybe we are too used to living in mid-century homes but this design represents a leap ahead for us. We are not shooting for an HGTV feature home and are not in any way trying to keep up with the Joneses. The points about maybe moving the laundry to the master, repurposing the laundry as a mudroom, and the small dedicated portion of the great room (which we are expanding) were all very helpful- thank you. As was the observation that the garage might be smallish. After measuring our vehicles with doors open, allowing for garbage cans, rakes, mower, shelving, etc we will be adding 5' to the garage width, the depth still works as is for us. We grill occasionally, if we are eating inside I can bring the grill to the driveway and ferry food inside from there, if we decide to add the deck even better still. There will be a patio on the lower level, we could always grill and dine there in the nice months.

While the site is not ideal for roof-mounted solar that will be one of the compromises. I want to put panels on the east and south roofs, my wife won't abide panels on the front of the home. The lower level is 10" poured concrete with 2x6 framing upstairs with foam and efficient windows, with a variable speed heat pump we expect to be able to run mostly off solar/batteries but will be grid-tied for those times when we need local juice.

Good call on increasing the garage width. I also recommend an 18' wide double door. It is life changing as it allows you ample space between the cars without having to angle the cars. Ideally, you want 3' spacing on the outside, then 18' garage, then another 3', then a 9' single car, and finally another 3'. This totals 36' which is slightly less than the 38' total you plan to do. It's not clear if those dimensions include the wall studs, so I would stick with 38' wide. The important thing is to make sure you get the wider garage doors to go with that extra width.