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snowrs

Floor Plan Review

snowrs
11 years ago

It has been awhile since I have been on the site but it is time to build again, I would love to hear opinions on this floor plan. It is a 3BR ranch with a bomus room above the garage and a basement. Please feel free to comment. Cheers!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Comments (15)

  • back2nd
    11 years ago

    What is between the office and the living room? It looks like a sitting aread, but what is the square lines around it? If that is a sitting area, why not move the door to the bedrooms between that and your office. That way you are not walking through the living room to get to the bedrooms.

    I would put a hallway to the pwdr room/mstr bdrm between the kitchen and formal dining and add a butlers pantry there, and reverse the stairs. Or dump the sitting in the master and move all of that wing back to put the bonus room stairs where your master closet is and create more of a mud 'room'.

    I would not want my mstr bdrm to be passed/looked in by all of my guests using the powder room.

    I just reread your post. Which stairs are penciled in? The ones to the basement or to the bonus room? Either way, I would make a switchback stair case for both sets of stairs where the master closet is, eliminating the sitting room.

    I'm not seeing a closet by the front door??? Where will you put guest coats?

    I'm not sure who will be using the 2 bdrms, but I would put a one sink jack and jill in, and make those closets bigger.

    I would put the mstr toilet on the same wall as the tub and shower to give more leg room. Remove the linen, slide the shower and tub up, add toilet at end of tub. Put linen in place of current toilet. I think a two foot deep linen would be more user friendly than a 3 foot deep one.

    Otherwise, at a quick glance, I only question the size of the rooms, like the formal dining. By adding a hallway there, it would extend that dining space.

  • zone4newby
    11 years ago

    Attaching the plan

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I drew in a 6x9 rug in th sitting area, it is actually a reading area the wall behind the two chairs is built in book cases. The stairs are up/down, where the stairs up lead from the kitchen and the stairs down lead from the Mud room.

    The bathrooms are actually still in flux and will be arranged by a person who can space plan better than myself. There is a coat closet, in the hallway leading to the 2 bedrooms. as well as a linen closet.

    My wife and I would love to have a hallway between the dining and kitchen but it is all ready 11x11 and really cant get much smaller. We are going to meet with an architect to see what he can do.

    We are most concerned with the size of the rooms they seem small to us, but the furniture seems to fit and there is good flow.

    I really appreciate your help.

  • zone4newby
    11 years ago

    I like a lot of things about it, but I don't like that there's not a comfortable walkway from the mudroom/master bedroom to the family room/kids' rooms.

    Also, you're going to be able to see the toilet in the powder room from the kitchen table. And it would bug me if my table wasn't centered on the window/sliding door behind it, but if you do that in this plan, you'll really be pushing past chairs every time you want to get to the master bedroom/garage wing of the house.

  • LuAnn_in_PA
    11 years ago

    "There is a coat closet, in the hallway leading to the 2 bedrooms. as well as a linen closet. "

    That is very inconvenient.
    If I am leaving your house for the evening, I go over to one end for the powder room, then way over to the other end for my coat.
    Plus, any guests going there to retrieve coats will make noise right outside the kids' bedrooms.

    Where will your TV go?
    No china hutch or other pieces in your dining room?

    The area around the nook, kitchen island and family room chairs seems tight....

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I will probably center the French doors, Also I have toyed with flipping the stairs and the bathroom/ laundry and then moving the bedroom door to the corner across from the stairs. I do agree a hall between the kitchen and DR would be ideal.

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    The TV for upstairs will be above the FP. Most of the entertaining will be done in the basement, But these things are why I posted thanks for all the thoughts and keep them coming.

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I took some of your suggestions, and rearranged the Mstr wing as well as the kids bedrooms. The only thing I still cant get in is a hallway to the garage with out adding 200 sqft which is out of the question.

    Here is a link that might be useful:

  • bridget helm
    11 years ago

    Bedroom sizes seem fine to me. Are you sure you want all those spaces TOTALLY open? Are you sure you want your TV over the mantle?

    Maybe consider a wall behind the 2 large chairs in the den that is the same length as the wall behind the sofa. You could put your TV on that wall. You'd have to enter your kitched via a cased opening if you add that wall. I prefer not having my kitchen totally open to me while I'm trying to chill and watch TV. I don't like looking at the dishes etc when trying to relax. This is just my opinion, of course.

    Also, I don't think front loading garages are attractive. Garages aren't very attractive no matter how expensive and fancy the garage door is. Again, just my opinion, but the size of garage doors no matter how pretty the door is ruin the front lines of a home. Garage doors are just too big, so they never look right. A one car garage is the only garage that has a small enough scale to balance ok with the rest of the house. In your case, you've got a 3 door, so that's really going to look off balance. Is there a way that you can make it a side loading garage?

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I should explain on how we plan to live in the house. The TV above the FP is really for before work for the morning news and after work before dinner. All of the heavy TV watching, movies sports etc will be in the basement theater. We are a fairly casual party family where we usually have 2-3 other couples over have dinner talk and play cards. The boys usually hang out in the living room while the girls hang in the kitchen before dinner. Having that open allows us to talk between the two groups. Any real business will be done in the office. My real concern it traipsing through the kitchen to go to bed and coming home every day. But currently I have to walk through my kitchen to get to my family room from the garage.

  • rosie
    11 years ago

    The area allocated to the central living functions, including kitchen, seems small compared to the size of the house. This is so common these days, but no reason why it can't be fixed now if you wish.

    I happen to really like halls for themselves and the way they can be used to make houses feel quite large (they can be a great investment of space). That said, I'd take that hall space pulling garage traffic past the kitchen and add it to the main living area.

    Since dining rooms are used so little, it there any real reason the family couldn't enter through a dining room? Make a lot more use of the space?

    Ideally, it if it were mine and I were having an attached garage, the garage entry and the front entry to be one--gracious, pretty, not at all too fancy for "just family," utility closets right off it, and anything but neglected.

    Although I really like that central hall connecting to the front, the porch is too shallow for real living. How about deepening it and creating a real reason for that hall to take people up there? It should lead to more than a solid front door. I'd also set the dining space, assuming I left it there, off with pilasters, but not pillars actually closing in a doorway. That way the entire space could be used for very large sit down dinners.

    Would it be possible to turn the garage to the side to get the parking out of the front?

    Enjoy your planning. :)

  • zone4newby
    11 years ago

    Now you can see the toilet from the kitchen island. If you flipped so the sink and toilet were switched and you slid the door down, that problem would disappear.

    Have you posted your kitchen design on the kitchen forum?

  • back2nd
    11 years ago

    So do you NEED a formal dining room? Maybe you could dump the formal dining, add that hallway, move the stairs to that space, with a coat closet and move the powder room there? I think that would be condusive to guests needs and yours.

    bmh4796's issue with the garage - I feel the same, unfortunately where I live, having a garage with side entry is not the norm, even on 2-3 acres..... Way too much issue with snow removal and expense to black top or pave.

    Quite honestly, I like the 1st master bdrm/bath area better. I don't like the closet on the opposite wall from the bathroom and your 2nd design could use some updates if you go with that....

    Although I like the kids bdrm closets going into their rooms in the 2nd design, the bath still needs a makeover. I will try to find some pics of other J&J bathrooms for you.

  • snowrs
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    My DW really wants a formal dining room after living without one for 10 years. With where we are building the lots are not sized to get a side load as well as a decent sized back yard. I should specify that this will be a craftsman style home so all of those openings will be cased with 1/2 pillars.

  • kirkhall
    11 years ago

    You'll get better input, if you put the image IN your posts. To do so, grab the "html code" on the side, and paste in the body of the message of your post.