The ceiling is at 10' with simple, low coffering. The quad French doors lead out to a deck. The barrel arch leads to the everyday living wing of the house (kitchen, breakfast nook, keeping room, etc.). The opening at the lower part of the plan is a cross hallway to the bedroom wing along which the stairs to the lower level run. The foyer intersects the hallway not quite centered on the great room.

We needed help/advice/opinions on a few things:

1.) If we do a quad French door with 3' sections, I'm not sure there will be enough room to pull back drapes and not interfere with the built-in? The view is out to our woods, so I don't want to permanently cover the French doors, but there are neighbors who might be able to see in when trees have dropped their leaves, so we'd like some window covering for privacy. Any ideas????

2.) The plan calls for 8' doors, but we really like the look of regular doors with a transom above. The dining room which is just off the foyer will have 8' doors. Opinions on which way to do the great room doors?

3.) The 18' opening obviously needs a header so the ceiling can be coffered. We just don't know how to treat that opening. Here is a picture from our builder's website that we think might work. At the far left you can just see the edge of the fireplace built in. Again, advice & suggestions are most welcome (& really needed):

Thanks for the help. I'm convinced that shortly we will be posting something to "How's Your Build Going" thread. Woot!!!

Jo Ann

From Drop Box

I like the idea of the 30" sections vs the 36" doors --- I think they look very pretty with larger (wider and taller) grids like this....

-- something about it is appealing to me, I think I like the proportions I guess. Thingsthatinspire sent me several pictures of different types of doors for a great room and they were very helpful to see one after the other to determine which was the most appealing to me. In the end, I am going to do 5 sections of 30" doors (like pictured above) because in my case the view out the back is straight through the house from the front door and I wanted that to be a window (door with glass), not the wooden part where the doors meet, but I know this is pretty darned picky! I know, based on your description, that your entrance to the room is not centered, which makes your arrangement a bit more flexible, phew! I also like the look of the tall doors --- but here are 2 to compare.... they both line up with the coffers which I think looks great, but one has the transom above and one doesn't. Both appear to be a 30" door (with a single vertical grid, which I really like).....

(The first picture is John Umberger, the other two I'm not sure about (I usually have that info, so sorry if this is your room and I'm not giving credit--- I think they are from real estate listings).
How will you place the furniture in the great room? I have a room much like it in my plans (DH is exactly the same about posting the entire plan btw) and I have come to the conclusion that I need the doors on th end to open, because of my furniture placement.

Even a small amount of wall space, like the first picture allows for a panel window treatment, so I think you'll be OK.

Looking forward to more, the house is gorgeous!

milz50 - if you could have changed things, would you have designed in separation between the built-ins and the doors? I really like the end panels on your bookcases.

mythreesonsnc - Those pictures are super. What a help. I see what you mean about the proportions of the 30" doors and agree. Looking at picture #3, I think coffering with the transom is a bit much. Less is more in a room that is nice sized, but not huge. In our plan, you can see through from the front door to the French doors in the great room. The offset of the centerline of the front doors to the centerline of the great room is about 18".

Another option would be to make the French doors a triple with just one operable door so you didn't look at the center piece of wood so much from the front door. In that case, I'd want to go back to 36" panels so there would be 9' of glass across the room. The advantage is cheaper, an odd number of panels for centering and more room for stackback. The disadvantage is "squattier" proportions and less glass. ARRRGGGHHH!!!

Whatever we do on the main level gets duplicated on the lower level, but with 9' ceilings instead of 10'. I think we will need to factor that in.

Thanks - Jo Ann

I also much prefer the 30 inch doors versus the 36! Could you do the same set up with the 30 inch doors? This would save you a couple of feet and would give you an extra foot on each end to stack your drapes.

I also think the way your bookcases are constructed will be important. You may have to do some sort of wider end trim that the panels can butt up against, and then start the bookshelves.

sombreuil_mongrel - I'm confused about what you are trying to convey about the coffering. If the built-ins don't go all the way to the ceiling wouldn't we be able to keep the same coffers?

lorriew - I think we're going to the building materials supplier to look at fronts doors, so I will check out those doors with blinds inside the glass. Pella carries that & the website says that they can be changed out if you get tired of the style.

What do y'all think about how the opening between the great room & the hallway (lower part of the diagram, above) should be treated? Here is a picture from another one of our builder's houses:

I would want to simplify it, somewhat, but it would repeat the idea of the column and the arch that we are using between the kitchen & the keeping room. In that case the columns only go between a half wall with bookcases on the keeping room side and the bottom of the arch. It will look something like katieob has between her kitchen and family room.

Thanks - Jo Ann