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leightx_gw

Feedback on one-story house plan please!

leightx
10 years ago

Hi all! We are putting our house on the market next week (yikes!!) and in the process of narrowing down what builder we want to use for our new house. We're still looking for a lot and a builder, but I wanted to get feedback on this plan that I really like, and see if I'm missing something obvious that will drive us crazy.

Requirements:
1 story
3-4 bedrooms (4 is ideal)
study away from front door since it will be used heavily
no formal living or dining
media room
open kitchen / great room

Highly desirable:
laundry room that is accessible from master closet
guest room with separate bath from kids'
separate sinks for kids

I'm not sure about that whole command center thing - I wouldn't want it right near the front door I don't think. Any other thoughts or feedback?

{{gwi:1436918}}

Comments (9)

  • kirkhall
    10 years ago

    What are the ages of the Kids who will live in this proposed house? This house would not work for me in my age/stage. If I had kids 11 or 12 plus, I could see it working fine... A little more info would be helpful (climate, how lives here, etc).

    You will need land, not just a lot, for this house.

  • zone4newby
    10 years ago

    Things that would lead me to consider other plans:

    1) The great room is going to get little or no natural light. The only windows are shaded by huge porches.

    2) The front of the house is all garage. Garages aren't attractive,and it sticks way out in front of the house. How will your guests ever find the front door if they park on the driveway in front of the garage? Or will they enter through the garage?

    3) I don't like the placement of the kids' bedroom doors. One is right by the front door, and the other is next to the bar?

    4) The master bath is huge, and you have to go through it to access the closet. It seems really inconvenient, unless you plan to dress in your windowless closet.

    5) Such a deep and wide house is going to need a HUGE, complicated roof.

    I like your wishlist, I just don't think this is the right answer.

  • leightx
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Great feedback - thanks so far!

    More details:

    We are in Texas where it is HOT, so a covered back porch is kind of essential. We have one now (faces E) and eat dinner out there almost every night in the spring and fall. We still get plenty of sun through the windows - although orientation is important.

    Kids are going to be 13 and 14 by the time we finish building next year, so we are planning for their last few years at home, but mostly being empty-nesters with (we hope) frequent guests - kids, friends, our parents, etc.

    We'll be buying an acre - but width may be constricted, so it is going to be hard to add the garage on the side on any plan.

    Good points on the kids' doors placement and the route to the master closet. That's the same layout that we have now, and the walk hasn't bothered me since we typically get dressed right after a shower - but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

    I'd also consider ditching the tub altogether (we never use ours) in favor of a smaller master bath, but not sure if that's a good idea if we ever move.

    Good point about guest access when they park in driveway. Need to think about sidewalk configurations for plans like this (it seems there are a lot with side-entry garages).

  • _sophiewheeler
    10 years ago

    The kitchen will be incredibly expensive yet incredibly inefficient. The dining area is too narrow for comfortably getting to the seats along the back wall. The utility room occupies prime desirable space on a corner, where there is an opportunity to have windows in two directions for great light. The garage is a giant bulbous nose attached on the front. It needs rhinoplasty, and a different location all together. The entire right third of the home is a master suite. It's afflicted with the current American epidemic of obesity. It could easily be smaller by 1/3 to 1/2 and accomplish the same functions that you only spend 1 hour of the day accomplishing or close your eyes to. If you want a "sanctuary space" then look at making the open living space smaller and creating a small "away" living space that is cozier. The entire left half of the house will be superfluous and unused in just a couple of years. Why not think about placing all of the kid stuff on a second floor with a separate zone for HVAC so you can close it off entirely when it's not needed in the future. That would help with the width of the home and allow the better location of the side load garage and utility areas.

    Orientation on the lot and the home's plan are inextricably linked. It's a bit of a cart before the horse to look at plans with all of these porches on them that might be on the wrong side of the house for the lot that you eventually purchase. You design the home for the location, not the other way around.

  • leightx
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Downsizing the bedrooms / bathroom won't be an issue - and that's exactly the kind of feedback that we're looking for. This is a custom builder, and I'm looking more for a starting point at this point in the game. Likewise - we could shift the dining room out a bit (shifting the study back as well). Moving the garage will all depend on lot (this is an unknown at this point, but there are quite a few to choose from depending on what neighborhood we narrow it down to).

    My husband and I both work from home, so it's important to have areas that we can spread out and into. The media room gets used daily - that's where our TV is, and it's also our family room (in our current house). The study/craftroom would function as my sanctuary, and the media room as his. I rarely watch TV, and we both have laptops and can sit wherever is comfortable.

    We could indeed put a couple of bedrooms upstairs, but we must have a guest room / bath downstairs at the very least - aging parents. This is one thing we keep going back and forth on though - 1 guest down, and adding an entire 2nd level just to house the kids seems like overkill. If we keep it to this configuration, it's easy to stash a kid somewhere when we have guests for now.

    It is difficult to design for this stage - no matter what, 2 bedrooms will become mostly unused at some point.

    What in particular about the kitchen makes it inefficient? Size? Placement of appliances? Pantry arrangement?

    Thanks!

  • sweet.reverie
    10 years ago

    Do you have elevations of this plan? I am trying to picture how this garage will be appealing at all.... not mention if you try to walk around the house, you have to walk around this huge garage appendage.

    I do not like that you have very little natural light in your kitchen and your great room. I imagine they will feel cave-like.

  • virgilcarter
    10 years ago

    This is a large, rambling, inefficient plan with lots of circulation to usable space. It's footprint is sprawling, and will inherently result in a large, bulky roof mass. The completely open great room-kitchen-dining means that sounds, the smell of burnt toast, and the lack of privacy will pervade these areas. Zoning is suited for a mature family with adults sleeping on one side and responsible children sleeping as far away on the other side of the house as possible. It will be impossible for adults to monitor the activities of the children, either in their rooms or sneaking in/out of the house.

    As a result, you can expect this to be an expensive construction project that is a "tight-fit" only for families comfortable with the way this plan will influence the family life style.

    Good luck with your project.

  • mrspete
    10 years ago

    Taste is subjective, but I see little here that I like.

    I agree about the kitchen: Incredibly expensive and inefficient. That curved bar will cost a fortune, and you have too many steps between . . . well, everything.

    Ditto for all those "utility spaces": Command center, pantry, hallway, hallway, mudroom, laundry room. These functions could be accomplished in half the space.

    I love the closet-accessed-through-the-bathroom concept, but in this particular example, walking through the over-sized bathroom is excessive. In fact, everything about this bathroom is excessive -- to no real purpose.

    The one positive in this area: The connection between the laundry and the master bath.

    All those angled hallways will be expensive, and they don't add anything to the function of the house.

    You have two children, and the shared bath with extra sinks looks like it works well between these two bedrooms. Do you NEED a full bath for the media room? You can see your empty nest years from where you're standing, so IF you need to take in elderly parents, your kids wouldn't be using those bathrooms full-time. Cutting that media bathroom could cut 20K from the cost of the house.

    The complicated exterior of this house and the roof that'd be required to top it all will be extraordinarily expensive.

    I do not agree with the poster who's worried about lack of light in the living room because of the covered porch. I have this set-up myself, and it's fine -- we're repeating it in our next house. As you stated, orientation of the house is important. What about the fireplace on the porch? In a warm climate, is this something you'll use, or will it be an expensive line item that you'll use twice and then ignore?

    If you do go with this house plan, I really think you need more than an acre. An acre really isn't all that much, and this is a sprawling house. Overall, I've gotta say, I'd start looking again. With all the nice plans out there, you can do better.

  • leightx
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Good points all - and this is why I'm posting here! We will most certainly be going with a builder and designing something ourselves, but it is good to get some starting points - and you have all made points that we need to consider.

    We won't worry about resale at this point - so I'm not at all concerned about the master being so far from the kids. In fact, we've had master down and kids up since they were 1 and a newborn, and haven't regretted it in the least - in this area, most all 2 story plans are master down. We aren't moving into a neighborhood / price range that many young families would be considering, for the most part.

    The full bath at the media room isn't necessary, but we are thinking about a pool, and that would become the pool bath. If we decide against it, we'd just make it a powder.

    I wish I had our current house plan (the one that we're selling) just so I could see how room spaces match up. The dimensions on the bathroom don't seem ginormous to me, but our current bath is pretty large. I wind up exercising in there. This house is about 300 sf larger than the one we have now, but has far more usable (to us) space - media room / study instead of formal living and dining. Large laundry. No loft. Extra bath. Etc.