Floor plan... any suggestions?

10 years ago

This site has such great information and am looking for any suggestions that you for us. We received the floor plan from the designer for our forever home. We live on a 40 acre farm in Minnesota with southern exposure. The entry is on the North side and the covered porch is to the west. We are planning to build using ICF for the walk out basement and are still debating between ICF or stick built main floor.

We are a casual family of four, daughters are 6 and 9yrs. The kids bedrooms will be in the southern exposed walk-out basement (this is common in our small farming community). We have not started working on the basement layout yet.

There is only the one bathroom on the main floor. We did consider adding a small bathroom but we are trying to maintain a small footprint. We plan to have another full bathroom in the walkout basement and we already have a full bathroom in the shed for use when we are outside. We would like to have a separate shower and soaking tub.

My main concern is the bathroom/closet layout, but I would be interested in what you think of the entire floor plan. I am cross posting this in the building forum and small house forum. Thank you for taking the time to review this with us.

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Comments (7)

mu3jump
10 years ago
What side of the house is the garage going to be on? Will there be gardens or anything on the back side of the house? Where will the kids be playing mostly? Just thinking about access into the house if you are working or playing in the yard and such. Overall, I really like the simplicity of the layout.
peteley
Original Author
10 years ago
I hand drew a layout of our farm to give an attempt at a visual of the area. We bought the farm about 2 years ago. The previous owner had a fire in his home and it sadly burnt to the ground. We plan to build the home in the same setting but back into the hill a little to get the walkout basement.

The driveway splits into two, a southern and a northern driveway.

There is a detached garage that is southwest of the house. I'm thinking the entry into the house from there would either be through the south basement entry or the west side porch. Most often we will park in a parking area on the north side of the house since there won't be stairs to climb. A shed is on the north west side of the house and it has access doors on the west and east. We thought if we did add an attached garage years from now, it would have to be on that north side.

The garden and barn are all West of the house. The kids most often are playing to the west, but they do tend to cover a lot of area so it's ideal to have windows out every direction.
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okpokesfan
10 years ago
Is this your final kitchen layout? Your range is stuck back in a hallway pretty much. I would find a way to move it out of the entry to your pantry.

If you are planning on using the closet space behind the bathtub for hanging clothes, that will be very tight.

Good luck!
zone4newby
10 years ago
Hi, We're building in Minnesota too.

Given the weather here, I think I'd want the entry from the garage to have a place to store coats and boots immediately available, so I wouldn't want the side porch entry to be a main entrance from the garage.

Aside from that, I really like it. It flows well, and I love all the windows.
peteley
Original Author
10 years ago
@okpokesfan: I agree about the stove. I'll move it closer to the sink so the oven door opens up in the aisle and not into the cabinet area. I'm not really happy with the closet/bathroom area, so somehow that's going to have to change up.
@zone4newby: Hello fellow Minnesotan! We did talk about making an entry that extends a couple feet onto the porch so there would be a small entry area to drop shoes/coats. Otherwise I am afraid it's just going to be a mess in that area. But if I do that, then I'm worried I would lose my views out the kitchen window though. Who'd think it would be so hard to make a decision?
Thanks for your suggestions!
kirkhall
10 years ago
As a matter of practicality, sometimes loss of some view is okay for mud containment...

Also, how will you use your pantry? IT IS HUGE! If you are using it mostly for food storage, it really doesn't need to be that wide (in particular). You will have a lot of floor space for no gain, and probably deep shelves, again for no gain (things get lost on really deep pantry shelves.)

Consider your use of that space, and figure out if maybe you can carve some space out of the pantry area, lose the extra floor space of it, and maybe contain the mud! ;)
lavender_lass
10 years ago
I love the big pantry...maybe a small sink under the window? That would be great for prepping and baking, as well as pantry duty.

I posted this on the Smaller Homes forum, but thought I'd put it here, too...since you said you might be over here more often. Would this work for the bathroom? {{gwi:1455816}}From Farmhouse plans