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dprae

Alberta floor plan advice, open to above

dprae
9 years ago

Hello all, first thank you for all the information and advice on this forum. It's been extremely helpful for me in planning and building our first home. I've drawn up a plan with our designer and wanted to run it by the community here for any advice. Either we have the perfect floor plan here, or our builder is short on ideas, as we haven't really received much feedback or critique on our sketch.

Here is the main floor (they didn't want to work on the upper or basement until we got the main dimensions right). We have fairly well used up all of our lot space. We are planning bedrooms and laundry upstairs. We will develop the basement, so the office probably goes down there. Do you have any suggestions for the main layout?

Our unique feature we wanted was to have an open to above great room, and stairs that go over the main entrance with a balcony and rails wrapping around ending just before the dining room with french doors leading to the bedroom on the 2nd floor. The balcony will overhang a couple feet. Do you think there is too much empty non-usable space in the foyer / stairs area? Any suggestions for the mudroom / pantry / kitchen arrangement?

Thanks in advance! I'll likely ask for some help when the other floors are drawn.

Comments (16)

  • pixie_lou
    9 years ago

    Without labels, I'm guessing what the spaces will be. I think it's kitchen to the right of the dining. But below kitchen - there are lots of spaces with doors, and I'm guessing built ins. I'm not sure if they are pantries, closets, etc. I can't even quite figure out where your main entry is.

  • annkh_nd
    9 years ago

    I don't have a piano, but I don't think I'd want one in front of a big window (and I assume that curved wall has windows?) daily temperature changes from sunlight would make it hard to keep in tune.

    I'm confused by the spaced at the bottom of the plan as well. I was thinking one of those little rooms might be laundry, but you said that was going upstairs.

    The kitchen seems enormous. How many people will live here?

  • live_wire_oak
    9 years ago

    VERY expensive plan with the Nanawalls and curved walls and the need to engineer for that open of a plan. Also very energy inefficient, and might not even pass current code requirements in that regard without significant revision as to fenestration. There's also a lot of wasted space, which is fine if you have a pretty robust budget. If not, then you need to pay more attention to creating a more compact, usable, efficient, plan.

  • dprae
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for the insights. Sorry, about the labels - this should help.

    1. Our builder was going to talk us out of the curved wall :) because of $$. We're not entirely set on the Nanawall, but though it would be nice, opening up the dining area.
    2. The house is for 2 adults, 2 kids. Hopefully will last us a while. Thanks for the frank advice on kitchen size. We looked at several and though the dimensions would be ok. We haven't firmed up where the appliances/sinks etc would go yet. Too big?
    3. Our laundry will be on the upper floor. Beside the garage is a mud room / storage only. (Too much mud room?)
    4. Is the foyer area too open? Do you recommend just putting a bonus room up above the entrance rather than have it all open? We've been to houses where there's an open to above entrance connected to the great room, but stairs off to the side and then a "bridge" that divides the entrance and great. We really didn't like the "bridge" look. That's why we're drawn the stairs like this. The concern I have then is that the space between the main entrance and the "Stairs up" would be wasted.

    Thank you for the critique. Keep it coming!

  • dprae
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Here is a picture of the general idea regarding stairs we were thinking of.

    Regarding the piano, yes, the sunlight and temperature could be a problem. Our other plan was to put the piano in between the fireplace and stairs - that way it would be out of direct sunlight and less subject to temperature fluctuation.

  • dekeoboe
    9 years ago

    I don't think you have enough stairs in your plan to do what you have shown above. It looks like your plan is only showing 9 steps. On the other hand, you are showing 7 steps in the garage, which seems to be too many.

  • _sophiewheeler
    9 years ago

    No way that Nana walls will give you enough R value to satisfy any Canadian building codes. The rest is awkward and forced, with too much space where it doesn't need to be and not enough for other critical areas. Is this the product of an inexperienced home designer rather than an architect?

  • dprae
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    We'll see what the $$ and building codes are and consider removing the Nanawall.

    A couple people mentioned the place seems too big. Where specifically is there too much space, and which critical areas are too small?

    My thoughts: the entrance way does seem like wasted space. Will have to think about options for that area. Otherwise, the great room looks like the right size to fit a 6' grand piano (drawn to scale). The kitchen seems right.

  • annkh_nd
    9 years ago

    Almost half your main floor is stairs, entry, and storage. While folks might say "there's never too much storage", in your plan it's very disproportional to the amount of living space. I understand needing a big coat closet in Alberta - I'm in North Dakota - a 5 x 10 closet plus a 10 x 10 mudroom is excessive. Typically a butlers pantry is between kitchen and dining room - yours is between kitchen and garage.

    If the long wall on the bottom side of the kitchen was storage, you could put the mudroom between kitchen and garage, the powder room where the closet is, and you've gained enough space for a nice office or study.

  • amberm145_gw
    9 years ago

    I like your kitchen. Some will comment on the fact that the fridge is separated from the sink by the island. But the layout can be tweaked. I like the size.

    I am also in Alberta. I don't think there are any limitations in the building code that would prevent using a Nanawall. There are minimum R values, but that's for the walls. There doesn't seem to be a maximum number of windows you can use. And as long as the windows are moderately "efficient" for windows, I think you'd be fine, legally. However, we have 8 months of winter. So you're going to be spending more to heat the house for 9 months so you can have a few days of wide openness? That wasn't worth it to us.

    We are doing a 6' wide French door with no middle post, so we can pretend we live in a nice climate on those rare days. One of the door companies I spoke to suggested that we put an overhang from the second floor above these doors. Apparently that will help prevent snow build up, and wind coming through. It does seem to help on my current house. We get more wind coming in the single kitchen door than we do coming in the French doors right below it from the walk-out basement.

    And when people here are telling you something is going to be expensive to build, they probably aren't even considering Alberta's labour rates. So your costs are going to be even higher than they are thinking for those rounded walls.

    I would try to incorporate a closet for guest coats in the front entry. The open mudroom is going to be a bit of a disaster (hanging coats are never as pretty as Pinterest suggests), and you don't want guests to have to walk past that to get their own coats.

    I'd also change the direction of the stairs. The way you've got it labeled, you're going to end up having a lot of hallway upstairs, which is a waste of space.

    Personally, I hate the foyer open to above. So I would do a bonus room or extra bedroom. The foyer is definitely too big (even by the standards of what I've seen in Alberta). I think the addition of a closet will help use it up, and partially block the view of the family room. I would then move the laundry down into where you've got the closet. I'm putting my laundry in the mudroom for easy access from dirty people coming in from the yard and garage.

    Speaking of which, will you have a man door on the right of the garage? So you don't have to come in after particularly dirty activity in the backyard (dogs?) and walk through the dining room?

  • dprae
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for the very helpful specific advice. We have a meeting with our contractor and designer, so these are great points to bring up.

    1. Open foyer: you're right, lots of empty space, and I agree that exploring a bonus room is an excellent idea. I think this will allow tweaking to fit in an office on the main floor too.

    2. Butler: I'll ask the wife about the purpose of this area again, and make sure it makes sense. She wanted a small area which some prep can be done "out of the way." Maybe this isn't necessary...

    3. "Expensive" - my contractor also indicated the curved walls will be expensive. But he says that about everything, so it's hard to know if its in the $1000s or $10000s or more! I'll ask him to be more specific in his comments, so as to ballpark what we're talking about. Anyways, curved walls are something we were playing with, and no means necessary, and easy to delete.

    4. Nanawall: I've visited the Nanawall rep in Calgary, as well as an acreage with the wall (actually Loewen walls, but similar). It is possible, but everyone is right - the question is it worth it for the price and hit on heating bill? We'll definitely look at overhanging above the deck doors. Here's a sample of the Wall in cold weather: http://www.nanawall.com/gallery-detail/4095/All/snow

    5. Stairs: the number of stairs drawn is not the actual number, however, the scale/rise is for the 2-storey build. We'll see about rearranging thing when working of the upper floor.

  • bird_lover66
    9 years ago

    Since this is a house for four people of at least two generations, I would think that you would plan for a nice secondary living area. Do you have one upstairs? Or is there a finished basement in this house? If not, the proportions and design of this first floor are just all wrong, imo.

    For starters, you could lose that little "butler" area completely (your wife will feel like she is doing prep work in a closet :( ), and turn that combined closet and butler space into powder room and pantry.. I would then use the former mudroom and powder room space for an auxiliary room on this floor - office, crafts, homework, bedroom for a kid with a broken leg :), or a getaway-from-the-noise room. Elderly overnight guests might not be able to climb the stairs, so a guest room downstairs is convenient. Use the former pantry as your mud room and storage. You might include a stackable washer/dryer in there for convenience, even if you are including laundry facilities upstairs.
    Your foyer is fifteen feet wide to the point of the "green line," which is a very nice size, however, unless you have specific plans for the space near the wall (that is shared with the closet), I would shrink the foyer size to give more definition to the dining room, and add more square footage to the new space for the pantry and powder room so you can also add a small guest coat closet.

    Personally, I like clearly defined room areas within an open floor plan. For instance, your dining area appears to sit in your kitchen with the extended cabinetry on that lower wall. Instead, I would have the ends of the cabinet walls lined up with the end of the island; this would make a very large kitchen instead of a massively sized kitchen. :)

    Good luck.

    This post was edited by bird_lover66 on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 12:03

  • amberm145_gw
    9 years ago

    I looked at what you've labeled as "butlers pantry" and thought of a coffee station. I've seen a lot of show homes with a "butlers pantry" between the kitchen and mudroom, and it's only ever used to house the fancy espresso machine.

    A "butlers pantry" is specifically used between a kitchen and a dining room. The point is to stage the plates and wine you are about to serve, and storing the fancy dinnerware. You aren't going to use it for that next to the mudroom and garage. So people are putting them in for the look, and then using them for grabbing their coffee on the way out the door.

    If your wife wants an extra prep space, I'd probably use the area of cabinetry in front of the dining room. Then you can decide if it's worth it to you to have a dedicated space for your coffee maker.

    And that photo you posted is a public building for community use. They tend not to worry as much about heating costs, because they aren't expected to be as cozy as you want in a house. And when they are full of people, they feel warmer. And they'll probably have more events where they'll take advantage of fully opening those windows than you would in a house.

  • pixie_lou
    9 years ago

    I just see this grand stair case that you are envisioning, and I guess I'm wondering why. It's supposed to be a statement piece. But yours is just kinda tucked in the corner with no one to view it. You can't see it from the main entrance. You can't see it from the great room. So why bother?

  • AishaHansia
    9 years ago

    The common misconception about NanaWall is that it's not meant for cold climates. NanaWall offers door systems that are incredibly energy-efficient. Take a look at this project: http://www.nanawall.com/gallery-detail/3127

    Here is a link that might be useful: NanaWall

  • edlincoln
    9 years ago

    You seem to have your finger on the pulse of current trends with that open floor plan...everyone loves those.

    Personally, I hate them. They look great when you are showing the house or entertaining, but are a bit impractical. If people of multiple generations are living together, you sometimes want to get away from each other If someone is cooking cabbage or fish, those smells waft into the dining room. If you made a mess cooking, there is no way to close the door to keep it out of site. If one of you wants to do homework while another wants to watch the game, there is no door to close to keep the noise out.

    I'd slap a wall across your kitchen to enclose it.

    The "butler's pantry" fit with how upper class people lived 80 years ago. It still makes sense if you are going for an elegant Victorian look and want to show off fine china. I'm not sure it would fit with a contemporary look, and nowadays it is mostly wasted space. My parents have one, and it's just used for storage.

    Visually I like the spiral staircase and bank of windows although both have practicality drawbacks.