Here is the link

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Here is the other link

It seems silly to have such small kids bedrooms/dining room/living room but such tall ceilings and such a large Great Room and master bedroom. No one seems to think about the proportions of spaces anymore.

Here is a link that might be useful: link 2

Thanks! here's the other link, without hall

Here is a link that might be useful: no hallway

No, you aren't crazy, speaking from mom of 5 boys (now). Started our new build when #4 was 6 months old and 6 months later found out #5 was on his way. We Gc'd too, crazy, aren't we all:)

To answer your questions, I had more questions for you? Are you set as far as everything else for the floorplan. Do you plan to have more children? What type of floorplan do you have now and does it work for you? Remember, now it seems like you have just one baby, they grow so fast and if you have more....plan the home for the future (depending on how long you will be living there. We are ready to build again, I want rooms only that we use.

The plans that you have shown and for your questions. I would have the hallway plan. If you use the plan without the hallway, traffic will be a problem. Every time the kids go from the kitchen, etc to their rooms they will interupt conversation or a TV show if there is someone in the common area. Also, I don't understand the great room and keeping room next to each other and open to each other. How would you furnish and utilize these areas seperatley? Would you have 2 seperate seating areas beside each other. Where would the TV go?

I was wondering if you plan to use the living room and dining room as such or if they have different purposes? I'm assuming perhaps one room may end up being an office or a toy room? Make sure you have a play are for the kids or their toys, etc will drive you crazy as they get a little older. perhaps you are planning to use one of the bedrooms as a play area. Will the dining room be used as a dining room?

I'm probably giving TMI, but as a MOM with kids and my 3rd house, make sure you build for the way you live. Are you ok with your laundry area being a pass thru from the garage. I had that twice and I'm in heaven with a seperate laundry room now. I can clothes the door and nobody sees my laundry. I think the laundry area in your plans would make an awesome mudroom. Trust me, the cubbies and space for hats, boots, coats, backpacks, cell phones, etc is wonderul. Then I would seriously consider making the dining room into a large laundry room and it could also house craft stuff, a small desk or computer area or just extra storage.

Just food for thought. Don't want to upset you, just more ideas to think about. If you plan to be in the home only a few years, you may be ok with the layout. So many of my friends, neighbors have moved in the last few years to gain space in the rooms that they use and need the most (kitchen,family room,laundry room, and mud room. They have all nixed the living room, formal dining room, and den areas. Hope this gives you some ideas.

I talked about ceiling heights on the other thread, but I just wanted to second MT4B's concern about play space. In this open plan there's nowhere for kids to be messy or for the adults to have a non-messy space for relaxing with friends. Unless one of the bedrooms is a playroom, but the kids will want to be more underfoot for many years to come.

I agree with macv that the house seems out of proportion. If you stick with this plan, perhaps the keeping room should be walled off into an actual room you can use as family space.

wow. more to think about here.

regarding the dining and study, those rooms will be used as we are currently using them. the dining will be a playroom, the study will be a small office/living room. we use the breakfast nook as our main dining area.

as for having a seperate space for the kids, we plan on having a "bonus room" above the garage. it will go in unfinished and my hubby will finish it out when needed. that was what we planned for a craft room or place for the kids to be out from under our feet when they got older.

all of the things mentioned concerned me, but yet when some of you mentioned to build how we live, this is pretty much how we live. the house we are in now is this house exactly only with one less bedroom and smaller proportions all aound.

also regarding the area we live in. we live in florida, and there are no mudrooms to speak of here. i understand their purpose, we just dont get a lot of changing weather.

in this area, most homes were built in the 50s and are a long crackerbox style maxing out around 1700 sq ft. the house we are building is massive to this area. we have lived in 5 different style houseplans, and we chose this one because we liked it the most as an expanded version of our home, but your suggestions give me concerns.

first off, the family room and keeping room are one large area, no walls, ignore the walls on the plans. maybe we should consider adding the keeping room walls in. we really enjoy a completely open area but i do worry about the kids not having a retreat. the front "study" has doors for privacy, but not much else does.

this plan's purpose is to drive the kids out of their rooms and into the common area to be with the family. we don't drink or entertain, we are really into family time. i know that sounds silly, but we don't have a ton of adult friends over to the house, mostly it would be kids friends. i do worry about them having a place to go though.

anyone have any open floorplan suggestions similar to what i posted that i may like?

also, considering the stress i am under with the baby and the house that i already expressed before hand....comments such as "no one seems to consider proportions anymore" are not really helpful at all, and come across as snarky. make a suggestion, not a snide comment, if you are truly here to help. thanks!

mommyto four boys:

i agree with you about nixing the living, dining, etc. we were going to utilize those front rooms as different areas, but i had thoughts about moving the front entrance off to one side and making the two rooms one longer more closed off room....can you picture this? something to use as a bonus playroom with crafting shelves, a desk, plenty of room to multipurpose wihtout overflow. could i do that to this plan? i feel weird having the two front rooms up there that would be better as one big one.

we will have more kids, three or four. i guess that means one kid room should be big enough to share in case we are still in this house. good point.

money is the issue behind much of these changes....we want the size but the builders around here charge a lot for changes form popular plans...they prefer to build "boxes" and we can't afford a custom builder. small internal changes are ok, like wall placements....

URRR. I just almost finished a very long post and lost it somehow. I'll have to wait until tonight to redo. I think you are on the right path, especially with the future bonus space above the garage. I ahd another idea for a minor change with moving some walls for the "hallway" plan. Don't worry, it will be awesome! You and your babies will make awesome memories in your dream home. I'll be back tonight to share my ideas.

thanks so much. i am pretty discouraged. i talked to my hubby about the whole thing. he is a structural engineer, and suprisingly he has been very insistent about not changing a "tried and true" plan too much, i think because we have moved a lot in the past, so he wants to build what he would consider popular in this area. this plan is the most popular for the new developments in this area, so i think he is thinking in terms of resale if we ever had to move for his job, etc, which we do quite a bit. the only reason we are building to begin with is because the particular area we want to live in is built out with older smaller homes, and it is the school zone we like.

my dh works off of the Revit program, so he is able to present 3d images of the house....like i can walk through virtually. this makes me comfortable to make changes, but my hubby says a lot of people get upset when they see something on paper or on revit and then see it built out...it can be different than imagined. the one lucky advantage we have with this plan is that there is an empty model of this exact plan down the street from us for us to check out.

its not really our custom dream house, just a popular plan we happen to like. i am so exhausted already by the whole thing! thanks for being sweet! i look forward to your ideas about the hall, etc.

i sketched up a possible change to the two front rooms (dining, study) in which i would make one larger 13 x 17 room on one side of the foyer and the other side would have a smaller 4 ft deep mudroom/storage closet of sorts, which would offcenter the front entrance. i love it, DH says we would be taking a chance that it might not turn out as expected. ughhh.

Hi again, I posted on your ceiling questions, but I just wanted to post our floorplan that might give you some more ideas.

I have not had time to read all the responses, so I apologize if I'm repeating anyone.

To be short, I prefer the plan with the hallways. I don't like too much hallway b/c it seems like wasted space, but I don't like bedrooms directly off of main living areas. So I would choose the plan with the hallway or something similar.

Personally, we are doing a 3 bedroom plan with no formal dining room or living room and a study. We have only 2 kids and don't plan for anymore. We made the bedrooms 12x13 for the kids. We will have a finished basement with 2 more bedrooms that are larger (15x15) and if the kids are a little older and want to move down there, they can do that. We will also have a toy room down there. Our kids are 3 and 4 now.

Anyway, hope this helps. Sorry the plan is so small -- I can't figure out how to get it bigger. But you can probably see most room sizes.

Hope you are doing well and wanted you to know I've been thinking of you and your plans. I drew up one idea and you may hate it completely or it may give you something to think about. I'm going to have to wait til DH gets home so I have a way to enter a picture of one of my ideas. The plan makes two of the "kids" bedrooms much bigger and both with a walk in closet. The big bang is cutting down to one bathroom for the kids. Today it seems like the trend is to have lots of bathrooms. Mine all share 1 large bathroom and we have no problems (nice for me to have 1 less super dirty toilet, floor, etc, to clean---think 5 boys). I was raised with 7 sharing 1 bathroom. Nonetheless, it is personal choice and you may have had your idea on each kiddo having their own bathroom. I absolutely love my kids having walk in closets. I was wondering in your plan with the hallways is that the size of great room you need/want or is that something you could decrease the size on? It is a very large room and I took some of it away on my plan:) Hope that teases you into imagining my idea! I'll share with you when I can get this uploaded. it is very rough, freehand on pink paper and all!

This is kind of hard to read like this. I thought perhaps you may want to move the kids bathroom and gain larger bedrooms and some walk-in closets. I think it might make the very large great room a little cozier. I also thought you may want to take about 18 inches off the toy room to add a bench, built-ins, cubbies & hooks for all the "stuff." The walls, lines would actually line up, unlike in the picture. The thick black lines are your existing walls from your plan. The bedrooms are esentially the same just moving the bathrooms/closets.

{{gwi:1501119}}

This version shows a rectangular island and straighter lines, sorry, very hard to read.

{{gwi:1501120}}

i would like to post our new floorplan, but i need help! it is an adobe pdf, and picassa and photobucket dont accept that format. i have never uploaded a pic to this site before...

love your sketches! that would almost work for us. i used some of your ideas on our revisions. i will post them as soon as i figure out how...(see above post).

i did a modified hallway. so there is a hallway for the front two rooms that does not cut into the middle bedroom, and the bback bedroom is flipped with the bathroom, so you enter a little "nooch" and go straight to go to a cabana bath and go right to get to back bedroom. this way the entrance is still off the living area but is basically against the back wall.

the size of the great room....once i get these new plans posted...let me know what you think. based on the entraces to the kids areas and the barstool area for the kitchen island, there will be three traffic areas surrounding the living space. so the furniture is oriented in the middle space. i will show you, we used revit and placed furniture and everything.

i LOVE your modifications to the laundry room. love it. i had an idea that would require minimal changes that was inspired by the built ins you did (i think that is what you drew).

imagine flipping the door on the linen closet. what i mean is, close it off to the master bath and make it open/accessible to the laundry, then use a pocket door. it could act as a split linen and mudroom type storage. a small one, but still.....
let me know what you think!

and please, if anyone knows how to post adobe to a forum, let me know!!!!!!!!!!

http://lh3.ggpht.com/gLdsQ_yOCIg/SsUMY-9KYpI/AAAAAAAAAFI/mekifGyEm_I/s720/Roepnack_Residence-Sheet-A2-_FLOOR_PLAN.jpg

trying to post............

Here is a link that might be useful:

I FIGURED OUT HOW TO POST IT!!!
below you will see changes to the bedrooms. they are much bigger with a modified hallway and a second entry into back kids room. there will be a perimeter of "traffic area" around the furniture space in the gigantuous great room...the two sides have kids entrances and the back of couch will have traffic and barstools. hope the revit furniture helps to visualize. i had a blast shopping in the revit furniture store :)

My MAIN CONCERN about having the kids rooms off of the living area was sound, secondarily traffic. this revision only creates a sound issue with the middle room, but it makes all three rooms so much bigger...which we could need in the future as we plan on having more children than bedrooms...at least one will be shared so it will be nice to have big rooms for them. we will also increase the closet sizes lengthwise in front and back rooms by at least a foot.

we are open to soundproofing suggestions, as the way the plan works overall, the closet for that middle room will not be able to be used as a strategic soundproof helper, it has to go next to the hvac closet or the rooms go back to small again.

the front and back kids rooms will not change too much in regards to sound, as the hall did not play a part in those rooms as much.

mommy to four...check out the flipped linen closet i was talking about as well,would this work to help with storage?

i understand that this plan does not have a ton of storage. this is common for FL. not a ton of seasonal stuff. i still want the storage, but without getting too custom, we thought a way to rememdy would be to increase the garage to a 2.5, add custom storage cabs and a walking door next to garage door?

by the way...can i just say how fun it is to be sleeping with the engineer on this build? ;) (my hubby, don't worry!)

i will be falling asleep and mumble something like "i wonder if we could flip the door on the linen closet...or if we could make a cabana bath" and the next day he comes home with a new set of completely revised plans, with linen door flipped and new bath in.

gotta love it.

This is getting much better, but if you are planning on a whole passel of kids, I think the small laundry room and relatively poor kitchen layout are really going to be pain points for you down the road.

i agree with you, those are some of my biggest concerns.

help me out here....i have to work within this plan. can you make suggestions about how to expand the laundry without changing the plan a ton?

also, i am young and fairly inexperienced with kitchens. can you tell me what makes the kitchen layout poor, and please give suggestions? i don't know about what makes it poor, so i don't know how to fix it, and i really want to fix it if it is poorly laid out! also, we were planning on having a kitchen designer work with us. is it a space issue, or just where stuff is?

Ahhh, it is getting much better. I think you will be much happier keeping the two rooms upfront without moving the front door. I don't think you would ever regret a place for all the shoes, bags etc by the door that the family uses most. It greatly helps keeps things tidy and allows for things to be readily at hand. The traffic plan is so much better. I take it, you deinitely want to keep all the bathrooms?

As for the kitchen, I know what works for me. A huge island for prep and serving and eating at as we use it for most meals. The girls over on the kitcen thread are amazing and will most definitely give you some wonderful advice. Post your plans there and they will shock you with the knowledge and help:)

I'm not sure how you could change the laundry in your plan and perhaps it will be fine for you. Honestly for me I would seriously make an entire room my laundry room and have a small built in desk somewhere rather than an entire room for an office. It depends how you do laundry, etc. My current laundry room is 10X9 and could still be larger. I have 6 large baskets that I sort into daily. I have a large folding table, drying rack & hanging area. I can't stand the thought of anyone, including my family walking through my laundry area. I hope to never go back to the days of folding laundry on the isalnd/table in the kitchen. But, for you and only two little ones, it may not be a big deal. When our family was that size it worked, but I still dreamed of a seperate laundry room.

I'm glad things are coming together for you, just keep sleeping with that engineer;o)

OOOhhh, about the soundproofing. We did super, duper insulation in this house for soundproofing. So amazing, sometimes too good, we are concerned if we close our door at night we may not hear something we need to hear. Also, we used heavy, solid core doors and that makes a difference too.

can you tell me about the specifics of the insulation?
i had heard that about the solid core doors...ugh.

the laundry room is so shocking to me! less than two years ago, before my hubby got his promotion, i was doing laundry in the hot garage next to the lawnmower....in a tiny little cubby house with original 50s bathrooms and no master bedroom. to me, this laundry room is so huge but it is funny how it is all relative. already i am looking at it thinking...it could be bigger....how will i survive??!! i keep hearing it needs to be bigger. i am sure it needs to be now!

what did you think of the linen closet in the laundry?

also, what do you think of adding a closet to one of the front rooms?

scared to present my kitchen to the kitchen ladies....preparing to be butchered.....

What I want to see in a laundry room is counter space to fold clothes and a spot for the basket(s). A simple 4' run of countertop will do. I'm not real keen on the laundry being so far away from the kids rooms either, but the real issue is there's absolutely nowhere nearby in the house plan you can go to get everything folded.

Is there a simple way to increase the laundry room? No. You could push into the master bath, which pushes into the closet which pushes into the master bedroom. Or you could take a chunk of the garage, but it's already fairly small and if your hubby is like most men, the idea will go over like the proverbial lead balloon.

You COULD stack a full sized front loading machine in there and have some space for cabinets and countertop beside it. Without moving the walls, I think that would be the best option to make the space work better.

Bear in mind the laundry room is going to end up being a drop zone for stuff as people come through the garage, so clutter will collect there.

The kitchen is very functional for one person or a couple, but not for a big family. I don't think rearranging will help. Maybe if it was an L instead of a galley? Definitely run it past the ladies on the Kitchens forum when you have a "final" plan.

I would not want to add a closet to one of the front rooms. Florida doesn't have a huge need for coat closets, and I think it will reduce the usefulness of those rooms more than it will gain you anything.

To be brutally honest, I think this is just the wrong plan for you. Tweaking it isn't going to resolve all your needs. I know your hubbie doesn't want to design from scratch (which is probably the way to get your best, albeit most painful, house), but there are many proven house plans online if you shop carefully to find ones that have actually been built.

I know resale is an issue, and people in Florida and other places hard hit by the real estate market are particularly skittish about it right now. But markets change, sometimes radically. Buyers could be, at the time, looking for uniqueness and a house that's just like every other could be a negative. It isn't something you can make an accurate prediction about. If you are planning on being in the house a while I would build a house that works for YOU.

By the way, I know someone with this house plan almost exactly I think -- and yes, she uses one of the front rooms as a play room. Only two kids and her -- but the way the house is laid out the great room ends up being a junk pile (no drop zone) and being there for a big dinner is an exercise in frustration. I can't imagine this house with a herd of kids in it. It's very attractive on the outside, but it doesn't work well for the family lifestyle. It probably works fantastically well for a retired couple or a young couple with no kids or just one.

Whatever house you end up with, you will make it work for you. We all probably grew up with much less. I just hate to see someone go through the pain of building a house to get to "okay."

Sorry for being longwinded! Hopefully something here is of use.

met with builder tonight, and he said the same two things you did:

stackable washer
l-shaped kitchen.

we are going to do both.

i wish i could find another plan that i loved. i wonder if anyone has a ranch open split plan that they love and wouldn't mind sharing with me? i have looked through thousands and wish i had more help. if you know of another gardenweb user that has a plan i may like, let me know.

i am young, and new to being able to afford a home like this, so i just dont know what to want, if that makes sense. my daughter is only a year old, so having kids to me is new too. its a lot to imagine what i will need in the future for them. the homes i grew up in were so small in comparison, with none of these huge rooms or kitchens.

i will keep trying to rework the kitchen and laundry.
it is to the point where i do it in my sleep at night!

I think you said in an earlier post that you have lived in a smaller version of this floor plan and it worked for you, so I wouldn't worry about changing the things that people bring up which you have lived with already and know work for you. I do recommend the hall and your great room is really big so I would consider taking a 1' or 2' from the great room to make the hall wider so that the bedroom can be bigger. Also, the stackable washer and dryer would be great to get counter space in the laundry, although you can get even more counter space with an under the counter front loading washer and under the counter dryer. Good luck.

very interesting, carolyn. can i have a counter built over my maytag epic, which is both stackable and can go side by side? its a front loader.

these ideas are so amazing.

thanks for the encouragement as well. i put up revised plans with the hallway removed and much bigger bedrooms. the greatroom will get eaten up by traffic in the new plan, i think.

Check the owner's manual for your Maytag Epic--although if it is stackable you must be able to put it under the counter. With our washer and dryer at least, we had to get a special top panel for them (not expensive at all) when it was going to go under a counter. You can also get covers for some laundry sinks which make it possible for you to use the area above the sink as a work area. If you do put your washer and dryer under a counter, check to see which way the washer door opens before the plumber does the laundry room so that you will be sure to put the plumbing on the correct side for the washer so that the waher door will open towards the dryer. Washer/dryer location makes a difference with front loaders, it doesn't with top loaders. Front loaders are so common now that I think plumbers think about it, but that wasn't the case a few years ago so you want to make sure that that gets done right.

The last one you posted shows a lot of improvement. The only thing to consider with that little short hallway to the bedroom at the end is to make sure you can move a mattress/furniture in with the angles/openings etc. there.

I know you mentioned wanting maybe 4 children. Not sure how long you'll be in this house, but if you keep the study/dining room as separate (good for re-sale too), and add a door to the little hallway from the study and a closet you could have a 5th bedroom if you ever need to and also close off the opening to the great room instead.

I know people talk about play area and close it off for the mess, but we are making our breakfast area a play area. We eat in our dining room - not formal and the breakfast area doesn't have as much room for when we need a large table. We will live with a little mess in there even when friends are visiting because she will want to play near where we are and if she doesn't we want her to as then I feel it will be easier to keep an eye on things. It is somewhat separate in our floorplan and how we have the furniture. I think you'll be fine since you appear to live similarly.

For the laundry to avoid a walk through could you re-work the master bath/closet to swing the laundry part parallel to the garage and have a short hallway/mudroom from the garage to the house. Maybe make the entry into the dining room instead although less than ideal it allows you to use the other area for the bathroom.

We are also in a warm weather climate, but have a mudroom entry similar to that with the laundry off to the side and it is great to have. Shoes and bags etc. all are left there and not spread all around the house. We do have a regular door into our garage too so that helps in that we use that entrance even when not parking in the garage.

Carolyn caught an important detail about the washer and dryer door openings. FL washer doors can't be reversed and if you get them the wrong way it's a daily annoyance. (Ask me how I know.) An undercounter W/D install would probably work even better than a stacked unit.

Sorry I don't have a plan to share with you, misstifyftl. I went with a 1 1/2 story to reduce construction costs. When you say you wish you could find another plan that you loved -- what is it that you love about this one?

For the 3rd bedroom could you make the bathroom en-suite? That way you could put it anywhere in that space, or switch the door on it so you don't have a straight view from the breakfast area into the bathroom. We didn't think of that and have a bathroom door in a less than ideal space in our little hallway.

ALL excellent ideas. going to take a look at your suggestions about the door and bathroom, lyfia.

thanks for all these ideas. i will post the changed plan soon!

PS, last house i had the wd installed the worng way for the doors. it SUCKS. i feel your pain!

I'm sure you could use yet another opinion on your house from somebody who's not going to live in it, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. If you are planning on living in this house long term, design it the way you are planning to live in it. So, for example, if you are not planning on using the dining room as a dining room, don't design it as one, but rather design it as the playroom it is intended to be (which probably ideally would mean different placement/configuration). Having a bunch of kids myself, I personally wouldn't want a large play room to be the first room that greets guests when they enter my home. I've seen a bunch of people who use rooms for purposes that they weren't designed for, but these are usually people who bought the house already built and didn't custom build the home themselves. So, they had no choice. When we see them using a room that is clearly intended to be a dining room or something else for some other purpose, there just seems to be a disconnect in the design or function of the house. Of course, I can understand if you are planning to resell the house, that you want to leave open the possibility of converting it back to a traditional dining room, although I'm not sure that everybody would even necessarily want a separate dining room if the other eating area is designed right. Anyway, if this is a permanent home, I'd have each room reflect the purpose it was intended for. I wouldn't want to live in a house where it's obvious that the room was intended for something else. It would just seem unsettling or not well thought out, IMHO. Form should follow function, or something like that. Good luck!

Sorry, I did not read all the lengthy reply posts. This is short and sweet: The plan without the hallway is far superior to the one with the hallway IMO.

BRs 3 & 4 already are on a hallway, so they are fine. Personally, I think BR 2 is fine as is, but you could reconfigure the doors with the bath to creat a nookish type hall without losing BR space.

You will want your children to have the max for their own space since the family is sharing all other common areas.

thanks everyone.

hadley, totally agree with you on the bedrooms.

gobruno, love what you said too. i considered designing a "play room" and moving the "living room" to be an exercise room. those are what we need...now. the catch is, when i talked to the builder and the hubby, they reminded me that i wont always need a playroom. and i only use the workout room after having kids to get back down to what my hubby calls fighting weight. :) so...the rooms will change uses over time. maybe someday we will close off that living room from the great room and make a cozy kids tv room. it all changes with age. we dont need an office now, but we will when the kids want to have a computer, because we dont allow computers in bedrooms. if we had a set room for each thing, i would need 15 rooms. i am going to have to let the rooms grow with the family. my playroom will probably have chair rails, but i can live with that for the next 4 years i suppose. i agree with you though, 100%.

got a great idea on the kitchen forums. i am in the process of taking out the angles on the master side, making a bigger laundry, bigger and better everything on that side! love garden web! updated plans to follow...