Second Floor

Exterior

Have fun. I did a search and found this blog that might be useful for you. http://thatnewhouse.blogspot.com/

Your master bath and closet wing will do a good job of blocking an unsightly view. If that's not your plan, I'd think about whether or not I want the open space of ten acres to be blocked from view like that.

This is a lovely classic farm house look. It should look quite fitting on your rural property.

How many people will live here? Is this for a family or a couple without kids.

I am going to assume that you are a typical family of 4.

Regarding the door between the back hallway and DR, I believe they are pocket doors. So when open the large pocket doors, you will have an open feel. That wall maybe a load bearing wall and it may not be 'cheap' to remove that wall completely.

For a rural farm house, the mudroom looks really tight to me. I am assuming that you will use the utility room as the mudroom. The mudroom is a first floor extension only. There is no second story above that. It should be easy to make it slightly larger. Depending on your weather, you maybe storing a large quantities of coats, hats, gloves in there. My BIL/SIL partially uses their covered porch as the extended mudroom. Unfortunately, when the weather is below freezing, you don't want your boots out there.

Where does your water heater, furnace, A/C etc go? Do they go into the dormer storage space or under the stairs? They are generally marked on the plan. If they go into the attic storage, you do not have much storage in the house. That is a very tiny storage space because of the roof pitch there.

There will be some space in the attic. Because of the insulation in there and the difficulty of access (it is through a trap door that needs a ladder), most modern homes do NOT use the attic space as storage space. Even though it looks like an old fashioned home, this is a modern home.

What I see lacking on this plan is the off season conditioned storage space. (somethings in life need to be stored in a reasonably conditioned space) Where does all your Christmas decorations, off season clothes, large suit cases, turkey roaster, moms crafting stuff go? Can your garage handle all your storage? Most rural garages are not conditioned and things I mentioned cannot readily be stored in unheated garage.

There is a large landing area. That can be fitted with cabinets that store much of what I mentioned above. Cabinets are expensive, as you know.

Where will your kids go when they are teens? Most families need a space for the kids to go and have fun without adults underfoot. Will you use the den as the kids' hangout place? These days, that means media availability.

These are some things I noticed quickly. Houses fit the family that live there. Unless I know more about your family, I can't say what will work and what will not.

Do you have a possibility for a basement?

Wow, I love all the suggestions! Things that I would have never even considered. kaismom, you assumed correctly in that we're a family of soon-to-be 4. Husband and I have a 3 year old son and another son due soon. We are stopping at 2.

We live about 15 miles from the Texas Gulf Coast-- basements don't tend to do well here. You don't think the storage off of Bedroom #2 would be sufficient for climate controlled storage? We will have a carport and a work/storage shed.

I was thinking of the landing as the kids play area/get-away area for the boys once they're older. We'd probably have a TV and couch set up up there.

Love the idea to extend the laundry area into a full mudroom. I didn't know enough about architecture to know this would be a fairly simple extension. So a builder would be able to make this alteration to the plans without having it cleared by a structural engineer first?

Did you end up building this home? We live in it and would love to see/hear what you ended up with.

donschueler I would love to know your input on his house? We have picked this plan to put in the middle of 123 acres that is shared with our 6 chicken houses.

Natalie...have you built yet?

how about you charannthom?

@donschueler I am completely obsessed with this this house plan. We are not going to be building (rural TN) for another year or so but so far this is my favorite plan. I have some questions- we have 2 small boys and another child on the way. We would prefer to enlarge the bigger bedroom upstairs by incorporating some or all of the storage closet so the boys can continue to share a room as they age? Also, we thought to potentially turn the screened porch into a mudroom/family office with desk enclosed with windows instead of screens? We would probably attach on from there one of the Moser designed garages with an unfinished bonus room/bath/storage space above. Finally, can a king size bed fit between the windows in the master? Thanks for any help!

@wilsons823 A few things we have done or would do differently -

1) While you could resize the bedroom up, that storage space is pretty invaluable. There's not that much storage space in the house so this is very helpful. Think twice about that. If you finish over the garage that could give you either the storage space or the teenager bedroom later on so that could give you more options on this space. In ours, the water heater is accessible through a second door to the back of the house in that storage area space. We also have builtin window seats with storage under them on the bank of 3 windows in the alcove on 2nd floor.

2) We do not have that door/window in the den that opens to the porch. Its pretty useless really and with just a wall there now we have room for a TV on that wall and use this room at the TV area...no TV in the Living Room for us. Also in the Den, we have a small closet where the "X" is to the back left of the room as you look at plans above. Again, this is great additional storage space and you can call it a bedroom.

3) The one thing we would change in ours would be to push out both the Laundry Room and Screened porch area towards the back to make them larger. This is all under one roof area so should be easy to do. The Laundry is too small as it is and the screened(or enclosed) porch is a bit small as well.

4) In ours, the kitchen island is larger and rectangular and the cooktop is on the island where the prep sink is in the plans. The prep sink was moved across to the "desk" area on the pantry side and there is a small drink fridge there too. in the middle on the bottom.

5) Our clawfoot tub is angled in the master bath.

6) We do not have the pocket doors in the dining room...not really needed.

All in all we love our house and sure you will be happy too.

Thanks so much donshueler for the feedback! I really appreciate it. Love the idea of window seats and a small closet in the den area. Re: the larger bedroom upstairs, my husband is very tall and so far our boys are too. Eventually we will need/want 2 double beds instead of 2 twins. Do you think there is enough room without incorporating the closet?

A few more questions- did you do a garage? If so, it is detached or attached and how did that work?

Also, I am pretty new to these boards but I see people comment sometimes that a particular plan is "expensive to build". Our area is LCOL and we hoping to be around $100/sq ft. I realizes this varies by location but in your experience is this an especially "expensive to build" house?

@wilsons823 - I am 6'4" so I get it ;) You might be able to do the double without incorporating the closet but the one bed would be against the wall...but I suspect it would just fit. We have a detached garage.... TNH-O-25 from the MDG outbuildings catalog. http://www.moserdesigngroup.com/newpdfs/outbuilding_WEB.pdf   I would probably opt for having the carport enclosed but not a biggie here in SC. As far as cost to build...I would have no idea....its largely geo driven. However, these cottage style houses typically cost more to build since it takes more building effort to do it right and if you want the extra finishes in an out I suspect it will be more than $100/sf

Lovely home, Kristin! Love the Bible verses throughout idea!

@donschueler can you share a picture of your detached garage? Did you finish the space above like the rendering? I am considering this plan as well.

There's a walk thru on YouTube if you type in the house name