Floor plan

Will you be having a TV in the family room? If so I'm not a fan of having the Master adjacent to a family/TV room.

I'm also not a fan of the diagonal island.

Who is going to live in the house? What ages? And what is your lifestyle like?

This is going to be a VERY noisy house. The master bedroom is right off of the family room, and so are the bedrooms upstairs. There isn't one room on the first and second floor where anyone can get away from noise. You won't be able to watch two televisions in the family room and upstairs loft at the same the same time or listen to music. It's really a horrible plan if you have teens.

On the other hand, if you have no children at home, it could be a very nice house.

Look at using ICF for the exterior walls including basement.

You need to get an estimate from an excavator and a concrete basement company. Or several estimates. Around here, one company pours the walls, and another company comes in to pour the slab(the slab is much easier to estimate if you know the cost of cement in your area.)
If you are GC the build, then getting estimates from builders won't get you what you need. You need to have an excavator come out and see where the house will be sited and get an estimate.
This house is very pretty on the outside.

Our master bedroom is similar to your plan and we insulated the fireplace/Family Room wall and I usually go to bed earlier than my wife or sons and the noise from the TV or others talking is barely noticeable.

I can't believe all the exterior doors on this house! And they are all double doors.

Thanks for the quick replies!

We are getting bids from builders to estimate our own sub-bids. That way, it will help us be more in line with our own estimations.

We have a 11 and 12 year old, and our bedroom is currently beside the family room. We are planning on insulating the wall between the living room, helping with sound control. We have spoken to the architect about moving the fireplace to the rear wall, eliminating the center window, leaving the wall open.

The kitchen island we were thinking of would be more triangular, leaving bar stools on the straight side, hopefully finding a nice slab of granite for the whole island.

The excavator that dug our current home will excavate this basement as well. He was very good, and also excavated our 1000 ft driveway for our new home, and was very reasonably priced. I plan on getting the bids for the concrete basement walls and floor, just wanted to see what everyone else was paying. I have read so many different quotes for basements on this site, it's hard to get an average. It seems that there is a range of 20k-60k for similar walkout basements on this site, which is a very broad figure.

Thanks again for the quick replies and ideas!!!

The first thing that grabs me as a problem is ALL THOSE DOORS!

First, in the golf cart /laundry /pantry area you have four doors plus a cased opening. This is going to be cumbersome: The doors are going to knock against one another and constantly be in the way. Obviously you must keep the garage door, but I'd lose all of the other doors in this area -- except the one cased opening, which -- because it's probably going to stay open most of the time -- I'd make into a pocket door.

Next five doors all opening onto the same deck -- even a large deck -- are just too much. Doors are more expensive and less energy efficient than windows. They inhibit furniture placement on the deck, and they're more difficult to cover with windows treatments -- most of all, they're just not necessary so close to one another. I'd say keep the one in the master bedroom and one between the dining room and living room. Make the others into same-sized windows.

At only 9' wide, the dining room is very small for a house this size. Last comment on the doors: Note that once you have a table in this small area, you won't be able to reach that set of doors. If this area MUST stay so small, I'd go with a built-in banquette across the back wall -- because you don't need to allot for space behind chairs, they require significantly less space than a traditional table.

The kitchen has a funny little bump-out for the kitchen cabinets. I'd skip that and enlarge the dining room by 2' -- it's not in the direction that the dining room needs it most, but it'd probably be cheaper than building the indent.

In the master bedroom, it's pretty clear where you'll place the bed -- and you have a window on what will be the left of the bed. I'd want an opposite window on the right side.

Your bathroom door and linen closet will knock against one another. I'd skip the linen closet door and go with an open linen tower instead.

The toilet closet looks narrow and will be dark.

Your kids' bedrooms are really large! Larger than the master.

I do agree that this house will be loud. I'm remembering a vacation rental in which my husband and I slept in a large upstairs loft bedroom. I loved it . . . until we realized that the living room TV echoed upstairs. We postulated that this was made worse because the house was all wooden floors and minimal window coverings. If you really want this super-open floor plan, I'd suggest you add all the "soft furnishings" you can.

MrsPete,
Thank you for the thorough reply. We completely agree, we will be removing several doors, especially in the living room and basement. There is just to many, and will replace with standard sized windows, which will save quite a bit of money.

I am taking note of all of your opinions and we will discuss these issues. We have found several other open floor plans, but we felt that this one would fit into our wooded acreage the best, and doesn't close us off from each other. Keep it coming guys, Thanks!

Here is a link to more pictures of the house:

http://www.houzz.com/projects/33390/asheville-mountain-home

We are in the process of buying/modifying this plan and have enjoyed these critiques. Anything else would be appreciated.

Spartenhill- You are probably close to being finished, any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you for these comments. We are looking at the Ashville plan and would love to see any pictures. We hope to add a 3 car garage. The kitchen area has me a bit worried? Will it be big enough?

Hi Wendy, I stumbled across this discussion. I'm posting pictures of a version of the Asheville Mountain with a 3 car garage and some other minor modifications made by the customer.

Hope you enjoy:

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info

Asheville Mountain 3 Car Garage · More Info