Well I am about to start construction on a new house for myself nothing big or fancy but just enough for me. It is going to be just about 2100sq ft.



Please give any suggestions or comments before I take my design to the architect to have it drawn up.

 

Suite!!!

 

very suite

 

Not sure if I like the laundry in the garage or the fact that you need to walk through the master bath to get to the walk in closet.

 

Thank both of you .. and from being on here for a while I know how hard it can be to get a good comment from Whiskers

For me the biggest area's of importance are the kitchen, master suite and of course garage...

 

I dont like that teh Laundrys only access is from the garage

 

Overall, it's pretty good. Just a few things seem a bit out of place.

Are you planning on 2 garage doors?
What is that small area between the living room and master suite?
The kitchen seems really big.
2100 sf seems pretty large for a 3 BR - especially with no family/great room.
Maybe add a hall/coat closet
maybe add a pantry. (attached to kitchen)
Did you want a fire place?

 

x3

 

Personally I think it's very, very tough to buy a place based on a floorplan. I can't tell you how many homes my wife and I LOVED on paper, only to go visit a model and be extremely disappointed.

Is this a completely custom home or is the builder in the area? My friend built in West Palm and had the floor plans on paper like you, but was also able to travel to the builder's location to walk through a model of the home. This allowed them to see the actual flow of the place and also helped them a great deal as far as making changes since they could visualize it much better...

 

As far as comments... to add what the others have already said...

- You should have laundry room access from the house itself
- Kitchen looks very large, yet I do not see an area for a breakfast table. It's sooo much better to have a separate breakfast area then to use the Dining Room for everything.
- May want to put a linen closet somewhere near the secondary bathroom
- The plans don't indicate any attic access. Make sure you have storage space somewhere. Even if you do not have a lot of stuff, it helps a bunch on resale.

As for the master closet being on the other side of the master bath... almost every house we looked at down here (which was a lot) had that... so that seems to be the current trend. Ours has it and I don't think anything of it. I got used to it after a week. It's also nice b/c you only lose one area of the wall to a door (verses having one door for a bathroom and another door somewhere else for the closet).

 

thank you for all the comments

Here is the original floorplan



to answer some of the questions yes it is a custom home so no model home to visit

the closet in the bathroom is very common in new homes and I actually like it just like juniorbean said it gives you more uninterupted wall space in the bedroom the less doors the better

The access to the laundry from the house is something i have gone back and forth from my and my gf like to entertain alot so kitchen area is a big deal to us " and It allows me to buy a nice 36" stove... so we eliminted the hall to the laundry to free up about 4 feet of extra room for the kitchen so we can put in an island.

By eliminating the hallway it also took away the closet by the front door which it not as needed in south florida as it is up north but still nice to have.

I do agree with a linin closet by the guest rooms and am going to play around with the plans tonight and see what i can come up with

As for the crawl space access the placement of that is going to depend on the truss design but most likley will be in the garage or master bedroom closet.

We do plan on adding a couple of fire places but they will be ventless gas once agian being in south florida we get down to a bitter 65 at night during the winter..

last thing is the breakfast area we are thinking about adding a corner bench seat and table in the kitchen as in place of the smaller area of cabnits in the lower left hand corner of the kitchen


once agian thank you all for your input its much easier and cheaper for me to change it now then in a couple weeks when the architect starts drawing it up

 

Some things I'd like to second.....

- don't like the laundry separate in the garage

- too much counter space in the oversized kitchen, add a pantry in one corner

- linen closet near the second bathroom


Adding on......


1. If you're going to have the WIC on the opposite side of the bathroom from the bedroom, then you better close off the toilet in a completely separate room. don't want to be shut off from the closet anytime someone has to use that toilet. Even if you're living by yourself, think resale.

2. Where's your water heater? I'm assuming your furnace will go in the attic?

3. I wouldn't cut that much of an angle off your Den. The space that it creates on the other side of the wall is really wasted space, and it's making the Den smaller than it needs to be. But that's just more personal preference than anything.

4. I don't see a coat closet anywhere. You need at least one by the front door. And ideally a second one by the entrance from the garage (tough to do when you enter into the kitchen).

5. I typically don't like nooks for the windows in a master suite, unless it's a bay window or something with a bench.



EDIT: I like the Den better on the original floor plan

 

furnace whats that???

the furnace and coat closet are really not needed in south florida where like i said the temp doesnt get down past 60..

Yes the nooks in the bedrooms are going to be done with a bench.

As for the water heater its going to be a tankless heater so no real need to have a large space for it.

As for the counter space in the kitchen alot of it is going to be taken up with the appliances

We are going to use a 36" stove and double fridge there will be a full lenth pantry next to the fridge

As for the den the only reason we changed it is because its going to be used only for a guest bedroom so we figured it would make sense to keep all the enterances together. but please more of you chim in on this...

 

Damn you floridians :shakefist:

 

yeah for me december just means I dont need to use the a/c AS MUCH...

 

Dont forget to install some hurricane-proof walls

 

no stick construction here just block

and we are using impact windows on everything..

 

however the roof is a whole differance story

 

Is there any way you could get the right side of the garage extended another 2 feet? It would really help break up that looooong, flat side of the house.

It would do wonders for the over exterior aesthetics, plus you'd have a slightly larger garage.

Maybe do the same thing for the left side of "suite 3"?

I know that may sound silly, but the home would look so much better and larger from the front and you would have some extra sq. footage inside.

 

to be within the limits of my lot lines I can extend anything outside of its current size I can reduce it but thats about it.. The lot I am biulding on is only about 62' wide and 125' deep the house as it sits is 50 wide and 60 deep the city requires 5' on each side so I kinda wanted to keep one extra foot just to be safe.

but I can see what you are saying that is a really long flat wall

 

Wow... Our setbacks are a minimum of 75' feet on both sides and back, 150' from the road in front and a minimum of 300' (I think) road frontage. But I live out in the sticks, so I guess they can do that.

 

^^ Stupid 5-minute rule.....

My wife is from just north of West Palm Beach (near Stuart/Palm City), so I know that area is pretty filled in (like Ft. Lauderdale). For a lot of land (at a reasonable price) you would have to move to redneck-central somewhere in the center of the state like Pasco county...[img]images/smilies/ugh.gif[/img] or some nasty place like Yeehaw Junction.. I'd much rather be where you're going than any of those places.

 

I didn't see it mentioned, but it's possible I overlooked it.

From the floor plans it looks as if you're using a slide-in range. One thing we would do if we could do it all again is double ovens. We have a wall oven with the microwave above it... but just from hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas I would HIGHLY recommend putting in double wall ovens. Doing it during construction doesn't cost that much more, and it pays off in the long run. At this point retro-fitting one is not worth it, so we are just going to add another electric range in the garage as a spare....

 

I agree with what everyone else is saying, but I especially like the idea of having a table in the kitchen area. Do you know the kitchen measurements of the new floor plan? (the first pic)

 

I agree with most of the comments above.

The closet off the master is actually nice. This way when I get up at 6, I can get ready in the bathroom and dressed without coming in and out and waking my wife up.

One more thought.....Maybe look at doing a jack and jill bath in the guest bedroom and den. We have this and love it.

 

First off thank you guys for all the input..

as for the oven I plan on doing a "chefs" kitchen I guess you could say I am looking at a viking range similar to this



as for the table in the kitchen the dimentions of the kitchen are 18.5 by 17.8 there should be plenty of room for a corner banquet..

I am sorry if some of the kitching on the plan is not drawn exactly how it is going to be but I did it using an inexpensive software that allowed me to change things around with out much trouble. however its selection of appliances and fixtures leaves alot to be desired


last but not least 75feet on each side and 150 back from the road... DAMN!! your offset is bigger then my lot.. in fort lauderdale a 1/4 acre is going for between 200-300k depending on area with some cheaper ones in the 150 range in more rental based area's ..

 

actually the range I really want if I can get it for a decent price is a DCS like this one I looked at it at a local store down here who was way over priced but loved it

 

viking, wish i could afford that stuff

 

LOL I am not sure if i can afford it yet it really depends on how the budget i am working on goes .. the toys have to come last

 

[QUOTE=quad150db]First off thank you guys for all the input..

as for the oven I plan on doing a "chefs" kitchen I guess you could say I am looking at a viking range similar to this



QUOTE]

I have the 36"Viking cooktop with 4 burners and the grill, and the double wall oven and would highly recommend it, so you can expand your work triangle out a bit.
Also it gives you cabinet space underneath for pots and pans.
With the island you will be able to easily transfer pans around from stovetop to oven and vice versa.

Good luck, you will be happy with your final choice.

 

Do you like to cook, or do you just like having fancy stuff?

 

That's a great idea too. We don't have one in this house, but some of the houses we looked at did... and if the layout allows for it... it's not a bad thing to have.

If you shortened the closed in the 3rd Bedroom a bit you could put a door (2nd Bedroom/Den already has enough wall space) and you'd be all set.

 

We don't cook that much, so we didn't get any of the fancy cooktops. Put the money into other places. When we designed the house we did so with that in mind, and that's why we kick ourselves for not doing the double ovens. Even though we don't cook much we entertain... and during the holidays two ovens would make things easier...

 

I think a little of both... I love to cook and entertain alot always have fight night at my house for every pay per view fight that comes on..

Most of the time I am using my BBQ galore Grand Turbo



or my offset smoker but it would be nice to have a nice cooktop indoors that I will enjoy using just as much.

Does anyone have any opinions on range hoods I must admit while i was at a couple of stores I was really amazed at the price of range hoods most of the ones I like were 2500 - 3000... that seems WAY overprice for what is little more then an exhaust fan with a pretty panel...

 

Large laundry rooms are always nice? Have you thought about making it larger for room for a sink and a second refridgerator?

 

the laundry room in my house is too damn small. Just enough room for two machines and to walk in front of them. I wish it was twice as large.

 

Sounds like there's a raging debate about walking through the master bath to get to the dressing room; you could flip them, line the dressing room with folding doors, and have the ability to flex the use of the space. Your bath is large enough to compartmentalize the toilet, in any case; you may not be squeamish about body functions, but some folks are, and the more flex you have in resale, the better off you are. Also, a large room with that many fixtures in it..... if you do treat the toilet as a separate compartment, the rest of the bath may take on the quality of a spa.

The kitchen is too small to be a big kitchen, and two big to be a compact galley. It might work if you eliminate the counters in the lower left corner for the breakfast table, as you noted. Otherwise, that "ell" of counter is nothing more than storage and backup work counter.

You might consider a half-wall between the kitchen and the revised laundry, particularly if you do a breakfast table in that corner. It would make the space seem/feel more open, unless your laundry is messy. That solid wall, given that it is essentially one side of a corridor, doesn't do too much for you, and a half-wall will make the laundry less claustrophobic.

French doors into the den make that room far more accessible to the entertaining/living space, but it is still workable as a guest bedroom, which is, I assume, its backup function.

Next step is to either use the software you have to locate furniture, both existing and proposed; it is really the only way to "test" a floor plan.