Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2012 at 11:21am

Your kitchen isn't set up in the traditional work triangle.

If you plan to entertain, consider what it will be like to be a guest entering the house for the first time. The front door of my parents' house opens onto a stair landing, and new guests always ask "up or down"? Your plan has similar issues going from the front door to the living room.

Consider giving up that walk-in master closet for another bathroom. But I come from a family with 3 girls. (We actually never fought about the bathroom, because the house had 3 and we're 6 years apart, so spread out in bathroom-hogging years.)

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Permalink Reply by Cameron G. on October 5, 2012 at 3:26pm

Appreciate the thoughts.

Addressing the kitchen below...

As far as the entrance goes, if I had unlimited room, I would give myself more entryway space.  As it is, my wife's parent's house has an entry just like this, and they have issues with enough space there, but they've never had any confusion that the party might be in the upstairs bedrooms.

The divided bathroom I hope will help eliminate clogging--we will put two bedrooms in the basement eventually, and hopefully there won't be more than two teenagers per bathroom.

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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2012 at 3:31pm

In your case, it wouldn't be "up or down?" It'd be "straight or left?" The only easy fix is to switch the library and living room, so the living room is closer to the front door.

It also depends on the kind of entertaining.

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Permalink Reply by David F. on October 5, 2012 at 1:14pm

A few things.  

I like the layout on the ground floor it really sets up the open living floor plan.  The refrigerator is in an odd location.  If you normally pull out all you need in one shot and then prep and cook you are okay, but that is a little odd.

I would suggest you flip the location of the nursery door to be close to the master bedroom.  It will change the view up from the stair way but it will be closer to the path you will move with little ones.  Over all I really like the house layout.  I would have flipped the wardrobe and the master bath but each their own.

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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2012 at 1:24pm

+1

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Permalink Reply by Cameron G. on October 5, 2012 at 4:27pm

I'm open to suggestions on the fridge, but I don't see a better position for it--do you have any ideas?  There is still something of a work triangle, just a very narrow one.  Traditionally it would go on the wall where the desk and pantry door is, but if we did that, we would have to eliminate one of those things, and then it would be a really long distance from the fridge to the sink.  (We really, really want a desk in the kitchen, although most people disagree, we think they're nuts.)

That's a good idea about the nursury door, the problem is that the door will open into the closet, but I'm thinking about moving the closet towards the wall and having it take up some of the room in the master closet, which would fix that.  

We had a draft where the wardrobe and master bath are flipped, but walking through the closet seemed a bit weird--we could put doors, like mirrored doors, on the closet, but that would defeat a lot of the purpose of a walk in closet... thoughts?  

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Permalink Reply by David F. on October 10, 2012 at 9:22am

Refrigerator 

Actually when I was looking at houses I realized that having 2-3 little refrigerators might be better.  Rather then setting up the place where the monster fridge goes set up a few smaller spaces.  What you then can do is set the veggie fridge to the right settings to produce, and the dairy / meats fridge to a colder setting and have a dedicated freezer.   Then you can set the fridges close to the appropriate work station if you co-cook.  

Nursury

I see the problem if the closet door hitting the room entry door but I don't see that as a big deal.  However the visual of the door at the top of the landing may be a decorating problem.

Closet

As to the walk through design.  Make the change your alternate design to make the closed part on the left your walk through passage as a mirrored wall and  then take the area to the right as a walk in closet you can get a nice space with dedicated areas for all you and your wife's soft kit.  You might even make part of the wall on the left in the walk through an angled shoe shelf if depending your collection to get them out of the closet area.

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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2012 at 4:45pm

Is the fridge in the pantry? I assumed it was where I see you have big cabinets by the range. Now I see I'm wrong. This is what happens when you make someone with no professional training read architects' sketches for work.

If there's enough clearance, I'd put the fridge where that block of cabinets is. This is still not ideal. (I saw the issue even when I thought the cabinets were the fridge.) But at least they'll be a place to put stuff down ("To make pasta, I need fresh spices, tomatoes, and sausage. Eek! This tomato is rotten and dripping on the floor! And the sink is across the room!"). Otherwise, I'd try to move the sink and range to get the fridge in that L of counter space.

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Permalink Reply by Jax on October 5, 2012 at 4:47pm

Looks pretty good. One thing I have always wanted (and you may not) is a whirlpool/tub that fits two people. My parents have one and I loved it as a kid and would enjoy it as a husband/wife now. Would want that and the shower. Maybe if you switched the wardrobe and bathroom it would fit.

Edit - I see you did that in your draft plans.  I don't mind the walk-in closet that way. It depends on if you want to get dressed in the closet/wardrobe area or just keep your clothes in it and get dressed in the bedroom.

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Permalink Reply by Shane on October 5, 2012 at 5:03pm

My thoughts:

- Pocket doors create more wall/floor space.

- I'd flip the upstairs laundry and bath, and make it a Jack and Jill.

- I detest attached garages, they always end up as household overflow storage, but if you must, you must. 

- I like the position of the pantry, a slick option I saw (once), was the back of the pantry opened to the garage.  Dry goods were loaded directly from the vehicle, and common consumables were rotated without any fuss.

- I dig the great room and front porch, with a library for private study.  I wouldn't put the passthrough from the living room into the library for that reason.  And I need more bookshelves than what you have shown.  If you have a coat rack/secret door going from the foyer to the library you eliminate Rebekah's dilemma and introduce a whole lot of win.

- Modern kitchens are designed around work/prep spaces, rather than a triangle, as there's quite often more than one cook in the kitchen at a time.

- Since you have a large pass through pantry right there, I'd take out the stand up cabinet and push the fridge against the wall.  giving you more counter space.

- Consider putting the sink in the island.  I've had it both ways and am undecided about which I like best.  On the one hand it lets you talk with your guests during clean up.  On the other it takes away the ability to talk to your guests during prep.  I lean towards the sink being on the island, because I don't like talking when I prep.

- Consider putting attic trusses throughout, if you're not looking to vault your ceilings.

- Definitely consider putting an apartment above the garage with a private entrance.  You get an instant guest/in-law apartment, a transition for your kids the summer between highschool and college, and added revenue if you ever want to rent it out.

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Permalink Reply by Tyler M. on October 5, 2012 at 5:24pm

This guy.

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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on October 5, 2012 at 5:29pm

On frosty mornings, I notice it melts over garages hours before it melts over living spaces. Consider this when you're deciding on insulation.

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