Building our first home - would like feedback on the floorplan
Joy Enriquez Adan
8 years ago
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☆★☆★ Floorplan feedback for our narrow [] block
Comments (6)Hi Penelope, Congratulation in your new home project, alway a great and existing time even if sometimes it can strain communications and not to mention the budget. In the end, it will all be worthwhile especially if you can get good advice and make good decisions.There may be a few things that you might like to consider in the proposed design; Show the north point, I know you stated that north is at the back but it would be and advantage to know where east and west are (Morning sun and setting sun). You gave a good description of your family but not som much of the area where you are located. Small town, provincial, City, traffic at front and neighbors location and noise sources would help. Required planning setbacks - if any - are unknown they may be of use and also the neighbors, house line setback. Ground Floor: It appears you are building Boundary to Boundary at the front, and space for the entry may be limited, however, this is where you come to and leave every time you interact with your house. I would allow more design opportunity to the front entry, at least a bit more width - rearranging of the bedroom might help. The Master bedroom seems to be of good size but the relationship to the bathroom and robes means that you may get mold in your robes - warm long showers on cold winter days even if you have a good exhaust fan you will still get mold in your shoe, suits and linen over the long term. The laundry space seems to large, and badly arranged especially with a flow through from the garage. It might be an advantage to redesign the laundry to take advantage of the space under the stairs and provide an airlock from the garage to the main house. The garage at the moment has a door into the main house - this is great for convenience but a potential health hazard fro small children and pets as car exhausts fumes will come directly into the main living areas (Car exhaust fumes are heavier than air and tend to linger close to the floor). These fumes are toxic and will build up over time on any absorbing surface like walls, curtains, small children and pets The garage door seems rather small, considering that you may buy other vehicle types in the long run like bikes, bicycle, and lawn mower. The pantry is a good size, but as a walk through pantry, you loose a lot of space and functionality, also human trafic in pantryes seem not to aid in good food management. There seem to be no space for a freezer, either in the pantry or the kitchen, you mighty resolve this with a large fridge but a separate freezer can be an advantage. The arrangement of the kitchen in relation to the lounge and the dining area might be improved to have the dining area where the lounge is - seems odd having to walk across the travel zone with the plates to get to the dining area, you may have to rethink this area. There seems to be a lot of glass (windows and doors) in the living area - energy costs will be high in the long run and you may have difficulty in achieving the correct star energy rating for the house. I like the fact that you have a good, children and adult separation by having the main bedroom downstairs, but if you have a lot of use for a downstairs office you may need to rearrange this idea or redesign to squeeze some space downstairs. This would depend greatly on the priority the office was given in the brief and your lifestyle. First Floor area All your bedrooms upstairs are double bedrooms, this might be your specific requirement but, on a small site where space is at a premium it seems overly generous. From the top of the stair to the entry of the two front bedrooms the circulation space is excessive - waste of space, you should redesign this to get back some of the space for other areas - at the least a closed off office. Also, an office in the current location is to exposed to do any meaningful work, there is the potential for too much visual and noise exposure and human interaction. Your upstairs toilet has a door opening inwards, this is illegal unless you provide panic hinges, inward opening doors in toilets are not very comfortable to use especially if you are young. old, disabled or pregnant. The upstairs bathroom has really to much waste of space for two appliances, some redesign would help greatly in getting back some space. Your retreat area upstairs certainly is of good size, but it might help you to show all the furniture layout, so as to see which is functional space and which is circulation space. There may be other areas that may require rethinking, it might help to have some 3D's of the spaces showing the furniture layouts so as to gain a better understanding of the functionality of the whole area. I hope this is of some help, it would be interesting to see the elevations and how the house develops its character, considering what may be your intention. I think to get a better understanding you would need a few 3D views so as to fully understand how the house may look from the outside, after all this is where you come home to when you are happy, sad, tired and all the other emotions one life experiences on your way home, and you would like the entry to be welcoming to you and your loved ones. I would be happy to further comment on your proposal. Michael Manias - mm407p@gmail.com...See MoreFeedback on 'simple', rural eco house floor plan, with views.
Comments (10)Hi and thanks for your feedback. The rear building might now move further around to the north of the !7 acre rural block (2+ hours from Melbourne), where there is a flatter patch. We are now hoping to make it 2 story, with the storage shed below and living above. That way the huge views to the south and east can be seen over the top of the house. The idea is to build the shed (with studio accom) hopefully at the end of 2020, as a place to stay while the house building starts towards the end of 2021, when we will have the funds, fingers crossed. The width of the building area is only about 30 metres before it dips away a bit steeply to the east and west. We hope to avoid too much excavating for a slab (for thermal mass) but may need to consider stumps if the slab is far more costly. Looking at Carbonlite floor system as a reluctant alternative... A local architect has done the initial design to maximise the views and northern sun. We think the slight kink in the middle will add complexity to the roof so the kink can go. It is a big 'entry' which might need to go to cut costs but we do want an 'air lock' entry... The hallway along the bedrooms is intended to warm up in winter, ideally trombe wall style. We hope to keep the house to about 150 sq meters- we don't need bigger. The council has indicated where the dispersal field for the septic tank needs to go... We love the reverse brick veneer principle. The architect has been fairly open to our ideas but says the budget will be tight at approx $3,500 per sq meter. How does an internal masonry spine work? We figured a continuous skillion roof would be simpler and cheaper- going for a rural shed look......See Moreseeking feedback on new build floorplan
Comments (53)Hi Sara, It's difficult to find a plan that is orientated correctly & fits all your needs isn't it. But keep looking, & see if you can find something out modify a plan by flipping out, or making small changes. As many of others have mentioned, you are in the enviable position of having a wide block with a northern rear aspect. Use that northern aspect to it's full potential! Stretch the floorplan at the rear, across most of the with of the block. So try to locate the majority of your living areas at the rear of the home. The living room, the dining room, & the kitchen. I think I read that you're not a fan of open plan? How about broken plan, to break things up? Western sunlight is harsh on summer afternoons & evenings. So although some of the most recent plans have both facing living areas, I also see west facing bedrooms, which is a bad idea. Try to locate bedrooms on the south & east. So the master in the SE corner, the minor bedrooms to the eastern side. Unfortunately something has to face west. Try to locate rarely used rooms here if possible, certainly not occupied bedrooms. So the garage in the SW corner. The second multi-purpose living area/kid's retreat, or possibly the main bathroom, the laundry, butler's pantry if you're having one. Possible the alfresco in the NW corner. If you want to read up more on building a comfortable, energy efficient home, start with this great website, https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design...See MoreFEEDBACK REQUESTED ON FLOOR PLAN FOR NEW ACREAGE BUILD IN SE QLD
Comments (10)as already suggested it would be useful to consider acreage floor plans that take full advantage of so much space but i've redrawn your plans to scale to show more detail of how your rooms rooms would fit together and total about 315sqm and some simple variations to consider but, having built homes on acreages, we've found that without the shelter of neghbouring homes it's useful to create extra sun and rain sheltered areas by widening the whole house by having a garage separated from the main house with a connecting breezeway to create an extra carport and/or undercover play area and have covered mud areas at every entry...See Morebargainhunter
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