Looking for feedback on kitchen layout
Taryn Mildenhall
4 years ago
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Comments (21)
how2girl
4 years agoDr Retro House Calls
4 years agoRelated Discussions
Would love some feedback/thoughts our downstairs layout
Comments (4)Hi mrswardy ... thank you for inviting comment on your floor plan. At first glance, my biggest concern with this floorplan is that your garage has the best position on the site in terms of orientation. Located on the north-east, this is the zone that is normally best dedicated to your living areas. There may be obvious requirements though in terms of privatising to the street, etc, that are driving where the garage is located. So I would seek to make the courtyard a little larger, and either not have it roofed, or have it roofed with something translucent, and design things so that sunlight can get over the garage and into that courtyard area (and hence into the back of your living zone). Other changes I would make ... 1. mirror the guest room so the door is entering from the southern end of that room, and entry is away from the front door 2. push the wall with the door to the laundry to the right/east, and shorten the bench in the garage, so you can get internal entry from the garage away from the entry hallway and clean up that hallway wall 3. I recommend seeking a kitchen island of at least 2.4m long, otherwise it can look stumpy in an open plan area 4. you generally want 7.0 - 7.5m from the back of your island bench to fit a dining and living room (the way you have shown) in well - do you have this? 5. I'm not sure how it works with your levels and site, but you may want to consider entering the study from the bottom of the stairs, not the top - and then you can get rid of the door on a corner. Doors on corners of rooms never feel great. 6. Given you have entry to your WC on the entry passageway to your home, it would be good to see if you can rejig things slightly to get the toilet behind the door (with this configuration, the door will always be shut otherwise you'll see the toilet as you walk into the home). You may be able to rejig that ensuite and toilet generally, so you rotate the WC 90 degrees, and rearrange things in the ensuite to accommodate. Also - not sure what the upper floor is doing, but would be good to put a Solatube or similar skylight in that room - an internal toilet will be dark and musty without it. 7. You may want to consider screening your courtyard from your service area - I'm not sure where you are geographically, but if that courtyard is designed properly with access to sunlight (particularly in winter) it will be a lovely spot - and you may not want visibility of your clothesline to enjoy it fully. The design generally will feel great if you can capture the northern light well, and clean up some of the doorways etc along that entry passageway. It has a very orthogonal and ordered feel to it - which is great - as you'll walk in the front door and continue through the living space, and have the home all open up in front of you. There is a nice sense of compression and expansion going on in that journey into the home, that will make that living/kitchen/dining area feel lovely and open. Hence, I would seek to 'clean up' that entry passageway of its clutter ... the doorways running off it, the view of the toilet, etc. It's quite a narrow entry, and so to make that journey into the home feel calm and generous, and for your focus to be on arriving in those rear living areas, you want to keep your focus forward. Keep walls clean for family photos and artwork, not doorways that lead you into service areas like toilets, garages, etc. I've made some of these markups very quickly on a screenshot - hope it makes sense! Hope that helps - if you're still challenged with understanding it, it may be worthwhile requesting your designer model this in 3D so you can 'walk-through' it. Best wishes - creating a new home, whilst a little nervewracking to 'get it right', it can also be really exciting, Regards Amelia Lee www.undercoverarchitect.com amelia@undercoverarchitect.com...See MoreLooking for feedback on floor plan.
Comments (18)great, has the plumbing already been installed as there could be some other options but it's always good to have external access to a place to walk in with dirty shoes, to have an air lock to save letting out all your heat and have outside access to the toilet through the rear or front entries but hope you notice that this is at the expense of the original built in shelves in the family room and increases the family room deck to allow for the doorways to the rear mudroom (and bonus external sliding door off the study) btw i've also enlarged the south entry foyer to allow for enough space to walk through with the door open and for several people to stand there at once and strongly suggest you consider sliding cavity doors (full height?) to separate the front entry from family room and family room from bedrooms to zone sound and heating..should be a gorgeous house...See MoreLooking for feedback generally with layout
Comments (9)Gas is for dinosaurs ;) I'd go an all electric house, electric oven, induction cooktop, RC A/C for heating/cooling (they are very energy efficient heaters), electric (or heat pump) hot water, bottle gas for the BBQ. Couple this with a large solar PV system (5kW inverter, 5-6kW panels) & you'll greatly reduce energy bills. Design your roof to accommodate this PV system (not a roof with a million little triangles). If you're around the Central Coast, a well designed house should require little to no active heating/cooling. It's all about getting the orientation right, & letting the sun do it's work, heating your house in winter, & shading it in summer. My parents apartment in Sydney is designed this way. They never turn the heater on, & they use the AC a couple of times a year, for an hour or two in hot summer nights. Designing with orientation in mind is called "passive solar design". More can be found here, http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design Simply put, it's about locating your living areas to the north, where they will be heated by the sun in winter, & minimising western windows, which overheat a house on summer afternoons. Unfortunately you have a northern frontage, which limits your scope to locate living areas facing north, but I'd still consider locating an additional living space to the north, in lieu of the master bed. I'd at least remove the northern portion of the verandah, as it will eliminate any winter sunshine from entering your home. An appropriate length eave, which admits winter sunshine, while shading summer sun, is a much better idea. With an interesting roofline you could have north facing clerestory windows, which would allow northern sunshine deeper into your house. Your other major concern would be west facing windows. West facing bedroom windows are a particularly bad idea, making bedrooms unbearably hot on summer evenings. So I'd consider flipping the back section of the house, locating the bedrooms on the eastern side. The bathroom would take the brunt of the western sun in summer. As would the rumpus, which is not ideal, but it's better than western bedrooms. Shade any western windows with vertical awnings, trees or use low-e glass. I'd actually consider flipping the whole plan, also locating your living area & verandah in the west. This verandah will then shade your house from harsh afternoon sun. Of course other things must be considered. Views, privacy, access to cooling breezes, whether your outdoor living area will be comfortable to be used on hot summer evenings, just to name a few....See MoreHouse layout - feedback please
Comments (25)the floor of the northern verandah downstairs can be any size to accommodate space for socializing but the upstairs balcony forming the roof over the verandah should be the minimum size to avoid shading the downstairs living areas when you want northern sunshine in cold weather (a simple market umbrella can provide extra outdoor shade in summer) ...you could even consider a Juliette/French style balcony upstairs so that you need only have fenced doors opening off the upstairs living room to enhance enjoyment of the views without stepping outside onto a balcony although as little as a 90cm deep balcony would allow space to stand outside without creating too much shade downstairs .....the issue of upstairs for elderly residents could potentially be overcome with a stairlift on easy access central stairs with wide entry and exit....a bigger downstairs guest room (bed 1) would be useful for now and later as a master suite and a future north facing pool house could incorporate a guest/pool bathroom...it could be useful to explore other ideas for a side entry but my suggested shorter front entry incorporating the stairwell keeps the void central and makes more direct access to every part of the house eg kitchen to front verandah and allows the side garden to be secure and private from uninvited guests and i'll make another plan with downstairs bedrooms reversed to see how that could work...See Moreoklouise
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4 years agolast modified: 4 years agokleversha
4 years agoTaryn Mildenhall
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4 years agoTaryn Mildenhall
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4 years agoTaryn Mildenhall
4 years agoTaryn Mildenhall
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4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoKitchen and Home Sketch Designs
4 years agoAnne Monsour
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Kitchen and Home Sketch Designs