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Some time ago I posted a dream house plan that we were looking to build in Florida in the next couple of years.
Well, that dream got squashed.
There is a power pole at the property line on the east side. It's the end of the overhead lines and there is a guy wire that comes 12 feet into our property. Checked with the electric company and they will not do anything about it. Even if we were to buy half our neighbor's property (doable in Cape Coral), they would shorten the line (heavens know what the cost of that would of been). That kills any garage on the right side of the house.
Hence the second design.
For those not in the know, I named the first thread 'Fresh Meat Floorplan' because I wanted people to tear into it as they are wont to do on City-Data. I got a lot of good insights from that and I want to thank the people that took the time to point out perceived issues. The original thread is here:
This is the second go around and there have been some slight changes. Probably a masonry (cinderblock) exterior wall with a rigid foam covering and still undetermined cladding. Room dimensions are off - garage too narrow, guest bedrooms too big, but as with the first plan, this is more of a 'proof of concept and what's that going to cost me' drawing. I'm not overly thrilled with a rectangular great room, but that is just the way things came out. There might be a soft archway on the entry side of the hallway entrance to visually break it up. AND yes, I know the hallway is long, but it serves the purpose of connecting the long right side of the house which is designed to act as a fence on that side. Guest bedrooms only have the one window and the Laundry, Guest Bath and Office will have higher, transom windows to allow light, but allow privacy. I might have some sort of windows along the hallway to bring natural light into that area. Code says that pools can not be in the front or side yard and since I can't widen the house like in the first design, I just threw up a long, freestanding pony wall so it's in the 'backyard'. Not sure if this will fly, or even if the new pool design is practical, but as before, this is a growing process.
Please do not take dimensions as literal. For what I pay fiverr to do this, I'll make it work later. This is about traffic flow and functionality. The HVAC room is small and closed off because it's more of a air return space for equipment in the attic. The closed off space by the vanity in the Master Bath is still being determined. TV should go on the backside of the Master walk-in closet because of sun issues. I wanted the kitchen separate from the great room to keep smoke, smells and grease away from that area.
That's about it for now. I'll address issues as they come up, so have at it. BRING THE PAIN!
First, I like having direct access to the kitchen from the garage. That way you do not have to carry groceries through the entire house.
I do not see a designated eating area. Will there be a dining table in the great room?
The half bath next to the pool does not have an entrance from inside the house. That will be inconvenient.
If the guest bedrooms are just for guests you might want to consider having the laundry room close to the kitchen or the master bedroom. Ours is in between those two. Having it closer to the pool would be better, too.
How about combining the laundry and pool bath?
The guest bathroom is a long way from guest bedroom #2. Consider putting the guest bedrooms next to each other with the bath in between and the office/den where one of the bedrooms is now, on the front of the house, perhaps. Moving the utility room would gain space for the area now designated as den to be a larger bedroom. If the den is on the front of the house you could have access from the foyer and shorten that long hallway.
First, I like having direct access to the kitchen from the garage. That way you do not have to carry groceries through the entire house.
I do not see a designated eating area. Will there be a dining table in the great room?
The half bath next to the pool does not have an entrance from inside the house. That will be inconvenient.
If the guest bedrooms are just for guests you might want to consider having the laundry room close to the kitchen or the master bedroom. Ours is in between those two. Having it closer to the pool would be better, too.
How about combining the laundry and pool bath?
The guest bathroom is a long way from guest bedroom #2. Consider putting the guest bedrooms next to each other with the bath in between and the office/den where one of the bedrooms is now, on the front of the house, perhaps. Moving the utility room would gain space for the area now designated as den to be a larger bedroom. If the den is on the front of the house you could have access from the foyer and shorten that long hallway.
suzy_q2010,
Thank you for looking this over.
At one point in time, I had the pantry on the other side of the kitchen, next to bathroom since I was not a big fan of having the food storage right next to an exterior door, but that closed off the great room too much. Wanting to shoehorn a lot of the elements of the old design into the new one and needing to have the garage on the left side of the house, it seemed the best solution.
It's a bit small at the moment, but between the island and the sliding glass door is an eating area. No formal dining room. Still not sure how furniture is going to break up the great room, but it might turn into a TV area and a sitting area like with the last plan.
The half bath is just for pool use.
The assembly of the right side of the house is more a compromise of needing those rooms somewhere in the house. We don't anticipate actually having guests over. It's more Wifey gets her office room, and I'll have mine. We had to put closets in there to make bedroom status. The Den will probably be used more as a storage area. Where we live now, our master bedroom is just off the kitchen, garage and laundry room, so we are inclined to have those noisy areas as far away from us this time around. The guest bath does work out in the sense that it's right off the great room.
We originally had the guest bedrooms at a generous 12x12. When we got the first drawings back, the CAD designer made them 14x14. It works since it adds some needed width to the den and other middle rooms, but it also adds a boatload of square footage that has to be paid for. Not sure what will become of that. Overall, the idea was to have a bedroom that overlooks the street and one that overlooks the canal.
This is just something to hand off to the architect when it comes time to get a set of blueprints. Think of it as a collage that you bring to a wedding planner to show them what you want your wedding to be like. They will ask the budget and make changes that will fit the budget. There should be another five feet of kitchen space since the garage should have two 9 foot doors and 3 foot returns between the door and on each side. Can we afford that? Once we get a builder lined up, we shall see.
I liked the "first course" better...
Didn't comment on it because T.Damon and I were on the same wave-length.
Not really following the reason for the guide-wire- it should be in the right-of-way. Which shouldn't effect you- unless that was totally over-looked. Did you consider doing a mirror of the plan- would that have helped?
I'm not going to spend time on a dissertation about the "second course"- just much prefer the "first course".
I liked the "first course" better...
Didn't comment on it because T.Damon and I were on the same wave-length.
Not really following the reason for the guide-wire- it should be in the right-of-way. Which shouldn't effect you- unless that was totally over-looked. Did you consider doing a mirror of the plan- would that have helped?
I'm not going to spend time on a dissertation about the "second course"- just much prefer the "first course".
Any garage on the right side would have to be at least 12 -13 feet away from the property line to allow for the driveway to clear the wire. The guy wire comes across the front of the house because it's the end of the line (power poles down the street).
The street ends roughly 60 feet from the property line, so the angle of any driveway becomes more severe as it moves closer to the canal. Also, garages are usually the closest point to the street, so a two-car garage right would block a lot of the view of the street.
We prefer the first version, too. It was probably over budget with design, but we had to start somewhere.
You enter the house into a dead zone area that's rather large and promises to also be rather dark. Your entry and living/great room is effectively a long and wide hallway rather than a great room. Then you have a long interior hallway parallel to this great room that has no natural light other than from the doorway from the great room. It's also awkward to me.
How will you arrange the furniture in this great room? Will there be a tv? Where's the tv? Then where will be the sofas/chairs to face the tv. Will your sofa has its back to the doors to the pool or the front doors? Your kitchen is also separate from the main great room area. There are pros and cons to this.
There are millions of floorplans out there. How did this particular one surface?
You enter the house into a dead zone area that's rather large and promises to also be rather dark. Your entry and living/great room is effectively a long and wide hallway rather than a great room. Then you have a long interior hallway parallel to this great room that has no natural light other than from the doorway from the great room. It's also awkward to me.
How will you arrange the furniture in this great room? Will there be a tv? Where's the tv? Then where will be the sofas/chairs to face the tv. Will your sofa has its back to the doors to the pool or the front doors? Your kitchen is also separate from the main great room area. There are pros and cons to this.
There are millions of floorplans out there. How did this particular one surface?
DXBtoFL,
Thank you for your thoughts.
Yeah, I'm not really thrilled with the Great Room. Like you said, a lot more rectangular than it needs to be, but at this stage, that's what it's looking like. Please remember, this is probably not it's final form; more a better version of a napkin sketch and a lot less arm waving when trying to explain things to an architect. We know it has to be garage-left, we want the master bedroom to be in the back left corner and somewhat secluded from the rest of the house. The pool that is half covered by the roof line is somewhat wish-listy. Most of the big-ticket items that you will never see like better insulation, whole-house dehumidifier, 300% to hurricane code, geothermal HVAC.
At this point in time, all I can think of is transom windows along the hallway from the great room to let some natural light in. Hopefully we will be able to install as much glass as possible around the pool area to bring in as much light as possible. Not sexy, but it would be a start.
The TV is planned against the master bedroom closet wall to keep direct evening sun from shining on it. I'm thinking a couch faces it; dividing the room in half. Maybe a sitting area between it and the entry? If it's too long, a fake archway might help visually divide the room. Just something that pops out 6-8 inches as a beam running from floor to ceiling to floor again.
Kitchen is separated from the rest of the house because I feel it should be. Dislike the idea of smoke, grease, smells, wafting out to the rest of the house. Kitchen will probably end up a tad bigger if all goes well.
This is the evolution of the first floor plan I came up with for our lot. The link for that thread is in my first post. I admit that I am trying to shoehorn a lot of the ideas that was in the first into the second. Once again, this is for educational purposes when it comes time to actually make a blueprint.
"Checked with the electric company and they will not do anything about it". Did you offer to cover their cost for removing the aerial line and burying the service ?
Sometimes that gets their attention.
"Checked with the electric company and they will not do anything about it". Did you offer to cover their cost for removing the aerial line and burying the service ?
Sometimes that gets their attention.
Regards
Gemstone1
That would probably entail burying 80+ feet of power line just to get to the edge of my property. If I had that kind of money, I would own a different lot.
Here are some possible fixes to the flaws I saw in your floor plan.
Close off the entry area by putting a wall between that space and the rest of the great room area. It can have a very large arched doorway or columns, but it needs something to separate the two parts. It will look and feel much better.
Move the kitchen pantry to adjacent to the powder room so that you can have the corridor / egress from the entry area to the kitchen flush against the garage wall. The main reason for doing this is to be able to have the suggested new wall between the entry area and the great room, which I envision being in the middle of the current doorway space between the kitchen and entry area. Otherwise you have to push this wall back into the great room area and having an unnecessarily large entry area.
I would have the doorway to the guest bedroom corridor in the entry hall area, pretty much adjacent to the door to Guest Bedroom 1. And then another doorway between the corridor and great room at the far end of that corridor, by Guest Bedroom 2 (so this corridor would have two doorways, at either end). The advantage of this is instead of a large open doorway between the great room and guest bedroom corridor, you have a long wall, which makes it much easier to have a place for your entertainment system set up. Your sofas and chairs can be oriented to both the entertainment system set up and the doors to the pool in that classic sitting arrangement.
The remaining question I have is where is your intended dining area?
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