Early stages of design – Thoughts
I am in the design process of my house build in Maine. I am trying to build something I can stay in for 20+ years.
Here are the early stages of my plans. I am working with an architect on this, just looking for any and all opinions as the process progresses.
I am really interested in green building and I am slightly regretting getting this far as a single level, large foot print house. Hopefully I can justify it to myself by the large lot size and long term plans.
The exterior is conceptual. The site (11 acres) is almost entirely sloped. It also has ledge. Once a location is finalized, the exterior will be modified. The idea is the garage will be in a lower daylight level. A portion of the driveway will continue up to a first floor level for guest and general use. I am currently thinking full basement in the garage and mechanical/storage space. The rest I would like to do crawl space.
Here are the changes I have identified that I want so far.
-Shed some sq footage
-make dining room anywhere but right when you walk in
-open mud room area to main entry
-possible addition of general closet (bathroom, linen, etc.)
-possible elimination of jog in exterior footprint.
-add mechanical/storage to full foundation. Located to the left as you get to the bottom of the stairs.
-change shower to tub in common bath
-possibly eliminate tub in master.
-wish I had an office in this but do not want to add sq ft.
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I built a the two story house and really, really wish I'd made a bungalow. I also have lots of land, and the amount of material and energy saved by having two stories instead of one are probably not that significant in the long run.
Good feedback, that helps me stick to my original thoughts of wanting one level..
JMLIII,
The most difficult and expensive place for a basement is under a garage. I would consider whether it was necessary, or move it behind the garage where you could still access it from grade as the site slopes.
I have kind of always wanted a basement beneath the basement. But the current plan is the garage is part of the basement. You would go down the stairs and to the right would be the garage, to the left would be at the mechanical space. Outside of the mechanical space would be slab on grade or crawl space.
In old cities multi-level basements are common.
Here in DC, as the city gets built out more excavation is starting to be seen. In residential zones a building footprint can only occupy 40% of the lot are but underground you can build to the property line. So you see houses where the basement is much bigger than the house and then there's a deck or patio over the uncovered part. I know someone who recently built a home with a 21' deep basement, he has a basketball court down there. He figures he might break it into two levels at some point.
JMLIII,
Reading your description again, the fault is mine. I thought you were proposing one under the garage.
I think you have a pretty good preliminary design and look forward to seeing it refined with the grade taken into account.
Thanks! excited for the next rendition and to get working on the site.
JMLIII,
Just as an FYI, I am now in my 10th year of my forever home. Our lot is sloping as well and on lots of rock, so some similar parameters were at play. I nixed the under garage idea. I did keep the basement in part due to rock elevations and expansive clay issues. It is nice to have my shop inside and not in an outbuilding.
I am very grateful for my at grade garage. Keeping the drive clear of snow and slogging in the groceries is MUCH easier on one level. If you insist on the under garage, plan on a dumbwaiter. I would suggest a different kitchen layout to combine that with a bigger pantry, but that is a longer post. Based on the provided isometrics of the house, I am not seeing how you would bring the drive level up for guest and additional parking. The dip and turn to get down to the garage could be quite the Ice Capades come winter.
Not sure just how much abuse you are looking for by asking for comments, but I will note some things and step back.
The front door seems very close to the "porch" roof edge. Ungainly visually and not well protected.
The main roof has a shift in plane at the same location and mostly serves to create a flashing and snow collection problem.
The porch roof off the great room will dump snow down onto the driveway in front to the garage doors.
The support posts will make garage entry and exit most interesting.
The great room actually looks like it will feel small. Depends on total family count. Can't isolate little ones or teens.
Lots of hallway. How big are the bedrooms. A little squeezing to get the office back?
Have you really discussed the laundry placement?
You will tire quickly of tromping through the closet to get to the toilet. The closet will be moist and pickup odors.
Lots of disconnected plumbing needs. Some are on exterior walls and how peepish are your neighbors.
You mentioned rock on the lot. The rock hammer I hired was not my favorite expense, do you really need an 54' long basement?
Looking for all of the abuse!
The house is approached from below. The driveway would turn off at the garage and continue up the slope to get to the ground floor level. My thought was someday down the road, I could build an additional garage at the ground floor level as well. Right now it is done this way for the sake of saving money..
The porches are just thrown on there to show ideas. None are actual until location and grade are finalized.
The job in the foot print is what is causing that plane difference. That is one of the items I am looking to change.
The occupants are my wife, my son, and possibly one more child. What would you do to solve the great room issue?
Yes! I hate the hallways but it is unavoidable really with this foot print.
I want a full laundry room if possible but do not want to add sq ft. Our laundry is in our unfinished basement now and its no big deal. What are you seeing for an issue?
I have two experiences with walk through closets that I really like. I also haven't heard of anyone have any complaints. My mother has had one for more than 10 years with no issues. Have you heard otherwise?
Yeah, I wish I could shorten up some of the plumbing runs. May be able to flip flop the closet and bath in the next design. This house is going to be centered in 11 wooded acres. I do not anticipate any privacy issues.
The partial full/crawl design is intended to mitigate the concerns with ledge and blasting.
JMLIII,
Glad you are up for the abuse. Hope I didn't come off as too abusive.
I guess I will follow up by saying that I disagree about two story versus one re cost distributions. I did a very rough run through on your base plan and if half the wall is 4' to make frost level and half is 8' (too short actually) you come in at just under 50 cu yds. For slabs mostly 3" main and 4" for the garage you can expect close to another 24 cu yds. I won't hazard a guess on what placed costs of 75 cu yds run in your area. You can ask your architect on that.
I dropped almost 60K into all the foundation work which included the radon, drainage, garage aprons and footings for my plan and that was 10 years ago. The plan presented would demand a lot of forms which may increase the costs due to sheer number. Ledge is just another fun expense factor.
I may just be very lazy, but the stretch plan presented reminds me of a home I did extensive work on. A one level ranch of similar dimensions with garage under. Lugging drywall, paint, dropcloths, etc seemed to consume much of my time each day. Currently, you have a 60' plus trek to the fridge from the bedroom and almost 35' to the toilet and another 20' to the bathtub. Potentially the paths you need to take for food, bathing and TV time can become much shorter than what you have put forth. If there is value in suggesting methods of compressing the plan, I can offer some ideas.
For my own home I went with our master suite on the second floor. A first floor en suite created for my dear Mother-in-Law will be our age-in fall back once my knees or heart demands it. You could compress the basic plan footprint by nearly a third if bumping the kids spaces upstairs works for you. I think it would be possible to gain an office and proper size laundry in the process.
Important view directions and a north pointer would be helpful as well. No sense suggesting the master be oriented to a bad view.
Just a couple comments - we're 6 months into building our house and learning every day. First, I hope you're able to soon confirm the site and the topography before going too far with the house design. The slope and aspect can make a huge difference in what's desirable and/or practical.
We worked with an architect and structural engineer, but were (are) very surprised at how some things look on the ground compared to the plans. Our house is one living level and minimally finished basement, ~2,200' per level, about 60' long and 40' wide including a large, covered porch (which we already love). We have a full basement only because the slope of the lot (~10%) and southern aspect cried out for a walk-out basement. We have a very simple roof (long axis E-W, perfect for the 11.5 Kw solar to be installed) with Dutch gables (which look very nice and protect the gables and siding from sun and rain with 24" eaves).
All this since your design has many elements similar to ours. Here are some insights.
1. Our attic is HUGE. With our 6/12 pitch it's like 12' tall. We didn't design anything up there and I was astonished at the size of this.
2. We (fortunately) had a jog in the N (uphill) wall. This is very fortunate because that wall is completely below ground and it thus needs an interior wall, exterior buttress, or jog to support the soil pressure. The initial design from the structural engineer totally torpedoed our basement insulation design. Lesson: there very are important structural considerations with long, straight walls with soil pressure.
3. Many features looked very different on the ground than on the plans. I don't know how to get around this. If topography is important, your survey should be 1' intervals (ours was 2'). Our garage excavation is _much_ larger than we envisioned. Our driveway slope is (fortunately) moderate, but not that of our neighbors. The (very new) code requires max 3% for the first 40' from the road, then a max of 10%. 90% of the driveways near us are WAY steeper than this.
4. Fire code here (Colorado) is very strict, and 99% of people (including architects) don't know it. Here, if your driveway is more than 150' there must be a hammerhead turn-around large enough for large fire trucks. Worth checking out dirveway widths, slopes, etc. if you're in a fire-prone area.
A few comments on your current plans, which I hope fit or will be adapted to your building site.
- as suggested above, swapping the WIC and M Bath makes the plumbing much more efficient. I'd put the mineral wool sound (3") insulation in the walls for a slight improvement.
- I would not put the master toilet right next to what may be the bed-head in the adjacent room. I neither want to listen to someone on the toilet, nor do I want to require someone to listen to me.
- If you want the master suite to be quiet and private, consider placing the kitchen/dining/living room in the middle and the other two BRs on the opposite end of the house from the master suite. If the house were wider, you could place the bathroom and closets in between the bedrooms for sound insulation. Are you wedded to this very narrow and long design, or could you make one end of the house wider? I suspect the long, thin design will also have consequences for your HVAC and electrical.
Good luck with all this!!
JMLIII,
Since I was avoiding my current tile work this weekend, I put together some possible alternatives to the plan you posted.
In the one floor reiteration, I have made many of the circulation paths shorter for parents and longer for the kids. I added in the office you wanted and a separate laundry area with shorter ducting for the dryer. I realize this negated possible view choices that you have shown on the original, so I made a two floor version that puts the kids up the stairs and returned the tub and bedroom to the (mostly) original spaces. I also added a half bath for guests. The upstairs could be twin shed dormers, but you or your architect can fuss with that. These are food for thought ideas.
I did make the pantry a separate and IMHO much more useful feature. I bent the fridge around to help enclose and define the kitchen space as well as make the work triangle more compact. I reduced the size of the aircraft carrier island to make cleaning the top more feasible. The great room area is now four feet deeper from island to wall and I suspect more flexible a space for furniture and people. The original space was nominally 14x28 which I think you would find restrictive both for furniture placement and for people circulating.
Many of my thoughts may very well not suit your lifestyle, entertaining or other driving forces. That's fine as it will serve to bring the nature of your own choices in better focus. johngfc brings up a huge point I missed about long walls. I always end up with so many jogs in things that it did not come to mind. The roof pitch is also a huge variable which might offer different ways to distribute rooms above the main floor. Trusses are easily made to incorporate room space if the pitch allows. A couple of doghouse dormers might serve to provide light, ventilation, and egress needs for bedrooms upstairs.
Best of luck with the process ahead.
Thank you! I am just now seeing this. It's still a work in progress but it has changed a fair amount. I like the changes you made.
The adult bedroom thought was to be more removed/private but inlike your train of thought too. I also like the idea of wrapping the fridge around like that
This is my thought (more of a rant), take it for what it's worth because you mentioned a few times about keep sqft down.
I find most don't consider or weight heavily enough the transition of indoor life to outdoor life especially in cold climates. A vestibule or a mudroom I believe is super important for quality of life, clutter and general aesthetics and compounded in cold climates.
However, when I say vestibule, most think of a 6x6 tiled area at the front door with a 5' closet. If you have a blank canvas, I believe that in good design that it needs to be more. It's the place where you keep all your shoes, coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, keys, tables, benches, full length mirror (that's a requirement from my wife) etc. compound this is you have children or pets. You need enough space for several people to don & doff comfortably, without whacking each other, or to sit to put your boots so you don't have to hop around on one foot or slip a disc trying to do it while standing.
Nothing annoys me more than shoes and boots piling all on top of each other and coats all over the place on the living room couch, on dining room chairs, in the garage, half on stairs. Even worse when guests come over. Essentially Shit everywhere because there's no place for it.
So far in my stupid life, I haven't had the chance to have enough land to design and build a house to how I actually want it. If I did, I would design the entry point large enough to handle all these issues, Because I think it would make the quality of my life better.
Just my thoughts. Most designers or builders would call this superfluous. I think it's just another thing to consider.
Jamie
This is important to me as well. Our current house is small and we don't have any space for this what so ever.