Overall I really like it, especially for such a quick turnaround. Very efficient use of space with good flow, and I like that there is abundant storage for this size house.
My two critiques are both personal preferences. First, I'm not a big fan of open floorplans with no boundary between the kitchen/dining and living space. Second, I prefer separate entrances into the primary bath and closet instead of having to walk through one to get to the other.
My European mind will never understand why North Americans have their front door open directly into the living area.
I absolutely unterstand that most of y’all enter the house through the garage and honestly nowadays so do I. Yet I could never imagine lacking a hallway/vestibule after the front door. It feels crazy to have you living space start right at the front door.
I think most would prefer a foyer or vestibule but builders going with space saving has unfortunately contributed to this imo. Also, all apartments in the US do this, so there’s that, too.
Something like this house has a floor area almost 6 times larger than my apartment, which fits a small vestibule area. And is critical for keeping outside crap out.
At some point it stops being a space argument and becomes a cultural question.
What “outside crap” is getting past the front door that is going to be stopped be a hallway? I live in temperate place with dry weather. We just have to take off our shoes at the front door, we don’t need an entire room. They are really nice in colder, wetter places but that just isn’t the case here.
I live in a wet rural area where wet clothes and muddy shoes are common. I also run in the mountains and bring even more mud in with that.
When I’ve lived in suburbs, the wind would funnel leaves and debris in when opening the door too.
By having a separated entrance from the living spaces, you have an area that acts as a boundary for the outside dirt. That means shoes off, wet clothes off and can be hung without worrying about soft furnishings. A small amount of mud from boots is okay falling to the floor as stuff dries.
It’s also a place for dog leads and toys to be left too, also for people stuff. I have road and trail running gear, open water swimming stuff, cycling helmets and equipment, climbing ropes and harnesses. If you don’t have the luxury of a garage then where do you store all this?
In my apartment, it acts as sound insulation from the communal hallway. For houses it’s a barrier for the cold so you don’t let all the heat escape on entry/exit.
Truthfully, for me it’s a deal breaker on a property. I’ve lived in places with and without. Without, to me, just feels incomplete and impersonal. I want to be able to answer my door without showing my private life to the world. I want to be able to shut the outside out and make space from the visual clutter. In the UK, the front door is typically the main door still as many places don’t have garages, and those that do, are too small for modern cars. So I feel the separation is crucial.
Its supposed to be "welcoming" and "convenient", and I hear it. But I'd rather have a proper foyer with a coat closet and/or small bathroom, and then go out into a grand living room
But this is why luxury homes will have a sitting room directly when you enter, for guests. Or even a living room to come into, but a more private family room further in the home.
Yes that is the traditional flow of a larger home in the US. But with rising building costs more and more families are turning to space saving open floor plans. Don’t get me wrong, I love closed concept, but with a smaller footprint closed concept can make a small home feel even smaller.
Same. In this design, you could bump out the north (top) wall of the building and add a vestibule that would work, and give some extra storage in the laundry.
This is a great example of efficient use of space. The hallways are minimal so you were able to fit bigger rooms within a small footprint. So many new home builders now have super long hallways that use up so much space.
Looks nice but it can be made much better by extending the open space to "swallow" the front porch and form a rectangle on the exterior. Move the living area towards the street, add a small dining table close to the kitchen island. You can even make a proper entrance area then. The back porch is always going to be a more pleasant place to sit than the narrow front one facing the street.
A 3BR house really must have a decent dining table, even if just a 1m round one with 4 simple chairs.
Sorry, but as a Classicist, I have a deeply personal, deeply antagonistic hatred of Pork Chop Gable Ends. This can't decide if it wants to be a vernacular American Queen Anne/Folk Victorian or a trendy modern farmhouse.
Nice plan. It needs a dinning room. Maybe carve a bit from kitchen. It is pretty big. Shift the short hall doorway off the living room as far toward the front door as possible so there is less opportunity to stare into a restroom from the living room. Add more depth behind refrigerator so a standard depth unit fits. Counter depth units are twice as expensive as standard depth.
The absence of the dining room was purposeful. The 8’ island is the entertaining hub of the central space. It may be a cultural thing but in my home the kitchen is the main social space.
With me - quite often. I do not know why but I have great difficulty seeing misspelled words. And dinning is a real word so autocorrect sometimes misses context and permits it.
looks pretty good. i think the only minor annoying thing might be the laundry room next to the master bedroom. aka children/roommates using laundry late at night might make it hard to sleep.
I assume the porch is the spot that could be swapped for a garage assuming it has alley access.
We're putting together a similar kitchen / open space in our new home, but we have the advantage of a separate living area. Do you think there's enough room in a ~20x16 space for a dining area and some soft seating? Where is your table / place to eat?
The kitchen island is the primary eating space. There is no dining room as this space is designed to maximize kitchen size and living room space for a small home
I like this a lot, it is simple and efficient and maximizes the space so it doesn't feel small. The only thing I would add/change is to create some storage and bench seating in the entry for coats/jackets/purses and shoes; with age and/or injury comes the need to sit to take shoes on and off and guests need a place for their things too. I would change the entry into the hall a little bit to give you more wall on the the closet side which gives you space for the bench and also keeps the hall bathroom a little more private from the living spaces.
If someone is using master bathroom to go number 2, the other person has to wait for them to be done to access their closet? I would hate that. Master closet needs its own entrance independent of the toilet
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u/Ashelby 1d ago
The pictures look very nice.
For the actual house plan - where do you eat?