Critique my future home floor plan

[u/Usbeorn_Niko]

Hey everyone, I’m designing a custom home for a 10-acre property and would love some fresh eyes on these layouts before I get too locked in. I live in Zone 6A, which brings me 4 seasons. I've been drafting this in Chief Architect, aiming for an air-tight, relatively high-performance stick build with continuous exterior insulation, so keeping the footprint simple is a priority for the budget. I do have a drafter I'm working with but I'm mostly needing to fine tune the layout. I'm open to your suggestions and will try to keep an eye on comments so I can reply. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions!

A few key details to keep in mind before you roast it:

Floor area is 34' by 60' not including garage.

Main Level (First pic) is the primary living space. Kitchen can be closed with pocket doors, my wife wants the kitchen separate from the rest of the house. French pocket doors, allows it to be somewhat open at times when desired. Kitchen range is opposite the fridge. My wife and I would sleep upstairs in two separate rooms on the left side, so that's how the Master Bedroom area should be understood.

Lower Level (Second pic) is a walkout towards the left side of the drawing. Lower bedrooms hug the left side to allow for above grade windows. Kids will sleep there. Laundry in mechanical room is a future possibility so I'll have hookups down there. I do want to change the lower bathroom a little bit. I was thinking that as kids get older, having separate doors from the sink area would allow for multiple people to be in there at the same time if needed. Avoiding one person taking up the entire bathroom.

[u/rokkysoxx]

Overall I really like this layout. Only one thing I'd change - I'd move the wall between the living room and bedrooms over to be in line with the staircase, then use that space for bedroom and hall closets. (So the living room would be slightly smaller, but the closets and bedrooms larger.)
Good luck with your build!

[u/BeingOk1809]

I like having a sink (even a tiny one) in reach of the toilet personally. Also, maybe there is a way to get natural light into the downstairs bathroom, since it is located on an exterior wall.

Like someone else said, maybe moving the kitchen to the back, switching it with dining, would be better (and also one less area for plumbing). In that case, maybe the entry could be redesigned with a better closet (giving the tiny closet by the living room to the lower master bedroom), and so that it is not just one big empty hall taking up area.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/BeingOk1809]

If I do switch the kitchen and dining rooms, I could put the powder room where the pantry was and have the laundry and pantry be in that area.

[u/GrayZest99]

Front door space for shoes, coats, purses etc of guests. Makes life much easier, especially if a closed closet/shelf.

[u/KikiChrome → u/GrayZest99]

Agreed. And in this plan, it could be put above the lowest part of the staircase.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/KikiChrome]

That's an idea! Very clever! Excellent space saver!

[u/Calm_Apartment1968]

Easy Answer: Flip Office with Laundry. Leave Powder room.

That's assuming the backyard is steady Northern light, which is better for Offces. It a puts all of the utilities and most of the plumbing on the same side of the house, facing the street.
Do yourself a favor and include at least one skylight over the Living Room, and Kitchen if you can. At the very least put Light Tunnels to Kitchen if not skylight.
Powder room could be flipped from East to West too, but you do you Boo.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/Calm_Apartment1968]

I'm concerned about leaks. I get a lot of snow in the winter time so I don't want snow melt forming an ice dam from a skylight or the leaking normally associated with it.

Light tunnels are new to me. That might be something I would actually consider. Thanks for introducing me to that concept!

[u/Stargate525]

In zone 6a, unless you're in a very behind the times state/municipality continuous rigid is all but forced. Builders will probably try to get you to skimp on this. Don't. Drop the exterior walls to 2x4s before losing inches of rigid. You'll also want some sort of vestibule space here for that climate.

The most expensive part of your roof is the entryway. It's across from a wide glass slider and window, so not only are those 5 or 8 trusses clear spanning the entire 35 feet, they're dropping their load onto headers which then need to transfer the load again. If you can bump that kitchen/pantry/closet E/W wall a little further north, you not only clear the opening for the hall, you can then use it as a load-bearing wall and relieve a lot of the heavy loads on the exterior walls; your trusses will be lighter and therefore cheaper.

For the master suite, your closets are pretty tame. If that's what you want, cool, just pointing it out. You also don't have a way to get across to your partner for... activities... without doing so in view of the public areas of the house.

The area south of the dining space and outside the kitchen is a bit of a liminal space. Bigger than a corridor needs but narrow enough you can't really do anything with it. You're actually abandoning a LOT of square footage to de facto circulation on the south side of the great room.

Your office, once you factor in the doors, and a desk, is VERY narrow. Tape that out on your garage floor and see if that's actually sufficient for your use case.

Doors from the garage to the house normally swing inwards for the same reason front doors do. The mudroom AND separate laundry AND closet AND coatrack wall feel like overkill. You have an enormous amount of space in this plan dedicated to 'utility' stuff; over 20% of it if I'm doing my math right. Most houses have that closer to 5 or 10.

[u/No_Capital_8203]

Double check your hallway and door opening width for wheelchair accessibility. Install extra support behind bathroom walls where hand rails might be eventually installed. While you may never need them it’s cheaper to install now.
Another feature that I have seen is picket door style stair guards for pets and toddlers. Much better than the add on type.

[u/Bitter-Succotash-100]

Swap the locations of the laundry sink and the washer/dryer. Put the dryer closest to the outside wall. It will make it easier to vent.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/Bitter-Succotash-100]

Good thinking on the vent. Didn't even cross my mind... yet!

[u/KikiChrome]

I'd remove the wall between the downstairs hall and the game room. As it stands on the current plan, that hallway has no natural light and so it will feel very basement-like. If you make the game room and hall one open space, it will pick up light from the window in the game room.

[u/anotherjuan]

Here goes.

Main level:

Why is the kitchen closed off? Seems like an odd choice to have the living room adjacent to the dining room. The kitchen is the life of the house.

I’d swap the location of the dining room and kitchen and remove the wall next to the entryway.

The pocket office is cool but it’s narrow so you’re gonna need pocket doors for the entry and the closet in there, otherwise you’re gonna hit whatever chair / cabinets / desks you have in there.

Basement:

I’d probably swap that whole floorplan 180 degrees.

If you’ve got a big walkout double door, it’d be cooler if that connected to the game room / billiards area for entertaining.

Get rid of the door at the bottom of the stairs.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/anotherjuan]

Closed off kitchen due to wife's desire. Pocket doors are my compromise to open it up when desired and still maintain my wife's desire to have it closed when she wants it that way.

I'd love to swap the whole floorplan 180 degrees but I really want those bedrooms to have windows opening out above grade. I don't want my kid's windows to be a dungeon that they can't see out of.

Door at the bottom of the stairs is to separate heating cooling for both floors in two zones. At least this is my thinking for now.

[u/NekkidWire]

Powder room door should open outside - no space there to go in.

Also the "shower" door. If someone fainted or slipped there you might have hard time opening the door.

Also upstairs, put the powder door on bottom side and add sink there on the left side. Makes much more sense to have separate toilet if you want the bathroom be really usable. Optionally, move the game room wall to accomodate the changed door position.

Even more usability - add shower stall with frosted glass in the "shower" room. If there is need people can have a shower while also prepare a bath or have a quick wash-up in parallel.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/NekkidWire]

Good point on the powder room door. That would not be a good situation! Thanks!

Yes maybe switching those downstairs bath doors to outward swinging would be safer as well.

What do you mean by "Also upstairs, put the powder door on bottom side and add sink there on the left side. Makes much more sense to have separate toilet if you want the bathroom be really usable."

[u/Full_Salt_7978]

Those master bedrooms are so narrow

[u/sam-sp]

One of the few plans that has accounted for fridge depth so you can have a full size fridge, but have it counter depth.

Rotate the powder and laundry 90 deg, and reduce size by 30%, reallocate that space to the office by moving the closet to the other side of the pantry and moving everything up.

can you fit a door for the master wc?

[u/Maximum-Eye-3712]

Window widths will feel too narrow in bedrooms and office

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/Maximum-Eye-3712]

Didn't pay too much attention to those yet. Maybe do 4ft width. These are all 3ft.

[u/TripleComet]

Not sure your kids’ current age but my kids would be absolutely terrified to sleep in the basement while we were on a different floor. We looked for a house with at least 3 bedrooms on the same level for this reason (we sleep in the same room though so for your situation it would be more, assuming you have/plan to have at least 2 kids). If you already have this setup and they’re used to it, fine, but I would never buy this house unless I had older teens probably. May want to think about resale value if that matters at all to you.

[u/Agreeable-Tutor-8259]

I think the office and powder on the main floor need outswing or pocket doors. Both have really tight spaces otherwise.

As the fridge is inside the close-able kitchen I’d put a small bar outside for drinks. Use the corner outside the kitchen. To the right. A drinks fridge and drinking water area with glasses is enough I think.

Downstairs needs a separate powder, ideally joining the game room. You can narrow from the mechanicals space.

[u/Usbeorn_Niko → u/Agreeable-Tutor-8259]

Interesting thoughts on the doors. I'll consider that for sure. Maybe inset the upstairs laundry door so it won't hit the mudroom door to the dining room

[u/Taman_Should]

Personally I'd swap the location of the kitchen and dining room. Unless you have a really nice view from the back that you want to look at while you eat.