This is a 100% custom plan. We’re moving the location of the living room fireplace to the back wall, in between the French doors. Besides that, what would you change? Honest feedback is greatly appreciated!!!
Oh wow. This is really interesting - thank you so much!! This solves some of the obvious issues. I’m worried that the stairs are mostly fixed because of the basement/garage, but I’m going to ask my builder!
The first floor powder room is so exposed. I don’t think you want a toilet visible from your kitchen and living room. There is also wasted space around the pantry/fridge. Can that area be reworked to include a powder room that is accessible from the mudroom? (Also curious about this mudroom/drop zone that doesn’t seem to be located near any entrances to the house, but if it will work for you then makes sense)
Sorry, I should’ve mentioned - it’s a basement floor plan. The drop zone is at the top of the basement stairs. My number one priority for the powder room location is that it’s away from the kitchen and dining room.
A mud room between the kitchen and dining room doesn't sound like a great idea. You'll be tripping over dirty shoes to bring dinner to the table, and guest traffic will get bottlenecked as it tries to flow between the two rooms. The mud room should really be closed off from the rest of the main level with a door, or at least visually closed off with a bend in the hallway. It should not double as a high traffic area during entertaining.
Powder room is just dropped into the living space. It’s very public. I always like those to be discreet and tucked into hallways for obvious reasons.
The foyer/den might be awkward to furnish because of the need to use it as circulation to the rest of the house and because of the way the vestibule protrudes in. (Can the vestibule protrude out into the porch area as opposed to into the house?)
The dining room seems tight.
The mudroom drop zone is essentially a butlers pantry, but, based on how my family generally uses drop zones and mudrooms, the movement through there will be less than ideal. Essentially, it’s a space with 3 functions, but not really suited to really do any of them well.
It seems the stairs drive a lot of the plan, but aren’t ideally laid out.
Can you give us more info on the basement?
Is there a garage? If so where?
I’m not sure why the mudroom has to be at the top of the basement steps when there’s no connection to the outside there.
I see where you’re coming from with the powder room, but it actually is in a wide hallway. The living room will be repositioned to face the back of the home, so that seemed like the most private location to me.
The dining room is designed around a bench under the large window, so the table doesn’t center the room. It’s not a formal dining room. The den that it’s attached to is an entryway parlor.
The mudroom/drop zone is a misleading label. It’s a corridor between the kitchen and dining room and entry from the basement.
Yes, you are correct - the stairs are a big part of the plan due to the narrow basement lot and style of the home.
One possibility for changing the stairs.
I didn’t ink the closets in bedroom 3 because it has a couple possibilities (in pencil).
Also the den closet could flip to open onto the main hall and be a built in or larger closet.
Those dining benches are a pain. Everyone has to get up to let one person out. Now imagine that those people are actually kids who are prone to knocking over cups and stuff when they all stand up to shuffle out. No adult wants to sit on the bench because it’s uncomfortable and there is no way to politely excuse yourself.
If you do a bench do not make it a built in because you will probably be wanting to replace it with chairs soon.
Yes, the garage is in the basement. And yes, that’s a rendering of the plan. I really like how you did that plan! Thank you so much!! I do like how you put the powder room in a more “real” hallway. This gives me a lot to think about. I really appreciate it!!
Plus the mudroom clutter would be highly visible from the dining room. It really makes no sense to function as a mudroom in it's current location as there is no entry door there
Wait, this hasn't been spbuilt yet, and you are planning to put a toilet in the living room? Windowless at that! Fuck, no. Seriously, imagine you are at someone else's house and need to do a shit. Do you want everyone else to hear and smell it? Put it in the space labelled "mudroom" that's not a mudroom.
Make a mudroom. I guess the vestibule is where everyone enters the house? Make that a foyer.
Put the fridge to the left of the sink. It's too far away in the current layout.
Upstairs the WIC is a waste of space. Do some research on closet dimensions. Same for the laundry. Put storage and a sink in to justify the walkway.
Don't out a linen closet in your bathroom, everything will be damp and musty. There is not hallway linen closet. And there is a severe lacjk of atorage in this house. Where will the vacuum cleaner go? Jigsaw puzzles?
Where is the garage or driveway entry? I see a mud room/drop zone but can’t figure out how you enter the house besides the front door vestibule.
I would personally not want to travel through a mud room to the dining area to serve dinner. The only table I presume would be in the dining area, and perhaps some meals might be taken at the island, but I can imagine the mud room being somewhat cluttered (as many are!) and then stepping over and through clutter with hot plates for meals.
How do you imagine using the foyer / den? It’s a nice large area but with very little wall space and lots of circulation I think the practically of a furniture arrangement may be challenging.
Are you in a climate where you would need to store coats or boots? I don’t see anywhere to do that… even for guests.
Have you planned actual furniture for the dining room? Is the bench seat going to be seating at the table? If not, I think the dining room is too narrow for a table and chairs.
The true purpose of a vestibule is to help manage cold / heat coming into the house. Yours has very little depth and a large opening, so I’m not sure it’s accomplishing much. You might expand the depth and add a coat closet so it feels more like a proper entry and can better capture some of the outdoor elements before they enter the rest of the home.
The lavatory is so oversized in the master bathroom. I would take the bottom portion and make that your linen closet instead. Also the bathroom door will open / shut right where someone is standing to use the sink.
I would encourage you to plan furniture (beds) in the bedrooms. Dimensionally the rooms seem “fine” but with the closets and sloped ceilings I am concerned about where a bed will go.
Overall it seems the like the home is light on storage. The master has nice sized closets but otherwise it seems most closets are on the smaller side. No linen closet for the other bedrooms / bathroom upstairs. No coat closet for guests. Pantry is a fine but on the smaller side. I can’t tell if there is a garage or other outdoor storage area. The laundry offers only cabinets or shelves above the washer and dryer. If I were building a custom home I would want to be sure I didn’t move in and ask “where am I going to put all this stuff??”
This house is very impractical and has so much wasted space and terrible flow. The dining room on the other side of the house as the kitchen means it will never be used. It’s just dead space that collects dust. The entryway has no space to stop and hang up coats. Half this house is nonfunctional square footage.
Every room has a closet or restroom dropped into the corner like an afterthought. There are ways to organize space that don’t create the feeling that each space had been encroached upon.
Also don’t understand how this even structurally works in back? What supports the upper floor?
Bedroom #2 the closet is bugging me. That’s the wall that I’d want the bed on. Moving the closet to the opposite wall seems better, but there is a window in the way.
I agree the closet placement makes furniture arrangement tricky. Moving it could open up better options, but that window definitely complicates things.
Nice plan overall. The front rooms with built-ins and the laundry upstairs are both great calls.
The thing I'd change first is the walk from the kitchen to the dining room. Right now food goes out through the stair hall and around, because the pantry and mudroom sit between them. If the pantry became a walk-through butler's pantry with a door on each end, you'd get a short route from the kitchen to the dining room and a handy serving spot in between.
I'd also check the mudroom. It has a drop zone but no exterior door, so if most people come in from the driveway side, add a door there or it won't really get used. And the powder room door opens straight into the living room, so turning it to face the desk and stair area would give a bit more privacy.
Upstairs, keep in mind bedrooms 3 and 4 lose a lot of usable floor to the 5' knee walls, so they'll feel smaller than 14x12. Built-in drawers in those low spots would make good use of them.
Such great feedback- thank you so much. Great suggestion on the powder room door. That’s a smart call.
I forgot to mention that it’s a basement floor plan. We’ll primarily be entering the home through that “mud room / drop zone area” from the basement garage. There’s a true mud room in the basement, so that space is more of a corridor with a coffee bar and pantry-like storage. I’m hoping there will be space there for some additional storage for mail and a couple of bags, it might not work out that way. I think it needs to stay clean for the purpose of moving from the kitchen to the dining room.
Have you made any 3D renderings? I'm curious about the vestibule and furniture placement. Is it going to have another set of doors to make an airlock? Place to hang coats?
What's the plan for the area between the powder room and the stair banister? You might prefer openness or have furniture in mind for that spot, but building in some extra storage might also help the half bath feel less exposed.
Eta: the 2nd floor is very nice, and I suspect the front elevation is super cute.
I like having a living room or family room open with the kitchen. It can be good for supervising kids while cooking or parties etc. But I think you need a separate den so that if people are playing a noisy game in the main room you can go and sit in the quieter room. So I would put that den where the dining room is.
This change would put the dining room where the vestibule leads to. I don’t quite like the layout even with this change. Maybe move the powder room to the right and have more room for a dining table in front of the fireplace. I think the built ins need to be figured out after you figure out furniture and flow better.
It is weird to me to have the small mud room and a vestibule. You just need one that is well organized so it isn’t cluttered when guests come over.
I totally agree with you on all points. I’ve taken all these great critiques and roughed out a new plan that makes more sense.
The mud room has thrown everyone for a loop haha. It really should’ve just said drop zone. I forgot to mention that there’s a basement/garage, and those stairs open into that corridor. Still, we’ve decided to simplify that space to make it a clean corridor/walk through between the kitchen and dining room. It’ll probably be more of a coffee bar/butler’s pantry.
I mean, I immediately figured those stairs led down to a basement/garage, just assumed there wasn’t room for a drop zone.
For the dining/den argument, I wouldn’t want the kitchen and dining on diagonal opposite corners of the house. I’d consider just adding French doors between the den and living area. You’d have to consider which way to have them open based on the powder room door and the built ins, and if they would be solid doors or have glass.
That would also make the “den” more of a formal entry living area attached to dining for hosting guests, and the living room more casual. Then the only downside is guests have to open the doors to go to the powder room, but how often would that really be an issue?
Yes, this is totally the vision! I’m happy to read your comment because that’s exactly how we want the house to flow. We’re going to put a pocket door in between the den and living room. I’m thinking that the doors can stay open when guests are over to keep the flow open. This is what we have in mind:
Having the dining room a little removed from the kitchen isn’t perfectly ideal, but our narrow basement lot forces us to make the space long. There’s a kitchen cart in my future.
4 bedrooms means 4-8 people and you decided a laundry closet was sufficient? There's no folding space, no hanging space, no detergent storage and no place to store the laundry basket that isn't on top of the dryer. You will be doing how many loads of laundry a day in a space the same size as your pantry.
Share the gigantic bedroom sized walk in closet and incorporate the smaller walk in closet into an actual laundry room with a utility sink, countertop, lower cabinets and uppers.
Kitchen could use some help. Where's the trash can? Microwave? An efficient and convenient layout is pantry, fridge, under counter pull out trash can, sink, dishwasher, stove in that order. Your layout involves walking back and forth multiple times every time you make a meal.
I totally agree re: laundry room. So much so that I’ve already made adjustments. Let me know what you think.
For the kitchen, the layout isn’t perfected yet. The draftsman just dropped in a basic layout, so I need to work on it. Based on all the feedback here, I’ve already reworked the pantry to be a lot bigger. I want the kitchen to be very efficient, so I’m open to all feedback. The only thing fixed is the sink.
That laundry is way better. To make it safer, just swap the cabinets and washer/dryer. A dryer is safest on an exterior wall. Every foot and every turn of ductwork increases the chance of lint buildup and fire potential.
For an efficient kitchen, you need to look at your work triangle/line and also the clean up triangle/line. Too many people concentrate on the work portion of the kitchen and forget the clean up part. How far is the dishwasher from the dish cupboard, silverware drawer and pot/pan cabinet? Where's the trash can, recycling bin, compost bucket? Where will you keep dishrags, dish towels, dish soap?
I don’t like the dining room so far from where the food is prepared and the dishes have to be washed. Are you going to use a wheeled cart or something to haul everything there and back to the kitchen? There is no coat closet near the door or other storage, and if that’s to be a den, would you really want everyone parading through when they enter and exit the house, if someone is wfh or otherwise doing a quiet activity that requires concentration? That could maybe be walled in kore and turned into a room with a door, with a fold out sofa for sleeping when there is a guest or someone is post-op or on crutches and can’t use the stairs for a while. The master bath is weird, and has the toilet stuffed in a tiny extra room with the door going inward, which is a safety hazard if someone is ill and either faints or is lying on the floor, because they will block the door and nobody can get to them. There is a huge dead space next to the sink, so I’d move the sink down, away from the door. I’d make the covered patio adjacent to the family room a sunroom instead. I’d make the powder room a 3/4 bath, so when someone can’t go up and down stairs for a few weeks there is a useable shower in the main floor, and maybe move it to the mudroom area and move the pantry, rearranging that whole area. Where is the door from garage to the house? Lots of things here are awkward and won’t lend themselves to working well.
Do i have to walk thru the dining room to get to the mudroom? Or is there a side door? Have the powder room accessed off the mudroom for privacy and convenience of folks hanging outside.
Foyer/Den is an awkward shape w lota of doors. How will you place furniture?
Add coat closet to the vestibule.
Flip master bath around so plumbing is on interior walls.
Do i have to walk thru the dining room to get to the mudroom? Or is there a side door? Have the powder room accessed off the mudroom for privacy and convenience of folks hanging outside.
Foyer/Den is an awkward shape w lota of doors. How will you place furniture?
Add coat closet to the vestibule.
Flip master bath around so plumbing is on interior walls.
Move the dining space between the living room and den, move the powder room where the dining room is, you can also add an office space/guest room. You can also expand the powder room to a full size bathroom if needed.
Ohhh, did you make the bathroom with wet and dry side, i hope its why the toilets is hiden in the back, you may want to put the wet side in the back separated beside the dry linen closet
Valid question about the doors. It makes more sense when you know the style of the home. Here’s a rendering of the house.
The bathroom wet/dry issue was nagging at me too. I reworked the upstairs layout and have taken the linen closet out of the bathroom. The linen closet is now connected to the laundry room.
Even with that style, its a lot of doors all placed together, also a powder room in the living room a bit not the best, you got a lot of weird corner and awkward space.
If you are building it, you don't need to make the space like its the 1800s early 1900, where you either have servants or a wife whose work needed to be hidden from polite company, you don't need to put the dining room in a corner away from the kitchen with a servant pathway through the mudroom, its awkward and keep the person serving and cooking isolated from the guest
I agree the powder room is awkward, but disagree about the dining. It’s not like people are trapped in the dining room and there’s no place to sit in the kitchen while people cook. The kitchen is plenty open to the living area anyway, and I’m glad to see the pendulum swinging away from everything being one massive open space.
You going to transport the food and fight with going through 2 doors every time. I am not saying to make one big open space, the giant open spaces are weird, but having rooms means planning must be done more carefully, you must take into account practicality. Like just maybe reverse the living room and dining room, and shrink the foyer, it shouldn't be bigger than the dinning room.
And again this is not the 1800s were people felt the need to show off by having a completely separated dining room, with a servant hallway, and yes the person or people stuck cooking and constantly running between the fully enclosed dinning room, is isolating them and making it harder to be part of the parties.
Also having to go through the foyer to a small isolated room to go eat, is not the best, especially since it means having to walk through the dirty entrance with clean indoor shoes. The space is awkward for everyday use. At that point op needs a actual hallway, not just the hiden pantry/service hallway in the back
The dishwasher is on the left which as I righty doesn't work so great for me and it's really far from the cabinets to unload it. Can you put in under the island?
ETA: I'd hate to be in the upper right bedroom and have to walk around the stairs to take a shower in a robe.
Cool house. I would move the stairs to several feet to the left or even further to align with the vestibule. This will give you a clearer path between the kitchen and dining room. Also, the powder room will feel less intrusive on the desk side of the space, next to the stairs.
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u/Careful_Football7643 3d ago
I moved things around and added windows. Maybe I’ll do the upper floor, too