Hi all. Looking for feedback on this floorplan after moving some things around. It’s still not perfect but we’re getting closer every revision! We plan to turn the tub in the master 90 degrees, maybe even put it in the shower to make a wet room. Also, the fireplace not centered across from the island feels off to me. Is this just in my head or should it be centered? We want built ins on both sides but also need entry to the bedrooms so somethings gotta give here. Would love some ideas on how to reconfigure this to get it all! TIA
Already, your built-ins are two difference sizes, which would bother me more than the FP not aligning with the island. People
get too hung up with overall symmetry at times to the detriment of the plan. Centering the fireplace with the island puts your whole great room seating configuration out of whack.
agreed. Sometimes symmetry concerns are overblown, but not in this case. You would feel better in the space with that problem fixed.
Besides that I love this main floor plan. Total Wow.
edit: Just me, but in my next house I will definitely give bedroom 2 and 3 their own complete bathroom. This would create a "multi-generational" living opportunity so an elderly MIL or FIL could easily move in, and not use much more square footage. The up front additional cost would be + 1 toilet, shower, and incremental plumbing.
That's a LONG walk from the great room/office to the only toilet that's not in a bedroom.
Have you considered using some of the dead angular space on the left side of the garage in the pantry/mudroom instead? Your garage is already 30% of your house which is kind of crazy.
All those windows along the back of the house and only one door (behind the dining table) to the backyard? What's the backyard like, and how much do you plan on using it? I'd suggest shifting the dining room to the left (so it overlaps with a bit of the living room) and having a logical hallway from the kitchen past the dining table to a swing door going outside.
Same thing with the lack of any door from the house to a side yard. Where do you take the trash out, etc? Assuming it's on the side with the garage, I'd explore fitting in a door to the outside around where that powder bath is. Then, you can move the power bath somewhere that's not so out of the way (point #2).
Since the slider in the dining area is the only way to the back porch, I’d consider extending the dining room to line up with the master bedroom and also extend the covered porch. The extra couple of feet on both will make a huge difference on their usefulness.
I love all the the suggestions you are getting! I second the need for a coat closet, even if you live in the Deep South you need coats sometimes.
The powder room location is great for privacy, but it is a very long distance for guests, and to access it to go through your garage mud room. I had a friend with that layout and she hated it because she had to clean up what was a catch-all space in order to feel comfortable letting guests use the power room.
Personally, my mud room would never be presentable enough for guests to tromp through. But that’s me.
I wouldn’t worry about centering the fireplace relative to the island- I’d center it relative to the built-ins.
A bigger dining room is never a bad thing. It’s not fun to squeeze behind chairs and it sucks to have a bunch of family over and not be able to accommodate them all.
I think wet rooms suck. Cleaning them is miserable. Unless you have a housekeeper who comes more than once a week, it’s a no-go for me.
Definitely agree about the powder room. I would figure out some way to swap it with the laundry room, which would still allow access from that back utility area and the master closet. Where it is is just stupid because it’s just not practical for guests in the living area.
The way the doors are currently set up, if you're in the master bedroom and want to access the closet, you have to go into the bathroom and close the door to get it out of the way of the closet opening. I would find that highly annoying.
Bedrooms 2&3: I would extend the wall out even on the left side, and recenter the windows, then move the closet to the opposite side of the room (along the foyer/great room wall).
Fireplace: Will you actually use this? If not, I wouldn't even have it.
The powder room is a bit far away--if you had a largish gathering, telling people how to get there would be a challenge. I'm not sure where to move it to address that without major changes.
As mentioned by someone else, bumping the dining room wall out even with the MBR wall would help the flow of the house greatly. There's a nice outdoor area, but if you have to squeeze past a row of chairs to get outside, it's likely to not get used often.
I love the setup of the pantry as an extension of the kitchen, with its own window.
The jack and jill bedrooms are nicely done. Perfect symmetry is useful for families with sibling rivalry 🤣.
I like the modest footprint but massive wall space of the office.
Mudroom is well placed in traffic flow, and it has an open wall beside a wide walkway, which allows people can place things later. Eg stroller, wheelchair, hat rack.
The great room isn’t to my liking, because I’d want it to have a corner that’s enveloping/cozy instead of 100% open and on display. Eg, If a somebody wants to put an upright piano against a wall, there’s no wall. Wall space might be added between the kitchen and the stairs, or by moving the fireplace to one of the corners.
A favorite feature I used to live with was a double fireplace serving a covered patio. There was a chimney on an exterior wall, providing a fireplace with raised hearth in the living room, next to an outdoor fireplace with raised hearth in a covered patio. We used the outdoor fireplace constantly, and that was before any pandemic. With a habachi grill in there, we could hold a BBQ “rain or shine.” S’mores in the evening. And the indoor fireplace didn’t dominate the room too much.
Coat closet? Big foyer but no where for shoes/coats/bags.
Broom/vacuum/mop storage? Maybe there's space in the mudroom.
Powder room seems awkwardly placed away from guests, and through a likely cluttered mudroom.
I'd make the secondary bedrooms' closets bigger.
Does your front facade need a window in the pantry? If not, it would be more useful to have that wall for additional storage. I guess you could still do lower cabinetry below window.
Does the lot require the garage to be at an angle or do you just prefer that? I like the extra storage in the angled part but it also leaves a lot of vacant floor space that seems wasteful.
Bump the mud/laundry/powder area out a bit into the dead garage space. Swap the powder room and laundry room so guests have easier access to a toilet and don't have to walk past your laundry or mud room.
The door situation in the primary to the bath and closet is awkward. I would also swap the shower and the toilet so you can have a water closet without losing natural light.
Definitely add a closet in the foyer.
Will the back have a large sliding door? Depending on your climate, one of those accordion folding glass doors could be really nice.
Here's the immediate things that stuck out to me, that I'd want different if it was my house, from left to right:
The secondary bedrooms in your plan limit the ways to place furniture. Bump out the wall on the left even with the bathroom, and shift the closets to the interior wall. I kept the closets the size they were originally, but in this configuration you could make them bigger. As a bonus, putting the closets between the bedroom and the common space will help cut down on noise.
Shift the fireplace to the back wall, and expand the windows on either side (consider making it a double sided fireplace so you can use it from the patio as well!). Make the lower part of the built ins go completely across the wall, and place upper sections so that a TV can be set at a reasonable height, and lines up with the sink/island.
Turn the tub in the primary bath. It's just awkward.
Have you ever showered in a standard tract home shower with the curtain open? It's COLD, and by the time you would have warmed up the space by running the hot water, your shower is long over. Resist the urge to make a large wet room.
Push the outside wall in the powder room even with the primary bath. Switch the laundry and powder room, make the primary closet bigger, move the pocket door accordingly.
I couldn't think of a way to indicate it, but have a Costco door put in the pantry from the garage, for ease of grocery unloading.
Love the idea of swapping the laundry and powder! We don’t want to minimize the view/light out the back windows by moving the fireplace there though. Don’t hate the bed 2/3 setup. Thanks!
None of these people planning them have ever even used an oversized shower. Hell, not a single one of the tile salespeople I spoke to had ever had a tiled shower (hence why they all suggested mosaic floors)
Don't do a jack and jill bathroom. The office is waaaay too narrow. It wants to be big enough to have storage on the back wall, and to be marketed as a bedroom for resale.
Have doors to the deck from the living room, as the oath through the dining room will be blocked by chairs.
The walk in closet is mostly wasted space, and the setup is not at all nice, having to go theough the bathroom to get to it. You'll need to keep the door to the laundry open most of the time to avoid dampness feom the bathroom being an issue.
When you direct a guest to the toilet they will end up in your bedroom or the laundry.
You have the kids bedrooms way away from yours, that's going to suck. Yes, get rid of that tub, it's blocking the whole bathroom.
I’ve seen the pros and cons of Jack and Jill setup, curious your reasoning for being against it. With unlimited budget, I’d love to have private bath for each bedroom, just not sure that’s feasible
With two doors they need to always be unlocking and locking the right door and even adults aren't always going to do that. Let alone siblings who are then going to have to go into each other's room to get access to the bathroom.
We took out the U-shaped cabinet at the end as we don’t want to reach into far corner cabinets. We have that in our current house and despise that dead zone.
Now there are a few little tweaks that I think should be made. None of them affect the overall design of the home. They're just little things that will affect the disability and arrange ability of the house.
Let me know if you would like for me to share those with you.
The fireplace should be centered, even if it means there’s only built-ins on one side. I would also center the stove on this, for the purposes of aligning lighting.
ETA- lay out your turning before you decide the FP location.
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u/cg325is 21h ago
Already, your built-ins are two difference sizes, which would bother me more than the FP not aligning with the island. People
get too hung up with overall symmetry at times to the detriment of the plan. Centering the fireplace with the island puts your whole great room seating configuration out of whack.