Floorplan suggestions
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/4fc6d1aa5d855-.jpg
Hey Everyone, We are looking to get some suggestions and input on floorplans for a 3 story 2 family house. We will occupy the top 2 floors and use the basement apartment as a rental. We are still up in the air about the layout in the living room (TV and sofa arrangements). We do plan to extend the wall in the foyer a slightly to seperate the living room. Also, if we should divide the bedrooms upstairs with a straight wall down the middle window opposed to the bent wall. The plans are below. Any adivce and insight would be most appreciated. Thanks, Jason
bk_homeslice
in Architecture 12 years and 11 months ago
10
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10 replies
stephencraft | 12 years and 10 months ago
Big improvement re: powder room on ground and top floor layout. I assume you have one child now and plan on a second in the future. If so, 1.5 baths should still be sufficient. Are you looking for various GC’s to bid soon? Please consider our services.
bk_homeslice | 12 years and 10 months ago
Thanks for the suggestions…we’ve made the following changes which we feel maximize the space. Our only concern is that we will only have 1.5 baths. The walkin closet will actually be used a small bedroom down the road. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
http://cdn.brownstoner.com/4fe747a955ba1-processed-Scheme_2_Floor_Plans_rev7_06_18_12.jpg
nyteacher | 12 years and 11 months ago
Make the bath on the parlor floor a half bath with the door facing the stairs (and perhaps a short hallwayl/coat closet you walk through to enter it). Then make a second full bath on the top floor. You aren’t goign to actually use that little play space outside the kids’ bedrooms, make it a bathroom and make the children’s rooms slightly larger.
brokelin | 12 years and 11 months ago
Agree you should extend the wall of the hall a bit in the dining room, and have the bathroom open to the hall there, out of sight of the dining room. The bath opening to the dining room is a lousy layout. I hate the idea of the wall ending at the window. I can’t imagine it does much for keeping sound from travelling between the rooms at the split window. I would do a variation of the bent wall. But not with a slanted wall like you have – rather a rectangular alcove, so you could place furniture in it – a dresser, desk, wall unit or deep bookcase. The angled wall will create less useful space in the rooms on each side. If you don’t like having the extra space in one room, create nook next to it giving some extra space to the other room, which would also be useful for furniture placement in that room. If doing this, I would reverse the wall so that the fireplace room gets one window, then perhaps a shallow nook across from the fireplace to accomodate a bed headboard, as I wouldn’t put a headboard against the fireplace, so the bed needs to go on the wall opposite the fireplace (make it wide enough for a double or queen bed, even if not currently using a bed this wide in child’s room – you can put nightstands in the nook area with the bed now.)
pacificist | 12 years and 11 months ago
For the two bedrooms, I prefer the bent wall, though I’d give that little nook to the bedroom without the fireplace and make it a little window seat so both bedrooms have something special in them. I’d also consider making the bedroom with the fireplace a little bit wider since the fireplace takes a decent chunk out of the width, but maybe you already have this figured out with your furniture. Good luck!
needmtg | 12 years and 11 months ago
Actually, now that I see there’s no stair from parlor to downstairs, you can easily reconfig bath to have door on the short wall.
stephencraft | 12 years and 11 months ago
Jason, the new wall can go directly up to the window and split it. I don’t love this technique but it solves the issue of having different bedroom sizes for your children. Good luck with your project!
bk_homeslice | 12 years and 11 months ago
I think having a full bath would be good to have on the parloor floor. We most likely wont make too much use of it initially, but as our family grows I can see us using it more. We were thinking of extending the foyer wall horizontally where the new beam is drawn in the plans. This would make the living room 12 ft in length, leaving 3ft from that wall to the stair case. In regards to the upstairs window, we’v eseen houses that have a wall all the way to the window and then 2 smaller windows in each bedroom, but from the outside it looks like 3 regular windows. I can defintiely see the pros of a full deck, still a bit torn on this. thanks for the advice.
stephencraft | 12 years and 11 months ago
I agree with cmu. Looks like you need to be content with equal 2nd and 3rd bedroom size plus diagonal finish or make one wider than the other. You seem to have space to extend one bedroom in length and do a bigger closet.
needmtg | 12 years and 11 months ago
Do you need a full bath on parlor floor? If not, make it 1/2 and move door around corner, having a door opening to bath from dining room is not ideal. You could even do this with the full bath by rearranging fixtures. If you extend the foyer wall, consider whether the semi-hall will look cramped…looks like you have less than 3′ from stair to wall line. Maybe displace wall even 8″ inside liv room and say put a built-in boocase in resultant alcove next to window. How would you finish a wall dividing a window? Or would you replace/close off the window? Plan looks fine to me. Finally. full deck is not much more than what you have and is a heck of a lot more usable. We rarely fif ever go down to the garden, prefering to stay on our deck.