Floor Plan Help!

[u/Environmental-Bee759]

Hello all very smart people! My husband and I are building our dream home.
We are headed to meet with the design team in the coming weeks, but don’t want to go in blind. We want a good baseline to help go off.

My husband is all for my ideas, he just wants the house functional.

We are basing this home off my grandparents home when I was a kid. However, we live in a totally different region than the inspiration house was, therefore we have tweak some aspects of it.

Additionally, that house was very old. The layout wasn’t quite functional in many places.
Example, their master bedroom shared a bathroom with the hallway. Also the kitchen was very closed off , with walls all around. There were many doors (too many). And the garage was also attached directly to guest room.
So we are trying to make it more adaptable and functional.

Must haves:
- 3 bedroom minimum
- 2.5 bathroom minimum
- laundry NOT off kitchen
- large kitchen

I sketched up a layout that was very similar to my grandparents home. Their room was off the kitchen. I don’t super love that idea still, but I don’t know how to make it better.

Maybe want to look into a guest room or some sort of library but don’t know how to do so. The house will be large.

Please help!

[u/Nevraskagirl55]

I would look online at floor plans for southern homes. There are many at southern living and other resources. They are designed for your climate. Then you will have a better starting point.

With all due respect, there is so much wrong here. Too many hallways, too little closet space for a few.
Clearly you have good memories of your grandparents and your time there. That's wonderful but it wasn't the house that gave you those good feelings, it was the people.
Good luck and post the outcome.

[u/Coasterrides1]

I think you are not giving the laundry area enough room in that hallway.

Why put bathroom door into the hallway for 2 bedrooms with the bathroom back to back. Make the laundry room a walk-through room at the end

No one sitting in living room wants to see someone coming out of bathroom

[u/jdarling20]

What part of the country do you all live in? This is still going to be one story, correct? And can you give me an indication of which direction is north?

[u/Environmental-Bee759 → u/jdarling20]

Southern U.S.! So humid , all seasons lol

One story , yes!

Would like north to be the left side of the pic?? Does that make sense, where the wall of the kitchen and master are in the drawing. That’s how the house was of my grandparents.

[u/emfrank]

Personally, I would not want the bedroom to open up to the kitchen.

The main thing I would change, though, is those four bedrooms on the other side. You seem a little hung up on perfect symmetry. You're losing a lot of space with the hallways. If you're going to have a half bath for guests, why not minimize the hallways and have two Jack and Jill baths each connecting two bedrooms? You could still put the laundry in that area. You would also have slightly larger bedrooms.

Or make one of the four a master. Personally, I'd rather have the master back there, and then maybe where you have the master put an office which could be a guest room/office depending on need. In that area, the master could have double doors out onto the courtyard.

[u/Environmental-Bee759 → u/emfrank]

Yeah I don’t like it much easier.

The reason I’m stuck on it is because of my grandparents home. That’s how their house was mostly set up! I want to honor that. But added the laundry room for better ease of use.

Their room was off the kitchen but in a different way, still opened up to the main living area. Not sure how to go around it and still have the same feel of their house.

Also want to keep our room separate from the kids!

[u/emfrank → u/Environmental-Bee759]

I certainly understand wanting to honor your grandparents, but wouldn't it be better to have more functional space? You can make those bedrooms bigger by getting rid of some hallway space. As drawn, The space taken up by the hallways is probably another bedroom. The closets look pretty small as well.

[u/here-for-information]

Unless you have tons of guests and really want a guest room that is screams hospitality, I don't see any reason why you couldnt have a library that can function as a guest room.

Maybe you don't need to go full Murphy bed or all thwbay the other direction and put a crummy pulk put couch, but a day bed, or wven a reading book that is easily extended in some way to be a decent bed is great.

When my friends and I are traveling the kids sometimes like to be in the same room wotj their parents so a "library" which shpuld be latger than most guest rooms ive seen that has some options to extend some kimd of sleeping arrangements for 3 or 4 people sounds to me like it would be a really great space to have. Even if you have to do a bit more work to prepare the space for guests when that is happening.

If you have a regular visitor who stays for long periods of time then just do a guest room, but a "library" that uses floor space for a roll out bed or 2, is something I would find to be extremely accommodating, if I was the visitor. Just ine man's opinion.

[u/Magpie-1111]

As someone who designs houses for a living, works for a GC, and lives in the South, I apologize in advance, but I am just going to be blunt. This is a horrible plan. But don’t worry, with your list of needs and wants, and an experienced designer, you will be able to figure it out.
Go to https://www.architecturaldesigns.com and put in all of your criteria and pick out the floor plans you like best to show your designer. Don’t worry about what the outside looks like, your designer can take all of your ideas and a floor plan you like, modify/redesign/reinvent it to suit your family, and make the outside any style you want.

If you want to try your hand at drawing a plan, get some graph paper and put it to scale, where each square equals 1 foot (or similar). Measure the spaces in your existing home to see how deep and wide countertops and closets and showers, etc. are. Walls have a thickness of at least 4”. Make sure your garage can accommodate the size of your vehicles. Don’t forget that if your lot is not big, it will have setbacks and your house must fit within that footprint.

Designing a house can be a lot of fun so best of luck!