Hey folks,
I have been lurking this site for quite a while now, and finally have something to say. Although I love some of the small houses here, and would love the chance to build one, I actually want something a bit larger. Having visited every site on the web touting wonderful house plans, I have never found even one that fits my wants. "Small houses" are not small, and they seem to have spaces added as an after thought. My own theory is that the more shared walls you have, and the less corners you have, the more living space and open areas you will have. My needs are few, but a lot of my plan is derived from stuff my girlfriend wants, which is ok, but between us it turns out that our plan is bigger than the plans here, and smaller than elsewhere. There is just the two of us, so that eliminates a lot right there. The space we have in mind is about 1400 square feet. A rectangular footprint, as I think inside corners are a waste os space. The thing to keep in mind here is that I am an engineer with no taste, and she is the opposite. Anyway, I have designed half of the place, consisting of the bedrooms, baths, and laundry, and am currently designing the great room, kitchen, and dining area. Let me outline our requirements:
One floor. Neither of us want to go upstairs to bed, or downstairs to do laundry.
Two large bedrooms. A master with room for a couple of chairs, and a quest/den/computer/getaway room. I made these the same size.
Two baths. I know some of you will find this wasteful. But, one has a shower, and one has a bath. I love to soak, she doesn't. I'll soak for two hours. Hard to go to the bathroom when someone is soaking in the only bathroom...
Walk in closets. Yep, you can put a lot of stuff in a 6x6 space. Each room has one.
Crawlspace. 6 foot deep one. I have remodeled a whole house with a crawlspace, and found it very easy to run wire, plumbing, ducting, etc. And a great storage space. I would cement it in, and put the water heater and furnace down there.
Super insulation. The outer shell will be 2x4, but foam insulation. It's more expensive, but the R value is high. It'll pay for itself.
Land. One acre is fine. Here, most houses take up far more of the lot than is healthy.
Well, that's about it. When I get a scanner, I'll post pics of the plan.
Just for grins, now I'll tell you what I learned remodeling this house:
I can't/won't do cement, paint, sheetrock/mud. By the time I played around with these and did a half decent job, I had taken a ton of time, and had spent about half what people were charging to do it. And I just don't like to paint. And I'll let someone else do the roof. After installing all the fixtures, new windows, ripping out the old furnace, and hauling trash mostly by myself, I earned 2 months flat on my back with a pulled muscle. Don't need that again. I'll be the assistant for framing and all the general stuff. I'll do the plumbing, electrical, inside sewer lines, and furnace ducting myself, with lifting help as needed. Cabinets are a sore spot. I did not replace them. I think they are the most expensive, overpriced thing you can put in your house. I installed an island in this house. When I priced the base cabinet, they wanted $1100. My jaw dropped so low the guy could count my lower teeth. I built one myself using the doors from the older cabinet I replaced with a dishwasher. Yes, I want one of those too. It looks ok and matches the rest of the cabinets, and cost me about $200. I could not build the rest. I'm not that good. I will have to think hard and long about it and come up with a cheaper solution. Or just realize that it's just part of the whole and surrender $7-8000. And that is the low end.
As for outbuildings, I will build a two car pole shed like Backroads Plans offers. I don't need a garage. My wish for years was to have a workshop, 14x14. I will build that as a separate structure, again, like those at Backroads Plans.
Anyway, I welcome comments. Please be kind(!) I know this will seem out of line with the general thinking of this site, but in a lot of ways it fits right in.
Thanks for reading!!
Thanks for joining in Scott. We welcome comments and ideas no matter what your's are. Even if you don't want such a small house, John has an inexpensive set of plans that will cover your shop.
This is a place where we kick all ideas back and forth whether they fit John's plans or not. Kind of a free for all. We all gain from this exchange of ideas.
QuoteThe thing to keep in mind here is that I am an engineer with no taste, and she is the opposite
Welcome Scott!
I have the same design issues between my wife and I.
One word ;D[highlight]COMPROMISE[/highlight] ;D
Thank you!
Glenn, please point me to the shop plans!
Jimmy - I heard the COMPRIMIZE word. It's not so hard, But when it comes to decorating the place, she's on her own!
Welcome to the group Scott:
I have to agree about your observations about house plans. They are either really small houses or macmansions. There seems to be very little middle ground in the 1200-1600 sq ft area. I think this is odd as many of us grew up in houses of that size and they used to be quite common. You can get a lot of nice space in a 1200
sq.ft house if you plan it properly and dont try to be pretentious or elaborate.
As to adventures in remodeling, I must agree about dry wall. All the How to guys say anyone can do it....UHHHH UHHHH its a handyman project if you are going for that rustic plaster look but if you want smooth paintable walls the dry wall man is worth every penny you pay him. ;D
Thanks Mark! Yep, I couldn't have said it better.
Um...wow...deja-vuish...Scott...engineer...house plans too small...house plans too big...beautiful, intelligent women in our lives...
We ended up FirstDay (http://www.firstdaycottage.com/) but toyed with John's 2-story farmhouse (http://www.jshow.com/y2k/listings/57.html) and his Solar Saltbox (http://www.jshow.com/y2k/listings/55.html) some. Sunplans (http://www.sunplans.com/html/home_page.php3) has some in your sf range. We found a plan book with houses 1000-2000 sf too so they are out there. But I have to agree, there really isn't a lot out there for the 1000-2000 sf crowd. I would think that would be a good target market for an architect because we who want small-medium size homes do exist!
pssss no drywall in FirstDay ;)
Please excuse the shameless insert of brownie points...
The two story plans would be nice as a single floor plan. You could put two together in an L shape.
The beauty of the design is a totally adjustable floor plan
Where is this Backroads Plans? I Googled it, but didn't find anything right away. I didn't have time to go through all the results, since I'm about to go to work.
jared
Jared
http://www.backroadhomes.com/
From the backroads web site.
This looks like the garden garage/workshop I want to build when I complete the house.
John has a plan for this
The discussion about it the workshop/ garage
http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1133196083/0#0
(http://www.backroadhomes.com/noff/images/woodbury.jpg)
I want this so bad I can taste it!
(http://tinypic.com/fo14lf.jpg)
I was thinking this one, but with lower walls and no loft
Hey Scott- I had to go do something constructive - as in work on my crane truck.
Here is one that can do your 14 x 14 or longer - says little house but make that little shop-
Little House (shop) Plans (http://www.jshow.com/y2k/listings/29.html)
Also it is included in this one with other plans also.
The Big Enchilada (http://www.jshow.com/y2k/listings/43.html)
I'm with Daddymem- I don't like to see drywall in any of these plans, but it is fire resistant, cheap, fairly fast. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Wood can be used just about anywhere drywall can with the exception of firewalls. Seems solid wood is used in some firedoors though-- I'm not up on all of that though.
You may have already seen some of the workshops others have done with the Little House and Enchilada plans (get this one if you want a well insluated buidling on a concrete foundation). Here are two: http://www.countryplans.com/12x18.html
Also explore the Gallery for other projects that might give you ideas - http://www.countryplans.com/gallery.html
I designed our house-to-be myself, because I couldn't find any plan that would work on our hillside. And I looked at thousands of plans
I started with John's 2 story universal cottage & "modified" it. It is now a one story over a full, walk-out basement. Did it with the 3DHA. Main floor is 1152 sq ft.
One of these days I'll try to figure out how to post the plans, in case anyone else wants to see them.
I'm not an engineer or designer. Did take geometry in h.s., & I read a lot, & we know a few builders. So, we think we can build this home. When it stops raining.
Mia:
If you are interested in sharing your design as a template file for others to use you could just send the files to me as an email attachment. If you can zip them that will make them smaller, if not then just send the 3 or 4 files with the filename.pl* format (PL1=first floor, PL0=basement, etc.).
In exchange for your contribution I will sign you up for a free PlanHelp subscription.
email: john@planhelp.com
To post you plans, do what I did: since Punch! doesn't have a good way to export to JPEG, I just pressed CNTRL-PRINT SCREEN and pasted it into MSPaint then cleaned up the pic and saved it into a JPEG.
I am also doing a First Day, and I have to say, after dealing with drywall repair and painting this week after four years of kids trashing the cheap flat white paint and drywall, I don't care to see drywall again.
Having said that, I probably will end up with a little drywall in the bathrooms, but with a good coating of colored semi-gloss paint that is washable and fingerprint resistant.
I probably will also install one of those infrared controlled faucets in the kids bathroom becuase they kids drive me nuts playing in the water when they are supposedly brushing thier teeth or washing thier hands.
Dustin,
I'm going on 50 and I play in the water when I wash my hands and brush my teeth....
:)
Yes, but you clean up after yourself.
(I hope, if not I feel sorry for your wife)
I also noticed that a lot of plans put the access to the master WIC inside the master bath. This seems really odd to me, as you would have the humidity from the bath in the WIC....
And now, a question about storage. My plan has a 6x6 WIC for each of the two bedrooms. I also have a small coat closet in the great room. No linen closet. I figured on making room in the WIC for that. Is there anybody that finds they need a space elsewhere for anything? Has anyone built a pantry into their design?
Scott
QuoteAnd now, a question about storage. My plan has a 6x6 WIC for each of the two bedrooms. I also have a small coat closet in the great room. No linen closet. I figured on making room in the WIC for that. Is there anybody that finds they need a space elsewhere for anything? Has anyone built a pantry into their design?
Scott
You need a broom closet of some sort, and I consider a pantry a rock-bottom essential. If we buy instead of build, I intend on retrofitting one if the place doesn't already have one. That's the biggest thing I hate about our current house - much of my food storage ends up in the basement.
Ah, yes. Considered a corner of the laundry room for brooms, etc. Usually keep the vacuum in the coat closet. Is your pantry a walk in, or a tall cabinet?
Pantry was one of the first things I added in our house. I took two closet type pantry units, mounted them to the wall and put in brackets for a counter piece in between the two. Our dishwasher rolls in under that. Our microwave sits on the counter and above that I put a small double door cabinet for cook books. It works well...but the units are a little deep so things can tend to get lost. If I did it again, I would get units that have shelves and storage on the door.
I consider storage an absolute essential. You need to try to find ways to put as much storage into your house as possible, if only to stay organized.
Since you are building your house, take advantage of the fact that you can find nooks and crannies to put stuff where you can find it later. Look at built in storage books for ideas.
If you look at my plan (at my blog http://hollishomestead.blogspot.com) You will see a coat closet for guests near the entry (can also be used for storing many otehr things of course), a small pull-out pantry, a closet size pantry and a larger walk-in pantry near the mudroom. And then there's the mudroom, where I can put all sorts of stuff for any outdoor activities.
I planned for a linen cabinet in both the upstairs and downstairs, and there will be built in shelving wherever I can put it.
Want to see that! Got a NOT FOUND error....
I think he typed it instead of copying it. There's an e missing.
http://hollishomestead.blogspot.com/
I've never ever done that--
.
.
.
.
.
since the last time.
Which probably wasn't that long ago.
::)
....edited my previous post to correct the link, too. You can also click on my profile, and find the link there.
Typos happen, especially if you you're thinking about 2 more more other things at the same time.
Maybe I can install a couple extra processors to my brain to keep up?
I have some big plans for storage in the basement, but I have to focus on building the main house first.
I am also currently soliciting bids from vendors who sell and install ICF walls to do my basement. I'll let you guys know what I find out. So far, out of about 10 emails, I have gotten 2 responses in as many days. I don't know if they are going to be the way to go for me yet. If they cost too much, I'll just do a traditional poured concrete wall and some rigid foam. I thought perhaps with costs of concrete going up it might save me a few bux or at least break even.
We'll see.
Thanks Amanda! For finding the e....
Dustin, I did visit that blog. When I saw the site pics, I thought I recognized that sagebrush......that's Utah sagebrush. I'm in Salt Lake myself.
Now I find myself reviewing my plans. I'm adding a pantry, broom closet, linen closets and a small mud room. That, I think will be essential. Again, I thank you for your input. Mia, I'd like to see your one story layout when you get it posted.
Yep, got a nice view of Cedar Valley, Three Peak recreation ares, and Cedar City itself. I plan on improving the view by adding several trees later.
It's pretty much at the literal edge of town, since there are no other houses (except those way out in the distance in the trees over by Three Peaks) any further out than my lot that anyone has built on (yet). I have a couple of neighbors and I noticed that the 2 1/2 acre lot next to me has a construction trailer on it, so I imagine that there will be a house next door next time I come up.