Ultimate Single Story House - update

See the latest updates highlighted.

The goal is to have a house with the best design for the money, not necessarily the cheapest. But you could easily add or subtract from this design to hit almost any budget.

If you aren’t interested in house plan designs, and most of you aren’t, I hope you are interested in the process of “open design,” where hordes of people essentially guide the design. I started with a basic idea, and your comments have guided it.

Many of you complained about my two-story house plan. Having recently injured my knee playing tennis (not badly), I have a new level of sympathy for that view. What follows is a single-level design, with an optional basement, based on your comments.

Click to enlarge.

Based on your comments, I put the laundry room near the center of the action part of the house, so you can watch the kids and prepare meals without traveling to laundry Siberia and back. I even designed a rolltop window in the laundry room where you can do the ironing while facing out to the big screen TV. Noise wouldn’t be that big of a deal if you soundproofed the walls and only opened the rolltop window when others weren’t around. I retained the closets that open to bedrooms and to the laundry room. This house makes doing laundry almost fun. (And realistically, the person who does the laundry usually decides what house you live in.)

I moved the guest/kid bathroom to the end of the house. No one wanted it anywhere near the kitchen or living area.

I added a front porch because those are relatively inexpensive, energy friendly, and provide lots of outdoor enjoyment. This is the large and useful kind of porch, not the purely cosmetic type you see on new houses these days. And it faces the primary sun direction to keep the home cool.

I kept the storage room concept adjacent to the main living area, and added a door from storage to the garage, based on comments. This is the room that keeps all your party stuff, exercise equipment, holiday decorations, extra chairs and tables, and anything else you need to change the function of the living area on the fly.

If you aren’t sold on the storage room concept yet, and you have kids, imagine that it also contains what I call Toy Jail. Anything that isn’t picked up by the kids gets thrown in a big box (the Toy Jail) in the storage room.

There is one dining area, casual enough for every day, but imagine it designed with a restaurant ambiance, so you wouldn’t be embarrassed entertaining friends there either. And after dinner, the big screen comes down from the ceiling for a movie. A home theater seems like an excess, but prices are dropping fast, and if it is included in the original design of the house, and you plan to use it a lot, it makes sense.

The front entrance is off the family room, with a mud room, and a small foyer that is business only. Every inch of the home that gets heated or cooled is useful.

The Cat's bathroom is in the master bathroom. If you have allergic house guests, just lock the cat in the master bedroom and it has all it needs.

The home office is moved off toward the garage and kitchen side, and is on its own heating/cooling zone. It's close to the kitchen for convenience.

The optional basement steps are moved to near the entrance from the garage.

The game room is moved next to the family room, separated by a two-way fireplace.

All bedrooms have windows now.

Bathrooms reduced from five to two. You could always add them back to bedrooms without changing the overall design too much.

The master bedroom got a retreat/sitting area just to square things off.

So there it is, the ultimate house, designed by you. How’s it look now?

Comments

[Tony]

So - with the laundry in the middle of the house I would have to assume that you are using a (expensive) clothes dryer (ecologically bad - 2 demerits) instead of the sun and wind to dry your clothes - and therefore are not walking/carrying the laundry basket to the clothes line - hanging out, taking in (cardiovascularly sound - another 2 demerits) etc before moving to the ironing, folding and storing?

[Ogen garnet]

Global House Plans.com is great store....

[tsb]

If it don't have uninals in every bathroom, it will never be the perfect house because of the overhanging spectre of the lid up-down controversy.

[@Rob]

Is the room where the large TV is in accoustically designed to allow maximum benefits to a 5+ speaker surround sound setup.

[caviar]

Maybe we should bring together our collective genius to arrive at the perfect layout for a city too! The market is too far away from my house!

[Rick]

Sorry this comment is a bit late.

There are two major problems with the design at present, both of which are things I check out first when looking at a home.

1) The dining room is not adjacent to the kitchen so you have to trapse through the lounge to serve food. When you are entertaining you may want your guests to relax whilst you do the last minute stuff out of sight. (OK, I know you said do your formal entertaining at a resturant but that is expensive in the UK).

2) To get from the bedrooms to the kitchen you have to go through the lounge. Again, when entertaining adults you don't want your kids marching through every five minutes 'to get a glass of water'. The same is true when your 17-year-old is having a slumber-party and you need a drink at midnight.

To Summerise - you need to be able to get from the dining room and the bedrooms to the kitchen without going through the lounge.

[Brooks Ballard]

"The goal is to have a house with the best design for the money..." I call that crafted simplicity.

It should also not be butt ugly, and what you have going there is ugly and not cost efficient. Unless you're going with a flat roof, your roof framing costs are going to be outrageous. Check out the older bungalows on narrow lots. Many of these are single stories and they are very efficient. Make things not too wide, and keep your bump outs to a minimum. I come from an affordable housing background and now design updated bungalows everyday. 4' increments work well, too, to keep costs down. Check out some of our designs for some inspiration - http://www.homepatterns.com/
Hope it helps.

[Mike]

There are a couple personal preferences I have that are of no consequence to most people; like having the master bed on the opposite side of the house from the other bedrooms, so I would probably switch things a little for that (I like to have as much privacy for the master as possible and I feel having the MB as far from the kids rooms as possible means they are less likely to bother me at night for minor things... only those things worth walking all the way through the house in the dark).

However, one thing I feel EVERY house needs is a half bath accessible from the outside entrances without having to walk on the carpet. This is so people who are working outside or are in a major hurry can access them without removing their shoes. This also helps because invariably you have guests who are able to completely ignore the huge pile of shoes when they go inside to use the facilities. So if they have a straight shot from the garage or the back patio to a restroom it can cut wear-and-tear on your carpet way down. I would probably say put a half-bath in the upper right corner of the storage room where you could access it form the kitchen through that small wall space.

[Simon]

I live in a 1 floor house because I'm getting older. I'd add a music/library room by extenting the kitchen and moving the garage and office up.... the adding the music/library at about equal size to the storage.... this gives kids a place to practice using the garage as a sound buffer from the office. It also makes the library part convenient to the office.... otherwise, I'd buy this if a contractor would build it somewhere

[Rand]

I have just one critically important question that isn't clear from the diagram: can you see the TV from the kitchen (while cooking or doing dishes)? If not, then this cannot be called the Ultimate House.

[Rand]

I have just one critically important question that isn't clear from the diagram: can you see the TV from the kitchen (while cooking or doing dishes)? If not, then this cannot be called the Ultimate House.

[Marc]

The doors through the closet into the laundry are a neat idea, but, in practice, probably not all that useful. Stuff tends to pile up in closets, and that would block that door. And you can't but a closet rod in front of that door. I'd rather have the space than the doors.

If it's really that far to walk to the laundry, use a little red wagon to tow the clothes around the corner.

[Anfauglir]

Probably too late for anyone to read this....but good grief Scott, what is your obsession with laundry? Do you really soil THAT many clothes?

[Tim]

Switch Bedroom 2 and Guest Bathroom. This makes plumbing layout easier as the 2 bathrooms are next to each other. It also creates more lighting options for bedroom 2.

[Free William]

Looks OK to me... for someine else to live in. I have had a quick look at the comments again. I think that you have proven that it is impossible to design the ultimate universal house which should came as no surprise but the excercise was interesting, thanks.

[Ami]

What is the "retreat" off the master bedroom? And you need a half bathroom somewhere near the kitchen/office area. You're not going to want to make guests go all the way through your house and use your kids bathroom. And you're going to want something closer to your office. Maybe put it in part of that storage room space. And if you do the optional basement you won't need the storage room up top. Just a thought.

In the family room- is there really no window or is the tv going to block it? Windows GOOD.

[Ami]

What is the "retreat" off the master bedroom. And you need a half bathroom somewhere near the kitchen/office area. You're not going to want to make guests go all the way through your house and use your kids bathroom. And you're going to want something closer to your office. Maybe put it in part of that storage room space. And if you do the optional basement you won't need the storage room up top. Just a thought.

In the family room- is there really no window or is the tv going to block it? Windows GOOD.

[TomB]

Three thoughts:

1. Have a hatch/door from the garage to the pantry via the North (assuming North is up on the paper) wall of the pantry. Someplace that you can offload directly from your SUV tailgate or hatchback into the pantry. Usually garages are a foot or two down from the main house level, so this would be a pretty much straight lift across. Handy, not a lot of work to frame in an insulated hatch.

2. Where's your LAN/Power closet? Furnace? AC unit? Water purifier, etc? If I was putting up a house today, I wouldn't be doing it without some thought to home automation and I would then require a LAN patch panel, hooks to the main electrical service, and a dry and conditioned place that has adequate ventilation to store several servers computers (or at least one) and I'd be wiring the rooms for Ethernet as well as (or perhaps in place of) conventional phone. X10 or similar home automation might enter the picture.

Now, perhaps all this stuff would go in the unseen basement... (except for the wiring).

3. Soundproof the bathroom walls. Or find some other mechanism of keeping what happens there a mystery to the rest of the household, sound-wise.

Otherwise, I quite like the design. You are short about 1 study/library (office won't cut it) from what I'd want in my house, but otherwise it looks pretty good.

[Annie]

The garage is inconveniently far away from the front door/coat closet/mudroom. If you go into the house through the garage are you going to:

a) carry your shoes and coat through the house to the front door/mudroom? (inconvenient and a little silly).
b)leave your shoes/coat in the garage (what if you want to go out through the front door next time you go out).
c)walk through the house wearing your shoes and coat? (results dirty floors).

This is particularly relevant for people with kids. Often the garage will store things like kids' bikes, skateboards etc, so when they're coming in through the garage after riding around and getting themselves dirty you'll want to have them as close to the mudroom as possible.

[Tom Spencer]

I also have the pull down giant tv screen the only problem is day time you have to have a way to make the room darker. If you have skylights or lots of glass the picture is washed out.
Laundry should be where the clothes come off. Make the closet and laundry one clothes processing room. We did that in our new place and it is great. The new washers are quiet.
What are you going to do with all that basement? We put the guest down there. With a sloped lot you can make it a walk out basement and the guest have a different level where they do not have to worry about running into you if they are insomniacs.
Tom

[Seth Goldin]

I just found this, and thought that it might be useful for people interested in this here. It's a program that basically lets you design a house, complete with furniture placement, and even has a three-dimensional preview. It looks pretty cool. You folks might enjoy it.

Scott, you should actually use it to build this thing, and then take pictures and post them.

http://www.freemacware.com/sweet-home-3d/

[The Lazy Organizer]

The back patio needs to go across the back of the kitchen so you can access it from the kitchen, for taking food out, or the dining room, for guests.

[Grainschway]

What the hell is a mud room? If there's room for a jacuzzi outside, I'll take 2.

[LA Clay]

It's still sideways.

[stefani]

wheres the waterslide?

[Cristin]

Stick to drawing comics, monkey brain!

[Kelli]

It's really hard to make any judgments about this house when it's so obvious that it's so out of scale. A little refinement -- maybe use Google Sketchup or Home Designer 3D to get things rendered in the right sizes. Take a look at other floor plans to see typical sizes for rooms.

But other than that, there are a few coments I can make right away. I definitely think that a bathroom near the office would be a good idea, as well as incorporating the mud room into the plan of the house rather than looking 'tacked on'. And yes, either move the guest bathroom closer to the main part of the house so that guests can actually use it more easily, or else call it the private bathroom and add a powder room elsewhere for guest use.

[Rockie]

Bathrooms down a corridor from the kitchen aren't that bad. And you'll need one for the office. Fit a small one, just a toilet and a sink, on that side of the house.

Didn't you create and ultimate house some years ago? I remember table tennis in the basement, and cables running through the centre of the structure.

Why the big deal about laundry? How many hours of laundry a week does your hosehold take?

[Bill]

I'd like to sleep in the master closet. I want to sleep in a room with super duper sound proofing and no windows so that it's impossible for me to get surprised by noise from the outside world. Can we also build in some sort of controls that would let me program all the phones to not ring from 9:30pm until 6:30am?

[water_moon]

Move the cat bath to one of the extra bedrooms (we have a den/bedroom that we did exactly that with we use it as the kitty's room/ computer room) still great for those with allergies (or who just don't want to be covered in fur) but that way you don't have to leave the master bedroom open at night (hard enough to keep it down with the door closed) or deal with crazy nocturnal kitty or the cat hair oin your good suits/dresses for that matter.

[Pat]

Relook at your stairs. They appear to be outside of the living space. Since you won't have a basement under the garage, you'll need to pour separate walls to them unless you use some sort of PIP stairs (ugh). In any case, your stairs are really, really expensive. You need them inside of your foundation.

You mentioned in your post that cost is a consideration. You don't want cheap but you want cost-effective. Well, this building isn't cost effective. Your structural work is a nightmare. I'm still not sure how you would handle that angular wall near the back porch. I also can't figure out a good roofline that would be easily built.

Plus, the dead-straight front to the building will be uglier than sin. Are you planning to make this a mobile home? If not, your front needs lots of work so the front of the building won't look quite so much like a storage container.

[vamphile]

There needs to be at least a half bath closer to the office, IMHO. I spend so much time in my home office that having to traipse through the kitchen and the living room to the master bath would be aggravating.

i like that the office is kitchen adjacent though.

[brian]

The laundry room shouldnt be in the center of the house or near the TV area. 1) laundry can get loud sometimes, especially if you have a zipper or something that's banging around; 2) the smell from the detergent/fabric softener can get kinda lame after a while. move it to next to the guest bedroom.

[T.I.M.]

How about 12v DC electricity on the wall outlets, maybe with USB mini since we don't have common sized pin plug that means 12 volts. Half of my devices use mini currents, the transformers take up 70% of the connection space. I'm probably not the only one with this circumstance.

As for intelligent design on humans how about lower lung back flap?

[Surabaya Stew]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for drawing the Ultimate House as a single floor option. For the first time, it looks like a home that the average American could actually afford! Thank you for taking into consideration, many of your readers concerns and suggestions. Again, this home will not satisfy the needs of 75% of home buyers, but I believe as an Architect that it has a great chance of being accepted by the remaining 25%; far more than the typical "Home Plan" that ones gets from a developer or stock plan book. Here are my 3 minor observations, that would make the home marginally better:

1. Design a location for a 1/2 bathroom near the entertainment areas, so that the owner can add it in at a later date or have it built right in.

2. Have the Mud Room as an option for either by the Front Entry or by the Garage, depending on the needs of the family and location of the house.

3. The Front Porch really isn't needed, as its usefulness is dependent of the site and climate of the area where the home is being built. Fine as an option, not as a standard feature.

Thanks for doing all this thinking; now when is it going to be drawn up for real? Need an Architect?
:D

[The Architecht]

Why is the Laundry room in the middle of the house? Maybe because the Dryer always blows out that warm fabric softener smelling air? In any case I would just have the Laundry Room and the Office switch places.

[Dan]

The laundry seems to be back in a spot where its noise whould be annoying.

[Surabaya Stew]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for drawing the Ultimate House as a single floor option. For the first time, it looks like a home that the average American could actually afford! Thank you for taking into consideration, many of your readers concerns and suggestions. Again, this home will not satisfy the needs of 75% of home buyers, but I believe as an Architect that it has a great chance of being accepted by the remaining 25%; far more than the typical "Home Plan" that ones gets from a developer or stock plan book. Here are my 3 minor observations, that would make the home marginally better:

1. Design a location for a 1/2 bathroom near the entertainment areas, so that the owner can add it in at a later date or have it built right in.

2. Have the Mud Room as an option for either by the Front Entry or by the Garage, depending on the needs of the family and location of the house.

3. The Front Porch really isn't needed, as its usefulness is dependent of the site and climate of the area where the home is being built. Fine as an option, not as a standard feature.

Thanks for doing all this thinking; now when is it going to be drawn up for real? Need an Architect?
:D

[Rob]

The mud room really needs to be accessible from the back yard, or at least the garage (assuming that the garage is accessible from the back yard.)

The mud room needs a low tub/high shower in it, specifically for washing off the dogs or the kids after their camping trip. (Or me after a nice muddy bike ride!) It also needs storage for sport equipment, wet boots, etc.

My ideal mud room would probably be the size of "bedroom 1" on your diagram.

[Jeffrey G. Harper]

Hello, again.

I'm not sure if you just liked that placement better, or if my basement stairs suggestion was misunderstood. Just in case it was misunderstood, here's an attempt at clarification...

I was actually thinking about the stairs being in the storage area, running along the outside wall where it would be parallel to the porch. If the top of the stairs was located next to the family room, with a fairly decent-sized landing area, a relatively simple shift of walls could make those stairs appear as part of the family room (for finished basements), or as part of the storage room (for basements used primarily for storage).

Sorry about the confusion!

[Magesh]

Is this plan "Vaastu" compliant???? :)

[Davesnothere]

How eerie!
Your house is exactly the same layout as mine, except the garage, bedrooms, office, porch, laundry room and kitchen are all in different places.

Dave

[John S]

Cool!

Now can you design:

A) The ultimate car
B) The ultimate personal electronic device
C) The ulitmate replacement for a wife

and how about this:

D) The ultimate human being

Intelligent Design indeed! What would you do better?

[Just Me]

You are never going to please everyone, but here are some suggestions:

Will this plan fit on the standard 40 by 100 foot lot?

You should mention skylights. With skylights, some rooms won't need a window (such as laundry, storage, office). The bungalow plan makes this a great option. Unless you plan for more storage in the attic.

Foyers are important if you entertain. Usually when people arrive or leave, they do so in clumps, and you need room for say, 6 people to give hugs or air-kiss and take shoes on/off without being crowded. If the un-named room at the front of the house is the foyer (what is the big rectangle in it, a table?) it needs a closet.

Some of your closets and doors aren't to scale. A mud room needs to have cupboards in it to store all those boots, coats, sports equipment etc. Put this off the garage.

With the size of the kitchen, you could put the laundry machines in there, save on plumbing, and easy to carry the wash outside. What's with the pantry doors opening at the ends? Why not a bank of cupboards or pull-out racks facing the actual kitchen?

Then you can put storage where the laundry currently is, and the office where the storage is, keeping most of the advantages you outlined.

Why is the entrance to the garage around the side? Is it a 4 car garage or something? You will need a huge amount of driveway space to turn and park, on the side of the house. Again, a lot-size issue (unless you are out in the boonies).

Whee, this is way more fun than working.

[Gary]

A mud room?? How quaint.

I'm not really up on rolltop windows but I'm guessing that sourcing a soundproof one might be a bit problematic.

[Zog the Infinite]

The vibrations caused by laundry equipment aren't carried in the air so much as in the walls and floor - so it doesn't matter how much you soundproof the laundry room. If you wanted to silence it you'd actually have to build a floating room, not joined to the rest of the house structure.

Sorry, but that's the way it goes. It's like running pipes in or next to an unconditioned space - you can do it, you just don't.

[Embrodak]

OK Here are my comments.

Mudroom... It looks stupid coming off the front of the house on the porch. My question is where are the occupants of the house coming into the house from the most? In my house we rarely use the front door so we have nothing more than a bench for the guests to sit down to take off their shoes and a closet for their coats. We come into our house from the Garage. I would move the mud room to the garage and have a coat closet inserted there as well.

The kitchen looks too small. It is not much bigger than the Laundry room... I would push the wall back. Perhaps make it even with that little walkway to the Office area.

I would even off the bottom of the house (The wall of Bedroom 2, Master Bath and Retreat) I would square it off with the Guest Bathroom to remove the jutting out. Perhaps add a private bathroom for Bedroom 2, making the retreat and masterbath bigger.

Bedroom 2 - Elimiate the jutting in from the Master Closet to square the room off.

Retreat?? Is that needed? WTF is that? Perhaps Eliminate the Office and put that where the retreat is.

Cat Bathroom? Does one what that smell in their master bath? Perhaps move that near the Garage with a cat door to the garage and adding a door in the garage to the outside that would also have a cat door.

Patio - Perhaps make it L shaped and extend over the kitchen abit. THen have a built in Grill using natural gas and a Island for serving outside.

[Sharon]

It's a nice design but not particularly innovative - good for most people but not great for anyone.

Things to think about: What is the climate? In Canada we would want the house to be passive solar - with lots of southern windows collecting warmth - and few windows on the north letting the heat out.

Your "view" is only shared by the master bedroom and kitchen?

The entrance to your house is a big factor in resale value and impact - yet this house has the entrance smack into the middle of the FR?

You will be bringing in mostly groceries - and they need to get to the kitchen - If you are planning to go from garage to kitchen then a mud room there would be helpful too.

The laundry in the middle of the bedrooms is nice functionally but I would be concerned about how much moisture is being trapped in the house by positioning it there - and in these days of global warming access to an outside clothes line would be nice.

If you have small kids (or teens) you'll want a separate "play" room for them - that could go at the end of the auxillary BF hallway - then add a video feed from that room into the laundry and you can check on the kids while you iron!

Flipping BR2 and Guest bath puts the bathroom that visitors are likely to use closer to the heart of the house - and ensures they don't need to look through to see the mess in little Johnny's room - a 2 piece for guests would be a great addition as well (perhaps connected to the laundry?).

Oh - and I hate the idea of the cat litter box being in the bedroom - ick. How about putting it in a niche connected to the garage? or even better - the basement where "Kitty" has a lovely room of his own to retreat to when guests come over.

Some ideas to make life easier for all - a sink/boot/dog wash station in the garage - or even better a 2 piece bath that would also be accessed from the garage or office - just make the sink into a bigger "tub" and it can be used to aide in cleanup in the garage as well as keeping cartoonists from having to jog all the way through the house to get to the loo.

Here's another challenge for you - can you design a "growing" house - one that would start small and be easy to afford and then as time (and kids and money) goes on could be added on to to meet new requirements?

[andy]

you could have a elevator to get to the 2nd floor with a set of emergency stairs in case of fire or black out

[KennyC]

What I like best is the Storage room right next to the TV. That way, to the right of the TV on the storage room wall, you can build the stereo equipment right into the wall and have full access to the wiring from inside the storage room.

If the storage room is unconditioned then you can insulate the bump out and put a little door on the back.

[mickle spiffy]

The laundry to second bedroom door is nice but takes a lot of closet space. Since the bigger problem is getting clothes to the laundry regularly rather than return, some sort of pass through hamper might be better.

[Tas]

It's a good design, but i see a couple problems with it.
1 - The office is far from everything. If you want to put it so "hidden out", there should be at least a bathroom attached to it. But I'd like to see it more to the front of the house, so in case you have a guest to work, he doesn't need to go through your kitchen.
2 - The position of the guest bathroom takes away some privacy of bedrooms 1 and 2. There should be at least a toilet closer to the living rooms, so when you have a party, for example, the kids can sleep without people passing on their doors to go to the bathroom. I'd do the following: switch bedroom 1 + closet with guest bathroom, and make a small bathroom on the corner of the corridor and bedroom 2 - small enough so bedroom 2 still has windows, but it can be good for the kids to use it when you are entertaining guests, for example.
3 - Why the door between the covered patio and the master bedroom? The other one is close enough, and too many doors in a room take away furniture space.
Keep working on it :)

[Vik]

I would suggest that locking your cat in a room just to please some visitor to your house is a bit much. Give them some antihistamines (the visitor, not the cat) and tell them to get on with it. Alternatively, make them stay in a hotel :)

Cat bathroom is a marvellous idea though. In my experience though cats never do anything you want them to, so it would be ignored in favour of the mud room, I suspect...

[reggie mittelsdorf]

i would swap the location of the sofa and the TV, cos id like a window at that wall, yet i would not want a window behind the tv. an entertainment island where the couch is in the allpurpose family room would serve well

[ivy]

We HAVE a "toy jail". Our rule is that anything found on the floor or in the wrong room gets exiled to the shed for a week. (We have a family, 2 home businesses, 3 dogs, 2 cats in a small two bedroom house (no basement or extra rooms) with giant shelved storage shed out back. Addressing the mildew problem mentioned by niCk(MemBeth)...it is VERY important that the storage shed be completely detached from the house. What causes the mildew is moisture seeping in from the living area and hitting cold dark walls. Our shed is in the back yard (the same size as our work room) unheated with only a whirly thing on the roof for ventilation. Everything stays dry and almost dust free. We just can't keep things there that can't freeze like canned goods and paint.

[argenbert]

nice... how many square meters does it need?

[fredthebrickeater]

No, this will never work. Take out all of the windows and doors. And add a staircase.

[StuartH]

One big obvious fault with the 2-storey design was the laundry room being upstairs. In the centre of a single-storey is better, but still - don't you colonials hang washing outside to dry? Does EVERYTHING really go in the dryer, or hang in the house? No wonder your electricity bills are high and your walls get mildewed - to say nothing of how nice air-dried washing smells (well it does in England. Would yours come in smelling of California smog?).

[Ricky]

A simple comment - far too big.

This is obviously a house designed for a country like America, with plenty of space to build in. A house that size would never be practical for anything like mass-use in a smaller, more crowed country (the UK for example). Even the 2-storey design is a tad over-sized.

If you want a universal house plan, you can't get too carried away with size.

[M-Doggie]

The Laundry should be a bit closer to an outside wall. Dryers need a heat sink to blow hot air, usually to outside. The pipe running to outside should be fairly short to avoid clogging. I'm sure theres a design to avoid this necessity, but thats typically why laundrys are next to a wall.

[mark]

What is with you and designing houses. Didn't you already do this? http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/

I think you are a frustrated architect. Perhaps you should bite the bullet and do for real.

[The Restless Mouse]

I would like to see a long hallway with lots of doors, rooms interconnected inside so you can run into a door on the right and come out on the left... run in and out scooby-doo style... also a rotating bookcase... but you probably already have one of those.

[Courtney]

I think it needs one more bathroom... even a half bath... near the kitchen/garage. Otherwise, not bad!

[Rambo]

when and where are u moving scott ?

[Evil Mike]

Oh yeah! And, if you make the house is round, you can camouflage the door... that way when unwelcome guests come by, just stick your head out the window and say "door's on the other side, go around!" :P

[Evil Mike]

"You can please all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time; but it's sure durn tough to please all the people all the time."

You picked a doozy of a project. Can't wait to see the final results.

(Long been a fan, cheering you on ;)

[paul]

not enough room to practice my atlatl but nicer than overpass. how many shopping carts can i fit in garage?

[Deirdré Straughan]

I am puzzled that the position of the laundry room is such a big deal. How many hours a week do people spend on their laundry? I live in Italy where most people don't have dryers so I even have to hang everything to dry, which takes a lot longer than throwing it into the dryer. I never did much ironing, but neither do many Americans. I know people who never iron anything at all.

So I can't figure out what you guys are doing in the laundry room all that time.

[Joe]

I work in my office all day. I drink lots of soda and water. I pee a lot. In fact, whenever I get up to get a new beverage, I pee. I will get very frustrated in this house walking so far to take a leak. As I get older, I may not have the strength to keep it in until I get there. This will make me grumpy.

Maybe if there were some sort of outhouse-style waste pit with an electronically opening/closing door underneath my office chair, this would be the perfect design. Maybe build it over a river a la what's-his-name the snooty architect guy, and I can just leak in the stream directly from my office chair. I can even make a game out of it, trying to shoot a fish in the eye or crap on a crawfish.

That's my perfect house.

[Seraph]

I agree with suggestions to make the house a bit more open-plan, and moving the mud room to the garage. The coat closet and fireplace seem particularly problematic, as guests would walk into the house and look straight at a closet, instead of being able to immediately admire the impeccably decorated living room, dining area, etc. Also, have a half-bath nearer the office and for use by guests, and maybe attach bedrooms 1 and 2 through a bathroom. For increased privacy, the shared bathroom could be laid out with a separate room for the toilet, and a dressing area attached to the shower (which of course would have a door, not a curtain). That way the resident of Room 1 could use the toilet while Room 2 could take a shower, both in relative privacy, without having to attach totally separate bathrooms to each room.

[rd]

half of the post in magenta, delightful!
i used to have korean water colours when i was kid,and liked best it's magenta colour, so so bright
what people are saying, every bedroom with bathroom, is this a family house or hotel?
if the entrance faces south, the office will face north and will never see sun may be,but heating is no problem, right? or may be it's as it is facing west
i like the retreat place, the most southern-west, there you need to keep the nicest thing in your house, or is it southern east - then hopefully you'll keep there a waterfall

[friskybeaver]

http://xkcd.com/169/

Not really related to this post, but when I read the punchline I couldn't help but think of you.

[swio]

The kitchen and living room must have a view over the back yard. Parents spend an enormous amount of time in the kitchen and living room and they really need to be able to watch the kids out back while cooking, watching TV/relaxing or doing the ironing. If your back yard extends behind the master bedroom and retreat then alot of it is not visible from the kitchen and none of it is visible from the family room.

The all purpose family room has no windows. Its very hard to fit a window, tv, fireplace and storage room (ie 4 items) around any room as you usually only have 3 walls to put them in. I can't think of a way to not miss out on one of them.

I would put the (or a) storage room in the centre of the house. Storage rooms don't need windows so putting the storage room next to an outside wall is a waste of potential windows. You can still make it easily accessible from the garage by making sure there is a direct line between the garage's internal door and the storage room door.

One of the big problems in single story houses is that you get much less outside wall for the same amount internal space compared to a two story house. This means its very hard to give every room a decent window making the house very dark, unless you make the house very sprawling which is a bad thing for alot of reasons including energy efficiency.

The area behind bedroom 2, master bathroom and the retreat is wasted. You may as well extend the back wall of these three rooms to line up with the back wall of the guest bathroom.

[alex]

just kinda wondering why the master closet is bigger then the kitchen....
...I dont know your wife but im pretty sure every other one in the world couldnt care less about a fancy laundry room when their kitchen is smaller then the closet..
just something to think about

[AC]

Yuck.

Mudrooms belong in the back/side of a house, not the front.

Hard to see where the windows are. From the sketch, it seems the main areas have no light from the outside.

Instead of doors to the laundry room, make chutes in the closet wall to take up less room.

Sheesh, I need to reset my priorities so I don't have time to respond to posts like these.

[J. Clark]

Only one suggestion this time.
1. Why is the staircase to the basement so far away? If you finish it, I don't want to walk into the garage to go down there.

I do have a question though. As someone linked in the last discussion, how come you abandoned your previous "Dilbert Ultimate House"? I think that house is far better than this one you've come up with. Just my two cents.

[David]

You are going to have rot in the non air-conditioned storage area (unless you are lucky enough to live in the Sahara). Temperature cycles cause moisture build up, which causes mold, which causes rot and decay.

[Stui]

I really don't get the laundry fetish. My Laundry consists of a washer, dryer and the beer fridge. If I want to fold or iron washing, I take it to the rumpus room and throw it on the pool table and do it where I can watch TV.

Cat Bathroom? Lose the cat.

otherwise, concept not bad but it seems cluttered.

Oh, and for the person who asked about keeping the dog out of the vegie garden, i installed a solar powered 12 volt electric fence that does a great job. The wire goes at nose height and it only takes a couple of jolts and fido understands.

[John]

One of the best features I ever saw in a house was a larger room that served as a guest bathroom, laundry room, and also had a chest freezer. Think about it, you don't need to access your laundry room or freezer too often, so you won't compete with a guest using the bathroom. Combines some plumbing, reduces the need for more walls and doors. And if the washer/dryer are running, it masks the noises people make in the bathroom that they'd rather not share.

[Gavin]

What is the laundry doing in the centre of the house? Most people should hang their clothes out to dry, saving engery/global warming etc. Therefore the laundry should be near the side.

Personally I iron in the lounge watching TV with the rest of the family on a Sunday evening, so I don't see a need for a large laundry.

There should be a major push to consider energy usage in all future houses, part of this is too reduce unnecessary bathrooms and bedrooms, taking advantage of the sun etc. I don't see much engery consideration in your comments.

Regards

[Elver]

Huge problem. The front porch faces the primary sun side, as you say, and it probably also faces the street, but realistically the only window you can fit on that side is for bedroom #1.

The fireplace is gonna reflect on the TV screen. Either rework to have a projected TV picture (for the true home cinema feel) or rework the fireplace.

I'm not sold on the laundry room sliding window.

And I'm not sure I want a view of the front door while watching TV.

Not sure what the bedroom retreat is supposed to be.

But this design is a lot better than the earlier one.

Best part: placement of the office. Close to the kitchen.

[P-A]

Like the design, and love the concept of open-input & Networked-Knowledge design (OINK(!) design?).

But designing a house without space constraint is the easy bit. If like me (and m/b/illions of people out there) you live in an evironment where space is a tough limit, then you have a challenge.

Let's see:
- NYC, Sydney ~ 1100 sq feet as basic limit?
- London ~800 sq feet as basic limit?
- Tokyo/Yokohama, HK, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, Milan : ~ 900 sq feet as basic limit

A few people in the world need a flat design that can fit roughly in 1000 sq feet. Now that's an interesting challenge.. :)

P-A
http://devrouze.blogspot.com/
**blog not in english**

[Rob]

1)not too wild about the work area so close to the kitchen. It's supposedly for "convenience" but it sounds distracting
2)the stairs to the optional basement seem kinda out of the way
3)In a house with three bedrooms, surely there's going to be a need for more computers than one in the office. Where do they go?
4)pretty minor, but why waste the corner space - with the potential for plentiful windows & light where you can't use it? the bathroom. You should switch guest bathroom and bedroom two. This also makes the bathroom closer to the dining, family, and game areas.

Overall, I fear designing a house by consensus will lead to the same difficulties you mention TV shows can run into: everyone likes it, no one loves it.

[Matt]

I'm pretty sure the cat bathroom is a joke... is it? And what's a mud room?

[Ray Kremer]

Would it maybe be a good idea to develop BOTH ranch and two-story versions of the ultimate house? I'm sure there are as many people who prefer getting more square footage of house for the same footprint as there are people who want to avoid stairs. (And a ranch with a basement has stairs anyway.)

[Ian from Perth]

An "ultimate" house that only has three bedrooms? Wow, can't get anything less than 4 in Australia these days.
I would have thought that an Ultimate house would have more than that. And the bathroom set up needs lots of work (I suggest add 1 bedroom + one common bath room.
The "retreat" needs to further away from the bedroom.
And, I'm sure this is unintentional, the biggest spaces are the office and the master bedroom, with comparitively tiny All purpose and family rooms. Seriously - you are planning on entertaining in a room smaller than your bedroom?

Which way is north on this plan and are you in a cold or hot part of the country? (Fireplace suggest cold part of country - thus windowns need to face North (for us here in Australia) or South for you Sepos.

[Phlubanakawahaha]

here's what my aunt's house looks like... i actually drew it out because i'm becoming obsessed

http://i26.tinypic.com/2v8kdp3.jpg

where it says cupboards, that's part of the kitchen... you probably know that though it's kind of off scale and the hallways are really huge by accident, but the rooms are a lot bigger and easier to get through

[Timmeh]

Big improvement pretty keen on the house overall. Still got a few problems though!
If this is a family house there will probably be times when you want to sit in the family room, relax, and enjoy a film. Meanwhile the kids will be playing in the games room, just next door, without even a door separating them. Don't think you would get much peace and quiet! I think even just the inclusion of some folding doors would massively help this. Then you can still open the house up for parties, but you get a bit more peace and quiet when you want to chill out in the family room.

[Phlubanakawahaha]

There are so many rooms crammed in there. The guest bathroom should probably be by the kitchen so guests don't have to wander through the back of your house to get to it.

[Anton]

I would remove the double sided fireplace, they are energy wasteful and it reduces the flow of the house.
Then you could move the mud-room and entry-well to the end of the games room so that you walk into the open space. (although just covering the porch would create it's own mud room space to remove shoes etc when you get to the door.)
Also I'd swap the guest bath room with the bedroom one closet or make the bathroom the whole way across the hall.

[Mark Thorson]

Ah! Now I get it! You're
thinking about doing one of
these:

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/style/2002/03/18/kinkade_village/index.html

http://www.insidecolumbia.net/thismonth/0707/kinkade.html

A Dilbert planned community?
If it had underground tunnels
for an invisible servant
population, I'd be all in
favor of that!

[burt]

haha 2 bathrooms? that house is giant! you would need at least 4

[BA]

I think this series of posts has only proved that there is no 'Ultimate House Design' that will please most people.

Some people like these things, some people like that.
Me I would like easy access to infrastructure (plumbing, wiring, etc) that is also hidden so that it doesn't look bad.
I would also want my house wired with Cat 6, and I have my own ideas about where to put the rooms and number of floors, etc.

What you are doing here is just making a house 90% of the people would settle for. Not please them, just settle. They would say "Yeah, I could live here.", but a couple of months down the line it would be "I wish the bedroom would be on a south wall.", "I wish the bathroom wasn't so close to this or that."

This is literally design by committee.

[Bloodboiler]

I realize that this is a cultural thing, but why the hell cant you people eat in the kitchen? What is the benefit of hauling all the food and plates from room to room every single day. Do you like to pretend you have a cook and servants in the kitchen?

If its just some kind of a status thing, you could just buy really expensive kitchen cabinets and all the greatest in food preparation. Then you could pretend to be so good cook that you need all that stuff. You could also make your guest envious of your designer kitchen AND your claimed cooking skills. It's also impossible to debug your claimed skills, if you refuse to cook without fresh Guatemalan excuse fruits, but it's easy to notice that your pretended servants are always out of the house.

[Xanthippa]

Oh, and an aside (reaction to some comments):
if it does not have a bath, it is not a 'bath room'...the terms used are either 'powder room' (so one can powder one's nose there) or 'washroom' (you can wash your hands).

Sometimes, it is called a 1/2 bath...but I think that would just flood the basement... If it has a shower, it is often called a 3/4 bath.

[Xanthippa]

House looks nice, but...

1. Enter/leave
You will be entering the house and leaving through both the main front door (as will your guests) AND the garage. Unless you want to run from one area to the other, looking which purse your keys are in (sorry, pocket), and where that umberella might be, you really want ONE large, roomy ante-room (not a crappy cramped mud room) which has:
a) lots of seating to put on shoes/boots
b) enough 'elbow room' for 4 people to get ready at the same time (family, couple of friends, etc.)
c) all the coats, hats, boots and umberella storage/closets
d) and this one's IMPORTANT: access to BOTH the main front entrance AND the garage
This will become importat if you have a couple of kids, you need to get them ready without them poking each other and screaming, and without running between the garage entry and front entry looking for mits, boots, hats, schoolbags, stuff that fell out of schoolbags...you get the picture. If it has a few comfy chairs or benches for getting shoes on and off, it can double as the reception room for uninvited-guests-you-have-to-let-in-but-would-rather-not, like say your in-laws... A cramped 'mud room' just does not cut it....never understood the obsession with mud, except perhaps in Elbonia. You need a proper ante-room! (Plus, calling it an 'ante-room' gets you pretetiousness points!!!!)

2. kids
If you plan to have kids (eventually), it is REALLY REALLY GOOD if their bedrooms have IDENTICAL dimensions.... They can share a bath, not a problem for it to even double as the guest powder room (though for re-sale value, a separate one in the 'public' area would help), but life WILL be easier if not just the square footage is the same, but the dimensions and closets are IDENTICAL.

We all have our little obsessions...sketching house plans and then brooding over the plus and minuses is only one of mine....

[aaa]

A cat bathroom, but only two bedrooms? Doesn't seem very universal to me. Surely there are many more people who want three or more bedrooms than who want a cat bathroom.

[Jake]

Master bedroom retreat should be more of an anteroom, a place of intermediate privacy that's good for guests and doesn't require them to pass through the master bedroom. Coat closet should be large enough to host a reasonable party's worth of guests, or have an alternate coat closet.

Cat bathroom rocks!

[Bemused of Glasgow]

I'm so disappointed to learn that the mudroom is just a place to take off your dirty shoes. I was picturing a room full of mud.

Gloopy wholesome mud, fun for all the family.

It did seem a bit of a strange thing to have in a house but it would have made a great talking point.

[Drone74B]

I like the idea of a laundry that opens right into the closets. That saves a ton of time.

One of the things I like about homes in Australia and parts of Europe, though, is that they have separate rooms for the toilet, shower and sink - usually all right next to each other, but still closed off from one another. That way, you can use less plumbing by having fewer bathrooms, as one set of plumbing can essentially accommodate three people at once. If someone's in the shower and you need to use the toilet, for example, you don't have to wait for them to finish.

[Lise]

People who are "allergic to cats" are actually allergic to a substance in feline saliva. Cats lick themselves a lot and shed all over the house. Locking the cat into the master bedroom may not actually help. At least, it wouldn't help me. But then, I don't expect to be invited to your house anytime soon.

[Case again]

You keep making houses with incredibly odd shapes. Why?
try having a rectangle shaped house (crazy i know) with a nice porch like you have drawn, shoving everything downstarirs is kinda messy so i prepose having the master bedroom and bathroom on the bottom floor, perhaps a extra bedroom as well as the laundry room ( laundry shoots people) and put other bedrooms and offices in an optional upstairs depending on who buys it so an elderly couple can have a nice house of floor one and a family of four can have a second floor because there are more of them.

[Pat]

Just a few comments.

See that little jut for the office hallway. That's real expensive to build. You'd do better to enter from the garage unless you're a rich cartoonist and money is no object.

See the angled walls separating teh covered patio from the master closet. That's REALLY expensive to build. Just out of curiosity, how do you plan to handle the roof line there?

Your "all purpose family room" is darn near clausophobic. Just the size of a couch. It's more of a theatre with a hallway in front of the couch.

If the couch is anywhere near to scale, your garage will handle a mini-Cooper quite well. Otherwise ....

If the couch is anywhere to scale, are the bedrooms for midgets? esp bedroom 1.

You have a secret entrance to the master bedroom through the master closet. Who are you trying to escape from? You will grow to hate that closet door when you realize how much closet space is lost.

Just out of curiosity, where to you plan on putting the bed in the master bedroom. What wall will it go up against and what windows will it block?

Your garage is at grade and your porch is up 3 steps. What does your grading plan look like?

You said your basement is optional. Is your furnace and hot water heater also optional? Where do you plan to put them?

[Pat]

House design by committee. Great idea -- committees do such a great job on everything else.

[Skraps]

You know that they have graph paper, right? Although, I suppose you've drawn these on your tablet PC. Current Dilberts are amusing, very meta.

[Morbo]

Don't get why the guest bathroom is all the way at the end. Logically, it should be switched with bedroom 1. Don't make your guests walk past 2 bedrooms just to use the bathroom.

If you've ever entertained, you know it makes sense to have the guest bathroom close to where you are entertaining.

[james wilson]

If your building a house from scratch you may want to have some eco friendly options built in. Here is one I found interesting a pipe that warms the water entering your home using the wast heat in the water going down your drain.
You could say that every time you use the washroom your warming the water for the next guy. :)
here is a link to the info on that product.
http://www.renewability.com/dhrt.htm

[pi3832]

Who wants a bedroom with a widow that opens onto the front porch? Can you say "lack of privacy"?

Brainstorming on the "Laudry room":

Perhaps all you need is a sound-insulated room for the equipment, with an attached "ironing/folding" area? I'm thinking a large counter top with some storage cabinets. Make the outside part of the counter over hung so that you can slide some bar stools under it. The counter now acts as laundry space, workspace, or eating space. And it is open to the Great Room, so the laundry-doer can interact with it.

[Stephen W. Stanton]

Soundproof the kids room.

You need to let the kids play loud foosball while the grownups use the big TV as a home theater.

Alternatively, you could have a couple of theater-stlye seats in your office as a seating area... Then project a huge image on the far wall, over the desk. Instead of a projector, you could have a 52" LCD to double as your videoconf / presentation area.

Heck, in your home office, put a door to the outside world across from the door to the kitchen. You can invite work guests over during the day. They could sit in the theatre chairs for your meetings, looking at your presentations on the big TV. Drop the work table down a foot in height, and it becomes a coffee table / footrest for movie watching & gaming.

Blast the noise all you want... It's a soundproof room far from the sleeping areas.

You could have intercoms and cameras set up to the family room to keep an eye on the kids and have them fetch you popcorn.

[Puzzled]

For someone who supposedly hates "museum rooms," you've sure got a lot of 'em!!

99% of people don't need, and wouldn't use, an office or a game room. If you do work at home, put a desk in one of the guest rooms, or your own bedroom if it's big enough. If you're the 1 person in a million who plays games not connected to the TV or computer, put the games on a shelf... and if you have a pool table, that goes in the basement. As for the "retreat"; if you're in such bad shape that your private bedroom isn't "retreat" enough from the world, you need a shrink, not another, useless room in your house. And that huge front porch is another wasted "room," in essence; no one would do anything there... what COULD they do, watch cars drive by? If you want to sit outside and read, you do it on the patio, where it's quiet and private.

A bar is a big waste of space and $, especially if it's a wet bar; store your 3 bottles of booze in the kitchen.

Why did you make an issue of being able to see the TV from the laundry room, where you'd only spend a few minutes at a time, but you can't see the TV from the KITCHEN? Anyone who cooks more than microwave dinners will reject the house outright just for that.

The centralized laundry room that will make it impossible to find a quiet part of the house while it's in use (unless you spend more $ on soundproofing than a normal person could afford) is also an instant-turndown feature.

Have you looked at what a looooooooooong trip it is from the office to a bathroom? How far do YOU have to go to take a leak from YOUR office?

One of the bedroom windows looks out on the PORCH!! That room won't get any direct sunlight... not that it matters, because you'd always have to keep the curtains drawn, since everyone who came to your door could walk a few steps to the side and look right in.

The family room has no windows; another instant deal killer. The family room normally has the biggest "window area" of any room in the house... for good reason. And no, a window looking out onto the porch isn't a solution.

I think too many cooks have spoiled the broth.

[Tina]

I don't like single story houses. They are like the half full/half empty glass; they are really twice as big as they need to be.

A single story house doubles the amount of basement and roof you need.

The biggest issue as you cited with a 2 story house is walking up the stairs when you get old and crippled. The underlining (and false I may add) assumption is that the bedrooms need to be in the same area or level. Why?

I can think of a number of reasons to separate the bedrooms, but the best example is sex. I think the likely hood of a husband getting lucky is directly proportional to how far away there is a sleeping child, father-in-law, or Grandma.

I propose putting the master bedroom and laundry facilities on the first floor. The kids/guest bedrooms and bathroom should be on the second floor (with sound proofing between the floors). When you are old you have no reason to walk up the stairs. The minimal cleaning required for unused space can be done when your kids actually come home to visit.

This plan also saves energy. When there are no kids/guests up stairs you can cut back on the heating or cooling provided to that floor.

What about the kids laundry you ask? Now is looks inefficient because the laundry room is not next to where the kids clothing is stored. Keep in mind efficiency is not merely reducing travel distance it is about optimizing all variables possible. Kids don't exercise. They play and get physical benefits from their day to day activities. Having them carry their laundry down and the clean clothes up will be the first step in keeping your kids healthy.

This is an area that parents need to optimize to guarantee they have a healthy host to live off of when medical advances help people outlive their retirement.

Bottom line: 2 story house save money up front, save energy over a lifetime, provide a happier sex life, and help provide for eldery people when their retirement money runs out.

With a solution to that set of problems, I should probably run for president.

[Gremikin]

I see two traffic areas between the pantry and the kitchen where it is likely someone coming out of the kitchen will get bonked in the face by someone coming out of the pantry (what were they doing in there, those pigs?!) But that depends on which way the doors swing.
I like all the closets interspersed throughout the house. I would spend my day rotating through them and giving the same person multiple heartattacks when they opened the doors.

[Hey]

You might stagger the guest bedroom doors so that they don't look right into each other when open. Better for keeping unexpected guests of the guests mildly unaware of one another.

[Laedelas]

Why does the hallway go past the guest bathroom? Knock out the wall between the hallway and the guest bathroom and put a door in the hallway where the bathroom starts. So much less dead space.

[Cassi]

Nice design, but since we're looking for the "ultimate" for the money...
- I'd suggest switching the guest bath with the bedroom. Easier for guests to fine and probably better for plumbing
- Also for reasons of plumbing, probably want to switch the master closet with the master bath, but then there goes your centralized laundry room thing. Meh, maybe not then.
- The last thing I'd want in my house is a window into the laundry room, especially one guests can have access to--but maybe that's just me
- Why not have bedroom 1 with a sliding door to the guest bathroom? Can be locked for privacy, but opens for easier access.
- If the guest bath extends to the end of the hallway, could also have sliding door access from bedroom 2
- I don't know where you store your towels/vacuum/etc., but the lack of hall closets is scaring me. Does that stuff now have a home in the laundry room?

Everything else I love. The kitchen table with TV access, the centralized laundry room, the covered patio with master bedroom access, large front porch, etc. And the storage room next to the family room is a good idea.

[TX urban student]

A couple thoughts:

1) you're assuming that this house will be built in a suburb or the country and plenty of people can't afford or just don't want that sort of lifestyle. a universal house is one that can be built anywhere.

2) even after refining the design and paring down bedrooms and bathrooms, there's still an excessive number of exterior corners. I know that sounds strange, but exterior corners can needlessly raise the price of an otherwise good design by quite a bit. The patio is fine, and the price offset is worth it, but not the extra hallway for the office, or the protruding guest bath. Slide a few things over and you'll lop off the extra corners and keep most of the square footage without wasting space.

[Annie]

Scott, puleeeeeassssssssssssssssse get back to being funny -- I can't get through my work day with some real humor. All these posts about the house are boring.

[rita mae]

It's perfect. You, with the help of your friends, designed the perfect house.

NOW LET'S MOVE ON. WE NEED PENIS REFERENCES, BUT NO MORE BATHROOM TALK. CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Rita (it's tax season and I'm out of patience) Mae

[loki]

pretty close to damn good.

2 things:

1. infloor heating throughout (natch).
2. what on earth do you do with the retreat?

[Kevin]

I would suggest heating by zones. I added on to my house awhile back and the design did not lend itself to a thermostat for one big area or couple of big areas. I ended up using thermostats in every room and I have been very happy with the results.

I wouldn't bother with fancy setback stat's either. I have some of those in different rooms and standard thermostats in the other parts of the house. I have found that the system is so efficent for heating the room I'm in that I just turn them on when I walk into the room and it is good to go in just a couple of minutes no matter what the outside temp is.

[SJA]

wait!!!! you can't fire Wally

[Andrew]

Bathroom way to far from where eating is done, I know it shouldn't be right next to it, but not in another zip code either. If I eat some greasy food I might need a quick run. It also shouldn't require people to walk past the kids rooms, when they are young you won't want people walking past when you have guests if they are asleep, at least sawp the bedroom and the bathroom to get to the bathroom without walking past the kids.

[Josh]

I say flip the bedroom 1 and closet with the guest bathroom s that the guest bathroom is a bit closer, and the bedroom a bit more private.

Also, there needs to be a linen closet. Though I suppose that could be a shelf in the laundry...

[Tarun]

I don't know if this is going to be read, but, here are by 2 cents. The guest bathroom is losing space unnecessarily - it can be extended to the passage way. The other benefit is having a shorter passageway, kids (or people in general) might get scared of going through the long passageway to reach the guest bathroom.

[Mandy]

I really like the design. I think another bathroom is needed and the kitchen needs to be bigger. Given the limitation of not too close to the kitchen or living area, I'm not sure where the bathroom should go. The kitchen could be expanded out to the patio area though.

I think the doors from the closets to the laundry rooms will take up space. Instead, you could place a hamper built into the wall that could be accessed from the laundry room side.

I think the cat bathroom could be put into the laundry room. That way it eliminates the smell in the master bedroom, and when guests are over, you could close off the door leading from the laundry room to the house and leave the cat in the master bedroom. It's smart enough it will be able to find it's way to the laundry room. This also gives you the option of locking the cat out of the master bedroom. If you go with my previous idea of eliminating the door from the closet to the laundry though, you would also need to install a cat door from the closet to the laundry.

[sam]

Where are these 5 bathrooms everyone keep going on about?? Am I blind? I can only see the master bath, guest bath and 'cat bath' (freak) - are the other bathrooms implicit in the 2 other bedrooms because they were there in a previous design??

some thoughts;

No toilet near office - bad
Cat bathroom in master bedroom - really bad... how are you gonna dispose of the 'leavings' in a sanitary way, let alone bear the stench of it?? Cat toilets belong outside, man - in the rose beds! Or at least in the garage if you cat is really spoilt!
Front entry/mudroom squeezes in through tiny gap next to giant tv - ??? you know people will walk across inbetween the sofa and the tv to get to the kitchen don't you - it's the quickest way, even if it's not the most convenient for tv watchers...
Kitchen is comparatively tiny - this is also bad!

What would help would be to stop thinking of it only as a 2 dimensional plan - maybe trial it on one of those homeplanner type softwares that do 3d projections - I am lazy and can't be arsed to think of the name... Hey I'm lazy and complaining - bah!

Actually despite all this the plan is not bad at all - it could be made very livable with only a few modifications.

Most of all an interesting lesson - when you see something you dislike that's been designed by a highly paid designer (read architect), and you say 'that's crap - I could do better than that monstrosity' - you probably can't. What you can do, is take an existing design, and modify it to your personal specifications - this is NOT the same as designing a house (or anything else) from scratch.

Cool thought for the day :)

[tim]

I don't understand why it is so crucial to not have the storage room air conditioned. There are lots of things that potentially could be stored that would be destroyed by lack of climate control. It seems to me that the thermodynamics of an insulated square (the house) wouldn't be affected that much by a small room. It might be worse because insulating the two inside walls has more surface area to outside cold air (one with a door) than the one wall on the exterior of the house.

[Mathamagician]

Cool House! I think it's great! Here are a few thoughts.

Having the laundry near the closets is really great on one hand but a lot of people have very loud washer/dryers so you'd have to have one of the expensive quiet ones in order to sleep or watch TV.

Also it seems like you be spending a lot of time walking around but not through the middle piece of the house the laundry room is right in the middle. It seems weird that you can go from bedroom 2 to the master bedroom quicker by going through a closet-laundry-closet than walking the hallways and might make navigation cumbersome (my parents have a house that is difficult to navigate because they have too many narrow twisting hallways).

There should be one main artery hallway whereas right now the master has a little artery hall in addition to the guest hall area.

I think the guest bathroom should be closer to the main area for better main room access.

So yea maybe get rid of the guest hall and put bed 1&2 next to each other then laundry along the same bottom wall with all opening to main room. Adjust closets to be close to laundry and put guest bathroom either where laundry is or where BR1 closet is.

[Peter]

The only change I would make at this point would be to include a half bath somewhere in the vicinity of the storage area. If you have guests over in the family/dining/kitchen area would you really want them to have to walk all the way to end of the house to use the bathroom. You could put it on the same wall as the kitchen/bar and use the same plumbing stack . On a similar note you might want to consider putting the guest bath back to back with the master bath for the same reasoning and then put the bedroom 2 where the guest bath is.

[Tony]

Nice work. If I could, I would add ... in the space between the kitchen and the office opposite the pantry, alonside the office, a tiny bathroom. Basically just a toilet and sink.

It would be handy if you are in the kitchen or working in the office. Good for parties where everyone is in the kitchen or outside.

I like the storage between the garage