House Plan Critique

April 2010 

 

Eplans.com # HWEPL69468
 
OK, so "cottage" isn't really accurate for this home, though certainly from the outside view one could characterize it as a cottage. But inside? Spacious, roomy, light-filled AND 2,300 sf on one floor - not what we normally consider cottage size. But no matter, here's a house plan that we selected for two main reasons: one, it's quite beautiful, and two, it has four separate and distinct outside spaces - a front porch (wrap-around!), a screen porch, a deck and a terrace. Since this month's focus is on living outdoors, it seemed a perfect fit.
 
And while we chose it originally for these outdoor spaces, it turned out it's a plan we really like a lot. On our four-house scale, we think it merits a strong 3.5 - with our few tweaks, though it could be close to a perfect 4!
 
The exterior of this home displays a great choice of materials - the stone base that wraps around and adorns the dining room window wall and the cedar or fiber-cement board siding and shingles in the gables offer up a definite cottage feel with the added benefit of being low-maintenance. We normally don't care for the garage being front and center from a street perspective but this one seems not to overwhelm, but to grace the streetside elevation. We like the garage doors and the simple gable roof above them.  We talked at length about the two dormers and decided to lose the small one over the dining room window - the scale is off, especially the scale of the windows to the gable. On the end dormer we'd move the double-window a bit lower just to center it better between the tip of the gable and the porch roof line. We can't really determine what the rear elevation looks like, though it would appear to be somewhat complicated, given the two bay bump-outs, the large windows and the deck and screen porch. (See the sidebar article on this plan's outdoor spaces.)
 
Now, let's turn to the floor plan. First, a warning: The photos you'll find on the website of this house as built is not true to the floor plan. It's actually a mirror image of the plan and there have been a couple of changes made to the original design. (Note to the plan buyer - yes, you can change the plans, but please have a skilled architect or builder assist with that.) Two major changes are the addition of a stairway up to the area over the garage - a good idea, if you need the space, but you'll have to move the closet in bedroom 3 and figure out how exactly to make the stair work from a head-room standpoint. The photos also show that the dining room has been walled off from the "grand room" - not an improvement, in our estimation. 

Aside from that caveat, we think this is a great floor plan.  There are a couple of minor changes we'd make. We'd add a full closet at the entrance foyer rather than the "cubbies" that appear there - much more functional and in keeping with the somewhat formal atmosphere set by the foyer.  We think the laundry room is too small, so we would lose the door into the master suite and extend that wall out just a bit in order to add a countertop for storage and folding. You might even build in bins for laundry sorting beneath the countertop. 
 
We're not crazy about this newfangled idea of passing through the master bath to get to the closet or for that closet to be facing the front porch, but these are matters of preference. If this really gave you heartburn, it could be redesigned. In the master suite, we would install a real fireplace (and the same in the lower level future bedroom), just because we're not fans of fake fireplaces.
 
We like the kitchen layout except we would move the sink closer to the middle of the island so that there's workspace on either side, swapping the dishwasher with the end cabinet.  We have changes in mind for the deck and screen porch too (see the sidebar) that we think would improve the access and the view from the grand room. In the family bedrooms, we would add windows to the side walls for more light and ventilation and bi-fold or sliding doors on the closets for complete access to the contents (don't you hate closets you can't really see into, much less get something out of?!)
 

We appreciate that in this plan, the lower level can be left unfinished, if you don't need all that space or want to build it out in phases. But what's great is that this lower level floor plan gives you a really good sense of how it can be used, and the layout will allow your builder to properly stub it out for future heating/cooling, water and electric.   If you were to build it out completely from the get-go, this is a fabulous 5,000 sf house for a large family, on a footprint half that size. Oh, and by the way, a design feature we would add in this lower level is a wine cellar, or root cellar if you're a gardener, (or both) beneath the "porch slab". This could be easily done by a simple rearranging of the "future powder room" to install a door into that area.
 
The terrace (unattractively called the "patio slab") off the "future social room" makes a great space as your parties overflow outdoors in the warm months.   We probably wouldn't place a hot tub there, but would tuck it into the woods close by for ultimate privacy and enjoyment of the twinkling stars peeking through the great trees that will, of course, grace the site you choose on which you choose to plant this house.  This plan really wants a sloping site to take advantage of its exposed lower level design.
 
What a nice house - large without being overly large. Adaptive, economical use of space and great outdoor living. Definitely a keeper plan!