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Ooo new house thread! Congrats on putting the horse before the cart in that you have already completed two crucial steps: acquiring land on which to build and retaining an architect! I don’t know anything about ICE construction, but I can talk a lot about design. From the architect’s sketch and you wanting a modernized craftsman style, seems like prairie school is what you’re after. It’s basically proto-modern Craftsman, often with flat/shallow hipped roofs, lots of natural stone and wood details, cool windows everywhere, and emphasis on integrating with the natural landscape. If you haven’t already gone through prairie school inspirations and discussed using these influences with your architect, I highly recommend doing so. I know it’s still early in the process so stuff is subject to change and evolve, but a few remarks layout: the basement stairs seem kind of in the middle of everything. If these were stairs going up to a second floor, that’d be one thing, but with them going down it opens up a weird chasm in the middle of the living room. And a note on master bedroom 2, if this is going to be a multigenerational house, I’d try to put it on equal footing with master 1 and give it an outside entrance. I think having direct access to outside for both masters is a good thing as it gives both adult couples more autonomy and separate access to their own little zone and they’re not captive to the rest of the house, if you get what I’m saying. I think what’s preventing that right now is that too many bathrooms have riverfront views instead of bedrooms. Those things said, it’s already vastly superior to your average stock plan. Also it’s awesome that you’re able to build a house from the ground up to appropriately accommodate mobility issues. Designing from scratch for accessibility seems way more ideal than retrofitting an existing structure. The circles in the floorplan are wheelchair turn radiuses, right?
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Mar 8, 2021 08:09
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 04:32 |
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Oh cool, updates! I have some comments and questions. Too lazy to do fancy multipart quoting so I’ll just go in sections. Main floor: I like the changes. Stairs are no longer making a big hole in your living room and master #2 doesn’t feel so obviously second fiddle because it now has its own deck access. The bedroom exterior doors are all French doors, right? Because river view and all that. (Of course you’d have blinds on them for privacy and sleeping in.) On the walk up closet, yeah it feels more accessible because you wouldn’t have to navigate a walker or wheelchair into a separate small room. For the folding doors on the walk-up closet, can you get motorized ones? I’ve encountered so many suboptimal folding/sliding/accordion closet door styles that suck to operate as an able bodied person and would no doubt be inoperable for someone with a walker or in a wheelchair, but I guess if you have the folding doors on high quality hinges (without tracks that can get jammed) and weak/easily operable catch mechanisms then you’d be just fine. Home Theater: I’m no audiophile or home theater expert, but would the room shape even matter that much for a relatively small space like this full of people and seating as long as you have good surround sound that’s optimally placed and configured? I always figured that room shape and placement of reflector things and whatnot were concerns for huge symphony halls and poo poo. Also, what is the use case for the home theater? Is it just for movies or is it for all your TV screen needs like news, mindless TV watching (HGTV et al), video games, etc? Will there be another TV in the house? Multiple others? I’m curious because I’ve always lived in a single TV household. My parents built a sweet home theater/glorified TV den in their basement and it is now the location of their one TV, so the room is set up very conventionally (couch + coffee table) rather than having theater seating, so it feels like a normal room rather than a special purpose room that’s reserved for viewing films exclusively. My husband and I are doing a very similar setup - normal TV den couch + coffee table configuration with high end surround sound and a good flat panel. Personally speaking (and please tell me to gently caress right off if you disagree), I’ve never liked the idea of home theaters set up to mimic real movie theaters with the little rows of theater seating and such. It feels restrictive and kinda pigeonholes the room. I vastly prefer a glorified TV den setup in which there is a monster sectional with tons of cushions and detachable ottomans and fuzzy throw blankets, end tables and maybe a coffee table for drinks and snacks, counter height beer fridge (high end ones are silent) and possibly a wet bar in the back, etc. Much better optimized for social viewing (i.e. sports and multiplayer video games) in my opinion, and also gives you the option to watch something lying down snuggled up under a blanket if you just want to veg, to cuddle as a couple, have some shared snack bowls everyone can reach for, have a ton of floor space for kids, and so on. Or this could just be me - like I said, I grew up in a house with one TV, and said TV was shunted off to the den and forever banned from the living room, and I still think in terms of one TV, so I want the environment for that one TV to be super indulgent and comfy and unapologetically media-centric, because I don’t want to compromise my living room (also I have like the worst living room for trying to place a TV). BUT if you also have a TV in your living room for casual/social watching, then that covers a lot of your bases and the full blown theater with theater seating makes more sense. General basement floor/sauna: so is that third master suite going to be built out initially? Or is the mention of roughing in just for the sauna? Honestly I would not swap the bathroom/sauna location with the downstairs bedroom because it would turn the bedroom into a drat cave by putting it mostly below grade (from the looks of that side elevation) - it’s already underneath the upper deck so you need all the light you can get. If you move it to the corner and don’t change any outer walls, you reduce natural light. What about swapping the tub and sauna so the sauna also has direct outside access? Or do you generally not want two doors on a sauna? (I am not familiar with saunas) Speaking of being under the deck, I’d try to make that whole area feel “finished” and welcoming - you want a snazzy covered patio vibe and not underside of a deck/crawlspace vibe. Good looking rafters/columns, permanent lighting, etc. As for that seating area, what’s the use case? When my dad was designing our family house rebuild, he originally had some little sitting area/reading nook in the upstairs hallway. An architect friend laughed at it and told him to just add another bathroom instead. Now one of the bedrooms has an en suite bathroom that it didn’t have originally, which makes it a fine guest room, and never in 25 years since the house was (re)built has anyone at any point ever had the thought, “gee I wish there was a sitting area in the hallway”. Since you don’t seem to need any additional bathrooms, what I’d do is give that space to the bedroom so you can have a sitting area in the bedroom (and so it’s bigger and feels more apartment-like to compensate for it being in the basement), or if you don’t need to have it as a bedroom yet, dress it up like a library or wine cellar or whiskey tasting room or something. Doing that will make indoor access to the sauna not feel like traipsing through a private space. And I guess an additional idea would be to add a hookup to the sitting area that is now in the bedroom so you have the option of easily turning it into a kitchenette in the future in case you ever need a self-contained in-law unit and/or your folks want additional autonomy down the road. Some of our friends bought a relatively new construction house with an unfinished basement, but the basement came equipped with a proper egress window and capped off hookups, which makes it extremely easy for them to build it out as an additional bedroom with full bath or in-law suite or whatever. This was a huge plus for them when buying the house. I love the idea of literally building in additional options for rooms in case you want to add/change functionality later. Not that much of an extra cost when you’re building and if you find you really do want that extra bathroom/kitchenette/whatever in the future, it’s way less of a headache to install because it’s just fixtures, finishes, and millwork and not ripping poo poo apart to install necessary plumbing after the fact. Wow that got long. Hope it’s helpful and not a rambling pile of nonsense.
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Mar 23, 2021 19:56
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