Browse Forums General Discussion Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 8Apr 13, 2020 7:49 am arcadelt viju_009 When you say flipping, are you suggesting to move the MB to the front of the house. alymei means flipping the design north to south. At the moment all the solar-passive benefit from the northern sun is going to blank walls and utility rooms, although there is some benefit to the kitchen, sitting room and large void/hallway. If you do flip the design (and you really should) it would be beneficial if you could somehow keep the garage on the southern side. As a custom designed home, I'm actually surprised your building designer or architect has not pointed this out. You are also correct that you will need to manage the western sun, otherwise you will have many hot sleepless nights. Hi Arcadelt, thank you for adding in. The garage is actually in the southern side of the house, the house oriented from east to west, with garage in the south-east and kitchen in the north-west. We had to choose between living area having access to the north side or kitchen? we chose the kitchen instead and allowed an alfresco in the north-west. I am considering, removing the stacker door on the west wall (living) and make it wall with heavy insulation and to small on either side of the wall.(attached image but with narrower widows) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 9Apr 13, 2020 7:54 am alymei Agreed with arcadelt ^^^. You question size of WIP, its an ok size. But if you cant afford to build this, I would start a fresh tbh. Either increase your budget or get a new plan... Looks like we will have to increase the budget. WIP - Will try to reduce the laundry marginally and gain some space in walk in pantry. Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 10Apr 13, 2020 8:19 am Our kitchen faces east and gets so hot in the morning, I couldnt imagine it facing north. Do you intend on having a roof over the alfresco? If so, I would include the roof as part of this build. If you are increasing budget to meet the contract price, you could move dining to the end of the kitchen and put alfresco where living is. Living moves to where dining is currently. Put roof over new alfresco. I also think the ensuite is wasted space, would make a way to have a dbl vanity. Bear in mind, if you are at max budget already and havnt done colour selections, you are playing in dangerous territory. Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 12Apr 13, 2020 9:31 am Yeah, it'd probably be nice to do some flipping, bit just part of the house, of possible. As you say, the garage is to the south, so it's best it stays there, as the entrance & void will benefit more from a northern aspect. Probably the same for the upstairs seeing area & the stairs, the sitting area will benefit more from the northern light (but make sure the stairs aren't overglazed, as a large southern window here will lose heart in winter). So the ideal situation would be just to flip the rear (living area) of the home, the kitchen for the dining & living room. As the dining & living room will benefit more from northern light, & as the glazing will be larger, will gain more from passive solar heating in winter. If you want to move the kitchen, you'll also want to move the laundry (east of the new kitchen?) & butler's pantry (west of the new kitchen). This is good, as these don't need to be located in the north. Or maybe the last has to stay, I don't know, it's like Tetris, trying to fit it all in correctly. But this also creates problems, as the new location of the dining area will be opposite to stairs/ powder room, a quite narrow area. So the dining will have to be rotated, but still might not fit comfortably. The dining will also be a little disconnected from the kitchen. Same goes with the living area, it may get a bit tight, around the corner of the stairs. One advantage of this change, if it's possible, is it may leave room for a covered alfresco area to the west of the living room, which will shade it in winter. It would certainly be nice to have an alfresco area that shades western sun. But all this talk about passive solar for your living areas may mean very little, if you're badly overshadowed by a large northern neighbour. So let us know a bit more about your surroundings, & importantly, what's to your north. If it's a large house, built close to the boundary, you mightn't gain much light or warmth in winter. You also mightn't want large amounts of glazing facing this neighbour, for privacy reasons. If you are badly overshadowed from the north, which is certainly a possibility for narrow lots, I'd probably look at a completely different solution. An upside down house. Light, & privacy in upstairs living areas. Like this example, on an narrow, extremely overshadowed site at 35 Kangaroo St, Manly. https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/prop ... -128750534 Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ As for reducing the size of the build, to reduce the budget, asking with trying to reduce hallway lengths, how about rationalising rooms. You seem to have 3 living areas (plus a study nook) in a 3 bedroom house. Can you combine any of these, to do double duty? I'd that a butler's pantry, or just a large normal pantry? Personally, I hate the idea of a butler's pantry, wasted space in my book. Moving to & fro, where's the dishwasher, where are the dishes stored, where do you prepare food? I'd have a normal pantry, reducing its size. Obviously the big ticket rooms, when it comes to cost, are the wet rooms. For a 3 bedroom house, depending on your family layout, or may nearly be worth considering combining your laundry with another room, the bathroom, or kitchen? But for some people this would be a big turn off. Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 13Apr 13, 2020 2:53 pm Thank you so much alymei and [b]ddarroch.[/b] Adding more to the surrounding, it we will have neighbours on the north and west side of the building with just 2 meters in between (1m on each of our fences). their land is also similar to our dimension, so am sure it will be a double stories house. We are considering the below changes to our plan, let me know your thoughts. 1. Flipped the alfresco to the south-west, will cover it to help some shade to the living. 2. Move the living area to where the dining was. 3. Move the dining to where the alfresco was. This might have not got the length shorter but it looks a better orientation 4. re-done the pantry + laundry to ensure seamless flow and also changed the position of the refrigerator. Below is an attempt made by me with the above suggestion, i might have not got the dimensions right. Please let me know what you think. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 14Apr 13, 2020 3:12 pm Your proportions are off a bit, but you have the right idea. Id make dining similar depth to what the kitchen is (essentially the space that was alfresco is now all dining (you could maybe add 1m - the space that was not covered by Master Bed shown as roof on 2nd storey plan all now becomes alfresco). I also wouldnt have the west facing windows in the dining. I also wouldnt bother doing the laundry access via the pantry. Im not sure what the costs would be, but I think it'll work better. I do help the feedback has helped. Let us know how you go Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 15Apr 14, 2020 12:10 pm Sure, ALymei. Looks like we resolved the ground floor issue, the first floor is still bothering us. In the current plan, the ensuite on the northern wall is blocking the breeze and the light of the room. 1. we were thinking of the below changes, remove the walk-in wardrobe in the north wall and bring the ensuite forward next to the living area. hoping it will allow us to have a window on the north side. 2. Merge both the walk in wardrobe and have it either in the south wall or on the west wall. 3. we are concerned about the heat from the west wall, we want to reduce the size of the windows, increase the glazing and insulation R2.8 or more? let me know if there any ideas, the total area is 5.5M and 6.7M, I will have to accommodate a good-sized master bedroom, ensuite and walk-in robe for me and my wife). Looking forward for your suggestions. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 16Apr 14, 2020 12:25 pm So I would put master where ensuite is, bump out that teeny bit of wall. WIR stays as is. Ensuite goes on south wall, entire width of master bed. Shower on left, dbl vanity in middle, toilet on right. Add window above toilet. Its kind of similar to what we built except we added a bath. Our ensuite dimensions are 4x2m. Your Entry to ensuite in centre. [img:6gntk2s9]https://forum.homeone.com.au/u/61703_1586831047.jpg[/img:6gntk2s9] Dont have any windows in master facing west, north only. Re: Feedback on 2story narrow house 19Apr 14, 2020 9:45 pm ddarroch Certainly don't want western windows in the master. Nice to have both north & south, for good cross ventilation. Am breaking my head to solve this puzzle, how do I have windows on both north and south walls at the same time fit an ensuite and 2 walk in robe or 1 large walk in robe. I was thinking to move the ensuite to where the walk in on the south side. And move both the walk in to the west wall. Sort of shield the bedroom from west wall and have walk ins behind the head board .... Thoughts?? Thanks again for this information. If you do hear anything different, would be great to know 4 8213 dimensions on your original plan are inconsistent and with accurate dimensions (including site plan, upstairs and down) i could make a proper scale drawing with furniture… 3 7497 So it looks like we finally have some movement on site! Definitely later than expected, but I'll take any progress at this point. I'll drop by over the weekend to get… 5 27294 |