Feedback on my draft house plan

Hi there

Planning this for a 1 acre block in Gippsland Victoria, which is a mild temperate climate. This is designed to face about 15 east of true north, and is hopefully a passive solar design.

As I try and solve each problem, I seem to finish up with a larger and larger house. I want to build a 14.4* 7.5 colorbond steel shed with wall height of 3.2-3.6 metres about 10 metres behind the house in the NW corner of the block rather than alongside the house as I thought it would be a bit large and look poor, but then I also need something for the cars alongside the house.

One of the problems we have is very strong wind from SW and E and ENE so a large shed on the West side would have made a good windbreak. Another problem I have is we have two dogs and in our existing house we have a north facing 5 by 5 metre courtyard which houses their kennels, beds, and outside table chairs, I don't know how to get a sheltered area for the dogs with our new design.
The existing mini courtyard is too small to be much use, might be ok for a couple of chairs in the sun. I was thinking of a sunroom on the north side, but thought it might be too hot for the dogs and I did not know if it would block sun from the thermal mass concrete slab and be a large cost and not that beneficial.

Any other suggestions for improvements on our design would be appreciated.

Just personal opinion but...an entry straight into meals area I don't think is a good look. Laundry accessed via/through the kitchen also not ideal.

The layout of the laundry, WIP, WIR and ensuite could be improved to utilise their space more efficiently. Trying to fit rectangular living spaces into a rectangular house shape will ALWAYS give you odd shaped utility rooms.
Recessed spaces need to be more utilised & for things to fit together well.

The entry way wouldn't come across as very inviting to visitors - a coat storage or mud room is probably needed too.

A few wild ideas
- I'd swap the kitchen and living area locations,
- turn the living area 90' to maximise northerly light.
- move the WIP to where the Walk in Linen closet is.
- rejig the laundry/WIR/ensuite to utilise the space better.
- ensuite crapper will feel very weird enclosed like it is.
- put the 3 master BR doors a lot closer = feels more intimate/ less like a passage way.

Garage/ Shed options.... could you sketch up a plan of the block pls?

Will the garage have the same roof as the house?If so I'd move front of the garage to inline with the front of the house (adding the carport). That'd give you a 2.7x7.15m space behind the garage for laundry/sunroom/dog room/ mud room/ etc.
Also, you could have attic storage in the garage/ above the cars in a vaulted ceiling... plus easy access to attic storage above the adjacent rooms.

One variation was to have laundry and WIP laundry flipped, but then I thought Laundry external door would lead into a garage, not easy to get to outside clothes line, unless I access clothes line through the meals area sliding door.A friend suggested we needed access from garage to wip as wip was too far from south entry when we come home with shopping, so we are exploring this option.

Original design has bedroom 2/study on North where laundry are wip are currently. The laundry was on south side and kitchen and living rooms were reversed. with wip back to back with cinema storage. I am away from home at the moment and do not have this old version of the plan with me.T

Thanks for your input.

Thanks for that, one of earlier designs had something very similiar, I am away from home at the moment and do not have that design with me. Study/bed 2 was on north where laundry and wip are currently. Kitchen and living were reversed, wip was back to back with cinema storage, I will post copy of that design and the block layout next Tuesday. I could rotate living are 90 degrees as it is deeper than it is wider and put TV on the south wall of living area, but we like to sit at the meals table and also watch it from the kitchen while preparing dinner, to watch the TV evening news, but could always wall mount an extra TV for meals area viewing.

Do you have any suggestions as to how i could improve this south entry, I could make if L shaped, or perhaps I think a better option is to delete it completely and have it to the west side and have a west path between garage and house.

One thought was put bed 2/study where laundry WIP is and have an entry between Study/bed 2 and the WIR from the master ensuite, entry to side of kitchen, although an earlier design had kitchen living reversed so would enter into side of living room.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers. It has to fit YOUR lifestyle, so a little info there would really help too.

Our lifestyle is retired couple early 60's with limited social circle of visitors,except married children and 1 grandchild. We have 2 dogs which spend half their time inside , but currently sleep outside in undercover courtyard adjoining kitchen, family room.

Expect to have 2-4 visitors once a fortnight/month for dinner and card playing or movie watching.

Not big into entertaining but like nature, fishing, cycling, ocean beaches, walking. Our current home is a quiet street, 1.25 acres land, sunny open plan courtyard design and we highly value the sunny light part of our house but to far from the beach.

You could flip Entry and bed2/study so entry goes into living area. Although that would make bed2/study slightly smaller. Do you need the cinema storage? If not you could put laundry in there (provided you remove that dividing wall). It would make more sense to have laundry closer to where most of the bedrooms are.

I think you should re-layout the WIP... move the garage entry door down so it's in line with the entry door into the kitchen... (better passage way). That would then not divide the room so much giving you more storage space.

I saw a small 'trapdoor' (75h x 50w) access from garage to WIP for groceries. Shelves above to maximise storage space. A good compromise IMO.

http://www.viralnova.com/simple-home-ideas/