Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 04, 2020 9:18 am Hi all, Just after some opinions on floor plans. We debated for a while and decided on a floor plan we felt best suited our needs and would be suitable when we eventually rent out our first home down the track. The builder we chose though have since added some crazy site costs and haven't been so great to deal with so we reevaluated our options and have found another builder who have been nothing but great (we're still being cautious of empty promises though!). This builder have better inclusions and have offered us a decent discount but we're just not sold on the floor plan. Would love to know what everyone thinks! Option 1 - Old builder: Total 216m2 (No WIP, small laundry, larger living/dining areas) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Option 2 - New builder: Total 201m2 (WIP, larger laundry, smaller living areas) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Help deciding on floor plan 2May 04, 2020 10:02 am IMO Option 1, the layout flows better from the wide entry hall through to the living areas than option 2. It could do with more storage though. Suggest hang the front entry door to swing to the right, so the master bedroom door can then open directly on to the entry hall - you could then use the void between the master bedroom and entertainment room to put in a cupboard in which you could hang coats, store suitcases etc (? ) You could also narrow the hallway from 1500 to 1200 and get an extra cupboard in the kitchen or widen the pantry cupboard. 😀 Re: Help deciding on floor plan 3May 04, 2020 10:05 am When it comes to comfort & energy efficiency - think low bills - the most important aspect of a floorplan is getting the orientation right. That is, locating your living areas to the north, so they'll be light, warm in winter & cool in summer. Bedrooms should be kept away from the west, as western bedrooms can get very hot on summer evenings. The west is a good place for the garage & rarely used rooms, like bathrooms & the laundry. Designing this way is called "passive solar design". https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design So if you have a southern frontage, you'll want living areas facing the north backyard. You don't want a covered northern alfresco, which will shade your living areas. Trying to locate most bedrooms on the eastern side & southern frontage. If you have an eastern or western frontage, you'll want to locate the living areas down the northern side, the bedrooms down the southern side. A northern frontage, & you're a bit buggered, as the double garage will rob much of the home of north sun. It's a good idea to have some type of living room at the front, to get some sun. Best to have the bedrooms down the eastern side. So which direction is north on the plans? Re: Help deciding on floor plan 4May 04, 2020 10:09 am Bebbsy IMO Option 1, the layout flows better from the wide entry hall through to the living areas than option 2. It could do with more storage though. Suggest hang the front entry door to swing to the right, so the master bedroom door can then open directly on to the entry hall - you could then use the void between the master bedroom and entertainment room to put in a cupboard in which you could hang coats, store suitcases etc (? ) You could also narrow the hallway from 1500 to 1200 and get an extra cupboard in the kitchen or widen the pantry cupboard. 😀 Thanks so much! Love those suggestions. We've been staring at them for so long a fresh set of eyes was definitely needed. Re: Help deciding on floor plan 5May 04, 2020 10:16 am ddarroch When it comes to comfort & energy efficiency - think low bills - the most important aspect of a floorplan is getting the orientation right. That is, locating your living areas to the north, so they'll be light, warm in winter & cool in summer. Bedrooms should be kept away from the west, as western bedrooms can get very hot on summer evenings. The west is a good place for the garage & rarely used rooms, like bathrooms & the laundry. Designing this way is called "passive solar design". https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design So if you have a southern frontage, you'll want living areas facing the north backyard. You don't want a covered northern alfresco, which will shade your living areas. Trying to locate most bedrooms on the eastern side & southern frontage. If you have an eastern or western frontage, you'll want to locate the living areas down the northern side, the bedrooms down the southern side. A northern frontage, & you're a bit buggered, as the double garage will rob much of the home of north sun. It's a good idea to have some type of living room at the front, to get some sun. Best to have the bedrooms down the eastern side. So which direction is north on the plans? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This is our disclosure, we hadn't given much consideration to orientation. Definitely something to think about. Thanks for the insight! Re: Help deciding on floor plan 6May 04, 2020 10:44 am [quote="bpal8713":2sdt6kw1]This is our disclosure, we hadn't given much consideration to orientation. Definitely something to think about. Thanks for the insight![/quote:2sdt6kw1] No worries. Yeah, I think orientation is extremely important. I'm sitting on the couch in a north facing living area now, sun streaming in. When I came through here earlier in the morning it was 21°C in here, even though it got down to around 11°C outside last night. South facing bedrooms, no western windows. Never have to turn the heating or cooling on. Perfect Actually, I think it's very important to consider the orientation of the block, before it's purchased. As it's much easier to get a home's orientation right with some blocks than with others. As I said, a northern frontage makes things very tough. I'm sorry to say that as the blocks orientation moves away from a compass point things also get tough. As it's easy to shade northern sun in summer with eaves (while still letting the sun in). But NE & NW aspects are tougher to shade in summer. So the fact that your block is rotated 45° from North will make things tougher. I'm a bit lost on your site plan, as I can't see a road. But looking at those retaining walls, I'm assuming you have a SW frontage. Is that right? If so, I'd be trying to locate my living areas to the rear, as a NE aspect is a nice aspect. Make sure you get your eave length right though, so those windows will be shaded in summer. I'd locate the bedrooms on the SE side, so they'll be cooler in summer. Garage to the NW, along with laundry, bathrooms, any rarely used room if possible. Maybe aim for variable shading on the NW side, which can be opened in winter. I'd be asking for shadow diagrams of any plans for thinking of using. As careful consideration of shading is very important, & a 45° aspect from north makes things tougher. Any window that won't be shaded by eaves in summer needs some type of effective external shading. Louvred sun shades, awnings, roller shutters, trees. Also consider low-e glass for these windows, though external shading is probably a better option. The government website I linked above is brilliant. Tonnes of useful information there. Here's the section on orientation. Maybe a bit long winded as the start, but very useful. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/orientation Re: Help deciding on floor plan 7May 04, 2020 12:16 pm IMHO both are so-so, it is really hard to squeeze 5 bedroom house into just 200 sqm with garage, I'd say you would need 100-150 sqm of extra space for well sized 5 bedder. Now, your common bedrooms as well garage and outdoor living are a bit tiny and bedrooms might have space issues after you place furniture in them. Having said that, Option 1 is a better choice although still needs requires a lot of improvements. Re: Help deciding on floor plan 8May 04, 2020 12:27 pm Another suggestion for Option 1 to give you more usable wall and floor space in bedrooms 2,3 and 4 is to change the size of the windows so you can position furniture underneath. So either 2100 wide x 900 high, or 2100 x 600 so same height as your entertainment room window. We recently moved into our new house, our sons’ bedrooms have windows 3000 x 900. One son’s room has a double bed under the window, the other has a desk under his window and a QS bed on another wall. By increasing the width of these windows you are still allowing light into the room. But by reducing the height you have more flexibility in furniture placement and you will also save on cost of roller blinds or curtains. 😀 [img:1pgyu0mh]https://forum.homeone.com.au/u/86033_1588559298.jpeg[/img:1pgyu0mh] Re: Help deciding on floor plan 9May 04, 2020 1:50 pm Personal preference i guess. I feel suffocated in a bedroom with a high slim window. It would really make me depressed. We are now renting in Campbelltown and a number of new houses have similar high but slim windows. This was a deal breaker for us when we were looking for a house to rent last year. We took our time and found a house with 4m wide floor length stacker door to the bedroom opening into the balcony. The guest bed has a high similar slim window where you cant possibly see the outside wall. It feels like a jail room to me. Again its all personal preference! quote="Bebbsy"]Another suggestion for Option 1 to give you more usable wall and floor space in bedrooms 2,3 and 4 is to change the size of the windows so you can position furniture underneath. So either 2100 wide x 900 high, or 2100 x 600 so same height as your entertainment room window. We recently moved into our new house, our sons’ bedrooms have windows 3000 x 900. One son’s room has a double bed under the window, the other has a desk under his window and a QS bed on another wall. By increasing the width of these windows you are still allowing light into the room. But by reducing the height you have more flexibility in furniture placement and you will also save on cost of roller blinds or curtains. 😀 [img:1pgyu0mh]https://forum.homeone.com.au/u/86033_1588559298.jpeg[/img:1pgyu0mh][/quote] Re: Help deciding on floor plan 10May 04, 2020 1:56 pm I think i like option 1, leas cluttering plan, the open plan dining and family is a huge space together giving a better sense of open ness. I like its master room too! bpal8713 Hi all, Just after some opinions on floor plans. We debated for a while and decided on a floor plan we felt best suited our needs and would be suitable when we eventually rent out our first home down the track. The builder we chose though have since added some crazy site costs and haven't been so great to deal with so we reevaluated our options and have found another builder who have been nothing but great (we're still being cautious of empty promises though!). This builder have better inclusions and have offered us a decent discount but we're just not sold on the floor plan. Would love to know what everyone thinks! Option 1 - Old builder: Total 216m2 (No WIP, small laundry, larger living/dining areas) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Option 2 - New builder: Total 201m2 (WIP, larger laundry, smaller living areas) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Help deciding on floor plan 11May 04, 2020 4:06 pm LoveHouse Personal preference i guess. I feel suffocated in a bedroom with a high slim window. It would really make me depressed. We are now renting in Campbelltown and a number of new houses have similar high but slim windows. This was a deal breaker for us when we were looking for a house to rent last year. We took our time and found a house with 4m wide floor length stacker door to the bedroom opening into the balcony. The guest bed has a high similar slim window where you cant possibly see the outside wall. It feels like a jail room to me. Again its all personal preference! quote="Bebbsy"]Another suggestion for Option 1 to give you more usable wall and floor space in bedrooms 2,3 and 4 is to change the size of the windows so you can position furniture underneath. So either 2100 wide x 900 high, or 2100 x 600 so same height as your entertainment room window. We recently moved into our new house, our sons’ bedrooms have windows 3000 x 900. One son’s room has a double bed under the window, the other has a desk under his window and a QS bed on another wall. By increasing the width of these windows you are still allowing light into the room. But by reducing the height you have more flexibility in furniture placement and you will also save on cost of roller blinds or curtains. 😀 [img:1pgyu0mh]https://forum.homeone.com.au/u/86033_1588559298.jpeg[/img:1pgyu0mh] Yes, I get that and fully understand, however with limited space in smaller bedrooms it’s often a practical solution. In our situation, although our bedrooms are large neither of our sons have any interest in looking out their windows, so this was a good compromise.... they get plenty of light and can also see the tops of trees outside. As for our master bedroom, that has four large windows in it for the reasons you mention. 😉 This is a very tight fit, I'm not sure if you'll be able to achieve what you've described. Would you consider accessing the separate toilet from the laundry? If so maybe… 1 11258 we need accurate dimensions as well as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms needed etc to make specific suggestions but, based on estimated rooms sizes, it could be… 1 577 i thought the flipped plan initially but bec i want narrow pathway from entry to dining (dont like bend), also cannot fit the… 7 17285 |