5 Major Items You Cant Forget in a House Plan

Searching for the right house plan can sometimes be overwhelming. So many plans, so little time, such short memory. :)

The best way to approach house plan hunting, is to have one designed for you. These can cost the same as, and sometimes cheaper than stock house plans online.

This way, all your needs, wants and requirements can be consolidated into one solution.

We can start off by looking a little deeper at the primary factors that personalize house plans to fit the needs, and that starts, by being guided by professionals whom have done this their whole life.

Believe it or not, whether you are designing hill country modern house plans, ranch house open floor plans, or bungalow open floor plans; there is an art, and a science behind making it work the way you want while also adding value to the design so when you decide to sell it will also be very marketable to the masses.

There are many specific interests that a person has that they might not be aware of but may still impact the way that they live in their house. Some examples include the following; master down, laundry location, mud room.

A lot of younger generation will prefer to have the master suite or master bedroom upstairs.

This is typically for a couple of reasons. One, using the separation between floors to conceal public and private spaces is not uncommon. It allows the privacy of a messy room to be hidden away from public view, and even those with children might enjoy having the kid’s bedroom away from where the activity and noise will be.

However, many people forget to consider that having a master down, is sometimes a better marketing strategy, since elderly people tend to prefer houses that are either single story, or if multilevel than the master and other common use areas remain down stairs.

This is an especially important consideration if you are finding an area where a lot of elderly, or retired people reside.

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PROS AND CONS

So there is clearly pros and cons to each, but it is about what your specific preferences are in each design.

Even the best open floor plan designs that somebody would find on the internet, would NOT take into consideration these factors, and the fact is that there many of these.

LAUNDRY ROOM LOCATION

Another one we might consider is the laundry room location.

Traditionally the laundry room, due to its noise, heavy equipment, and potential for large amounts of leaking what if the washer fails, or kept downstairs away from the areas where these cons of everything in a laundry room or tucked away close to the garage.

There is also reason to believe that people enjoy the laundry room downstairs because it seconds as a storage unit, containing the household cleaners, cleaning supplies, cleaning equipment, and other items that typically contain strong smells or fumes.

However the primary purpose of a laundry room is to handle the laundry. So especially in circumstances where two story house plans have the master bedroom upstairs, wouldn’t it make sense to have the location where clothes are laundered close to the place where dirty clothes are collected, upstairs?

But you will find a good variety of house plans that have laundry rooms placed all over the house. Upstairs, downstairs, next to the garage, next to the pool, next to the kitchen etc. But just because tradition, or your grandmother’s house was laid out in a particular manner, does not mean that it will reflect the way that your family functions.

But we can see again that this all could change depending on your personal preferences in the both the lifestyles, and layout of the way your family lives. Free house plans online will not possibly be able to reflect these, or understand what is most efficient for you.

MUDROOMS

Another consideration is the mud room. Some people have them, some people don’t, some people have never heard of them before.

So what is a mudroom and why should it be considered? Well the answer is actually pretty simple.

The mudroom was a place where the dirty messy dusty farmers would come home, drop their shoes, clothes, etc, brush off, and head into a shower. Yes, mudrooms used to have showers, it rare that they do anymore, but they used to! Now a days, the mudrooms have evolved into what is commonly called in the industry a ‘drop zone’.

So its still a place where you unwind and drop off the things you carried into the house, but the cleanliness is not as much as a factor anymore, it’s the clutter. Drop zones are usually decently decorated with casework cabinetry, cubbies, chair rails, and wainscot which takes a clutter with lots of little things, and dresses up the room to balance out the needs.

Lighter airy colors are usually the theme since drop zones are usually small, and the lighter colors avoids the perception of the room being smaller than it really is. Drop zones are great for children coming home from school and hanging up their book bags, books, or other items. Drop zones are also great for family members coming home to hang a coat, store their shoes, and drop their keys. In some scenarios with limited space or square footage, you might see a laundry room double as a drop zone with slightly less décor.

REFLECT YOUR FAMILY

So as you can see, depending on your circumstance either of these versions of the mudroom might fit your needs, but standard house plans found online will not know how to consider whether you are a farmer, or freelancer.

Either way, Epic Architecture provides you with the ability to understand your options when it comes to the content and arrangement of the spaces in your home, to better identify a place that reflects your family.

Speaking of reflecting your family, there is nothing more personable in the design of your home than that which reflects your personality.

Are you introvert or extrovert; bubbly, or humble; are you colorful or neutral; are you an open book, or prefer privacy? Best of all, do you truly believe that the design of your house cannot reflect your personality? If so, you are wrong.

ORIENTATION

Architects and design professionals hone in these sometimes subtle influences, to make major decisions when putting together a house plan that matches your, or your family’s personality.

Those who are spiritual, creative, and sociable might prefer more open free flowing, gathering spaces. Those who are poetic, collectors, and prefer views to nature might like closer romantic settings with large openings.

Others might love being woken up by that fresh beam of sunlight piercing through their room in the morning, but others might enjoy the dark, cool side of the house in the morning.

UNIQUE QUALITIES

Personalities, preferences, and function are all major factors that should contribute to your house design.

Too many people make the mistake of fearing the cost of professional designers or architects that specialize in capturing these unique qualities, and knowing how to make adjustments to a floor plan to reflect those, for selecting a house design online that rarely represents the people who inhabit the home.

Have you ever wondered why the house plan sites have so many designs? Meanwhile could you imagine how many combinations of personalities, interests, backgrounds, wants, and needs are? Well it is not a coincidence, there are limitless amounts of combinations of these attributes, just as there are limitless amounts of home plan designs. So why get stuck with a house plan that might have a couple of things you were looking for, but matches another person’s personality?

I wouldn’t want that. To me, it’s like sleeping in somebody else’s bed.

Epic Architecture specializes in the experience and know how to bring homes that meet these unique qualities, and the best part about it, is that this service is in some cases cheaper than buying a standard house plan online. No brainer right?

CLIENT NEEDS

Another primary item impacting the design of your home aside from all other previously discussed, is the needs.

There are a lot of needs, even though you might not know it. You might need to have an area where a bathtub is next to a kids room, or a need to have a hose bib next to your drive way. There might be a need to have a covered porch, or a spicket at your stove to fill pots.

You also might need to reflect your interest in the environment, and need low flow fixtures, drought tolerant landscaping, or a grey watering system. These items do not necessary cost more money, but typically is a tradeoff of other things in the house that standard house plans cannot possibly take into consideration.

Requirements are another factor that should be taken seriously, but what requirements might there possibly be?

Well for one, there are always building and municipal code requirements.

These requirements may impact the fire rating of your eaves in some circumstances, or the fire rating of the wall between your garage and the living spaces, or both. Some codes have limitations on how many windows and which rooms have those windows, and even how big those windows are in order to maintain egress. Some codes require ventilation requirements, both in the living spaces, and even in the attics.

Most of the examples that are mentioned above are in the national building codes which mean they are required in many places. But how do standard house plans reflect the local requirements that your local building code may require? They don’t. So when you purchase house plans online you are purchasing a package that is not designed, or intended for use at your actual site.

The companies who sell these plans will typically tell you that you would still need to hire an architect or a licensed professional to review the local codes and apply them.

So why go through all these extra steps when you can get them in a one stop shop Epic Architecture?

Last but certainly not least is the very important design attribute of site context. What is site context? Site context is the ability of your house design to respond to the site conditions. There are typically four of these that considered but there are always others as well. This includes natural, cultural, human, and visual.

SITE CONTEXT

The natural site context obviously related to the natural environment around your home.

It takes into consideration items such as topography which is the shape of the land. Is it hilly, or flat, will water sit, or run off. Geological and hydrological dealing with items such as the soil types which impact the foundation type types and sizes, and the percolation of the water the falls upon the site and its ability to trickle into the groundwater system, or run off.

Another item under natural is the climate, which would involve several factors such as sun, temperatures, precipitation, and wind.

CLIMATIC

Climatic conditions are some of my favorite areas to focus in on, because those are relevant factors that makes some of the largest impacts to the design.

As mentioned earlier about the sunlight coming into the room, but what about temperature. Architects will typically adjust the design of the house to match the temperature such as in cold climates, we like to have the living spaces on or near the sub side of the house to keep that area cozy.

In warmer climates, its sometimes best to keep the living areas away from the scorching sunlight where you can enjoy the space you’re in without killing your energy consumption on air condition. The orientation is a large consideration when addressing these types of impacts because just rotating the house might be all you need, but does that put your driveway in the backyard?

It might, so that’s why a custom home is able to address these types of considerations without making awkward or uncomfortable settings in or around your house.

HUMAN FACTORS

Human factors are also important, which includes things such as environmental quality, which would impact the way you’re a/c is designed, or maybe the air has high pollutants so you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of money on having a large porch or deck.

Utilities, you would not want to include specifications in your home for all gas appliances. But how do the house plan websites know which utilities gas, or electric is best suited for your house?

They don’t.

They hope that you will purchase their product, and figure it out yourself. That’s not right.

Let’s figure this out together the first time, and go with a professional the first time.

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VISUAL QUALITIES

One of my favorites is the visual feature of the site.

This can include natural or man-made features such as seasonal effects of views. It may also take into consideration items like sounds, smells, and colors. But perhaps more obvious would be to make sure the spaces in your house where you live the most will capture part or the full view of the best features about the sight.

Do you live near mountains, hills, streams, lakes, or forests? If so, some of these might be more visually pleasing to the occupants in the guests, instead of having a rarely used bedroom block the best views of the house.

There are so many factors that should be taking into consideration when planning out the most expensive investment that most people make in their life, yet they try to spend the least amount by purchasing fixed house plans online which ignores almost all the important things discussed above.

It is not always more expensive to use professional designers, and in some cases it is. But its almost always a sacrifice of a major value if you are not taking these subtle but very important impacts into consideration when looking at the next layout that you, your family, your friends, and maybe one day your kids will use on a day to day basis.

One of the most important things you can do in the process looking for an intended result of any venture you plan on taking in your life is to plan ahead. Planning ahead is exactly what architects and building designers specialize in so that you can get the most value out of your home.

Since there are very easy ways to address certain things, but just being aware and asking the right questions it is Epic Architectures approach to use these tools to improve the lives of our customers, and hopefully the lives of much more.

When most people are searching for house plans, they are looking for free house plans, or dream home plans, but what they are finding are USED floor plans.

So using these type of search terms typically lands them on house plans online websites that are very rarely match their specific interests, personality, needs, requirements, or site conditions.

[These articles are donated for your benefit, Share Some Love]