THE HOUSE PLANWell, here they are. Our latest floor plans for the house. This is about our third round. The interior is pretty tight but we’re still trying to figure out the style of the outside. Here’s some context around what you’re looking at.
OVERALL APPROACH
Based on initial discussions with the builder, we’re shooting to keep the house under 4,000 square feet with an additional 1,500 square feet of basement. This fits within the budget and gives us enough space to work with.
“The Pods”. Sounds like a sci-fi thriller, I know. Our approach to two families in one home is rooted in a mix of common space and family-specific space. It’s one house, but the two families are situated in what we are calling “pods”. Think West Wing and East Wing of The White House (I mean, you don’t want to be TOO close to the Biden’s) In this case our pods aren’t made up of wings, but one family is upstairs and the other family is in a wing of sorts on the first floor.
Budget prioritization. As much as we would like to build exactly what we want, we can’t. I for one have finally given in and agreed to accept a marble replica of the Venus Di Milo statue in the grande foyer instead of the original. As Tom pointed out, “then we can get one with the arms still on it.” Excellent point, Tom. So our approach on prioritization is to make sure we focus on things that can’t be upgraded later. For instance, you can only dig a basement once, but crown molding can wait. Better to get an extra coupla hundred sqft in the basement and save the crown molding for another day.
9 foot ceilings. Have you ever noticed the difference between 8-foot and 9-foot ceilings? Coach vs. First Class, people. This is one place where we all agree it will be worth the money. Doing 9-foot ceilings throughout, including the basement ceilings.
FIRST FLOOR - COMMON SPACE
The common rooms on the first floor consist of a great room, dining room, kitchen as well as a half back and a “mud room”.
The Kitchen, AKA The Most Important Room in The House. Our goal is to have this be the room people walk in and say “wow”! Meals will be a big part of this new experience as the majority of our food is of the cooked-from-scratch variety. We’re also committed to living very active lifestyles and as many of you know growing children living active lifestyles need food food food. Though our kitchen will at first glance feel high-end, we are certainly focusing on function while not forgetting fashion. We’re not going for opulence but for highly functional space – commercial grade ‘cause we need it, not ‘cause we can. Plenty of counter space and an island with a prep sink as there’s a good chance 2-3 people will be fixing a meal at the same time. Not just dinner either – picture nine people eating breakfast while seven lunches are made, all in time to catch the bus? We have also explored our refrigeration options – built-ins seem too shallow (and pricey) so we’re planning to put in two standard-size fridges right next to each other – one opens one way, the second one opens the other way, so it achieves kind of a “one big fridge” appearance at a reasonable price. It’s looking like the stove, however, will be one of those great big commercial-sized stoves. We talked about two wall-ovens and a cooktop, but we like the large range option. (Sarah, want to elaborate?)
Mud Room. Sarah is the big mud room advocate. I think we all agree with her. This space is connected to the garage, next to the 1st floor common bath and near the back door. This will be a “hard-workin’ room” for sure. Think nine pair of shoes in the evening (minimum), school backpacks and jackets, and a dog shower for muddy children (and maybe even an actual dog). I see benches and hooks and shelving.
The dining room is nothing special, but we designed it to be big enough to hold a big long table as well as a buffet of some kind. With some space between the kitchen and dining room you’ll want to bring all food into this room so a buffet will be needed.
The great room is turning out to be cool. We are doing a pitched ceiling here to make it much more open. Near the bottom you can see where there is about a 4-foot overhang of 9-foot wall. We’ll likely put a table and chairs there for cards/games/puzzles. We’ll arrange furniture around the fireplace. Still not sure a TV is going in this room – maybe above the fireplace? French doors will open in, not out. Will have a patio off the great room someday.
THE “PODS” - FIRST FLOOR WING & SECOND FLOORPreserving the family space. We felt it important to design the house in the way that it is clearly one house yet also occupied by two different groups. As much as the kitchen/dining/great send a message of “one big happy family” the living space signals more of a bifurcation. (you’re damn right I just used that word) We wanted to make sure there was still a spot for the immediate family to gather and for bedtime to be a place where families are a little more defined. Hence putting the bedrooms together as well as the living space. This will be great for reading before bedtime, will be a good spot for a television (thus keeping TVs out of the bedrooms for as long as we can) and for other private family affairs. This feels like the most experimental area – how much time will the families spend here vs. the great room? Will we go our separate ways at 8 PM until the next morning? Will kids do their homework in the common area or find a quiet spot in the pod? How comfortable will one family be entering the other family’s pod? I think this will be interesting to observe how these are used in the first year.
Each family “pod” will include a living/sitting room, a full master suite, two bedrooms for the kids and an additional full bathroom for them to share. Each family will also have its own laundry - the second floor pod has a laundry closet while it looks like the first floor pod will have space in the basement (ooh, a laundry shoot! More old-time farmhouse character!)
Reasonable room sizes. I think when you list off the rooms – 6 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 2 living rooms, great room, eat-in kitchen, dining room – the above-ground square footage of 4,000 sqft seems a bit of a pipe dream. But as you look at the room sizes, the closets, etc you see they are pretty reasonable in size. I’ve been in plenty of master suites that seem more suitable for racquetball and seen walk-in closets that feel more like a fashion boutique (“I’ve been here five minutes and still haven’t seen a sales associate!”) but our room sizes are fairly modest, relatively speaking. We also did our best to minimize hallways, avoid dead space and not mess with vaulted ceilings. Bedrooms run around 12’X12’, master bedrooms around 14’X16” and the master bathrooms will be hard to ballroom dance in. The space feels just big enough.
BASEMENT
How big a basement? The footprint for this house is around 2,500 feet, which would be a huge basement. We’re probably going to end up with a partial basement, like 1,500 sqft, which is still a lot of space. This will be unfinished for now – we will likely put in a big family room (with a bar?) as well as an exercise room. Also, another bedroom for guests that could also be used as an office for me. Our original floor plan sketched out an office for me as I currently work from home and I need to be able to work away from the chaos that we know this house will be. That said, I would rather have 400 or 500 sqft of unfinished basement that can become an office later than 175-200 sqft of office finished today. Again, we’re trying to build a big box knowing we can make it nicer later. We also have discussed putting up an outbuilding later which might also be a good location for an office, getting me away from the house and allowing us to use the basement space for other things.
EXTERIOR
This is one where we’ve struggled a bit. I think our architect and builder could’ve picked up on what we’re going for here quicker than they did, but we’re getting there. We aren’t really interested in a “New American”-style home – we didn’t want something that looked like it fell out of a subdivision. Hey, no offense to those living in a New American home in a subdivision- they’re popular for a reason. We just wanted something a little more classic and a little more appropriate for 4.90 acres on a country road that should be teeming with people, plants and animals.
So as you can see we have three different sketches. The first is more of a Cape Cod style, the second is more of a contemporary style with a turret and the third is more of a Colonial-style. We’re still working through which one we like – the turret really breaks up the home’s length but can also come off as a little grandiose. It would be great to have the bay window in what would be kids rooms (both floors), so that is certainly an option. The Cape Cod is interesting, though we are still trying to figure out if the dormer-style windows will cost more and mess with our floor plan. The Colonial is the one that needs some work – this needs to be a little more boxy to be a Colonial and the devil is in the details here – if we add some character-building elements it could work. Plus, we could always put a big honkin’ front porch on later – something we all want but have deprioritized off this plan due to the cost. It also seems to be messing with the floor plan a bit, pushing everything in. More to come on the exterior over the next couple of weeks.
How big a basement? The footprint for this house is around 2,500 feet, which would be a huge basement. We’re probably going to end up with a partial basement, like 1,500 sqft, which is still a lot of space. This will be unfinished for now – we will likely put in a big family room (with a bar?) as well as an exercise room. Also, another bedroom for guests that could also be used as an office for me. Our original floor plan sketched out an office for me as I currently work from home and I need to be able to work away from the chaos that we know this house will be. That said, I would rather have 400 or 500 sqft of unfinished basement that can become an office later than 175-200 sqft of office finished today. Again, we’re trying to build a big box knowing we can make it nicer later. We also have discussed putting up an outbuilding later which might also be a good location for an office, getting me away from the house and allowing us to use the basement space for other things.
EXTERIORThis is one where we’ve struggled a bit. I think our architect and builder could’ve picked up on what we’re going for here quicker than they did, but we’re getting there. We aren’t really interested in a “New American”-style home – we didn’t want something that looked like it fell out of a subdivision. Hey, no offense to those living in a New American home in a subdivision- they’re popular for a reason. We just wanted something a little more classic and a little more appropriate for 4.90 acres on a country road that should be teeming with people, plants and animals.
So as you can see we have three different sketches. The first is more of a Cape Cod style, the second is more of a contemporary style with a turret and the third is more of a Colonial-style. We’re still working through which one we like – the turret really breaks up the home’s length but can also come off as a little grandiose. It would be great to have the bay window in what would be kids rooms (both floors), so that is certainly an option. The Cape Cod is interesting, though we are still trying to figure out if the dormer-style windows will cost more and mess with our floor plan. The Colonial is the one that needs some work – this needs to be a little more boxy to be a Colonial and the devil is in the details here – if we add some character-building elements it could work. Plus, we could always put a big honkin’ front porch on later – something we all want but have deprioritized off this plan due to the cost. It also seems to be messing with the floor plan a bit, pushing everything in. More to come on the exterior over the next couple of weeks.
OTHER NOTES
Garage – we have a three car garage, each with its own stall. We think this will still be a challenge out of the gate as we have four cars, a motorcycle, a litany of bikes and trikes as well as lawn-mowing equipment. We’re pretty sure we will build an outbuilding of sorts in the near future – a lawn and garden shed at least, maybe a sizable pole barn – so this feels like we can get by with 3 vs. 3.5 or 4. Having three doors vs. one big and one small door is more expensive, but I think the look of it will be much better and it should function as a three-car a little better as well
Exit strategy. One of the first questions we often get is the resale value of the home. Building a home for two families certainly makes it an atypical property and thus narrows the market for it. Though I don’t have anything other than my own opinion to back this up, the first floor pod seems ripe for conversion into an in-law apartment. You could convert one of the bedrooms into a kitchen and turn the other into a dining area or a guest bedroom. Now that’s quite an in-law apartment, but certainly opens up the market a bit. Plus, I’m sure by the time we’re ready to sell (if ever) we’ll have trailblazed the two-family trend and nuclear families everywhere will be teaming up and looking for a property just like ours. (crazy? Like a fox!)
How green can we get? There are a few areas we want to upgrade to make this as energy efficient as possible – better windows, better insulation and even geothermal heating. The geothermal heating is the tough one – it’s a bunch of money upfront and will wreak havoc on our budget, but the savings over the years is significant. I think we’ll cover this in a future post, as I would like to share more of the details around geothermal as we learn about it, but I think the point I’m making is the four of us are really interested in building a pretty energy-efficient home. I know there is a bit of hypocrisy in building a 4,000 sqft home and talking about our energy use, but remember we’re putting two families in one home – instead of two homes we’re building one. That alone will put a dent in our carbon footprint. Anyway, I’m less excited about the altruism of lowering the carbon footprint as much as I am about hedging against future increases in energy costs. Anyway, more to come on the geothermal heating as well as windows & insulation.
Garage – we have a three car garage, each with its own stall. We think this will still be a challenge out of the gate as we have four cars, a motorcycle, a litany of bikes and trikes as well as lawn-mowing equipment. We’re pretty sure we will build an outbuilding of sorts in the near future – a lawn and garden shed at least, maybe a sizable pole barn – so this feels like we can get by with 3 vs. 3.5 or 4. Having three doors vs. one big and one small door is more expensive, but I think the look of it will be much better and it should function as a three-car a little better as well
Exit strategy. One of the first questions we often get is the resale value of the home. Building a home for two families certainly makes it an atypical property and thus narrows the market for it. Though I don’t have anything other than my own opinion to back this up, the first floor pod seems ripe for conversion into an in-law apartment. You could convert one of the bedrooms into a kitchen and turn the other into a dining area or a guest bedroom. Now that’s quite an in-law apartment, but certainly opens up the market a bit. Plus, I’m sure by the time we’re ready to sell (if ever) we’ll have trailblazed the two-family trend and nuclear families everywhere will be teaming up and looking for a property just like ours. (crazy? Like a fox!)
How green can we get? There are a few areas we want to upgrade to make this as energy efficient as possible – better windows, better insulation and even geothermal heating. The geothermal heating is the tough one – it’s a bunch of money upfront and will wreak havoc on our budget, but the savings over the years is significant. I think we’ll cover this in a future post, as I would like to share more of the details around geothermal as we learn about it, but I think the point I’m making is the four of us are really interested in building a pretty energy-efficient home. I know there is a bit of hypocrisy in building a 4,000 sqft home and talking about our energy use, but remember we’re putting two families in one home – instead of two homes we’re building one. That alone will put a dent in our carbon footprint. Anyway, I’m less excited about the altruism of lowering the carbon footprint as much as I am about hedging against future increases in energy costs. Anyway, more to come on the geothermal heating as well as windows & insulation.
Thoughts?
