View Full Version : Plans for our Hermann House
iris lilies
11-7-18, 4:15pm
This is for Terry and anyone else who likes to look at this house plans. Comment away!
we want to
1) add a garage
2) build a 4 season room on the back
3) move kitchen to garage side of house, turn that space into bedroom
4) build shed dormer on front To bump out head room space at top of stairs
5) build dormer out back of hoise to make room for bathroom amd enlarge nedrooms
2577
2579
2580
Teacher Terry
11-7-18, 4:20pm
IL, I really like it! So great.
Looks like a long-term design for access and comfort. Thanks for posting these.
iris lilies
11-7-18, 9:59pm
Love the big pantry. It is not very functional. It has two windows and a door way. It was built on to the front of the house many decades after the basic house was built. It changed the roof line and makes it look more like a 1950s Cape Cod than the 1941 house it really is. So many many things have been done to this house, it is kind of awful.
I am confused by the plans, sorry. Is the plan where the 2 car garage opens directly into the bedroom being replaced by the 2 car garage feeding into the kitchen area somehow?
[QUOTE=iris lilies;314073]This is for Terry and anyone else who likes to look at this house plans. Comment away!
we want to
1) add a garage
2) build a 4 season room on the back
3) move kitchen to garage side of house, turn that space into bedroom
4) build shed dormer on front To bump out head room space at top of stairs
5) build dormer out back of hoise to make room for bathroom amd enlarge nedrooms
I am confused a little after I had a second look. The design has one bedroom and one bathroom and kitchen in front with the LR on the right. Is the kitchen being moved over to the space where I thought that laundry was going to go? It will be a large kitchen?
catherine
11-8-18, 10:25am
Looks great, IL! So nice to have an architect to bounce ideas off of! Did he/she give you multiple options, or did you know exactly what you wanted? I love the idea of the 4-season room and the dormer.
Even with windows, a pantry that big is great.
Love the dormer addition. I have dormers on my upstairs and like them. If I could I'd add a big dormer on the backside, the view is great towards the southwest.
I like the laundry (pass thru to garage) and small bathroom. I don't think I'd like passing through a bedroom to get to garage. Guess I'm confused as well.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 10:31am
These are first draft designs.
There are designs for a first floor garage in two configurations, also a plan for dormer in the front.
None of the plans show all of the things we have decided to do.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 10:33am
Even with windows, a pantry that big is great.
Love the dormer addition. I have dormers on my upstairs and like them. If I could I'd add a big dormer on the backside, the view is great towards the southwest.
I like the laundry (pass thru to garage) and small bathroom. I don't think I'd like passing through a bedroom to get to garage. Guess I'm confused as well.
That room by planned garage is currently a bedroom, was a garage in the 1950’s. All of the rooms on this plan named in pencil are current use rooms.
OK. Got it. Process. It is good to see ideas on paper and these are steps to final design.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 10:37am
Looks great, IL! So nice to have an architect to bounce ideas off of! Did he/she give you multiple options, or did you know exactly what you wanted? I love the idea of the 4-season room and the dormer.
This is just the architect’s first go round. We havent even paid him yet. dH and I had to get a few things straight between us before we can work further with the architect.
what I now have straight in my mind is 1) keep it simple 2) DH can decide about most all things. He has a very good background in building things, so whatever he works out will be fine. DH will probably handle the kitchen-to-bedroom renovation himself.
It's good that you are living there because that really helps figure out a floor plan that works. That is one huge problem with our current house, and why we want to sell--it has an abysmal floor plan, and I don't think I can ever get it to work right, I'd rather buy something else with a better floor plan.
Having an entrance to the house from 2 car garage and having a first floor master with bath right there will let you age into the house and stay there-- age in place.
I am planning all renovations going forward with universal design in mind, to allow us to age in place.
Looking again at pantry, is it large enough for a small breakfast area. I don't see a designated dining area. Seems like removing that pantry wall at least partially would let the window light into kitchen. With this house, DH removed half of the wall between kitchen and dining and it has made a huge and positive difference.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 10:51am
Looking again at pantry, is it large enough for a small breakfast area. I don't see a designated dining area. Seems like removing that pantry wall at least partially would let the window light into kitchen. With this house, DH removed half of the wall between kitchen and dining and it has made a huge and positive difference.
We have a very small table for two in the pantry now, but do not use it. Our dining table is in the living room.
Removing the wall to the pantry will be necessary, partially, but full removal is not do-able because it is structural—it was once the front wall of the house.
To Tybee’s point, I agree that living here helps in planning final renovations. Even in its strangeness, it is an easy house to live in, I guess because all of our functions are on one floor except for laundry. When we add a first floor laundry room it will be easy peasy.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 10:52am
It's good that you are living there because that really helps figure out a floor plan that works. That is one huge problem with our current house, and why we want to sell--it has an abysmal floor plan, and I don't think I can ever get it to work right, I'd rather buy something else with a better floor plan.
Having an entrance to the house from 2 car garage and having a first floor master with bath right there will let you age into the house and stay there-- age in place.
I am planning all renovations going forward with universal design in mind, to allow us to age in place.
what are some of the things that make yours a bad floor plan?
what are some of the things that make yours a bad floor plan?
OMG, it is just horrible! The guy who remodeled it last added the front porch into the house, so you no longer have a place for guests to enter the house that makes sense. He put a horrible french door without panes kind of thing there, so it's a double door of glass that looks awful and takes away privacy. He started to turn the garage into a family room but did not finish, and we haven't either, since it would cost money and we'd rather buy a new house. So it is partially drywalled, and he added another one of those double french door things out to the garden, but you would have to pass through the side door directly into the family room--no entry ways anywhere. I like entry ways so your door does not open directly into the living space. When door open directly into the living space, you lose heat, and there is no place to put anything down and no place to hang coats, etc.
The one bathroom is right off the dining room. Horrible feng sui,. The one bedroom on the first floor opens into the family room--again, no halls of any kind,. No transition space. No privacy.
There is no bathroom upstairs so in the middle of the night, you have to struggle down steep steps to go to the bathroom.
It has a big kitchen, which we like. But it is a dumb use of space, as you can't really eat in there, and they could have put another bathroom over there, between the bedroom and the kitchen, with the space that is available.
In my SC house, kitchen was smaller, but we had a separate pantry, which I loved, as it kept the kitchen neater and sparer looking, not cluttered. All clutter lived in the pantry.
I guess I like halls and I like privacy, so when you start opening up walls, I start to get nervous. I like to enter the house and have a place to put things down. I'd like to have a bathroom vaguely near my bedroom.
Oh, and he took out what must have been a neat demarcation between the living room and the dining room, which china cabinets or pockets doors or something, so there is no privacy, no place to get away from each other. Everything is visible, and you have the feeling you are on display, with no place to curl up and read a book.
And there are virtually no closets that make sense, so no storage. I want tons of built in storage, walls of it, so that everything has a place and can neatly go there.
I don't know if anyone would find this interesting, but I just found this site of "best cape cod" floor plans which might have ideas, idk.
https://www.architecturaldesigns.com/house-plans/styles/cape-cod
(Spoiler alert: we are looking at a cape cod house right now to buy, so this is a fascinating topic to me.)
Teacher Terry
11-8-18, 11:50am
I hate living in a construction zone so all work was done in this house before I moved in. My husband is a engineer and very good at planning and visualizing the final results. We opted for one story so we could age in place. We also made the yard low maintenance. I don’t like a really open floor plan either. I had one once and felt the same as tybee about it. We did remove most of the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Just left a half wall in one area that blocks you from seeing the sink or stove.
Add my name to the number of posters who don't like (OK, hate) open floor plans. My old condo was well thought out, with an entry hall and an enclosed kitchen with a folding louvered door that could be opened to the dining area, if desired.
This place was designed by an idiot, IMO. Open the front door and look right into a sink full of dirty dishes...What was I thinking...
I look forward to seeing how your house progresses.
Teacher Terry
11-8-18, 12:38pm
The only good thing is that you can entertain more people in a open floor plan. When rain ruined my June barbecue everyone was in the house. 14 people in my dining room and some people had to balance their food on their lap. Some people went in the living room for awhile. It didn’t seem to spoil the fun though as people came in the afternoon and stayed way into the evening.
The only good thing is that you can entertain more people in a open floor plan. When rain ruined my June barbecue everyone was in the house. 14 people in my dining room and some people had to balance their food on their lap. Some people went in the living room for awhile. It didn’t seem to spoil the fun though as people came in the afternoon and stayed way into the evening.
I've only entertained numbers of people a few times, but having the option to open up to the DR would have been sufficient for me. The problem seems to be too-small kitchens, rather than lack of visibility from other areas of the house. Aesthetically, IMO, OP is a huge fail.
I don't know if anyone would find this interesting, but I just found this site of "best cape cod" floor plans which might have ideas, idk.
https://www.architecturaldesigns.com/house-plans/styles/cape-cod
(Spoiler alert: we are looking at a cape cod house right now to buy, so this is a fascinating topic to me.)
Years ago, DH and I fell in love with a Cape Cod design on a hill surrounded by large maple trees in Vermont. It became our dream home, the day when we could afford it.
When that day finally arrived, we had a lot more experience about life's changes watching my parents' abilities and needs change and we ended up building a very simple one floor 1400 sq ft ranch that we could live in forever.
I've only entertained numbers of people a few times, but having the option to open up to the DR would have been sufficient for me. The problem seems to be too-small kitchens, rather than lack of visibility from other areas of the house. Aesthetically, IMO, OP is a huge fail.
I agree. Add that to my list of things that drive me CRAZY watching home design shows. (I've stopped watching, actually). Interestingly I read that "open concept" is actually the Canadian term for open floor plan, and it worked it's way into the American vernacular thanks to HGTV. But my blood pressure rises every time a buyer walks into a beautiful old home and says "I want it to have open concept." And that happens just about every show.
I agree. Add that to my list of things that drive me CRAZY watching home design shows. (I've stopped watching, actually). Interestingly I read that "open concept" is actually the Canadian term for open floor plan, and it worked it's way into the American vernacular thanks to HGTV. But my blood pressure rises every time a buyer walks into a beautiful old home and says "I want it to have open concept." And that happens just about every show.
Yes--and the result when buyers tear out walls willy-nilly is usually horrifying. I've seen realtors refer to this as "remuddling."
So is my house a cape cod? I just call it "little cabin in the woods". This was when everything was overgrown. I've gone more ozark glade arid. No more bushes covering up the front.
2582
DH was adamant that we only remove a portion of the kitchen dining wall so that one can't see the counters, sink etc. I will have to post a before and after. It seems like we have spent a lot of our lives undoing bad design or to make areas more efficient. Some of the flippers around here end up taking out all the walls and there is a kitchen counter sitting in the middle of the space. That looks odd to me.
Some of the flippers around here end up taking out all the walls and there is a kitchen counter sitting in the middle of the space. That looks odd to me.
One of our NJ neighbors did that. They have the same model as the house my BIL lived in--traditional for the 70s, with a kitchen close to a family room and a dining room and living room up front. They took out the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room and to me it looked the a Food Network set.
Teacher Terry
11-8-18, 3:25pm
That's not what I would call a cape cod but it's really pretty.
iris lilies
11-8-18, 6:42pm
When we bought our house 30 years ago, a shell, it did have a sewer stack right by the front door. How charming, come into the front door and there is the toilet.
This was a noldovere from whenever our house was first plumbed as a two family structure.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.