# House Plans



## Brickhouse1 (Oct 30, 2013)

We are going to have to build our home. This home will have to accommodate our needs from raising a family and taking care of elderly relatives (4-6, possibly 7 people) to our own retirement. I have a floor plan and a look in mind, but it might turn out to be impractical (too big = too $$$). :sob: 

Before I go changing things, I was wondering if you all could share what you like in your homestead and/or wish you had, what works and what doesn't, etc.

Thanks!


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## okiemom (May 12, 2002)

if you are caring for the elderly 36" inside door are a must for wheelchairs and walkers and such and the occasional crutches due to life's little accidents.

we had my mom living with us for a couple of years and the wide hallways and doors were a blessing. 

zero entry showers are also a must with a chair, walker etc. 

multi level houses are cheaper but a nightmare for caring for multi generations. so a ranch is better with out long halls. 

my dream would have been to move in homes or rooms as needed and then move them out when we needed something smaller. several smaller cabins with common areas can work out well for this. this also gives everyone a place to go when there is too much closeness. we built out open floor style and just bedrooms so there was no where to go if nerves were frayed. more, but smaller rooms are good but it can make maneuvering harder with equipment.


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## John_Canada (Aug 17, 2013)

Way unconventional but here is our proposed plan. The thing I have learned before designing it tho is our needs are going to change drastically over our retirement. I do think we are going to end up with a smaller floor plan as once the kids move out, we just may not need the space.

The other things we most considered way no basement so no flooding problems, in floor heating to be able to lower heat needed, loads of windows to bring the outside in and inside out.

The one thing our plans do is they get rid of all the foo foo wasted basement/attic and trim and replace it will beautiful materials. Some house designs use SO much wasted space and materials it just makes no sense to be paying a mortgage on that stuff.

Will look like this guys house when complete: http://usonianredhouse.com/final_construction.html


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## Brickhouse1 (Oct 30, 2013)

Okiemom - I overlooked door clearance. Thanks for that. I was thinking of a couple half baths: 1 near the garage entrance and another in the central part of the house.

John - That's a bit similar to the floor plan I was thinking of, especially the bedrooms. Yours is beautifully thought out. Is that a processing room across from the kitchen? What's the square footage? The one I'm working on is currently about 3700sf. Way too big.


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## John_Canada (Aug 17, 2013)

Brickhouse, sounds like a monster! No it is considered the core of the house where the mechanicals (broiler, washer/dryer, hwt, etc) reside and in front is the fireplace. It helps support the house in the center and the higher sections help draw cool air thru the house in the summer. Our goal is to be around 2100 to 2500 without the shop/garage (which may be what you are referring to) section but as I said, we are still up in the air about two rooms (3rd bedroom and office). The final plans will be set by a rather famous architect and we cant wait!

One thing I also thought of is to have considerations of your bathrooms and square footage as it pertains to your septic system. Build it in now so at some point in the future, you do not have to add to a very expensive hole in the yard. Good luck!


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Get the book _A Pattern Language_. It goes into a lot of details to make a home liveable. It's on my list of must have books. You should be able to get it via inter library loan. Fine Homebuilding recently had an article on a small home that didn't look small from the inside. While it didn't mention the book, some of the ideas came from the book.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Just a thought - the price of a stick-built home is about twice the square foot cost of a manufactured home. USED manufactured homes can be had for about 1/4 the cost of a stick built. Taxes are much lower. If you arranged two double-wides in an L shape, with a common patio, and had an enclosed walkway between the two, you would have a number of advantages - 
privacy
two kitchens
more bathrooms
redundancy in case of a non-working furnace or AC
the ability to easily remove one unit to downsize if needed

Our manufactured home is 2400 SF. You might think heating and cooling are expensive, but with 6" wall insulation and heavy attic insulation HVAC costs are minimal, less than that of neighbors in a smaller stick-built that suffer through keeping thermostats set to use the least amount of energy.

I know the stigma of manufactured housing is there, but construction is much better than it used to be. If nothing else, go to a dealer and walk around a few of them to get layout ideas. You may be surprised.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Locally the Amish built modulars are the cheapest way to go.


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## okiemom (May 12, 2002)

I love these types of threads.:dance: almost makes me want to build another home....almost. now matter what you do there will be the "why didn't we think of that?" moments. :smack

Harry.... I seriously love your idea and that is one of the things I would love to have done. add a section delete a section as needed. not stuck w a monster when there is only two and I needed an addition when my mom was here and then hospice was helping. How a big 4 bd room 2.5 bath house can be cramped is beyond me but anyway...it was. she would not hear of us buying a trailer for her as she was "not living with us just visiting". 

the only down side to a truly separate house would be if the elderly relative had dementia or it was in an area that got lots of nasty weather it could be hard to go back and forth a walkie talkie or phone could help with that. 

I think trailers, modular or whatever they are called have gotten so much better and there is some genius plans that really optimize space. Unfortunately, not all makes have the same quality and new trailers are in the 6 figures. :shocked: All houses not just trailers need a tornado shelter as it was show that an f5 will take down ANYTHING. Oklahoma is having earthquakes so who knows what we are going to face in the next few years.:run:

We thought about having a "T" or "+" type of house with the "wings" it does waste a bit of space with the halls. but a wall of windows with solar gain could help even that out. 

The only thing we don't have that I want is a screened in porch or any covered porch. gre: I didn't want to stop the view so we deleted it from the plans.I am looking at having one built that is not attached but freestanding. like 3 season teahouse type thing. a hammock will be a must. My real dream would be to have a greenhouse/conservatory, but good luck with that in hail season.


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## Chuck R. (Apr 24, 2008)

We designed and built our house in 2012 and moved in Apr of this year. What we did was draw out our plans on MS PowerPoint, play with that as itâs a lot easier than some of the design software, and then went with an Architect for the final drawings. We had the house designed as if we were 80 years old and only living on the main level. 

Our house is a walk out of about 4300Sâ; ICF construction with Geothermal heating/cooling. All of the required stuff; great room, kitchen, pantry, laundry, master bedroom/bath, office etc, are on the main level of about 1800Sâ. The lower floor is the guestroom, boyâs bedroom, family room, safe room, mechanical rm and storage. The safe room is constructed under the 3 car garage and accounts for about 700Sâ. 

Features we wanted/got:

36â solid core doors
No step entries
Roll in shower
European lever door handles (think arthritis) 
Garage thru laundry room/mud-room to kitchen entry
Tiled entries and kitchen (low maintenance)
Wide hallways
Roll/pull out pan racks in cabinetry 
Woodstove in great room.

IF we had to do it all again, Iâd rethink the bedroom sizes and go smaller, ours are ridiculously large, same for closets. We could have had a larger great room/open space. 

Chuck


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## Brickhouse1 (Oct 30, 2013)

We spoke to a builder today. My original floor plan of a rectangular donut will have to be scrapped. Too many exterior walls if we want an energy efficient home and the cost of materials, obviously, will go up. The cheapest design to build is a box. Interestingly, he said for a 2nd floor to be cost effective, it should be at least 400-500sf.

Our property is part of an HOA. No manufactured homes allowed, among other restrictions.

Chuck - Yes! We need to build our home as if we're 80 yrs old. It's tough when you're still raising a family and got to think of the family's needs now. Good point on the door handles. On that vein, I'm guessing cabinet pulls are better than knobs? If so, which orientation is best - vertical or horizontal?

Okiemom - Covered porches/patios are a must here in TX. I would love an atrium/conservatory. I plan on growing my own coffee beans, which will have to be indoors in my zone. It would be so lovely to have one. *long sigh*

Darren - I will see if that book is in the library.

Literally, back to the drawing board for me. . .


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## Brickhouse1 (Oct 30, 2013)

Chuck - How's your geothermal system working out? Apparently, the key is to find a company that actually knows what they're doing. According to the builder we spoke to today, there aren't very many experienced installers in our area. So the feedback hasn't been very favorable. I would still like one if we can find an experienced company.


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## Chuck R. (Apr 24, 2008)

Brickhouse1 said:


> Chuck - Yes! We need to build our home as if we're 80 yrs old. It's tough when you're still raising a family and got to think of the family's needs now. Good point on the door handles. On that vein, I'm guessing cabinet pulls are better than knobs? If so, which orientation is best - vertical or horizontal?


We went with knobs on doors, pulls on drawers based on the cabinet guys recommendation (prior to this I didnât know the difference!) our orientation is horizontal for pulls. IF your pulls are âfixedâ open I donât see how thereâs much of a difference, but like I said, before we started this I never heard of pulls Vs. knobs. I definitely never knew there was such a thing as a knob/pull store, but they exist! I also never heard of an appliance garage, but now have one of those too. One thing we did get was âslow close drawersâ which seem like theyâre kind of gimmicky, but and some serious strength to the drawers and are very smooth. 




Brickhouse1 said:


> Chuck - How's your geothermal system working out? Apparently, the key is to find a company that actually knows what they're doing. According to the builder we spoke to today, there aren't very many experienced installers in our area. So the feedback hasn't been very favorable. I would still like one if we can find an experienced company.


Part of the reason we went with our builder was his experience with ICF and geothermal. The geothermal is pretty awesome, quiet, efficient, and keeps the house at an even temperature. Honestly, I donât know IF itâs $36K worth of awesome yet, the payback is supposed to be in about 7 years on the system. Before I looked into geo, I would seriously look into your construction method/insulation. I am extremely impressed with the ICF so far. 

To give you an idea of the combination (ICF & Geo), weâve been at about 30âs at night, except last night which was 16 degrees. So far weâve yet to run the heat. Between the ICF and passive solar (large windows facing west), the house has maintained around 67 degrees. Weâve been burning about 2 loads in the woodstove, just to bring it up to 72-73, then we stop feeding it at 10:00Pm. When I wake up at 0500 its usually back to 67-68. Itâs 24 outside now, and weâre burning the woodstove on low, and itâs 72. We use the geothermal fan system to move the warm air throughout the house to even the temps. 

IF youâre looking at having a general contractor as we did, get a reputable builder, ask for references, and go see some of his houses. We live in a pretty tightknit community of military retirees, so we literally got invited to look at 7 houses our builder had done. We also have a friend thatâs a realtor, so we got some additional feedback on our builderâs reputation from the real-estate community. We hired an awesome guy, really, really impressive and a great guy to deal with. I was in Afghanistan for much of the initial construction, and my wife dealt with him on day to day decisions for the 1st 5 months the house was going up. With our contract, he had a fixed commission Vs. a percentage, so it was no loss to him to save us money. A good amount of the fixtures, tile, carpeting, etc. we paid for ourselves using his account a various vendors for savings. 

During the build, we had weekly cost sheets and made decisions based on expenditures, IE cut back on some areas and increased others. Overall, we came in about on budget. 

Our âprocessâ went like this:
1. Pick the construction method
2. Pick the HVAC
3. Find builder that specializes in the above, check him/her out thoroughly!
4. Get builder to recommend architect that heâs used to dealing with
5. Get builder to recommend bank heâs used to dealing with for construction loan (whole different animal from regular loan)
6. Build house while making millions of decisions, knobs/pulls etc. (most of which I didnât really care about)

So in our case, we were âbuilderâ centric, which really did work well for us.

Chuck


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## fordy (Sep 13, 2003)

Brickhouse1 said:


> We are going to have to build our home. This home will have to accommodate our needs from raising a family and taking care of elderly relatives (4-6, possibly 7 people) to our own retirement. I have a floor plan and a look in mind, but it might turn out to be impractical (too big = too $$$). :sob:
> 
> Before I go changing things, I was wondering if you all could share what you like in your homestead and/or wish you had, what works and what doesn't, etc.
> 
> Thanks!


....................Make all hallways and doors four feet wide ! , fordy


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

"Our property is part of an HOA."

My condolences.


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## MBackwoods (Oct 24, 2013)

A rectangle is the cheapest way to go. Having an upstairs or a walk out basement is a cheaper way to add square footage.

You could have 1 bedroom on the main floor, and set up the main floor for elderly, and then have the other bedrooms up stairs. Then when you want to retire you can use the main floor and the upper floor could be for when you kids and grandkids visit! 

If you are going to have a lot of people I would also suggest making a large very functional kitchen and dining room.


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## Chuck R. (Apr 24, 2008)

Brickhouse1 said:


> Chuck - How's your geothermal system working out? Apparently, the key is to find a company that actually knows what they're doing. According to the builder we spoke to today, there aren't very many experienced installers in our area. So the feedback hasn't been very favorable. I would still like one if we can find an experienced company.


 Brickhouse,

To give you an update. We just got our electric bill for DEC, which included some pretty cold days (-10) combined with us being home during the holidays (so increased usage). Our bill for DEC was $147.97, last month which was more of a standard KS month was $137. For comparison, some friends of ours with a similarly sized house are in the $300 range for the same temps. 

So far the Geothermal is working out....

Chuck


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## jhambley (Nov 21, 2004)

Do a Google search for "Universal Design". You can read and see some photos of our home building project at:

http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=41342.0


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