Is your house a really good layout for you?

[sbgrace]

I like the layout of our current home. The best part is the laundry is off the kitchen. We're moving and losing that will be hard for me.

[WIS0320]

I love our floor plan. We ended up building a new home in a new community (two things I DIDN'T want) the last time we moved because the floor plan was so functional! My only complaint is the laundry room but it is upstairs so that saves it from being a total loss.

[GSOchristie]

Yes! We have a formal living room that no one uses, so it is my buffer, my house always looks clean when you come in :001_smile:. We have a large formal dining room that we use as the big kid playroom, and big eat in kitchen, and a sunroom that we use as a little kid playroom. All of our bedrooms are upstairs, so no one is disturbed while sleeping, no matter how loud the kids are playing. We actually use the master suite as my dh's gallery/office (he is a photographer) and we sleep in one of the regular bedrooms. Every room has a walk in closet, and Piper's closet is big enough to have all of her clothes plus my sewing table and crafting supplies (and it has a window). I love our house, it is perfect for us:001_smile:!

[Gailmegan]

I like almost everything. My favorite part is that the laundry is off the school room, so I can still keep an eye on the kids. The only part I don't like is the kitchen. It is small and separate from the other rooms. I would love a great room where I could be in the kitchen and see everything else that is going on.

[ThisIsTheDay]

We were in a similar situation. We moved into a house with a main floor master. The upstairs was 800 square feet, and all that was there were two huge bedrooms for each of my kids, a huge bath, and a sitting area. They spent all of their time on the main floor with us. I was glad about that, but so much space was wasted upstairs, and our main floor was like living in an apartment.

 

I finally, finally, finally got dh to consent to move--in three or four years. :( That same week, I found the "perfect" house online, convinced him to go see it, and we bought it and moved a few months later.:D This new floor plan fits us soooo much better, and even with much smaller bedrooms and a tiny bath, my kids are happier here too. I love our current floorplan, and it will still work beautifully when we are old(er) and (more) decrepit.

[Lisbeth]

Hate our open floor plan on the main floor. Give me some walls! 4 kids are noisy!

[Farrar]

That's an interesting question.

 

Not really. It's a century old rowhouse and reflects how people lived more than a century ago, I think. I especially wish the kitchen was open, though I specifically chose a house with a reasonably sized kitchen. Many of these city rowhouses have galley kitchens.

 

However, some of the things about it have turned out to be useful. For example, the living room is smallish but the dining room is enormous (for the size of the house anyway). That's turned out to be good for homeschooling to make the dining room double as a homeschool space. And the ancient pocket door has turned out to be a nice hideable bulletin board. And we were able to reconfigure the upstairs bathroom awhile back so that you don't have to do gymnastics to fit inside and yet still kept the window in the side bedroom, which is a rare feature of a rowhouse (usually the side bedroom is stuck with no window). So it's all about perspective. I appreciate our house even if it's not perfect.

[ocelotmom]

Ours is... tolerable for now.

 

We bought for the property, not the house, and hope to rebuild over the next few years.

 

There are three bedrooms. We have three kids, and might possibly have another someday. One bedroom is fairly large, but added on later, isn't actually hooked into central heating, and has no built-in closet. The other child bedroom is pretty small, with the wall between it and the master bedroom being really really thin.

 

The master bedroom has a bathroom right in the bedroom - the toilet is separated from the bed by a partial wall that's maybe 3.5 x 5.5 ft. Weirds me out. The bathtub is just a bathtub, so we stick the kids in it but rarely use it ourselves. They took the normal closet and made it into open space, and then opened up the back of the coat closet by the front door (which is actually inaccessible from the street) and made that the closet, so it's only about 3 feet wide. Until we blocked it off with a whiteboard, it blew open from the pressure differential every time there was a strong wind (which, around here, is all the time).

 

The kitchen is a bit cramped, but not horrible. I feel like we have enough storage for the stuff we use regularly, at least. The shelves are open, which is nice, though not ideal with a toddler. The living room is ok - it has some nice built-in bookshelves, but we need more of them :). There is a porch I'd like to enclose to make a 3 season room if the whole building thing doesn't go very fast. The laundry is out in the workshop, which is not totally pleasant but not horrible except in the worst of winter. We have to rent a storage space because we don't have anywhere near enough storage in general, though the first thing we're planning to build is a storage shed which should take care of that.

[mama2cntrykids]

Ours is laid out pretty well for us. The only thing I'd change (well, two things, really): The basement...it needs to be sealed up so water doesn't come in and finished. The living room...it really needs to be about three feet wider.

 

Otherwise, I love it and will be sad if we have to move and sell it. I love the land, the outbuildings...sigh.

 

Oh, I'd add an extra room for homeschooling (in the basement, if it was finished and had nice egress windows). Right now, there's NO WAY that I'd hs down there...it's like a dungeon!

[The Girls' Mom]

Meh. It's okay. We moved from 2900 sq ft into 1300 sq ft, so it is a tad cramped. My office doubles (well triples) as an entryway and laundry room. Our dining room also does double duty as a homeschool library. Oldest dd sleeps in the attic :lol: (actually it IS finished, just not well air-conditioned and the stairway up to it is kinda creepy)

 

But, we are probably only here for a year.

[Mommie_Jen]

Ours is doable. Like others have mentioned (and I didn't read the entire thread), it looked HUGE when we moved in at the ripe old ages of 19 and 21. 3 beds/2 bath Cape Cod older house with an eat in kitchen, laundry room, and living room. It was fine for a decade...then we threw 2 kids into the mix. Now the boys share a room, we have a room, and there is a rarely used bathroom upstairs. The downstairs bedroom is currently a school/play room. On the positive side, we have big rooms (except for the kitchen - it can't hold both a table and a fridge. The fridge lives in the utility room.) and crazy huge closets. The down side is the weird small kitchen and the long and narrow living area. And all the walls. Some days, the walls make me crazy. No such thing as open concept here!

 

We have no plans to move, however. We are on track to have it paid for in the next 15 years or so. Our backyard is great, finally. Over the years we have added a privacy fence, play set, pool, and fire pit. A lot of days I would like something else, but getting the house paid off trumps starting over with a more expensive mortgage - we got an insanely low price when we bought this and can't get anything comparable for the price range.

[readinmom]

No, but I'm learning to live with it after 15 years. :glare:

 

Our house was obviously designed by a bachelor. The kitchen sink faces the tv area, and the kitchen itself is quite small. Definitely not enough counter space, and no room for more than two people at a time when cooking.

 

Moving is not an option. Foreclosures in our area are selling for 1/2 price of existing homes.

 

I'm trying to subscribe to the principle that less clutter + constant cleaning = enjoyable living space. Hopefully I can make it happen this summer.

[Targhee]

No. It's a giant L shape, two stories. While there is plenty of space for us 2400sq ft) it's not set up right. There is no "hub" - a central gathering space. I have many ideas about (re)moving walls, switching the kitchen and eating area, and outright losing the formal dining in favor of front family room. One day maybe we I'll just design and build what works for us :tongue_smilie:

[Kelly1730]

Yes, this is a wonderful floor plan. But, we made it that way.

 

Our home is an 104 year old former United Methodist Church with stained glass windows, river-rock accents, full basement, and 20 foot ceilings in what was the sanctuary portion of the building. It is a 75x30 ft. structure so with a 625 sq. ft. balcony (containing two bedrooms, a sitting area, and a hobby room/storage area), 625 sq.ft. basement, we have a total of about 3400 sq. ft or so of living space.

 

We gutted it while preserving the antique hardwood floors, antique chandeliers, stained glass windows, and as much wood work as possible, and essentially worked with a wide open area and could put walls where we wanted them.

 

 

 

Faith

 

I love older homes, it sounds wonderful! I'd love to see it, any pics available?

[Kelly1730]

It is now:) We lived in a bi-level for 17 years, not my favorite lay-out, but it worked at the time. When we were looking at house 2 and a half years ago, I had a number of things I wanted and got most of them:tongue_smilie:

 

I wanted a master bedroom/bath on the first floor; dh and I are, ahem, older, (both in our 50's as of July) and I knew it would be more convenient in years to come. I wanted a dedicated homeschool room and dh needed an at-home office, got all that. We have an attached garage for the first time in our over 30 years of marriage, love that, and a mudroom which was the only reason I allowed the purchase of our dog when we bought this house. Dh loved the property, we wanted more room because of the boys being home all day and I wanted a pool.

Oh, and the 4 bedrooms are on the second story which works now but I don't think I would have wanted it that way when we had littles.

 

What I would change: the working area of the kitchen is too small; when we have more than one adult in there at a time, it's too crowded and there is really no room to expand, so we'll live with it. The basement isn't finished; we don't really need the room but it would be nice when the big kids/grandkids are here. That's on the some day list. The washer and dryer are in the basement now but we can move them up to the mudroom when the steps get to be too much for me.

 

But, all in all, we love it and thank the Lord for His provision of it for us.:)

[momofkhm]

Ours isn't, but I didn't realize that moving in here.

 

I really dislike our house right now and would love to move. Dh isn't quite on board. It is a large house, but the layout just stinks. HUGE bedrooms but too few of them and they aren't laid out to where we could create more rooms in them either.

 

Dawn

 

I'm thinking yes. Cause if I could, I'd take this house and plot it down on a larger lot.

 

Kitchen is in the center, back of the house. Dining room directly off the kitchen to the north, family room off kitchen to south. Living room on front of house off dining room. Front of house in front of family room is laundry and bathroom and garage. Center is hallways and stairs. Then my room is over the living and dining rooms. Boy is over the family room, girls over the garage. Office over the laundry. Upstairs bathrooms are ove the kitchen.

[justamouse]

I love it. BUT it took me a few trials and errors to get here. You really have to analyze how your family lives and what your family needs to get the right house.

 

Draw out the rooms and how they flow (how you move through them) and make sure it's a good flow for you.

 

Know how you use your rooms so that you can make sure you get what you need.

 

Imagine your children fully grown (because they will!) and how they will live in that space with you. This was huge for us--who will have 5 adult sized children in the house with us at once!

 

We live in an 1880 Victorian and are planning on finishing up the rest of the attic which has another 4 bedrooms and a 1/2 bath. The longer I live here, the more I find how brilliant the layout is. Those old timers were really smart about how people lived. They'll wheel me out of here when I'm dead. Every day I wake up thankful that we live here. But it took us three awful houses to get here.

Edited June 7, 2012 by justamouse

[nono]

I love it. BUT it took me a few trials and errors to get here. You really have to analyze how your family lives and what your family needs to get the right house.

 

She speaks the truth! :D

[lynn]

Now that we have 2 young adults and 2 younger children all on different schedules, no. When the kids were all on the same schedule yes, it worked.

[AdventureMoms]

Ours is ok. I'd like the main floor to be more open, so we'd have more space for having friends over. As it is it feels crowded very fast. I'd also like just a bit more space in the main living area and a half bathroom on the main floor. I'd also like my laundry ANYWHERE other than where it is now (basement). That said, it's a pretty good space for us overall. We've talked about doing some things to improve it (like opening up the main floor, or adding a small addition), but those are in the distant future right now. I love our location and our lot (which is very large for a city lot and hard to find around here), so we probably won't actually move. I'd be willing to pay a little more to renovate this house to suit our needs rather than to buy a different one.

 

If we were to decide to have more kids, we would probably have to move it up on the list though. I feel like we're pretty much at capacity right now.

Edited June 7, 2012 by AdventureMoms

[Denisemomof4]

Yes, I love the layout of our home. I wouldn't change a thing downstairs, but there is one issue. The downstairs is all open concept, which I love, but this makes a private conversation almost impossible. Sound travels upstairs easily through the balcony.

 

The upstairs is a problem, sort of. Three of the bedrooms are fine, but dd12's room and the garage were added after the house was built. The previous owner made that large room his studio for artwork. It is a GREAT room but because it was added after the house was built, the access to it is through the back corner of the master bedroom. This was PERFECT for us when we moved into the house with a baby and a little boy. It worked AWESOME as a nurseey. Now, 16 years later, we are done having babies and dh and I need the privacy for obvious reasons. :tongue_smilie::001_smile: i think we will make an entrance to her room through the other bedroom which borders it since ds has moved out and that room is now dh's office. I kind of hate to do that, thou, because I do have peace knowing that nobody can get to dd12 without entering our room first. Mt RAD comes to mind (although I hope that would never be a thought or desire for her) but since there was a nearby brutal double murder which made national news a few years back in which an 11 yr old girl nearly died (her mother did), I have mixed feelings about the separate entry. So i guess the upstairs layout is a blessing and a pain.:001_smile:

[Jeannie in NJ]

ours has plus and minuses. All of our rooms are large, except for the kitchen. It is crowded with 2 people in the kitchen and there is hardly any counterspace. Downstairs, the kitchen and dining area are seperated by a bar with an open flow into the living room and year round sun room (French doors that we keep open). On the other side of the downstairs is a huge family room that is closed off so that is great as I can't stand the sound of the tv. Another negative is that the washer and dryer and freezer are in the pantry. Since that is where we keep our food, I don't keep the cats litter boxes there, I keep them in the downstairs shower so that means there is only one working shower in the house (upstairs). Also there is not really room in the pantry/laundry room for mops, brooms,. Our garage is detached so not useful to keep things reguired daily there such as mop, brooms, recyclables, etc. We have a tiny yard, 1/8 of an acre.

 

Also i really want a basement. Dd (the pastry chef to be) wants a large kitchen. We all want 2 working showers and we want a seperate laundry room large enough for the litter boxes and an attached garage . Plus a larger yard.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Our previous home was about 2k sf, but it was horrid. Everything felt out of balance, huge dining room, awkward living room, small secondary bedroom, laundry room was tiny. I hated it.

 

This sounds like my house now. I hate our floor plan. We have just over 2K sq ft, and the four bedrooms are 'satellited' off the main living area, which is mostly an enormous great room (family/kitchen combo) with a dining room and an awkward front/living room that has sort of become the library. We have kids sleeping at both ends of the house, so there's no good way to sort of tuck the kids away for the night. After we put them to bed, we have to dim all the lights and turn everything down until they go to sleep because we watch TV and hang out right smack in the middle of the house. The bedrooms, including the master, are tiny. And our master has this weird 'dressing-room' area between the bedroom and the en-suite bathroom. The original house plans show it as a walk-through closet, but I don't know if they ran out of money or what, because they put a wall closet in that space and just left it as a sort of separate room. The ONLY thing it's good for is having a baby in-but-not-in our room when they are tiny. Oh, and my laundry room is basically a pass-through on the way to the garage.

[Rivka]

Yes, our layout is wonderful. We have a 1960's rancher with nice period details. The layout is really efficient and comfortable, especially compared to our last house (1840 three-story rowhouse).

 

I like a lot of public space. Bedrooms are less important to me. Our bedrooms are smallish but not tiny. We have a big living room/study with a vaulted ceiling and a whole wall of built-in bookcases and cabinets. Running the full length of the living/study room is a large screened-in porch. We have an eat-in kitchen with plenty of workspace. And downstairs in the walk-out basement is a huge, enormous playroom/family room, a huge storage room, and a utility/laundry room. We have a covered patio downstairs and an open patio outside the kitchen.

 

I love our house.

[Tammyla]

We have a nice, pretty big 2-story with a full basement...

 

My knees would love a plain old ranch. I'm pretty much sick of running up and down the stairs everyday...all day.

[DawnM]

I looked and looked for a large ranch when we moved here. They just simply don't exist here like they did in CA. There are very few and when we were looking there was only one available but the location was horrible.

 

The thing I loved about the ranch was that you really could not hear the person on the other end.

 

Our house is 2 story plus a basement. The bedroom directly above the kitchen

is the worst. Sound from the kitchen and the basement seem to echo into that room. I have no idea how to fix that.

 

The bonus room (above the master) was an afterthought and they built it poorly. You can hear people just walking across that room and it sounds like a small heard of elephants. So, that room is only used in the day as a play/lego room. I would like to make it into a bedroom, but it would need to be for a child who doesn't stay up late and keep us up.

 

Dawn

 

 

We have a nice, pretty big 2-story with a full basement...

 

My knees would love a plain old ranch. I'm pretty much sick of running up and down the stairs everyday...all day.

[Kathryn]

No. We bought with plans to never have children. I got pregnant with DS1 two weeks later. It is not a good layout for children and definitely not for homeschooling. There is no storage space, awful kitchen layout, no direct access to the backyard, and on and on. The only thing we like about it is the pricetag.

[trishhoward]

Mine makes me cry almost daily. It is always soon it will get better from dh. but can I just say whaaaaaaaaaaawaawaa!

[The Girls' Mom]

Just realized this was an old thread that I had already posted on :)

Edited July 31, 2012 by Apryl H

[LaxMom]

Reported

[delaney]

Actually it almost is! We built this house but never walked through a model. I would make our master suite smaller and add a 5th bedroom upstairs, put a loft area over our family room(vaulted all the way up), and enlarge the garage by 1/2 a bay. Although it is a 3 car it really isn't. Now that oldest son drives someone will have to leave a car outside when he gets his and in the winter that will be a nightmare. We could get all 3 in but there would be no room for the bikes and all that stuff. Then I would pick the whole thing up and move it to the country.

We moved the laundry off the main floor because I hate it where people can see it, and we put 2 more bedrooms in the basement for the boys.

[stripe]

Spam reported

[KatieJ]

Old message.

[stripe]

Old message.

 

A spam had bumped it.

[Desert Rat]

Ours isn't, but I didn't realize that moving in here.

 

I really dislike our house right now and would love to move. Dh isn't quite on board. It is a large house, but the layout just stinks. HUGE bedrooms but too few of them and they aren't laid out to where we could create more rooms in them either.

 

Dawn

 

Yes, but I cheated. I bought a house in the same subdivision as my parents. I actually have the exact same layout. I knew the layout would work for us because I had lived in it from the age of 12.

 

Our kitchen is 400 sq. ft. We have a huge play area for the kids (when they were younger). We will convert this into a 'teen hangout' in the next few years. Our main living area is also 400 sq. ft. We have 3 bedrooms and a master with en suite. The bedrooms are average size 12 x 14 or so. One bedroom had the closet removed to put in a door to the garage for access to the washer/dryer. We have 2 bathrooms that are small but functional. Decent backyard. 2 car garage. Our master is long and narrow but has closets that run the entire length. The only thing that I don't really like is that the sink/vanity is in the master and the shower/toilet have a door. I'd rather have one entire room. We're working on it.

All told the house is 1490 sq. ft. No lofty ceilings, weird hallways, wasted space. I don't have a linen closet but we make do. I'm a very utilitarian person. My house reflects that.

[Tammyla]

No, it isn't.

 

Our home is a two-story and the stairs are slowly getting more difficult for me to handle, especially during the winter months.

[bobbeym]

Our house is okay but it's a rental and we're not in a financial place to move so we make do. It's much better than the old house though.

 

We have a 1222 sf shotgun style house built in the 50s. Our house has 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, open living/dining room/kitchen, and a back porch with a laundry area. But for a family of 5 computer geeks with 6 animals, it's not really user or hs'er friendly.

 

Our dining room is taken over with my reading chair and mine and DH's computers; the kids' laptop was recently moved into the living room. Our kitchen is okay for general use but the 4-chair round table has to be pushed against the wall or it takes up all the available kitchen space. We don't even try to eat in there because it's not worth the hassle.

 

If we still live there when DS18 and DIL get married and move out, we'll turn her front bedroom into a computer room and that would make a huge improvement.

 

My dream house is a larger version of my grandma's old farmhouse. Two bedrooms and bath, living/dining/kitchen/mudroom downstairs and 3 more rooms with a bath in a completely closed off 2nd story.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

I know this is an older thread but I will reply anyway...

 

No, our house is not a good layout for our family. It's too small with one bathroom and the smallest, most awkwardly planned kitchen ever. It would be great for a bachelor or newlywed couple but it is not the most comfortable for 5 people. Even though the house is a two story, it is so small you can hear a conversation held on one floor in every other room of the house.

 

It does have its nice points, though, inlcuding craftsman architecture, brick fireplace, original unpainted wood trim and doors.

 

I would move in a heartbeat for a bigger, better kitchen and two more bedrooms.

[BigMamaBird]

I love the layout of our home! The kids love it too because it has a "circle" through the dining, living rooms and kitchen. When they get cagey I tell them to run a few laps!

[PeacefulChaos]

Ours is ok. We don't own it so it's not a big deal that it isn't perfect - but it's definitely a lot better than the one we used to live in and many that we have seen!

[Bluegoat]

It's not bad. The rooms are smallish, but that is because we are a one income family in a modest 1960 home. The main beef I have with the layout is the main floor has the kitchen and living room on the left side, the bathroom in the middle, and the master bed and dining room on the left. So you have to go down a hall from the kitchen to get into the dining room and it is very choppy.

 

I think originally the idea was what we are using as the dining room was a small bedroom and the kitchen was eat-in, but that is not practical for us. I need my work table because the kitchen has no counter space and I really don't want to give up my dishwasher. I tried dining in the living room but that wasn't great either.

 

I may play around with the bedroom arrangements at some point to see if that will help. Maybe make our room into the dining room and move upstairs. But then my two youngest would be sharing a pretty small bedroom.

[lailasmum]

No, Ours is too small and there is barely any built in storage-just the tiny cupboard under the stairs and the airing cupboard. I would love about 2 more rooms downstairs and some built in cupboards or room to put some decent storage cupboards.

 

We have a ton of doors too so the small kitchen is made worse by the fact that it has 3 doors and that makes it impossible to add anymore worktop. I think if we spent any money on this house to do an extension we would probably put another 2 or 3 metres on the back of the house in a single story to add a conservatory behind to our dining room and massively extend the kitchen-probably more than doubling it in size. Then we have a wierd dead space behind our garage, that would great with another room built there, it would make a great playroom/workshop space.

 

In an ideal world I would love to live in a victorian villa or a big airy barn conversion.

[Mom-ninja.]

I love my house which is one thing keeping me from moving. I want to move but take my house with me.

[somo_chickenlady]

I absolutely LOVE the layout of our house. We are looking to move within the next year, and I'm going to miss this house a lot. I love that the living room, kitchen, and dining room are all one big room that takes up 1/3 of the house, all of the bedrooms are on the front of the house, and the back of the house is bathrooms and a laundry/utility room. I also love that our bedroom, closet, and bathroom take up another 1/3 of the house at the opposite end of the kitchen/living room. I also love that there are windows EVERYWHERE. I thrive on light, and get really depressed living somewhere without many windows or access to natural light. I wish when we move we could just pick this house up and put it in the state we are moving to. LOL

[Jpoy85]

no. We live in a 2bdrm apartment and i wish the kitchen was bigger and the bedrooms were too. The overall layout is ok, but i wish it was bigger.

[eternalknot]

Our layout works perfectly for us, but it was a custom designed home with our family's needs in mind :)

 

We're a multi-generational, extended family home. It was important to have ample shared space interspersed with pockets of personal space. It was desireable to have some bedrooms grouped in separate pockets of the home, rather than clumped together in one side/wing. We wanted multiple laundry rooms, and one on each level. And my grandmother has always said the kitchen should be towards the center of the home (not sharing a wall or window with the outdoors), so that's what ours does - it functions as a true hub.