Do you have the perfect floor plan for your custom built home in mind? If you do, you’ve already overcome one of the more difficult challenges a custom built home presents. If you don’t, though, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a fantastic house. It just means you need to learn a little bit about home design and flow. These eight tricks and tips will help you come up with a great floor plan for your dream home. By understanding them before you start building, you’ll be able to plan out a great house and avoid making some costly mistakes.
1. Make Sure You Have Plenty of Storage
There’s nothing quite as annoying as having no place to put your stuff. Make sure you plan out a good-sized pantry, closets, and other storage areas. Even if you don’t think you’ll have that much stuff to store, you’ll later find that your things seem to multiply. Add a few extra built-in cabinets, and enlarge your pantry just a bit. You’ll see that the extra space is definitely worth it.
2. Consider the Flow of Traffic
How will people move in and out of your home? Can you easily move from your bedroom into the living area, or are there walls and hallways you have to navigate through? A maze-like house is going to feel more cramped that one that is more open. Many people are going with open-plan living/dining/kitchen spaces because these open floor concepts make the home feel larger.
Also, think about the flow between indoors and outdoors. If you’ll be out gardening a lot, you may want to have your backdoor open to the kitchen or near a small bathroom so you can wash the dirt off without tracking any of it through the house.
3. Think About Where You’ll Be in 20 Years
Is the floor plan you’re preparing future-proof? If you’re considering having children, is there space for a nursery? Will your home be able to accommodate several children or just one? Do you have space to grow your home-based business?
But when you think about the future of your home, you need to think about more than just additions. You also need to think about aging in your home. What if you or your spouse were having to start using a walker or a wheelchair? Are the hallways and doorways wide enough? If you aren’t able to go up and down stairs as easily, does the floor plan accommodate that? A first-floor master suite may make more sense if you plan to stay in your home for years.
4. Consider the Electrical and Plumbing
By planning out where the electrical lines and pipes go, you’ll actually be able to reduce your budget. The less work you have to do, the less cost. It’s that simple. While the materials here are cheap, the labor involved in running pipe and wiring can quickly add up. This is why many houses align the kitchen with the bathrooms. It’s easier to run piping along one wall than it is to try to run it all through the house.
5. Have a Separate Laundry Room and Utility Space
A separate laundry room is a great addition that usually doesn’t require that much space. Hide away your water heater in its own little closet, put the washer and dryer somewhere out of the way, and enjoy having an area dedicated to your laundry. Otherwise, it may end up in the kitchen or tucked away behind some folding doors in the hallway, and neither is an ideal situation.
Building a two-story house with all or most of the bedrooms upstairs? Think about a second-floor laundry. This popular concept means you can avoid carrying heavy laundry baskets up and down stairs. Your knees will appreciate it.
6. What About Your Hobbies?
Think about your hobbies and how much space they require. Do you need a sewing room? What about an area to craft? If you run your own business, you might want to dedicate some space to a home office or storage.
If you do woodworking, metalworking, or another hobby that you do primarily outdoors, consider setting aside a part of your yard for that hobby. This may mean including a workshop or at least a storage building in your plans. If you have children who are into sports, think about your yard layout and whether or not they will have space to practice.
7. Leave Room for Change
How flexible is your final floor plan? Could you switch a bedroom and your home office? That could be very difficult if you decided the office space didn’t need its own closet. Is there room to add an island to the kitchen if you decide you want one? The amount of flexibility your floor plan has is essential once you actually start living in your new home.
Sometimes, what seems to be perfect on paper isn’t actually what you need once you’re in the home. If you leave some flexibility to the space, you’ll be able to make adjustments as needed.
Need Help?
Taking all of these things into account can be difficult, especially if you’ve never built a house before or planned one out. Many people have no idea what’s cost-effective for running electrical and plumbing. You may not have a sense of flow or space, either.
That’s where the experts at Belman Homes come in. They’ve built hundreds of custom homes and can assist you in planning out the perfect house for you and your family.
