jaymd_123

I'd love to know more about your experience with Heb Home. We've seen a few designs we like. How were they to deal with? How did they compare price wise VS other kit companies?

Great idea. Thanks for noting. We had one in our living room in Galatina, Italy when we stayed there a few months back. It worked far better than I expected - I completely forgot about it. Do you think it would be beneficial to add these to the living space, too? Very conscious the room is pretty large and the windows are at the far ends. Any thoughts on cost-saving potentials on this sort of layout? Anything I should consider?

Completely agree. I've updated the plan based on @G and J's feedback. This leaves me with two rooms without windows: the closet and the second bathroom. The closet I can live with. The bathroom, I could personally live with (I had no windows in one of my last property's bathrooms and it caused no issues or annoyance). That said, of course, I would prefer natural light. Could this be fixed with a roof light? The bathroom is pretty central and would cause the window to be close to the roof apex, so may not work. Unfortunately, the software I'm using doesn't have a roof light option so I can't test that option.

I hadn't thought of this. Good catch. Also a good point. Not sure having to wait is a show-stopper, but I wouldn't want to share the experience going on in the loo as you say lol. Thanks for the feedback! Really useful.

Thanks again for the great advice. I see what you mean. I've played around with the plans to incorporate your feedback and thought about natural lighting in the hallways and the entrance's size. My wife and I agreed that we do like the kid's nook not being a separate room so chose not to close this off (not sure if this is what you meant about walking through a room into another). We don't see an issue walking through a utility into the mech/garage. To make this work, we had to swap the ensuite and the bedroom horizontally. This places the bedroom next to the living room -- will this be an issue? Also, allowed me to add a toilet in the entrance room which we can also use to hang jackets. Would love to hear feedback/thoughts/observations. Try not to be brutal 🤣

So, funny you say that, Jilly. We initially started out planning for a stedding we found but lost to another buyer. We've renovated three properties and I truly believe building from scratch is going to be easier than converting an existing building. We're still doing work on the 1800s build we're in now. Great experience though. Learned to plaster, lay basic central heating, brick slip, tiling, roofing etc. All pretty small jobs, but I recon I can take the skills earned and scale them to some extent.

Appreciate the feedback, Alan. considering the orientation is similar advise as to what Bozza mentioned about designing on other existing plots, and is a solid idea. Looking to accelerate my understanding of why houses are designed the way they are, so this will be valuable. As you say, this forum is proving to be valuable already. Looking at construction techniques, it would appear most of it is covered here. One thing I couldn't find on this form was Stickys (tutorials/intros/guides to cover the basics) but I'm sure I can find most of info through separate forms and project blogs.

You got it! Maybe my wording was wrong; I probably should have said "house designs, not for any specific plot" as really that's what this is. I know ETC is going to rip me apart I can take it lol. Your idea of building to actual plots is a really good idea. I can certainly see value in that. Would allow me to pit the plot against the design to get feedback, too. Which is the aim of the game!

This made me chuckle. Land has been really tough to come by. My wife has very strict criteria which I think I will need to manage expectations or I could be posting useless designs here for the next 20 years. Well put. We've been calling local estates, searching the web, we've even handed out flyers searching for land. Designing keeps the dream a live a little... That and reading books (I still feel widely under-educated in the area).

This is really interesting. I hadn't really looked at it from this angle. Any advice on how I can get the ball rolling? Financially, we're good to go if we can find a plot... It's just finding a plot on the open market that has slowed us down the last two years.

Gotcha. Seems like a theme. Not sure if people are missing what I'm trying to achieve (using the design process to understand what we want, as a learning tool, and because we enjoy it) or if I am being completely naive and wasting my time and others by posting this here. Apologies if it's the latter.

Hey Bozza. Thanks for feeding in! Completely aware of the general view on designing without land. I tried to make this clear in my post, we're using the design process to understand what we want, as a learning tool, and because we enjoy it. Ultimately, until we have land, we can't do anything other than research and plan; this is part of our process. Completely respectful of your feedback of course, and your suggestions are good and noted. In terms of lighting hallways for example, is this not fixable with roof lighting (my design program doesn't allow me to add this unfortunately). I'd be keen to know which room you're referring to "walking through a room to get to another room." Do you mean the kids snug? I can close this off, but my view was to keep this end of the house for the kids. Utility into Mech I think makes sense but please correct me if I'm wrong. Any suggestions how I can create a larger entrance space? Being honest, the entrance hall was really the room we care about less lol. We just wanted an area to enter the house which wasn't directly into the living space and had somewhere to store coats and shoes, but would love to hear suggestions if you have any. Thanks again!

Hello, Adding my updated floor plans based on feedback from this group previously. My wife and I have messed around with more 1.5/1.75 plans, but we're struggling to make it work with space, so we are playing around with a bungalow again. This design is 215m2 (177 + garage). We figured with this layout we could build the garage later if we cannot build to our £1400m2 budget. The garage is deliberately oversized, as it will be used as a workshop/gym/art/drumkit room lol. The car will never be in there. I'd love constructive feedback on the flow and general layout. Anything you see that will cause annoyance which I may have not spotted? So far, I think the office leading to the living room is really all I can pick out, and that's not a big deal to me. Disclaimer: All my designs are concepts - we're still looking for land within a town in Perthshire, Scotland. I'm aware that designing a house without land isn't the norm, but we're using the design process to understand what we want, as a learning tool, and because we enjoy it. If that doesn't work for you, please feel free to move on. I'll no doubt use any feedback to create updated versions, so to keep it all in one place, dumping here Thanks!

Welcome! Also in Scotland Where are you planning to build?

Wasn't aware of this app. Thanks for sharing. Another Perthshire man 😎

I use floorplanner. The free version is as good as the paid version, but the paid version exports in 4k ($5 a month). It does good renders too. You can upload drawings into the app as a flat plane so you may be able to put the plans in, then create the plans on top of the image if that makes sense. There are some free CAD apps out there, too, but they will be more complicated to use.

I appreciate it!

I would love your help. You know how bad my designs are 😄

I don't buy my own product

legend has it, half of the BuildHub community is still down there

Add me: Juicy McBigdong

12.3k post history... Still worth it

Don't let them in the basement

I hadn't actually thought of this. Very good observation. Trying to think of ways to tie in the two buildings. I have allowed for the single-story building design to be flipped vertically and horizontally; as shown below.