Critique Self build design

[Scoobyrex]

This will be sitting on a 0.4 acre plot on a private road.

It is all brick (Cambridge buffs), with a plinth and corbels.

 

One of our concerns it is a large house and will it appear quite plain, would cladding or rendering the garage help ?.

 

The front of the house is pretty much south facing.

 

Do not pay to much attention to bathroom layouts, stuff is just plonked in for now

[Scoobyrex]

The reason for the mass of glass at the back is the view,  rolling hill down to a natural stream, and a large wood beyond.

 

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

Pay someone to do some 3d renders with different materials on different elevations. 

Are you locked into materials choice by planners. 

[the_r_sole]

It's a massive lump of house! 

Do you need all that floor area? There's lots of it but it's not a very efficient floor plan... 

on the elevations there's definitely work to be done there to add some interest and detail 

[Bonner]

The entrance hall section lends itself to an alternative cladding, timber for example. You could use the same material on the garage block and/or rear gabled sections. With a huge double height space above the hall why not do something different with the windows?

[eandg]

Personally I'd bring the stairs forward maybe 400mm - you'll still have that grand lobby feel and it'll allow you to make the first floor bedroom adjacent to the stairs a bit roomier; despite it's decent-ish size I'd be concerned it would feel like a box room in a house that big where the rest of the rooms are oversized. You'd need to reorient the WC but that's easily done. And agree with mixing cladding materials. Nice big house altogether though!

[Scoobyrex]

That is a good point,  I could bring it forward and make the rooms slightly bigger as well as widening the landing a little as it is narrow for the size of the house.

[Scoobyrex]

5 hours ago, Bonner said:

The entrance hall section lends itself to an alternative cladding, timber for example. You could use the same material on the garage block and/or rear gabled sections. With a huge double height space above the hall why not do something different with the windows?

 

In the pre-app phone call the planners said they would not accept large windows or all glass at the front.  I might change it and put full height glass in and see how they respond, it is also south facing and concerned with solar loading.

[Scoobyrex]

I'm going to look at cladding.  I am not a massive fan or render, we have that on our current house.

[Scoobyrex]

13 hours ago, the_r_sole said:

It's a massive lump of house! 

Do you need all that floor area? There's lots of it but it's not a very efficient floor plan... 

on the elevations there's definitely work to be done there to add some interest and detail 

 

What we have struggled with size wise is the kitchen/dining/living, as well as the gym.  The only room which is bigger than needed is the living room,  the siting room is actually a study.

 

Bed 2 and 3 are the same size as our kids current bedrooms.

Bed 1 is big, but we want it that way, our current bedroom is frustrating size wise.

We have our parents and in laws stay quite often so all the bedrooms need to be doubles.

 

We entertain a lot (well not at the moment), but plan to resume that at some point.

[Faz]

No window in the utility which wont be nice - can you move the plant area to the laundry room (utility and laundry rooms??) so a window will fit alongside the door?

 

The bathrooms and ensuites look really pokey compared to the rest of it - also the widow sizes and locations are going to give you a real challenge when deciding on the layout - probably worth considering layouts now.

[AliG]

1 hour ago, Faz said:

also the widow sizes and locations are going to give you a real challenge when deciding on the layout - probably worth considering layouts now.

This is a very good piece of advice.

 

It is amazing how, even in a large room, depending on the positions of doors and windows it may not be easy to position furniture where you want to. It is good to think about this whilst you can still change things.

 

The basic layout seems sound, so just a few comments.

 

1. The lounge is very long at 7m, would you actually use all that space. If not, I would try and shorten it and add the space to the sitting room which is comparatively small.

 

2. The WC is extremely small relative to the house. If you take the idea above to make the sitting room larger I would then make the WC larger.

 

3. I would think hard about the kitchen layout. It looks like it is set so that the kitchen units will be where you walk in, then a dining and sitting area at the back. Imagine you are cooking for guests, would you want to take them in past your cooking to the table. 

 

4. We have a larger room than you have there as a gym and it never seems big enough, but we often have three people there at once. I would look to steal space from the laundry/utility area and add to the gym. You need a surprising amount of space for some exercises, especially when on the floor.

 

5. The laundry/utility area is too large. I cannot think what you would possibly do with all that space. I would probably take the plant room a little bigger and rein the space making the gym larger. You won't hang out in those space so they really only need to be as large as needed for their functions.

 

6. Upstairs I would make the two small ensuites at least 1.2M wide. 1M is very small especially compared to the size of the house. I would also make the wardrobes in those two rooms larger, probably moving them to the righthand walls of the rooms.

 

7. I think the suggestion to model the house in 3d to see what it looks like is a good one. I am less of a style expert. I might consider rendering the part where the front door is and having more glass above the front door.

 

8. Counting the steps on your stairs, is the ground floor only 2.4M high? It really should be 2.7M in this size of house. At the moment you cannot have a longer stair which would prevent this. My wife wanted a split stair, but I persuaded her to go for one really nice stair, we have a curved stair. It looks like the stair has a combination of half landing and winders. It seems a bit fussy and I am not sure it will flow well. I think one stair along the wall where the kitchen door is then turning left would be a much nicer stair to use and then you could have a double door not the kitchen with a sightline right through from the front door.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by AliG

[Scoobyrex]

Thanks for all the feedback, lots to think about.

[Scoobyrex]

1. The lounge is very long at 7m, would you actually use all that space. If not, I would try and shorten it and add the space to the sitting room which is comparatively small.

 

The siting room is actually the study. The study could be bigger, will see what it looks like.

 

2. The WC is extremely small relative to the house. If you take the idea above to make the sitting room larger I would then make the WC larger.

 

Not overly concerned with the size of the WC,  to make it bigger forces to move the wall with the stairs back which eats into the dining room width,  which we do not want to make narrower as it will be difficult to navigate around the table and chairs.

 

3. I would think hard about the kitchen layout. It looks like it is set so that the kitchen units will be where you walk in, then a dining and sitting area at the back. Imagine you are cooking for guests, would you want to take them in past your cooking to the table. 

 

Hadn't considered this,  discussion with wife needed....

 

4. We have a larger room than you have there as a gym and it never seems big enough, but we often have three people there at once. I would look to steal space from the laundry/utility area and add to the gym. You need a surprising amount of space for some exercises, especially when on the floor.

 

Our current gym is around the same size but a more useful rectangle shape,  agree it needs to be bigger.

 

5. The laundry/utility area is too large. I cannot think what you would possibly do with all that space. I would probably take the plant room a little bigger and rein the space making the gym larger. You won't hang out in those space so they really only need to be as large as needed for their functions.

 

The utility area will be our main kitchen during the build, as we will move in before the main kitchen is fitted.

We also plan to use the utility as a kitchen.

 

6. Upstairs I would make the two small ensuites at least 1.2M wide. 1M is very small especially compared to the size of the house. I would also make the wardrobes in those two rooms larger, probably moving them to the righthand walls of the rooms.

 

All the bathrooms upstairs need work.  Beds 2 and 3 are for our sons, they rarely use the wardrobes they have as most clothes are folded, shelves,

The rear of these wardrobes will be a duct for the MHVR piping as well, so probably should be bigger.

 

7. I think the suggestion to model the house in 3d to see what it looks like is a good one. I am less of a style expert. I might consider rendering the part where the front door is and having more glass above the front door.

 

Will discuss with the architect, I agree it would be helpful.

 

8. Counting the steps on your stairs, is the ground floor only 2.4M high? It really should be 2.7M in this size of house. At the moment you cannot have a longer stair which would prevent this. My wife wanted a split stair, but I persuaded her to go for one really nice stair, we have a curved stair. It looks like the stair has a combination of half landing and winders. It seems a bit fussy and I am not sure it will flow well. I think one stair along the wall where the kitchen door is then turning left would be a much nicer stair to use and then you could have a double door not the kitchen with a sightline right through from the front door.

 

I believe the stairs are missing one additional tread on the lowest part towards the front door, the lower treads would also be slightly wider than shown.

[Bozza]

When I did my original designs for my own build I used PowerPoint create to scale elevations using shapes (rectangles and triangles).  I cut and pasted images of cladding, render etc to “fill” these shapes.  Swapped them around to see different looks etc.  What I ended up with was a remarkably accurate and £free representation of what we eventually build.

 

as you have your elevations drawn just cut & paste into a PP screen then overlay with shapes.  Delete the original image and you’ll end up with something to scale.  You can also cut and paste your windows, doors etc.  
 

to answer your question though yes if I were you as it’s a big house I would use other materials to compliment the brick.  Especially on the plainer elevations.  Perhaps the garage elevations in cladding?