Would love some input re: plans

[HighlandStew]

Hi guys, I finally found you, was so happy when I found the link in a blog post.

 

I wondered if I could have input regarding our plans, some fresh eyes and experience is what we need.

 

On the old forum I talked about how I was looking to move a wee bit closer to home and about having a husband who only cared about his shed. We'll we've managed to tick both our boxes. Our plot looks onto Ben Nevis/ Nevis range and hubby is getting an even bigger shed. Planning has just been resubmitted, as the house that was originally planned was far too big for our needs and was causing difficulty with shed location. The external look of the house is exactly what we want, but we're just not 100 % about inside and would love some input.

 

The house is not a forever home, we will be selling in around 5 years to come back to Aberdeenshire. I think that's causing the problem, as we are trying to think about what it needs for selling as opposed to what we want. I'd love to have a bigger master bathroom and a walk in wardrobe but I'm just not sure how to achieve it with the window placement. Our builder has said that we can change anything internally but the externals are not negotiable now planning has gone in.

 

I've already asked if we can make the family bathroom bigger and eat into bedroom 1's en suite. I've also asked is it possible to squeeze a shower into the bathroom at the utility so said dirty husband can get cleaned without trampling oil through the house!

 

What do you thinks best for selling? Having 5 bedrooms plus study, or 4 bedrooms plus a study and make a massive master? It just seems a bit to excessive to have that amount of room, but I would love to have a bath in my master so I can have one without waking our easily woken children. My husbands delighted with his shed plans and thinks the house plans do what they need to, but I thought you guys might pick on stuff we aren't thinking about.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by HighlandStew

[Crofter]

Hi and welcome to the new forum!

 

I realise this is not the sort of feedback you were asking for, but I have to say I would be very reluctant to build a big house in the knowledge that I would be trying to sell it again in five years time. By the time it is built, all the little details finished off, and all the snags worked out, how long are you going to have left to enjoy it? Also, in order to sell, I would have thought that smaller would be better. It's not especially easy to sell large/expensive houses in the current climate.Maybe being set up as a B&B would work well, especially in the Ft Bill area.

 

Anyway I'll have a wee look at your plans and try to offer some more useful feedback

[HighlandStew]

Haha Crofter, I've just had the exact same conversation with my sister on the phone. She said for selling it on it would be a prime plot for BnB so we need to look at it from that perspective. The original house planned on it was 330m2, the new one is 250m2. Part of me is hoping that my husband will be converted to the highland life and his 5 years projection for moving back won't happen, hence the reason I agreed to the shed going up first  

[HighlandStew]

Thanks Sensus. Have attached the elevations and site plan. The site is an acre.

 

I agree about the about the dead space. When we went to meet at site, he took us to a few houses he'd built and we went around this one in the flesh. It was more the outside that we fell in love with, but at the time he said don't worry about inside, anything can be changed . But now we need to decide what we want inside and it's harder than it looks to rejig.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by HighlandStew

[HighlandStew]

 

Glad you like the elevations  and making the windows symmetrical makes so much sense. Thanks Sensus

 

It will be timber frame construction and will be built on site. Will mention the chimney and balcony to my husband.

[Stones]

Big houses seem like a great idea, but do you really need 250 m2?  While you might love the look of the house, you have to live inside it, and it strikes me that you only have a limited amount of public space given the size of the house. 

 

Our last house was 130 m2, 3 bedrooms, master measured 4 x 4 m, large en-suite 4 x 2 m and walk in waredrobe, large open plan room of 60 m2 split into kitchen, dining, lounge and family / TV room.  When we marketed our house, it went on for the same selling price as a house 200 yards away (newly built) that had over 50% more floor space.  Ours sold first.  It's the quality of the space, not necessarily the amount of it that's important.  The floorplan of that house is posted on my blog.

 

An initial thought re upstairs - drop to 3 bedrooms upstairs, relocate master bedroom to where 2 and 3 currently are so you can have a bigger room with large ensuite and walk in waredrobe  Use the former master bedroom and bedroom 1 space to create 2 smaller en suite bedrooms.  

[ProDave]

Hi HighlandStew and welcome to the forum.

 

First I am sorry to rain on your parade, but of you are building the house to sell in 5 years you are going to become very frustrated and disappointed. There is almost no market for large detached houses in the Highlands at the moment (for reasons I won't dwell on for the sake of my blood pressure.)  Our present 5 bedroom, double garage detached house has been on the market for 20 months now, just 4 viewings and none since the summer, and no offers. The few houses of this size that have sold around here in recent years have taken over 3 years to sell. Any estate agent who is honest will tell you expect it to take 3 years to sell.  Trust me, you don't want to be in the state of limbo that we are in, not knowing when it will sell or for how much. I know of a builder (the one that built our frame) that speculatively built a large detached house to sell. It's been on the market over 6 years now. He says if he knew that, he would instead have built a pair of small semi detached houses that would probably have been easier to sell.

 

And my last bit of doom, I would be very surprised indeed if having built it, you are actually able to sell for enough to actually cover the cost of buying the plot and building the house.

 

I am not being a doom monger, just saying how it is at the moment. Hopefully in 5 years it will be better, but a lot can happen in 5 years, good or bad, and we don't know which.

 

If your motive is to make money, I would forget building anything. Your plot is big enough for 2 houses so I would seek permission to build 2 houses, and sell it as two plots, that way you might make some money.

 

Back to the house. If you are building it to live in it looks nice. Re the "waste of space" on the landing and in the hall, our present house is exactly like that. Yes it's a waste of space but it does have a certain wow factor with a nice staircase.  Re the stairs, I would be surprised if that arrangement meets current Scottish building regs. These days you have to have a solid wall down one side of the stair, and a certain amount of solid wall at the top and bottom of the stair to allow for the future install of a stair lift. I can't see how that stair complies. These restrictions are a great shame as that's almost exactly what we have in the present house and everyone says "wow" when they see the stairs.like that.

 

 

Re the en-suites. the master gets a pokey small en-suite at the moment. I would put the en-suite at the right of the master where a wardrobe is currently and make it much bigger. Presumably the master is the one with the best views, and gets the most sun?

 

[HighlandStew]

I'm glad you guys r bringing the doom and gloom, all things we need to hear and think about.

 

RE stones and making bedrooms 2 and 3 the master is what I've just been doodling with tonight. The master is only the master ProDave because it has the balcony me thinks. So stones suggestion of making 2/3 the master would work.

 

motive isn't about making money, I wanted to move home and my husband wanted to build and this plot provides enough space for his shed.

 

 

 

 

[AliG]

I agree with many of the comments re smaller houses are easier to sell so won't say any more on that.

 

I also agree with Dave that having space and importantly a window on a landing makes a house much more pleasant to live in so I would not feel it was wasted space.

 

The bit I feel is odd is the master bedroom and even more so bedroom 1 which have a lot of redundant floorspace but small wardrobes and en suite in the case of the master.

 

There are lots of ways you could better utilise the space, but you definitely have enough room for a larger ensuite and a walk in wardrobe by simply stealing from the floor space.

 

One way would be to make the bed 1 ensuite longer as the bedroom itself is currently 6m long which is unnecessary. You could put a bath under the coomb and a walk in shower on the other side. You could have a walk through wardrobe to get into the ensuite.

 

Alternatively in the master bedroom you could make the ensuite wider but shorter to cross both the small windows. You could then have a walk in wardrobe below it and remove the other wardrobe making that the bed position. You could still do this and make bed 1 the master, it has more room. I would move down the wall to the ensuite to make bed 1 the new more square master. It does depend a little on which window you prefer for the master.

 

Tbh the layout of the house looks like it was done by a builder with little imagination.

 

I am not sure about building regs for a stairlift, I thought that would be an issue on my new place, but they just seemed to want space to park a chairlift if necessary.

 

Downstairs if selling and not worrying about your mucky husband I am not sure there is much value in an extra WC. I would probably make the study larger and lose it along with the cost of the plumbing. Maybe put a larger hall cupboard in instead.

 

I am ok with the kitchen layout, I like the lack of corners which tend to be wasted space. I would have the door swing into the utility room. A lot depends on how you want to use the space, you could redesign the kitchen layout to more clearly split the dining area, I think it is more a personal choice. If you felt the need for a separate dining room, losing the WC and maybe a slightly smaller utility would make the study big enough.

 

I am going to see if I can draw a new bed one and master layout

 

 

 

[AliG]

OK, if nothing else this shows you the enormous amount of space you have to play with between bed one and the master bedroom -

 

You can move the master door around depending on if you want to retain the cupboard on the landing.

 

Firstfloor plan .pdf

Edited September 6, 2016 by AliG

[HighlandStew]

Thanks so much AliG, you basically drew exactly what I had in my head but couldn't get on to paper  

[AliG]

Thanks, it is pretty much my favourite thing to do on here.

 

I was thinking about it this morning. I really do think you need to decide if you are building this house to live in for a long time or to sell in a few years. It could have quite a big effect on what you spend on fittings etc.

 

Also, looking at the original plans I'd probably want to get a professional kitchen or bathroom designer to look at those rooms.

[HighlandStew]

I showed my husband your plans and he went off and played about with it to come up with something very similar, only difference is placement of the ensuite and wardrobe in bedroom 1. He put the ensuite where you had the walk in, popped a sliding wardrobe against the wall where the ensuite was and then the big ensuite beside the family bathroom becomes a wee office/ big storage area. Only thing he wasn't sure about was if the bedroom 1 has to have a window in the ensuite, if so we'd have to revert back to your set up.

 

In my head I'm hoping having family around and living in such an interesting area will mean he won't want to move back to the dark side, but unfortunately I can't guarantee that until we move. He's pretty clear that he doesn't want the girls going to academy in the west. He did marry a west coaster so I'm not sure where his prejudices come from!

 

With regards to the layout downstairs, I keep thinking if I could I move the toilet with the sliding door and have access to the study which will be our girls toy room it would be great for me as a Mum. Hubby thinks that if we flipped the toilet up it would probably take to much space from the study/toyroom to warrant it? Especially as bedroom 4's wardrobe is already pushed into it. But then do I need a wardrobe in bedroom 4?

 

Thanks AliG, really appreciate the help  

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterW]

Just be aware of a couple of things :

 

- decent sliding door hardware is eye watering ..! Klug and Eclisse are £150 per door for a decent set against £4 for a set of hinges

- sliding doors need clear walls, switches need to be positioned carefully as they can't go on the hidden door area due to how they protrude. 

 

With some careful rework I took out 5 sliding doors and the plans work fine - and reduced my costs by around £1500 due to cost of hardware and fitting. 

 

 

[ProDave]

You don't need a window in a bathroom or en-suite,  but see if you can get a roof window in if not a proper one.  Failing that another sun pipe to at least get light in so you don't have to turn a light on in the daytime.

 

 

Re sliding door gear, I bought the cheap sliding door kits from one of the sheds and it was nothing like £150 and they work fine for me.