How to Design the Best Floor Plan for Your New Build
Our new build house plans are still under review, but we are hopeful we’ll get our permits soon! We’ve been lining up the various trades in anticipation that we will be able to start construction soon. If you missed it here’s a look at the design inspiration behind our Contemporary Classic new build.
The Floor Plan of a New Build
The first major component of the new build design process is to design the floor plan. All other elements such as the exterior look of the home, interiors, landscape, and structural integrity will be designed around the floor plan.
A clean and contemporary home exterior. Credit: WA Country Builders
When you are designing and building a new custom home, the floor plan can make or break your living experience. If you have ever lived in a home that had walls in strange places, not enough storage, weird sized or shaped rooms, or odd placement of windows or doors then you know that it can dramatically affect the ease and enjoyment of daily life. This is one area of the new build design process you’ll want to spend extra attention on getting right. Everything else builds on top of the floor plan, so it is critical to be happy with it before your design team starts designing everything else around it. Additionally, once your plans are submitted to the city for approval you should think of it as final. Any changes after that could trigger a resubmittal to the city and/or construction related changes (read: more time, more money).
In this post, I’m sharing a peek of our new build’s floor plan, some of the decisions we made for it, and several elements you should consider in order to design the best floor plan that fits the needs of you and your family and will give you enjoyment day after day.
Our Preliminary Floor Plan
This was one of the first drawings our architect drew up of our first floor after we provided all of our program requirements for our house. You can see it is hand sketched. Seeing it laid out on paper really was just the start of all the conversations that followed. It may look simple, but it took us a year to get from this first concept to where it is now — submitted to the city for building approval. Some of it has changed. You’ll have to stay tuned as I reveal more once we begin construction! Keep in mind that this is what my family wanted for our property for our specific lifestyle. That is the beauty of it. You get to design to whatever suits you!
Our preliminary, first floor layout that we designed in collaboration with Kyle Chan, Architect.
Must Know Tips for Designing a Really Good New House Layout
Tip 1: Know Your Priorities
Know what is important to you and your family. This seems obvious, but when you start on a new build journey it feels like the sky is the limit and hey, you can design anything you want, right? Theoretically, yes. But in reality, everything has a cost, and there are city planning and building requirements, regulations, and structural engineering that often dictate what you can and can’t do. Therefore, trade-offs sometimes have to be made. That is when it is helpful for you to know what are the most important, non-negotiable items on your wishlist that you want your design team to focus on incorporating and what are the items you can live without. For example:
If you want a huge open concept space without walls, structurally, you’ll still need to support it, which may mean a large beam running through the space.
Where do you want high ceilings and how high? On just the first floor or the second floor as well? There is an upper limit to the height your residential house can be based on city requirements.
Where must you absolutely have windows, and will those windows be overlooking a neighbor? Oh yes, the city cares about that too.
Do you absolutely want your kitchen window overlooking the backyard or a particular view point? Do you want an inside/outside living feel and must have that extra-wide or full-wall sliding or folding door? Do you want to follow feng shui principles?
And it goes without saying: how many bedrooms and bathrooms do you want? Do you want more than one ensuite or an “in-law unit” or ADU? Do you want a dedicated home office, or will you use one of the bedrooms as a home office?
One of my must-haves was the dining room at the back of the house looking out over the backyard, and I wanted it to have a sunroom feel with windows on all four sides. We also wanted to have our primary bedroom suite on the first floor. This required a bit of finessing to get all the square footage right for each space on the first floor because there are lot coverage maximums. I also wanted a mudroom, which is not typical in California homes given the mild weather.
Dining room with large windows to the floor. Credit: Allison Lind Interiors
Tip 2: Get to Know the Sun
You can’t control the sun, obviously. The sun is where it is and is going to shine where it’s going to shine. But what you can control is how you design your floor plan to capitalize on it. When you design your new house’s layout, definitely consider what direction and time the sun shines into the home. That will sometimes inform which rooms you want to place where in the overall layout of the house.
I am a huge fan of all the natural sunlight I can get, so big windows and many of them was a priority for me. That said, the back of my house will face west, so I know for a fact that my dining and living rooms and primary bedroom will get a beating from the afternoon sun and heat, especially in the summer. So I thought through my window treatments at the same time we were designing our floor plan knowing that I will absolutely need them there. The south facing kitchen window will be so lovely. I can’t wait for all that warm sunshine to flood my kitchen and dining room. Another example: I love a dark room for sleeping, so I am perfectly happy placing my bedroom on the north side of the house where sunlight is dimmer and cooler in the morning.
The sunlight and how it enters a home is a bit of an abstract concept to visualize, but your architect or designer should be able to help you understand the important considerations.
Classic, luxury, white and gray kitchen with built in dining bench. Credit: CJS Woodworking & Design
Tip 3: Real Estate Trends vs. Personal Preferences
We are excited about the opportunity to completely personalize a house to our preferences and lifestyle. But sometimes the idea that you may eventually sell the home creeps in, and we start to make decisions based on real estate trends and potential resale value. You should certainly seek the advice of a real estate professional, and these are just my opinions based on my experience living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If you are investing in and building a home most likely you are planning to live there for a long time (at least 4-5 years). Therefore, I am of the opinion that you should design the home for you and not for the potential buyer that may or may not ever happen. You should enjoy your home to the fullest while you are living there. Similar to my advice to my design clients, you should furnish and decorate your space for the everyday, not the once a year occasion. One common example comes to mind — to have or not to have a bathtub in the primary bathroom. In a new build, do what works for you. If you want a bathtub, put it in. If you don’t want a bathtub, never plan to use it, don’t like the idea of allocating precious square footage to it, don’t put one in. We also toyed with this one, and in the end, decided to put one in. If you want to spend thousands on a state of the art wine cellar then do it. But don’t do it because you’re hoping you’ll get the return back on the sale of your house. These examples are all within reason of course. If you told me you wanted to put a hot tub in the middle of your living room, I might advise against it. But hey, it’s your house.
A light and airy spa-like bathroom with round tub under the window. Credit: Elza B. Design
Tip 4: Do Not Underestimate Storage
Do not underestimate or worse, forget, that there are a lot of household, regularly used items that you may not want on display. This can be everything from extra linens to spare batteries to a vacuum cleaner, and a big one is children’s things. They have a lot of things! I am a believer in a clutter free lifestyle. In order to maintain organization and minimize clutter everything needs to have a place. That means unless it is beautiful and is meant to be displayed you should have a closet, cabinet, drawer, or piece of furniture for it to be stored away. Of course this means you have to allocate square footage to boring, utilitarian spaces like the laundry room, hall closet, linen closet, and so on. But if you want to live in a clutter free environment, be thoughtful about your storage spaces.
We added extra square footage in our 2-car garage beyond the standard for the purpose of storing infrequently used items like tools, camping gear, and holiday decorations. Sure, it takes away from precious interior square footage, but I think it is worth it to have an organized, clutter free garage and for those items to be out of my house. Also, my architect told me my laundry room / mudroom, pantry, and primary bedroom closet were a lot bigger than what is normal for the size of our house. On the flip side, I don’t have a linen closet anywhere in the house. This was intentional, because I carefully considered what I’m putting where so I know where I need the storage space. I even considered where I would plug-in and charge our Roomba out of sight.
Classic, moody kitchen with large pantry and painted millwork. Credit: Kevin Dakan Architect
I hope this post gave you some new build floor plan ideas. Designing the floor plan of your new build should be fun! You get to be creative and dream! If you keep these points in mind when working with your architect or designer you’ll be off to a great start.
If you need help with thinking through your floor plans so that you can move forward with confidence, I offer an architectural plan review service. We review your floor plans in detail, help you see the full potential of your house plans, and look for things you may not have thought of. If you do not have floor plans yet, we can also collaborate with you and your architect to develop program requirements for your dream home.
Talk soon!
Rosanna
