Last spring I participated in an "Ask the Experts" panel in Sarasota, Fla. Afterwards, a woman in the audience asked me to review her plans for a new beach house overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.
Designed by her builder/architect, the house was $400,000 over budget, and she wanted some suggestions for where to cut back.
As we started talking, I quickly realized that her apprehension was not just about the budget. As she described her lifestyle and her family, it was clear that much of the house in its current iteration did not make sense for her household.
Though our discussion was directed towards a specific design in Florida, we touched on many issues that confront a family planning a new house.
For example, how do you address the timeline—your family's needs now, 10 years from now when your kids are older, and 20 years from now when you're older? How much flexibility and multi-purpose "swing space" do you need?
What about resale? The day will come, but if it's 20 years or more into the future, how much or how little should it affect the look or the floor plan of the house you're building now? How accurately can anyone, even a marketing genius, predict what home buyers will want in the year 2023? When you have a great location and a compelling view, as this family did, is resale even an issue?
Can the design incorporate solutions for differing personal styles that cause conflict? Say you are messy and your partner is not?
As your architect or builder draws up the design for your new house, how much should you challenge his or her work?
Going back to the Florida homeowner's apprehensions, her first concern was the bedroom arrangement. The house had three bedrooms on a second floor, and a sprawling master suite on the first floor below. But her three kids were still young and waking up at night, and she wanted to sleep nearby.
Her hesitation to do just that was resale. In Florida where retirees form a significant portion of the buying public, first-floor master suites are the rule, and her builder/architect was pushing for one. But nothing is inviolate, even in real estate. The unthinkable is always thinkable. And, view and location will usually trump many otherwise perceived shortcomings. When your house sits on a beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, resale buyers will forgive a lot.
The obvious solution was to put resale concerns aside and move a scaled down master suite upstairs with the kids. This was not as radical a change as one might suspect. The second floor already had a large "bonus room" because the owners decided they didn't want a two-story space in the family room below.
Scaling back the sprawling first floor master suite to mere bedroom status would have some advantages. Using it as a home office with a sofa bed would accommodate guests but discourage long visits (a hazard of living on the beach in Florida I understand). And the owners, who were looking for ways to cut their cost, could excise the separate home office.
In 10 years when their kids will be teenagers, the parents could move downstairs, or maybe not. Many teens are uncommunicative and most conversations with parents are fleeting, occurring on the fly. If the bedrooms are in close proximity, the chances of a parent having a fleeting conversation increase dramatically.
In 20 or 25 years the parents might be ready to move downstairs and use the first floor bedroom themselves. And, down the line two master bedrooms could be a selling point if intergenerational households continue to be a growing trend.
The homeowner also had some concerns about the main living area of the house. Her husband wanted a place to entertain where toys and pets would not be under foot, so her builder/architect had included living and dining rooms on the non-beach side of the house. Nothing unusual, but it did not seem appropriate for this house because both guests and family members would gravitate to the same spot—the back of the house with its panoramic views of the water and beach.
In our brief conversation, we didn't reach any conclusions. But as I thought about it on my way home, it seemed that a more sensible solution, and one that was more in keeping with the homeowner's desire for less formality, would be to use the same space for both family activities and entertaining and build in adequate storage—plenty of cabinets and one or two good sized closets—so that toys could be scooped up and put away before the guests arrived. The storage would still be useful when the kids are older because even as teenagers they will be bringing stuff into the family room area.
Another advantage of this scheme is that the parents could jettison the formal living and dining rooms in their efforts to cut costs.
Moving beyond the overall design scheme to more specific rooms, the generously sized kitchen of this beach house as shown in the plans would be impossible to work in. The stove and sink were at opposite ends of the room, about 15 feet apart. To prepare a meal, you'd need roller blades. In a builder's model, such a shortcoming in the kitchen will be immediately apparent if you pantomime preparing a meal. When there's only a floor plan to study, you have to imagine how you would prepare a meal, but it's an important mental exercise. No matter how great the cabinets and counters look, they'll never offset a poor layout, and you don't want to make this disheartening discovery after you move in.
And then there is the personal style issue. The homeowner said that neatness was a source of tension, and she was the messy one. A few refinements here and there would definitely help keep her new house more orderly. We didn't discuss specifics, but these suggestions could be incorporated into any house.
An entry area designed to siphon off all the stuff that comes into the house before it gets strewn around makes a big difference. Hooks, a large cubby for each household member, and large closets keep jackets, coats, backpacks, umbrellas, boots, sports equipment, briefcases and laptops where they can be found in the morning rush. If the space is big enough, an alcove with a place to sort mail and a small desk and filing cabinet for household records reduces clutter by confining the mail and bill paying activities to one spot.
A second dishwasher can often reduce upsets over the condition of the kitchen. In many households, dishes pile up in the sink and on the counters because the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes from the day before. With two dishwashers, dirty ones can be loaded as they are used, and the clean ones removed during meal preparation. When entertaining, a second dishwasher is also handy.
A huge bedroom and sitting area for the master suite sounds good and looks luxurious, but a smaller bedroom area without the sitting alcove and a separate dressing area is easier to keep neat. There's no a trail of clothes worn the day before and less area for clutter to accumulate.
My last piece of advice for the Florida homeowner and anyone else planning a new house: the designer is supposed to be the expert in houses, but you're going to live there. If the design runs counter to your perceptions of what you need, don't be too intimidated to speak up.
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