A large percentage of homebuilders state that the average buyer changes their mind in floor plan selection 2-3 times prior to making a final decision on a home design. Because most families are unable to accurately project how to best apply their needs to a home’s floor plan prior to actually walking through a model home, home shoppers should attempt to as thoroughly as possible determine their required versus desired features and apply these to floor plans that they review.
Start With Your Non-negotiables
There are things about a home that are non-negotiable. These are characteristics of a home that may not be preferred but are necessary for a family’s well-being. If the non-negotiables have not been written down then it is unlikely that a home plan will meet all of a family’s needs. Some examples of non-negotiables are: accessibility features for aging parents, a home office that can also serve as a guest room, separate bedrooms for children, and a master suite.
Analyze Your Daily Movement Patterns
Look at the positive and negative aspects of your current home. Look at your current home and ask how you move through the house. What are the friction points in your current home. What are the biggest pain points in your current home. A mud room near the garage for example is a great place to put dirty shoes and other items that you don’t want to track through the rest of the house. An open kitchen and family room is great for families with young children because you can keep an eye on them while you are in the kitchen. However, the opposite is also true. If you have kids, you may not want an open kitchen and family room because you don’t want to hear them playing in the family room while you are trying to cook.
The floor plan should promote efficiency in the daily activities of family members. It is also very important to have separate functions in the home. For example, having a mudroom off of the garage can keep dirt from entering the other portions of the home. Parents may enjoy having an open kitchen/family room so they can keep an eye on their children. This will also allow parents to see what TV show their kids are watching in the family room and hear their playtime in the family room when they are in the kitchen cooking up a storm.
Next, take a walk-through of your current home. Walk from room to room. Identify the largest amount of friction in your life. Yes, there are most likely a few areas where you are traveling across the house to retrieve items on a regular basis for your activities. These observations can be very valuable as you browse house plans. While living in your current home, have you found that foot traffic consistently disrupts activities that need to occur in the different areas of your home (e.g. reading, watching TV, etc.)? Have you identified ‘hot tracks’ or constant paths of travel that occur throughout your current home. Again, these observations can be very valuable as you go through floor plans.
Match Square Footage to Actual Usage
A larger house means more square footage, and that means more expensive construction costs, more expensive heating and cooling, and more maintenance down the line. Only about 80% of the square footage of a home is used 80% of the time the home is used. In other words, the spaces in a home where people are most frequently found can account for as much as 80% of the square footage in a home, and, therefore, should receive the greatest attention in terms of overall square footage. In the graphic shown here, the floors of a home have been reduced to percentages in order to better understand how space in a home is typically used. The large percentage of space that would fall in the area of the floor plan where the home’s owner would typically be found is indicated in the red area. This is typically the area of a home’s floor plan where the home’s owner would be found most often. Because of this, these spaces should
Space planning will assist you in right sizing spaces for your needs. A large kitchen with an open plan to the family room will likely be used more than a formal dining room that is only used for dinner on average 2 dinners per year. And instead of having a separate dressing room in your master suite, opt for extra storage space in the master itself.
Next, list out the number of people that will be in each room in your home. In a typical home there are several rooms that have a large amount of use by family members. In evaluating a floor plan to determine if it has good use of space, for each room in your home you will want to evaluate how many people will be in that room at one time. For example, if you have a kitchen where you have your morning breakfast together, how many people will be in the kitchen at the time? One way to look at a 2,000 square foot home with good use of space as opposed to a 3,000 square foot home with lots of wasted space is by considering the use that each room will receive.
Budget Beyond the Base Price
Another cost to factor into choosing the perfect home plan is the cost of the actual house. Large homes require bigger heating and cooling systems. They may require more sinks and toilets, more faucets in the bathrooms, longer electrical runs. Because of these and other factors, larger homes require more building materials and more labor hours to complete. Additionally, homes with complex roof lines cost more in materials to build out the roof as well as labor. Homes with multiple stories cost more for a larger foundation and more expensive framing materials and labor to build out the raised structure. In general, single-story homes cost 10% to 15% more per square foot than two-story homes. But this increased initial cost can be offset by not having to build a staircase, and by not having to repair the various components of a multi-story home as they wear out with time.
While single-story homes typically cost 10-15% more per square foot to build than two-story homes due to the larger square footage of the foundation and roof, there are many advantages of a single-level home. There is no cost for a staircase and the amount of maintenance required on a single-story home over the life of the home is significantly less than a multi-story home. These advantages can be a huge plus or minus depending on the age and mobility of the family.
When you begin to explore the numerous floor plans of homes for sale by home builders, you can begin by looking at the models of differing square footage to get a feel for the blue prints and detailed specifications of each of the plans. Find out the estimated cost of each of the homes for sale, and the detailed specifications of each of the floor plans for the home builders’ models of homes for sale.
Consider Future Flexibility
As time goes on the housing needs of any family will change from time to time. The home of a young family with children will have a playroom in place of the formal dining room where the young family was dining with their children a few short years before. The home of an empty nester will have an office or even a hobby room in place of the extra bedrooms that the couple needed when their children were young. Look for homes with flexible design elements. Such features can be changed to meet the evolving needs of any family.
There are many different home plans on the market today that can be modified in order to suit your specific needs. Many plans include bonus rooms located over garages. These can be finished out in order to add extra square footage to your home and can be used in a variety of different ways. A finished basement is also another option for additional square footage in your home. These areas can also be modified in order to suit your specific needs and the needs of your family.
Making the Final Decision
For the next week or so live with each plan as if they were your home. Go through each day, morning to night, and plan out each activity and then picture it in the home you are looking at. If after a week or so one of the plans consistently has less friction than the others then it’s the plan for you. Yes it may not be your first choice but if it supports your life style better then it’s the house for you.
The perfect plan for your home will be one that is both very functional in nature as well as beautifully aesthetically pleasing. Therefore the key is to try and strike the right balance for your needs as a homeowner. The home with the best floor plan will be the plan that not only looks to be of great beauty, but one that also supports you and your family well. If your family will be negatively affected by the homes plan then that plan would be considered less than ideal. That is why as a homeowner it is very important that you choose a home with a great floor plan prior to moving in to said home. The beautiful plan can always be created once you are in your new home. And that is a much better plan to choose for your home.
