I've been drawing floor plans for a full year. First, we planned to build in Texas so we worked on a plan for a compact winter home. We ended up purchasing a place in Texas in August. So, we turned our focus toward building an efficient summer cottage in Minnesota. We already have a lot, so our design work centered around the difficulty for our site.
I have cut our rooms and furniture out of graph paper and slid them around like a puzzle, toured many parade homes, looked at hundreds of floor plans, read at least 20 books on home design and architecture, spent time in Frank Lloyd Wright homes, spent more hours than I care to count thinking about rooms and spaces, and filled up page after page of graph paper.
Here's the "final" version. One level. 2 bedrooms plus what would be a bunk room if the grand piano wasn't in there. 2 full bathrooms.
We want to have windows facing south, but the lake is to the west. The best option for the west side is a large porch to enjoy the lake and yet minimize late day summer heat gain. The garage will be on the east side. The north side will have few windows for privacy and efficiency reasons.
We also tried to stay within a 40x30 footprint. The outside of the building envelope is actually 22x40. The porch is outside the envelope with a dimension of 8x40. Assuming 12 inch thick walls, the "heated" square feet would be 20x38 or 760 square feet. Small, efficient cottage!
Update on March 16 - It's been 5 weeks with no major revisions. I think I am done.
I have cut our rooms and furniture out of graph paper and slid them around like a puzzle, toured many parade homes, looked at hundreds of floor plans, read at least 20 books on home design and architecture, spent time in Frank Lloyd Wright homes, spent more hours than I care to count thinking about rooms and spaces, and filled up page after page of graph paper.
Here's the "final" version. One level. 2 bedrooms plus what would be a bunk room if the grand piano wasn't in there. 2 full bathrooms.
We want to have windows facing south, but the lake is to the west. The best option for the west side is a large porch to enjoy the lake and yet minimize late day summer heat gain. The garage will be on the east side. The north side will have few windows for privacy and efficiency reasons.
We also tried to stay within a 40x30 footprint. The outside of the building envelope is actually 22x40. The porch is outside the envelope with a dimension of 8x40. Assuming 12 inch thick walls, the "heated" square feet would be 20x38 or 760 square feet. Small, efficient cottage!
Update on March 16 - It's been 5 weeks with no major revisions. I think I am done.