Northwest #3

This design is another of my (nearly all-time) favorites.

I began with a floor plan idea and basic house look, and drew in some walls and roof lines (I used the auto-build roof feature of the program to create roofs). However, I soon got discouraged when things weren't lining up quite the way I wanted. So in a bold stroke, I deleted everything except materials definitions, and started over.

Upon starting over I began with "room boxes" (a tool in Home Designer for producing a general room layout without having to draw walls, click here and here for the room box images). I had a pretty good idea of the floor plan I wanted, and on this restart everything seemed to fall into place rather nicely. If you look at the places in the room box images where walls have been moved, you can see how little the layout actually changed.

In the view below we have the living room in the left front corner. The front door, wrapped by a front porch (note the tapered stone porch columns), opens into a shallow entry with the living room beyond. Along the left side and toward the back (as we view it below) is the family room. Of course, that's the garage on the right.

The master suite has an alcove (I do like that as a feature) that you can see overtop the garage. It also has a small balcony. The stone-wrapped room at left (on the second floor) is a bedroom, and another bedroom is behind it (on the left).

The Front

The Rear

From the rear view, above, we see the walk-out basement with deck overhead. The first floor rooms along the back (deck level), from right to left, are the family room, dining room, and kitchen. All 3 have doors onto the deck. On the second floor, the room with the skylights is the garden tub alcove off the master bath, which is itself at top left. At right is a bedroom, already mentioned.

Some things worth noting:

The foundation walls (basement walls) are tapered, slightly. It's not terribly apparent from these views, but I like the effect. It's also a common feature of older "Craftsman" style homes.
A 2-sided fireplace (pre-fab metal) separates the living and family rooms. The vent goes up through a bedroom closet.
I wanted at least 2 closets in proximity to the front entry and garage entry, but ended up with only a single, small closet. The downstairs half-bath, in partial compensation, is a bit less cramped than it would have been (had I kept the second closet).
There is a sizeable pantry off the kitchen. Of course this can be used as a general purpose closet space, if necessary.
The G-shaped kitchen is not quite large enough to be an "eat-in" kitchen. I also omitted a hood for the range, which is on the "G" leg of the kitchen layout. The end of the range peninsula contains a plate rack, for convenience.
The garage is large enough for some storage, particularly along the southern wall.
The stairs to the basement are under the main stairwell. You enter from the short hall that leads to the garage.

On the second floor (below), you might want to note the following:

There is a built-in linen cabinet at the northern end of the upstairs hall.
The master bedroom is large, and has an alcove along the eastern side. There is a balcony that looks out over the garage.
The master bath is relatively spacious, with an alcove containing a large garden tub. The alcove itself has a sloped cathedral ceiling with twin skylights. I like the space, in general.
The master bedroom closets aren't as large as is generally preferred, these days. They are not, however, inadequate. I worked a long time to refine the layout. You may also note from the room box view that I moved the master bedroom closets in the final version.
The 2 remaining bedrooms are along the "front" of the house (as it is rotated 90° in this design). They aren't large, but they are large enough for queen-sized beds (though just barely).

On the lower level, below:

There is a large laundry/storage space, though I did not include an image.
There is a fairly large "rec room" with sliding glass doors that walk out below the back deck.

This first view is the exterior view I used for the Work In Progress page. Note the curbs along the sides of the driveway. You can also (just) make out the sloped foundation walls.

And here we have a night shot of the front.

This is the night view of the main front image (above).

Here is a slightly closer view of the front. I know the fir tree obscures part of the view. Note the carriage garage doors.

The rear view, at night.

Final exterior view, showing the western side of the house. The garage is left, front (in this view). That's the window into the pantry at center, and the kitchen windows on the right.

Here we are standing in the entry, just inside the front door. What we see in front is the living room. Note the fireplace is 2-sided. Of course, those are the stairs to the second floor, on the right. The family room is beyond the fireplace. The hall to the kitchen and dining is just visible beyond the stairs.

Alternate view of the living room, from a slightly different angle.

From left of the fireplace, this shows the living room and entry. I put a screen and a large vase to fill in that corner. Initially I had the end table in this place, but it didn't seem quite right. As far as that post goes, I felt some kind of support was needed.

From right of the fireplace, we can see the front entry and stairs.

If we turn around from the view immediately above, here is the family room. The doorway leads to the dining room.

From in front of the sliding glass doors we view the fireplace and living room beyond.

From the hallway, we look back at the family room one more time.

We turn around and look toward the kitchen. That's the half-bath (of course) at center.

From the family room, this shows the dining room and doorway into the kitchen.

From the other corner, this show the other 2 dining room doorways.

If we walk from the dining room into the kitchen, this is the view. That shiny door is to the pantry.

From the hallway, here is another view of the kitchen.

Final kitchen view, showing the hallway to the living room, the doorway into the dining room, and the door to the back deck.

Let's go upstairs.

From the upstairs hall we look toward the open stairwell.

Looking down the hall, we see the linen cabinet outside the master bedroom door. The doors on the left are a bedroom and bath (left to right).

This is the slightly larger "back" bedroom (first door on the left in the image, above).

Another view of this bedroom.

Here is the upstairs bath. The toilet is under the cabinet on the right.

This view of the bath shows the toilet, somewhat.

This is the "front" bedroom--the one with stone surrounding it.

A second view of this bedroom.

Entering the master suite, we look toward the alcove and the sliding glass doors leading out onto the balcony.

Another view of the alcove.

From the chair in the corner of the alcove, this looks toward the master bath (with open door) and the closets.

From inside the master bath door, we see the shower (at right) and the garden tub, just barely, on the left. The door on the left is to the water closet, and toilet.

Here is a good view of the garden tub. Note the sloped ceiling and skylights above it.

Final view of the master bath, from in front of the tub.

Finally in the basement, this view shows the stairs and the rec room beyond.

And last but not least, the rec room, complete with pool table and projection TV. Why not?