House Floor Plans Layout
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Planning House Traffic
Planning floor traffic through your home can greatly increase convenience. You will have to take into account how your house is situated, the view, terrain, size etc. The traffic flow will never be perfect, but try to follow as many of the floorplans guidelines below as you can. Shown is a very simple one story floor plans layout with floor traffic flow arrows. Your floorplans layout may not be this simple but you'll get the idea.
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The distance from the garage to the kitchen of the house is direct and short. |
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The foyer is centrally located and convenient to all parts of the house. |
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All bedrooms are close to a bath. |
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Few rooms of a house have floor traffic planned through them. |
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Pay attention to space relationships. (Dining room in relation to kitchen). |
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Try to separate the living room from the kitchen of the house if there is a family room. |
| It is usually advisable to locate the laundry near the kitchen of the house so you can do laundry while working or relaxing in the kitchen. |
| In recent years it has become quite common to locate the laundry on the second floor of the house, near the bedrooms of the house. |
| There should be a closet near all entry doors of the house. |
If you are planning single story floor plans in your house, it is cost effective to have the plumbing fixtures share a common wall whenever possible as they do in bath 1 & 2 above. Plumbing walls should be built with 2x6 rather than 2x4 to allow room for the plumbing lines. If planning two story house floor plans, or a basement with a bath, try to line up the plumbing wall with another plumbing wall above or below, or at least get them close.
Room Sizes
Following are some minimum and recommended room sizes for floor plans. The Federal House Authority recommends at least the minimum. Of greater importance is that your furniture will fit. Use paper cutouts of your furniture to lay on the floor plans. Perhaps a better idea is to buy a plans kit which may include miniature Styrofoam cutouts of furniture and other items to actually build yourself a model of your home.
There are low cost computer programs available for the home PC user. While the developers claim the software is easy to use and design floor plans with, I have found that it takes more time to learn the use of the software than it would take to draw floorplans by hand or build a model of floor plans from a kit. The vast majority of people I know that have tried them have given up in frustration and have used another alternative to design their house plans.
If you expect to design more than one set of floor plans however, these programs may be worth the time to learn them, and they can be fun.
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Bedrooms - minimum 100 sq. ft. - recommended 125 sq. ft. with at least a 4 foot closet 2 feet deep - recommended 6 to 8 feet . Placing a closet on the interior wall will provide a noise barrier between rooms. (Larger closets are very desirable.) |
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Bathrooms - minimum 5 feet by 7 feet - recommended 6 feet by 9 feet with 2 lavs. Powder rooms can be 4 x 4½ feet. |
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Living Room Plans - minimum 150 sq. ft. - recommended 250 sq. ft. |
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Dining Room Plans - minimum 120 sq. ft. |
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Family Room Plans - minimum 220 sq. ft. |
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Kitchen Plans - see Kitchen and Bath page |
