With so many house plans available to view on the internet and in print magazine, it’s easy to see why you or anyone for that matter would take a shot at designing a floor plan layout. You may have spotted a flexible floor plan that sparked inspiration for you develop a completely new floor plan arrangement. This is great, but in order to make the house design work you have to design in a consistent manner. Architectural style, floor plans, and room sizes have to work in unison. There has to be a level of design consistency to tie the parts together in a cohesive floor plan layout to achieve the perfect set of house plans to build your dream home.
Architectural Style and Floor Plan Layout
The characteristics of a good house design is anchored in form following function, yet a lot of people fail to realize that the elevation concept (the form) has to be considered with the house floor plan layout (the function). You can spend days working on the perfect floor plan design only to realize later that the architectural style doesn’t work well or at all with the footprint of your plan.
In some cases, a person can be so hung up on the house floor plan that they haven’t even consider what style of architecture they’d like the elevation to be. In a way, that is putting the cart before the horse if you think about it. The two should work in conjunction and you must consider what style of architecture you are pursuing. After all, you don’t want to have the perfect floor plans only to later design the elevations and realize you hate the elevation design, right?
The Twin Oaks house plan is an example where form and function worked in conjunction.
The floor plan design was developed with inspiration from the Greek Revival style elevation of the actual historical home located in Natchez, Mississippi.
When you design your home from the inside-out, knowing the style of home you desire is important. It has a significant impact on how your floor plan layout will come together. For instance, a colonial house style will typically have a boxy shape. In contrast, Victorian architecture may be littered with protruding offsets, in addition to turrets, or wrapped porches. In both cases, you may start with a simple box concept, but the Victorian style by its very design makeup will alter the elevation concept. Keep the style of the home in mind while developing the floor plans, as it is necessary to maintain consistency in the home design process.
Room Sizes
Every room in a floor plan layout should be proportional to its own space as well as adjoining spaces. In other words, the scale of each room should be relevant to one another. So for example, let’s say you have a formal dining room and living room. Your dining room is designed to accompany a dining table that seats 6 to 8 people. This would be a medium (average) size space in the range of 12 to 13 feet by 15 to 17 feet in room dimensions. Your living room should also measure similar to remain consistent with size and proportion in relation to the dining room.
Room placement is an important aspect. Moreover, designing room spaces to relate to one another should serve as a barometer in the overall design program. The above room example is not absolute because not all design scenarios will work out perfect. There are cases where the rooms may be a bit larger or a bit smaller and that’s fine. The overall floor plan layout will be fine as long as the discrepancy isn’t distorted so much in either direction that it makes for an obvious difference in appearance.
Doodling in your spare time to come up with home designs and a floor plan layout can be a fun and stress relieving activity. However, when you are getting near the time to actually build that dream home of yours, make those doodles meaningful. Think home design consistency with a full range of consideration to the floor plan plan concept and architectural style. At this point, interviewing building designers for home design services should be a high priority in order to bring these thoughts and ideas together.
Last Updated on July 23, 2024