The DaVinci or the Van Gogh?

The word “mesmerizing” has been used to describe the feeling of walking through model home after model home. Dazzling colors, tasteful decorator props and wise furniture placement can make a builder’s home appear larger. This is all enhanced by the lack of window coverings, always-on lamps and fixtures and even hidden accent lights that make the house literally glow as you tour it. Bathroom glitz, those upgraded surfaces throughout and state-of-the-art appliances in kitchens can distract your eye from the practicality of the layout for everyday use.

At some point, however, when you’ve decided to re-visit a particular floor plan because it caught your eye, you’ll have to become honest with yourself as to whether it’s the right house for you.

It’s always a disappointment when everything else seems perfect about a builder’s home (the price, the neighborhood, the exterior, the amenities) but you find that the floor plan just doesn’t work. It may be the flow, the location or proximity of one room to another, the size of the rooms or the traffic patterns that bug you.

Even a seemingly pleasant floor plan needs scrutiny. Ever wonder why a 1500 square foot home can sometimes feel larger than an 1800 square foot one? A builder’s intelligent use of space can make even a one-bedroom, one-bath condo live large, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that the smaller the square footage, the more difficult it is for the builder to fit everything in and make it flow beautifully at the same time. High volume ceilings and larger windows, letting in more natural light have come to transform what may have otherwise felt like a cramped apartment into an open and airy place one can call home.

Over the past few decades, builders have begun to offer more flexibility than ever before, letting us opt in favor or home offices and dens instead of extra bedrooms or giving us master bedroom sitting areas, media lofts, bonus rooms, 3 and 4 car garages, home gyms, and outdoor kitchens – not to mention butler’s pantries, observation decks, master bedroom coffee bars and home theaters.

Are you among the “spatially-challenged?” Do you have difficulty reading blueprints and even making heads or tails of the floor plans in the builder’s brochure? A few folks have a tough time with seeing a real-life reverse floor plan version of the model home they just toured . . . (“no, no the kitchen should be on the OTHER side….”) It’s not all that uncommon for a buyer to summarily reject a reverse floor-plan design immediately after touring a model arranged in the other direction. The builder sometimes reverses floor plans throughout the community so that houses don’t all have right-side garages, lending variety to the look of the community. Just as common are home sites that don’t fit floor plans in some directions or neighboring front doors that are too close together.

If your gut feeling is to rage against the mirror image of what you originally liked, we advise you to cut yourself some slack. Give yourself time to get used to the reverse version by walking through it repeatedly on different days. If the home you are considering is no farther along than frame stage, however, see if the salesperson can guide you to a finished home in the same orientation you’re considering – perhaps they have one at another community they are building. Or even try to get permission to see another homeowner’s already-occupied home in the same layout direction.

As we’ve said, there is a driver for every seat where floor plans are concerned, but try to be objective about which floor plan design is right for you by asking yourself a series of questions.

• Do you have children or do you hope to have children in the future? Will each child require a bedroom or will they share rooms?

• How many bathrooms are needed?

• Do you have parents or in-laws who will live with you?

• Do you often have out-of-town guests?

• Do you work at home? What are your workspace considerations?

• Do you prefer single-story or two-story homes?

• If you prefer a two-story, is anyone living with you unable to handle the stairs?

• Do you want a basement?

• How do you entertain? When you do entertain, how many guests do you usually have?

• Do you want separate formal and casual spaces for different occasions?

• Where will the focal point of your home be? Family room? Kitchen?
• Do you prefer an eat-in kitchen, a formal dining room or both?

• How much privacy do you need and where do you need it? For example, how important is it that the master bedroom be separated from secondary bedroom areas? Some floor plans offer the option of the master suite on a separate floor or in a different wing of the house.

• How close is the master bedroom to living/entertainment/kitchen areas in anticipation of noise concerns?

• What type of laundry facilities do you want?

• Do you need a workshop?

• Do you want an outside deck, a screened-in porch or a terrace?

• Will the floor plan accommodate your furniture or will the floor plan you’re considering require the purchase of a lot of new pieces?

• Does the floor plan allow for enough natural light?

• Does the floor plan allow you to take advantage of the best views on your lot?

Let’s take an imaginary tour of the home you’re considering and go to the various areas. Taking a second, third and fourth look at a particular floor plan that interests you may be time well spent.

Stand at the front door.

Does it bother you that the outside entry is visible to houses around you, or would you prefer one that is more private, recessed, on an angle or not directly in the front of the house? Is it sheltered from the elements?

Now step inside. Does the house offer some kind of entrance foyer, even a short “pony” wall separating the front door and the living area it empties into --- or is the entry composed of a few tiles as you walk directly into a living area? It’s not uncommon in smaller square footages for builders to sacrifice the size or appearance of an entry area. Can you see easily into the family room or living rooms, where your family will spend the most time? Entries that have limited views into living areas can lend a feeling of security and privacy when greeting guests or strangers at the door.

Let’s step into the living areas. What is the focal point of the family room, living room or great room? Is it a fireplace, a massive wall of windows, an entertainment niche -- or is it a basic box with no real features to build on? If you notice how model home furnishers pull your eye towards focal points, it also tells you how the furniture can be placed. Large sliding doors can rob you of valuable wall space in smaller living areas and swinging French doors are pretty, but need room for opening into the room.

Now mosey into the hallway. Does it serve as a central hub for other rooms?. The central hall plan allows for a good circulation or flow of traffic from one area of the house to another. Less desirable is a floor plan with a maze of rooms laid out like train, where it’s impossible to get to one room without walking through another.

Kitchen layouts are a huge reason people are drawn to newer homes. Well designed kitchens are also well thought-out. Examine counter space for food prep purposes and for more than one person to perform tasks at the same time. The average kitchen should be able to store about 800 items and have an ample amount of task and preparation space. Is there room for help with the dishes? Is the dishwasher well located for loading from the sink area?

Be critical of things like appliance locations and their relations to food prep areas, appliance door and cabinet door clearances, and whether the kitchen offers you a vista of either a living area, the backyard, or some other pleasant sight.

Also decide if you may require "overflow" entertainment seating, such as a cantilevered eating bar as a countertop extension. And don't forget lighting, overhead, under-counter and directed task lighting.

Formal dining rooms are more show-off rooms than everyday use rooms. Even Baby Boomers continue to ask for formal dining rooms or dining areas so that at least one part of the house looks well-kept and manicured when inviting visitors inside. In new homes they are often located within view as you enter and are not tucked behind doors as in homes of the past. A dining room that contains direct access from the kitchen is the most practical, unless the room will exist for fluff purposes only. Those separated by a hallway or "down the road a piece" from the kitchen may find you hauling a fully dressed turkey and bowls of gravy over carpeting or a slippery hallway. Measure the room to be sure that the area is large enough for a hutch, curio or china cabinet, in addition to providing ample room for dining chairs to back up. Butler’s pantries have made a comeback in new homes. This is a kind of pass-through area with counters, storage and even a wet bar, saving hosts treks into the kitchen for more dishes or courses.

Master suite: Visually empty the model home’s master bedroom of all furniture. Now scrutinize wall space. If your queen-sized bed eventually becomes a king, would there be room? How about space for armoires and dressers? Need room for an occasional chair or small desk? Do low-lying windows rob you of wall space? Is there enough natural light in the room? How about privacy concerns when the lights are on at night?

If the master contains a walk-in closet, assess its location. In newer homes, walk-in closets are sometimes located within the bathroom area, leaving clothes subject to moisture and heat properties, something that may bother you. If this is the case, does the bathroom have a powerful-enough exhaust fan or offer windows that open? How about a master bedroom containing not only a generously sized bath, but dual sinks as well ? Even if you live alone, don’t’ forget about re-sale value.

Is the master bedroom located next to a living area and if so, would the noise bother you? A good floor plan will have a mix of public and private spaces, preferably with a nice separation between the two. How about its proximity to the kitchen or laundry room when the appliances are in full gear? Closeness to these areas may be valuable to some, and an annoyance to others.

Speaking of bedrooms, scrutinize the wall space, natural and artificial light sources and the storage space. Will the closet space suffice for the intended use of the bedroom’s occupant? If you have small children, is the master bedroom located close enough to secondary bedrooms in the case of a midnight nightmare or emergency?

In some average sized homes, decorators tend to model secondary bedrooms with twin beds shoved up against walls to make the rooms look larger and somehow find some of the smallest dressers known to man. Measure your own beds and furniture pieces and study how they may fit. The most important element of a child's room is how it will be able to adapt to their needs as they grow. The cute canopied crib angled in the corner with the rocking chair displayed nearby may look great in the model, but remember that model home furnishers display homes "frozen in time." It’s up to you to analyze bedroom space with an eye for real furniture placement and room to grow.

Bathrooms should be picked apart visually in terms of their practicality as well. Master bedroom water closets (self contained toilet rooms) should be large enough so that you need not huddle against a wall to close the door. And if located on an outside wall, a small window that actually opens wouldn't be a bad idea either.

If the home contains a powder room, is it located within view of the main entry door? You may not realize until after you move in that an occupant emerging from this room to the sound of a flushing toilet is not the ambience you had in mind for your entry foyer, nor is the view of the most popular seat in the house.

On the subject of powder rooms, it is not uncommon for builders to use attractive little pedestal sinks in powder rooms. They allow for more spaciousness and can be quite the popular thing these days. But have you considered where you can store towels, cleaning and bathroom supplies within the room? Is there any storage at all? If not and you want some hope of storage in this little alcove, does the builder’s design center offer any alternatives?

For full baths, look for both light and ventilation, counter space, locations of builder--included towel racks, cabinet door swinging conflicts (as with the kitchen cabinet doors), and bathroom sizes and amenities adequate for the number of occupants who may use them.

Laundry rooms are no longer the after-thoughts they were in older homes. Even the smallest production homes began shedding laundry rooms of their second-class garage status to integrate them as an element of the home's interior a while back. The location and usability of the laundry room is probably one of the more buyer-overlooked details in the grand scheme of things.

These "necessary" rooms can be "pass-through" or self-contained varieties, with the latter being the most popular. Pass-through laundry rooms located off garages can be quite useful if large enough for use as a mudroom or service porch area. Some are dismally small, however, with room for only a washer and dryer with a shelf and pole overhead. If this is the layout, a front-loading dryer door can block traffic in a highly used thoroughfare. The self-contained types offer room to sort clothes and shut out noise; some are even designed with a door to the side-yard - a great ante-room entrance for swimmers or athletes from the back yard. Upstairs laundry rooms have become all the rage, since most of what gets washed emanates from bedrooms anyway. Ask the builder what safeguards are in place for washing machine overloads, flooding and plumbing concerns. Also consider the noise factor.

Whichever type laundry room the home has, room for sorting and folding should be scrutinized; discovering whether the builder routinely offers gas or electric receptacles (or both) will save you from finding out when its too late to do something about it. Determining whether the builder includes any cabinetry should also be a concern.

Garages are not model home areas always open to public view. Builders tend to store things in them, such as model home furniture not being used or items that will be used in conversions once the models are made into livable homes. If you are able to examine the garage area, be sure you feel good about its orientation to other rooms. Some builders finish out a garage like an interior room, others give you the option of doing so, and many leave sheetrock off either due to local building codes or expense to the builder. Where a roof exists over the garage itself, see how rafters or storage space overhead may be used.

Look at the garage’s natural as well as artificial light capacity, the location of the water heater, electrical and GFI (ground fault interrupter) locations, room for a workbench, power tool outlet capabilities, and wall space to add cabinetry or shelving. And above all, make sure the cars you intend to place within its walls can fit! This is not something you’ll want to analyze after all your moving boxes have been emptied and it’s time to move the cars inside.

Some considerations don’t come to mind instantly when analyzing a floor plan. Model homes usually display few – if any -- actual doors throughout. Study in what directions doors will open and if they can conflict with one another or with angled walls once they’re hung.

Identify where included telephone, electrical, and cable outlets are located and think about their positions for your own potential needs.

How convenient is the home’s master electrical panel? Will you have to walk outside in the rain and mud to flip a switch after both your teenagers decide to blow-dry their hair at the same time?

Even though we many not have covered every minute detail to look for, we hope this may give you a head-start on how many things to look for when making a decision on what is both comfortable and practical for you and your family.

Visit Dena Kouremetis' (new) web site at www.customhomesunlimited.com.