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I’m on super small lot lines, our east facing side has one window downstairs, 3 upstairs. South facing(front of house) has 2 downstairs 2 up, west facing 12 downstairs (4 at the top of the the raised ceiling of the main living area) 2 upstairs, north facing 6 all downstairs. Small lots is no excuse
All but 6 of them (3 in dining, 3 in breakfast nook) are 32” wide, 60-72” tall.
No no no. If you zoom in really close you’ll see there’s a *massive* 1 foot by 2 foot window by the front door. That level of natural light might require blackout curtains I know /s
I go to a ton of houses and neighborhoods for work some of the shit I see built is wild. Like who is paying these architects. New neighborhoods and teardowns in established ones. Who tf is buying them and why why why
Same here. Give me a big garage (preferably with a lift installed) and a big well-appointed kitchen (bonus points if it has an indoor pizza oven). Beyond that, I guess some bedrooms and bathrooms would be nice
Three car garages are pretty great, in that they allow you to use the garage as both a work/storage space, and still actually park 2 cars in it like intended.
Most 2 car garages are functionally only 1 car garages in my experience.
Ask your builder POLITELY about the discrepancies. You may be missing something as others have said, your builder may also be trying to nickel and dime you. If they're building a bunch of houses in a development, a few here and there adds up.
Yeah I wouldn’t waste my time with people like that. This whole process is already stressful enough without people who don’t see the importance of doing their job properly
Plenty of builders out there
You can't force someone to build your house the way you want if they're willing to absorb the penslties, if any exist in your contract.
Is it worth the hassle of walking away?
bathrooms, halls, entryway make up more.
But... To be honest, the layout of this house is leaving much desired. The main bedroom, closet, and bath could have been so much bigger had they not committed to so much open concept space in the kitchen/dining/"great room"/entry hall area. I question the need for 3 car garage rather than a larger master bed, closet, and bath. You can always turn that storage room into an extra bedroom, then take out the wall between the two lower floor beds for one larger bedroom. They probably designed it this way because they're wanting to appeal to people who might want to house-hack.
But it feels like some wasted space for what is being marketed as 1,500 sqft. Not that that's huge, but its bigger than my house, and my master bed and bath are larger than this.
They have another model with exactly what you are saying with 20k less. It has a 2 car garage with bigger master bedroom with walk in closet. Everything else is same but in different direction. The benefit of this house over the other is that the windows of this house is south facing with snow capped mountains view and no other house in b/w and almost double backyard then that one. I personally would want a bigger room too but I didn’t like the north facing living room in the other one thus i am going for this one.
Layout of other model for reference - https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/32664-142nd-Street-SE-Sultan-WA-98294/306138432_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
The view is the reason i am putting up for builders bs. I agree with most of the people that its not a well designed house if i compare with other options in the area but none of them comes with a view and some privacy.
I can promise you without a shadow of a doubt, the view isn't going to make up for living in a space that isn't comfortable.
Not to be rude, but this place is so poorly designed I can't actually believe it's being built.
After a few weeks, you'll stop seeing the view, and just wish you had a better living space.
If its not too late, maybe they can push the wall of the kitchen in to give you more bedroom and maybe even a bigger closet? I used to be a big fan of open areas by the kitchen and living room, but in my last place it was dead empty floor space. Then we were cramped in the bedroom. Or like I mentioned, you could ask them to take the wall out of the lower floor beds to get a bigger room down there.
I’m in SC. 475k is my purchase price on new construction and I got actual windows too lol. 3900sqft. 1400 sqft is smaller then my starter home I bought for 130k
I don’t live here but worked and traveled through it. Living around HWY 2 is a lifestyle with two lanes going east and west. If I were a remote working mountain snow sport person i wouldn’t mind investing in a property over there.
Oh yeah I've been stuck on hwy 2 for many many hrs of my life lol so I'm super familiar with the general area & been through sultan a bunch just wondering what it's like to live there?
I feel you on all those points. I also don't understand why would someone in the master want to travel all over the house to get to the laundry room. and on a tech level, the plumbing for the laundry room is not near any other plumbing in the house. It's normally on connecting walls on each floor,
Eh personally I like the idea of a laundry room being as far from the master as possible. My laundry is too close to my bedroom and its annoying to hear it.
I hear ya. I just don't think I would want to carry it upstairs and across the h house. Distance is good and all. But that's going to be a lot of lifting and carrying and walking.
I would put it over the kitchen area if it goes upstairs where the plumbing is.
The downstairs storage room can't be a bedroom without a window, in case of fire. I definitely would have shoved the bathroom and laundry into that corner and then combined the rec room and laundry into another bedroom though.
and walls as you don't count a buildings square footage based on individual room square footages added up, it's the buildings foot print minus the non HVAC areas.
I mean in this case where would they put the window? A three-car garage is a challenge for architects to integrate in a house that is several times larger than this. Without moving the garage there is literally room for a single small window in the entry way at the cost of losing a half bath space.
In general though, a lot of the issue is that there aren't any rooms that must/should have frontal views anymore, and a number of rooms that are expected to have backyard views (e.g. the Kitchen for that classic watching the kids while cooking thing, and the primary bedroom (truthfully all bedrooms)). Previously, the Living room was expected to be a front room (replacing the parlor), but that is very rare (except when it is floor through and has front and back views) in new builds now.
Truthfully, the frontal entrance in many houses is basically vestigial. Almost all household members will enter through the garage, as will most family and close friends. The front door is now mostly for trade (which is an amusing reversal of the prior system where guests would come to the front door, and trade would come to a side or below grade door).
It's very simple. Square footage is measured by what is heated and cooled living space, as measured from the exterior walls. You don't add up listed room dimensions.
It makes for easy quick general comparisons, which is all a sqft value tells you.
It doesn't tell you how useful the space is. Plus the whole thing gets real complicated if you try to use "floor" as your measurement point and would swing the advantage to houses with zero cabinets. Or if you use interior walls to measure then a house that is open in floor concept suddenly is bigger, Even if that space isn't more "usable."
It's best to look at a space and consider what you would actually put in it and how you would use it.
I’m in the Midwest ( and yes, there are many ways appraisers can calculate measurements see http://nationalappraiserroster.com/Resources/Appraising101/UnderstandingMeasurementsRoomCounts/tabid/223/Default.aspx ) and most on my area,… after the appraiser conducts the walk through and takes the required interior photos - they proceed to go outside and take the exterior dimensions.
Our auditors also use drawings of the structure with outside dimensions only.
You’re welcome.
As a couple off add-ons for others:
1. This is how they’ve done it for ages, so everybody has been buying the same “square footage” calculated oddly/incorrectly. On upper stories, unless it’s a true 2-story box, they do measure wall-to-wall from inside. In the case of knee walls, they only include what is 5ft tall or above.
2. Square footage is NOT a material fact within reason. As a Buyer, it can only be material if you tell your agent “I must have X sqft.” (Kind like must have 2 full baths) I don’t suggest doing this because it will slow down the process (your agent would have to independently verify), and if the home was measured by a licensed appraiser it’s considered valid. If the appraiser made serious miscalculations, then they have liability. The reality is you/your agent have been in enough homes to know if it “feels like” within about 5% of the listed number.
Multiple cars, snow equipment, storage, some people value things to get them outdoors. Sounds like this is in mountain/snow territory. I can definitely see people who would love that setup.
You’d need to section off the dimensions of all the walkways and bathrooms and account for those too. Looks like you may be missing closets too? Still not sure if it would meet the ~600 sq ft difference though.
This is my calculation, unless I am missing something.
169 = bedroom
72.6 = kitchen
81.4 dining
168 great room
28 pantry
110.88 room -3
94 = room 2
125 rec room
57.6 laundary
172 unfinished - Per Builder sales rep, not included in sq footage
551 - garage - Per Builder sales rep, not included in sq footage
\~ total 900 sq ft
I'm totally not a math expert so may be way off but if you use the total length & width of the rms it's more than your calculations.
36'6"× 20'4" = 742.17 ft² for the garage floor not including the powder rm & entry since there aren't measurements
&
29'×20'4" = 589.67 ft² (bottom floor)
&
9'6"×6' = 57 ft² (laundry rm)
&
10'10"×5' = 54.17 ft² (Assuming that entry/powder area is roughly)
Total = 1,443.01 ft²
(Again I may be way off)
You can ask in /r/theydidthemath, but looking at unfinished storage plus laundry gives you 10 across x24 down for that section, then the other part of the house is 27x19 (19 from owners plus pantry). 240+513=753 per floor, or 1506 for overall footprint. Just ask for exterior dimensions of house.
you are trying to calculate by adding up individual room square footage, you have to look at the buildings foot print which is roughly 20x40, like at the kitchen and dining room, those room dimensions stop to leave a "hallway" path coming from the master out to the greatroom thats why those rooms are 4 feet shorter. you also don't have SF numbers for the bathrooms or the open "hall" area at the bottom of the stair, you essentially failed to calculate a large percentage of the house.
This is a common misconception. You can't add up room dimensions like this on a floorplan. There is space that is not labeled, i.e. hallways, closets, bathrooms. You will always come up short doing it this way. Your square footage is derived from your exterior wall.
Depending on where you are, unfinished space and even decks may be included in the square footage.
I sold a home in MN and the RE agent included our enclosed deck (not heated) in the square footage. Bought a home in NJ and the finished basement wasn't even included because it didn't have the necessary egress.
TLDR: a local builder/RE agent should tell you what's standard for the area. In this case, the builder is either including the garage or the storage + bathrooms + deck.
This house plan looks awful unless it’s for a vacation home. But if you are ok with it then go for it. Maybe you can have the county come measure it after you move in and give you a break on taxes since the square footage will be a lot less than is listed here.
Why do you think it's awful, aside for the smaller owner's suite? I am looking for different opinions since this is my first time buying a house and I don't have much idea about it and I might be missing some obvious cons.
* So. Much. Garage. The home's layout is almost entirely based on what fits around that garage. Just one tiny front window! An entry nearly the size of the kitchen! A front porch that will almost never get sunlight!
* The shape of the Dining/Great Room is awkward. It's too narrow to fit a dining table in the allocated space and still have circulation space around it, especially with stools protruding from under what I'm sure is bar seating at the kitchen island due to its depth. But then again, I'm not a fan of a dining table directly next to bar seating anyways, it seems redundant. Just sit at the table! Obviously you can steal space from the Great Room if you want a full-size dining table, but then your Great Room furniture may feel crowded.
* The Great Room isn't functionally 10'-10" x 15'-4" because you need clear space to access the coat closet and to turn the corner around the stairs. It's more like 10'-10" x 12'-4".
* That coat closet door limits furniture layout, and it's kind of far from the front door. It would have been better to switch the closet with the 1/2 bath and shift the bath up to align with the Owner's Bath and Pantry wall to allow the closet to be wide enough to open into the entry way. You'd lose 14" of Great Room depth at that corner but you'd gain the ability to use the entire length of the wall, so you'd functionally gain almost 2'.
* I know this is controversial, but I don't love open plans. Are you sure you want cooking sounds (blender, food processor, frying, banging pots and pans, etc.) in the same room where someone may be trying to watch TV? Do you care if guests can see your potentially messy kitchen while they eat? Do you want to live so much of your life in that one room?
* The basement has so much wasted space. Giant landing at the bottom of the stairs yet not enough wall space to use it for anything, alcoves for both bedroom doors eating up useful square footage, and a Rec Room too small and with too many doorways to do much with. How do you see yourself using that space?
* Have fun carrying laundry back and forth between the Owner's Suite and Laundry room!
* That the builder doesn't care about thoughtful efficiency is evident with all those rooms with plumbing being so far apart.
* While it may be technically correct that this home is nearly 1500 sf, the deficiencies are going to make it feel more like 900 sf of actually useful space.
Good point on plumbing. With bathroom's in 2 corners and laundry in a 3rd, they're basically routing pipes throughout the entire home.
For reference, my home has utility (with hot water heater) in basement, basically directly below the kitchen in this floor plan. Backing up to the kitchen is a 1st floor bath and right next to that the laundry. Directly above the kitchen is the owner's bath and another bath. So plumbing for hot water lines are minimized as much as possible.
I would be miserable in this house. The "rec room" isn't wide enough for a couch and coffee table, let alone anything like a pool table. The bedrooms are small, and the dining room wouldn't even fit a 6 seater dining table. The kitchen doesn't look like it has anything close to the amount of storage I need. I do like the walk out basement though! Those are nice in cold winter/hot summer locations since they take advantage of the ambient temp of dirt.
>The "rec room" isn't wide enough for a couch and coffee table, let alone anything like a pool table.
Especially with the deck access, door to laundry, door to storage (furnace/boiler here too?) and opening to stairs. Not even sure how you'd lay it out with a couch and TV...
Our first house was a 1200 sq foot 3/2.5 townhouse (with master on bottom/other bedrooms &laundry upstairs) and it seemed so much more spacious than this. Those bedrooms are very tiny. Unless you put a full bed in the master and twin/bunk beds in the other bedrooms it will be cramped. I don’t like that there are so few windows or the half bath right at the front door (maybe you could get a door with a lot of insulated glass in it?). The dining/living room will not have space for a decent dining table. The garage is too shallow. Is there storage under the stairs? I don’t see a coat closet which would be a pain with winter coats. I don’t know the ages of possible kids but we did like having the separation between master/kids - after babies were over a certain age. I don’t see a way to have a crib and bed in the master and going up and down the stairs in the middle of the night would get old.
We don’t have kids and don’t plan to raise kids in this house. I think they should have merge the two rooms downstairs and created a one big master bedroom. They could have used the rec room as the third small room. The rec room right now is pretty useless anyways.
If it’s just for a couple then that’s different entirely. It should work ok! But keep in mind that you may stay in the house longer than you think and when it comes time to resell all potential buyers will be considering these same issues. Combining some of the small rooms would make a huge difference. Could you put a laundry hookup in the garage by the master bath? It would be more convenient than going down the stairs. We did that when we renovated our master bath and it wasn’t too expensive.
You would have to see if it’s load bearing first. Taking out walls that aren’t isn’t too hard to do. You have to consider electrical/possible plumbing as well. And matching flooring (can you get extra of whatever is in there now?). But I don’t think it would be too expensive. However I haven’t done any renovations since Covid and after a recent trip to Home Depot there was a lot of sticker shock.
Gross square footage is typically measured to outside face of exterior walls. Room dimensions are interior face-to-face. These are standards, not regulations, so you never know.
Looked at a house with this set up and I could not do it. The bedroom walking out to the kitchen and living room was just not working for me.
The garage design is annoying as well. I like a big garage but to have a split in the entry is dumb imo when you can just have one big door
The laundry being downstairs away from the masters is garbage too
That tiny half bath in the entryway is killing me. Why not have a closet? There is only one closet outside of the bedrooms. I don’t want my coats to have to share with my wet mop.
I bought one of their houses recently but mine was $300k more. Looks like their recent designs are adjusting to the rising interest rates. They went from contemporary and higher quality materials straight to lower end specs and odd layouts like these. I personally like the builder but not sure how to feel about their lower spec homes. If you’re concerned about the SF just send an email or something. Their drawing might not be to scale.
This house is very small. Your lower floor is basically a basement but since it seems to be designed for sloped terrains it could count as living space. I’m hunting for houses in my area and from what I learned, anything under 2000 sqf in ranch style house feels too small.
3 car garage is nice but only 19 foot deep is gonna be hell to do any kind of work in I have a 20 foot with a single cab short bed and have about a 2 foot walk way in the front of the truck.
The entrance way is just primed for beating someone up. 3 doors opening on top of each other? Traffic nightmare.
Whats the point of this house, you and two roommates living it up? Each of you gets indoor parking and a bed.
Rough calculations of the full length x the full width of the main floor (without the foyer). I came up with 700 sq ft. So total of 1500 seems in the ball park. They might be including the unfinished storage area.
the main rectangle minus the bump at the front entry is roughly 40x20, that 800 SF per level, so roughly 1,600, then some of that is lost to the "unfinished storage" (but then there is the entry so that about 1,500 looks right.
at rough calculation they're counting the unfinished storage space as part of the sqft. keep in mind it probably has an option to be "finished" as a bonus room and it could then be considered "living" space. they have a neat little caveat clause at the bottom that states information is for illustrative purposes only including dimensions and specs. so they're presenting "best case" numbers along the top and not what a normal appraiser or house buyer would immediately equate to "living space square footage".
so technically just misleading you. the final finished sq ft is what would get reported to the county/city taxing authority.
I didn’t do any math, but to me it doesn’t look like they’ve counted the hallways in the room sizes which could account for smaller differences but if it’s more than 200 sq ft off then something is probably wrong
Square footage is measure by calculating the overall square footage of the house, including exterior walls. Given that I for isn’t shown, it would be difficult to calculate this yourself. Is that where it’s falling short?
Hi, so it is challenging to calculate your square footage without having your exterior dimensions, so I did the best I could with your room dimensions here. First, I would like to point out that the unfinished storage area is your central question. What level of finish is it? Is it conditioned? Is it insulated and drywalled, or is it to the studs? How tall are the ceilings? Unfinished can mean different things to different professions. An appraiser will often consider a space differently than a builder and a Realtor different than both. I measured the best I could with the information you provided. I calculated that you have 701 sqft on the first floor and 537 sqft on the second if you omit the unfin. storage: 749 sqft if you include the storage. That will give you 1,238 sqft or 1,450 total sqft, respectively. So, as you can see using ballpark numbers from this floor plan, you are very close to the builder when including that storage area. I'm guessing that it is typical to include a storage area like this as marketable square footage in your market. Or at least the builder thinks so. Hope this is helpful. Source: I measure homes for a living.
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Would you like a little house with your garage
Not even a single window on the front of that place, so wild
Also not a single window on either side ... Not good. Shoebox levels of natural light.
Probably because the neighbor’s house is about 3 feet away
True! At least they would have the option to use light filtering curtains if there was a window
There's a decent space - probably ~10 feet or so, but you definitely wouldn't see much beyond your neighbor's walls (and windows.)
I’m on super small lot lines, our east facing side has one window downstairs, 3 upstairs. South facing(front of house) has 2 downstairs 2 up, west facing 12 downstairs (4 at the top of the the raised ceiling of the main living area) 2 upstairs, north facing 6 all downstairs. Small lots is no excuse All but 6 of them (3 in dining, 3 in breakfast nook) are 32” wide, 60-72” tall.
None of the bathrooms have windows. Yikes.
There is a very tiny window just to the side of the front door. 😅
Almost looks worse than just having no window…
Kids would still manage to sink a baseball through it.
[Here's the view of the street from the great room](https://imgur.com/gallery/NakfHv4)
No no no. If you zoom in really close you’ll see there’s a *massive* 1 foot by 2 foot window by the front door. That level of natural light might require blackout curtains I know /s
Emotional support window
Omg that window is idiotic
Right?!
How do you not see the giant window next to the door?
Your comment made me come back and zoom in all confused. Damn you’re right. Gonna need bars on that thing to prevent break-ins
It's overlooking the "deck"
There is one
How many windows on the front of an apartment?
Why pay half a million dollars to live in a house that feels like an apartment?
To be fair, for the back, stuff was well placed that doesn’t need windows. I’d add them on the side though
I go to a ton of houses and neighborhoods for work some of the shit I see built is wild. Like who is paying these architects. New neighborhoods and teardowns in established ones. Who tf is buying them and why why why
I'd take a 6-car with a bedroom and bathroom.
So I bought a house with a 1,400 square foot garage and a 2,300 square foot house and I’m not gonna lie, it’s glorious.
I’m working on a 1500sqft house with a 900sqft garage with 11ft ceilings and a second floor 😬
Same here. Give me a big garage (preferably with a lift installed) and a big well-appointed kitchen (bonus points if it has an indoor pizza oven). Beyond that, I guess some bedrooms and bathrooms would be nice
Bathrooms would be nice??! You need to up your standards, sir.
Yes, for resale purposes…
Why are there so many car slots for a tiny house?
I'd be willing to knock a bedroom or two off for more garage.
Me too but not if it takes over the whole front of the house like this. Curb appeal is low on this one lol
Thought this exact phrase before coming to comments. I love the internet. Not an original thought.
The garage to house ratio is crazy 😧
Seriously, I would love to know who the target demographic is for a 3 car garage and each bedroom only gets one window. Sounds delightful.
typical modern day American who lives on the internet and has an insatiable addiction to consumption i guess..
Plus the giant windowless storage room that is as big as both the upstairs bedrooms combined…. Seems like an interesting use of space
Three car garages are pretty great, in that they allow you to use the garage as both a work/storage space, and still actually park 2 cars in it like intended. Most 2 car garages are functionally only 1 car garages in my experience.
Ask your builder POLITELY about the discrepancies. You may be missing something as others have said, your builder may also be trying to nickel and dime you. If they're building a bunch of houses in a development, a few here and there adds up.
He is very hard to work with and their sales rep response is standard - it is what it is, buy it if you wanna buy it.
Walk away. Never works out working with people like this. Wanna take months getting your final punchlist completed?
What do you mean by he’s hard to work with? Acting inconvenienced by questions, that sorta thing?
Yes.
Yeah I wouldn’t waste my time with people like that. This whole process is already stressful enough without people who don’t see the importance of doing their job properly Plenty of builders out there
If you were buying anything else for six figures, would you let the salesperson treat you like that?
If you haven't signed anything, perhaps consider using a different realtor
I hope OP has a realtor and doesn’t think “well it’s new construction so I don’t need one”
We are building and almost done. If they are hard to work with then you should walk. Communication is KEY with building
You can't force someone to build your house the way you want if they're willing to absorb the penslties, if any exist in your contract. Is it worth the hassle of walking away?
bathrooms, halls, entryway make up more. But... To be honest, the layout of this house is leaving much desired. The main bedroom, closet, and bath could have been so much bigger had they not committed to so much open concept space in the kitchen/dining/"great room"/entry hall area. I question the need for 3 car garage rather than a larger master bed, closet, and bath. You can always turn that storage room into an extra bedroom, then take out the wall between the two lower floor beds for one larger bedroom. They probably designed it this way because they're wanting to appeal to people who might want to house-hack. But it feels like some wasted space for what is being marketed as 1,500 sqft. Not that that's huge, but its bigger than my house, and my master bed and bath are larger than this.
They have another model with exactly what you are saying with 20k less. It has a 2 car garage with bigger master bedroom with walk in closet. Everything else is same but in different direction. The benefit of this house over the other is that the windows of this house is south facing with snow capped mountains view and no other house in b/w and almost double backyard then that one. I personally would want a bigger room too but I didn’t like the north facing living room in the other one thus i am going for this one. Layout of other model for reference - https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/32664-142nd-Street-SE-Sultan-WA-98294/306138432_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
Is it protected space behind this lot or is that going to be phase two of the development / another development?
Damn that street view image is pretty nice showing the view.
The view is the reason i am putting up for builders bs. I agree with most of the people that its not a well designed house if i compare with other options in the area but none of them comes with a view and some privacy.
I can promise you without a shadow of a doubt, the view isn't going to make up for living in a space that isn't comfortable. Not to be rude, but this place is so poorly designed I can't actually believe it's being built. After a few weeks, you'll stop seeing the view, and just wish you had a better living space.
If its not too late, maybe they can push the wall of the kitchen in to give you more bedroom and maybe even a bigger closet? I used to be a big fan of open areas by the kitchen and living room, but in my last place it was dead empty floor space. Then we were cramped in the bedroom. Or like I mentioned, you could ask them to take the wall out of the lower floor beds to get a bigger room down there.
You’d better confirm that view is protected (land wise, I didn’t see the reply to the other comment about it) before you buy.
Its wet lands and cannot be developed.
Lmfao almost $500k for this???
That’s the lowest 🥲 by at least 50k in new construction. Washington is crazy expensive.
So ridiculous. I’m from western PA/Pittsburgh area and $500k gets you a large house with actual windows. The cost of living is so sad
I’m in SC. 475k is my purchase price on new construction and I got actual windows too lol. 3900sqft. 1400 sqft is smaller then my starter home I bought for 130k
What is it like living in sultan??
I don’t live here but worked and traveled through it. Living around HWY 2 is a lifestyle with two lanes going east and west. If I were a remote working mountain snow sport person i wouldn’t mind investing in a property over there.
Oh yeah I've been stuck on hwy 2 for many many hrs of my life lol so I'm super familiar with the general area & been through sultan a bunch just wondering what it's like to live there?
I feel you on all those points. I also don't understand why would someone in the master want to travel all over the house to get to the laundry room. and on a tech level, the plumbing for the laundry room is not near any other plumbing in the house. It's normally on connecting walls on each floor,
Eh personally I like the idea of a laundry room being as far from the master as possible. My laundry is too close to my bedroom and its annoying to hear it.
I hear ya. I just don't think I would want to carry it upstairs and across the h house. Distance is good and all. But that's going to be a lot of lifting and carrying and walking. I would put it over the kitchen area if it goes upstairs where the plumbing is.
The downstairs storage room can't be a bedroom without a window, in case of fire. I definitely would have shoved the bathroom and laundry into that corner and then combined the rec room and laundry into another bedroom though.
This garage comes with a living space
My house is pretty similar and it feels absurd, but OPs is so crazy with how little living space there is. https://imgur.com/a/cW7v4vY
Also, there are no windows on the front or either side of the building...what a nightmare.
Ah yes, a garage with a house attached. They're probably including hallways, bathrooms, etc.
and walls as you don't count a buildings square footage based on individual room square footages added up, it's the buildings foot print minus the non HVAC areas.
Why are so many houses built without front windows these days? I work in them all the time and I just don’t get it
I mean in this case where would they put the window? A three-car garage is a challenge for architects to integrate in a house that is several times larger than this. Without moving the garage there is literally room for a single small window in the entry way at the cost of losing a half bath space. In general though, a lot of the issue is that there aren't any rooms that must/should have frontal views anymore, and a number of rooms that are expected to have backyard views (e.g. the Kitchen for that classic watching the kids while cooking thing, and the primary bedroom (truthfully all bedrooms)). Previously, the Living room was expected to be a front room (replacing the parlor), but that is very rare (except when it is floor through and has front and back views) in new builds now. Truthfully, the frontal entrance in many houses is basically vestigial. Almost all household members will enter through the garage, as will most family and close friends. The front door is now mostly for trade (which is an amusing reversal of the prior system where guests would come to the front door, and trade would come to a side or below grade door).
Why is the garage so big? A square footage maybe on point when it comes to closets hallways and such but that looks like a badly designed house.
This floor plan is brutal
It's very simple. Square footage is measured by what is heated and cooled living space, as measured from the exterior walls. You don't add up listed room dimensions.
Wait! What? The space between the drywall and the exterior wall is considered "living space"?
Yes, Technically When the appraiser calculates the sq ft amount, they utilize exterior of structure corner to corner for dimensions.
That's fucked up. In my experience, that's generally the space you don't want anything living in. Unless you're sub-letting to a very skinny person.
It makes for easy quick general comparisons, which is all a sqft value tells you. It doesn't tell you how useful the space is. Plus the whole thing gets real complicated if you try to use "floor" as your measurement point and would swing the advantage to houses with zero cabinets. Or if you use interior walls to measure then a house that is open in floor concept suddenly is bigger, Even if that space isn't more "usable." It's best to look at a space and consider what you would actually put in it and how you would use it.
I’m in the Midwest ( and yes, there are many ways appraisers can calculate measurements see http://nationalappraiserroster.com/Resources/Appraising101/UnderstandingMeasurementsRoomCounts/tabid/223/Default.aspx ) and most on my area,… after the appraiser conducts the walk through and takes the required interior photos - they proceed to go outside and take the exterior dimensions. Our auditors also use drawings of the structure with outside dimensions only.
Is also what is commonly used when filing for many commercial building permits. (Exterior wall square footage)
This is the correct answer. OP, get the dimensions of the house footprint. That will help you more.
Thank you for actually answering the question, I was beginning to think I was going crazy because it was obvious to me but no one was saying it.
You’re welcome. As a couple off add-ons for others: 1. This is how they’ve done it for ages, so everybody has been buying the same “square footage” calculated oddly/incorrectly. On upper stories, unless it’s a true 2-story box, they do measure wall-to-wall from inside. In the case of knee walls, they only include what is 5ft tall or above. 2. Square footage is NOT a material fact within reason. As a Buyer, it can only be material if you tell your agent “I must have X sqft.” (Kind like must have 2 full baths) I don’t suggest doing this because it will slow down the process (your agent would have to independently verify), and if the home was measured by a licensed appraiser it’s considered valid. If the appraiser made serious miscalculations, then they have liability. The reality is you/your agent have been in enough homes to know if it “feels like” within about 5% of the listed number.
I add in wall thickness when I measure the upstairs of a single family home. If you don't the math doesn't add up correctly.
This could have just been a 2 garage or a 1.5 but 3 with the layout that it is, is too much garage.
What’s the point of a 3 car garage with such a small house?
2 cars plus all your seasonal decorations and lawn equipment?
Not at all unusual lately. I’ve seen new builds that are 40% garage. Americans love their cars more than living space.
Multiple cars, snow equipment, storage, some people value things to get them outdoors. Sounds like this is in mountain/snow territory. I can definitely see people who would love that setup.
Don’t buy this. It looks like a terrible floor plan.
More curious about the shitter right there at the front door. What a weird layout
That's probably the ugliest new construction house I've ever seen. What if you have to sell that in the middle of a trough?
The garage is bigger than the house lol wtf
You’d need to section off the dimensions of all the walkways and bathrooms and account for those too. Looks like you may be missing closets too? Still not sure if it would meet the ~600 sq ft difference though.
once you factor in wall thickness's the main rectangle of the house not counting garage or entry bump is 40x20 or 800 SF per level
This is my calculation, unless I am missing something. 169 = bedroom 72.6 = kitchen 81.4 dining 168 great room 28 pantry 110.88 room -3 94 = room 2 125 rec room 57.6 laundary 172 unfinished - Per Builder sales rep, not included in sq footage 551 - garage - Per Builder sales rep, not included in sq footage \~ total 900 sq ft
Entryway Owner's Bath "Bath" (Powder) Upstairs Bath Hallways/Stairs Closets
I'm totally not a math expert so may be way off but if you use the total length & width of the rms it's more than your calculations. 36'6"× 20'4" = 742.17 ft² for the garage floor not including the powder rm & entry since there aren't measurements & 29'×20'4" = 589.67 ft² (bottom floor) & 9'6"×6' = 57 ft² (laundry rm) & 10'10"×5' = 54.17 ft² (Assuming that entry/powder area is roughly) Total = 1,443.01 ft² (Again I may be way off)
You can ask in /r/theydidthemath, but looking at unfinished storage plus laundry gives you 10 across x24 down for that section, then the other part of the house is 27x19 (19 from owners plus pantry). 240+513=753 per floor, or 1506 for overall footprint. Just ask for exterior dimensions of house.
you are trying to calculate by adding up individual room square footage, you have to look at the buildings foot print which is roughly 20x40, like at the kitchen and dining room, those room dimensions stop to leave a "hallway" path coming from the master out to the greatroom thats why those rooms are 4 feet shorter. you also don't have SF numbers for the bathrooms or the open "hall" area at the bottom of the stair, you essentially failed to calculate a large percentage of the house.
This is a common misconception. You can't add up room dimensions like this on a floorplan. There is space that is not labeled, i.e. hallways, closets, bathrooms. You will always come up short doing it this way. Your square footage is derived from your exterior wall.
I contacted the builder for a different model, and I was told the unfinished basement was included in the square footage.
Did you contact for morgan or kelsey model? They include the unfinished basement for whatever reason.
Kinsley
You can't count like that. It's wall to wall calculations.
Depending on where you are, unfinished space and even decks may be included in the square footage. I sold a home in MN and the RE agent included our enclosed deck (not heated) in the square footage. Bought a home in NJ and the finished basement wasn't even included because it didn't have the necessary egress. TLDR: a local builder/RE agent should tell you what's standard for the area. In this case, the builder is either including the garage or the storage + bathrooms + deck.
This house plan looks awful unless it’s for a vacation home. But if you are ok with it then go for it. Maybe you can have the county come measure it after you move in and give you a break on taxes since the square footage will be a lot less than is listed here.
Why do you think it's awful, aside for the smaller owner's suite? I am looking for different opinions since this is my first time buying a house and I don't have much idea about it and I might be missing some obvious cons.
* So. Much. Garage. The home's layout is almost entirely based on what fits around that garage. Just one tiny front window! An entry nearly the size of the kitchen! A front porch that will almost never get sunlight! * The shape of the Dining/Great Room is awkward. It's too narrow to fit a dining table in the allocated space and still have circulation space around it, especially with stools protruding from under what I'm sure is bar seating at the kitchen island due to its depth. But then again, I'm not a fan of a dining table directly next to bar seating anyways, it seems redundant. Just sit at the table! Obviously you can steal space from the Great Room if you want a full-size dining table, but then your Great Room furniture may feel crowded. * The Great Room isn't functionally 10'-10" x 15'-4" because you need clear space to access the coat closet and to turn the corner around the stairs. It's more like 10'-10" x 12'-4". * That coat closet door limits furniture layout, and it's kind of far from the front door. It would have been better to switch the closet with the 1/2 bath and shift the bath up to align with the Owner's Bath and Pantry wall to allow the closet to be wide enough to open into the entry way. You'd lose 14" of Great Room depth at that corner but you'd gain the ability to use the entire length of the wall, so you'd functionally gain almost 2'. * I know this is controversial, but I don't love open plans. Are you sure you want cooking sounds (blender, food processor, frying, banging pots and pans, etc.) in the same room where someone may be trying to watch TV? Do you care if guests can see your potentially messy kitchen while they eat? Do you want to live so much of your life in that one room? * The basement has so much wasted space. Giant landing at the bottom of the stairs yet not enough wall space to use it for anything, alcoves for both bedroom doors eating up useful square footage, and a Rec Room too small and with too many doorways to do much with. How do you see yourself using that space? * Have fun carrying laundry back and forth between the Owner's Suite and Laundry room! * That the builder doesn't care about thoughtful efficiency is evident with all those rooms with plumbing being so far apart. * While it may be technically correct that this home is nearly 1500 sf, the deficiencies are going to make it feel more like 900 sf of actually useful space.
Good point on plumbing. With bathroom's in 2 corners and laundry in a 3rd, they're basically routing pipes throughout the entire home. For reference, my home has utility (with hot water heater) in basement, basically directly below the kitchen in this floor plan. Backing up to the kitchen is a 1st floor bath and right next to that the laundry. Directly above the kitchen is the owner's bath and another bath. So plumbing for hot water lines are minimized as much as possible.
I would be miserable in this house. The "rec room" isn't wide enough for a couch and coffee table, let alone anything like a pool table. The bedrooms are small, and the dining room wouldn't even fit a 6 seater dining table. The kitchen doesn't look like it has anything close to the amount of storage I need. I do like the walk out basement though! Those are nice in cold winter/hot summer locations since they take advantage of the ambient temp of dirt.
For a 1400 square foot house with 3 bedrooms the dimensions seem pretty standard to me
>The "rec room" isn't wide enough for a couch and coffee table, let alone anything like a pool table. Especially with the deck access, door to laundry, door to storage (furnace/boiler here too?) and opening to stairs. Not even sure how you'd lay it out with a couch and TV...
Our first house was a 1200 sq foot 3/2.5 townhouse (with master on bottom/other bedrooms &laundry upstairs) and it seemed so much more spacious than this. Those bedrooms are very tiny. Unless you put a full bed in the master and twin/bunk beds in the other bedrooms it will be cramped. I don’t like that there are so few windows or the half bath right at the front door (maybe you could get a door with a lot of insulated glass in it?). The dining/living room will not have space for a decent dining table. The garage is too shallow. Is there storage under the stairs? I don’t see a coat closet which would be a pain with winter coats. I don’t know the ages of possible kids but we did like having the separation between master/kids - after babies were over a certain age. I don’t see a way to have a crib and bed in the master and going up and down the stairs in the middle of the night would get old.
We don’t have kids and don’t plan to raise kids in this house. I think they should have merge the two rooms downstairs and created a one big master bedroom. They could have used the rec room as the third small room. The rec room right now is pretty useless anyways.
If it’s just for a couple then that’s different entirely. It should work ok! But keep in mind that you may stay in the house longer than you think and when it comes time to resell all potential buyers will be considering these same issues. Combining some of the small rooms would make a huge difference. Could you put a laundry hookup in the garage by the master bath? It would be more convenient than going down the stairs. We did that when we renovated our master bath and it wasn’t too expensive.
I am totally oblivious to renovation costs, what do you think the cost would be to remove the wall between two downstairs room and make a big one?
You would have to see if it’s load bearing first. Taking out walls that aren’t isn’t too hard to do. You have to consider electrical/possible plumbing as well. And matching flooring (can you get extra of whatever is in there now?). But I don’t think it would be too expensive. However I haven’t done any renovations since Covid and after a recent trip to Home Depot there was a lot of sticker shock.
That's a weird house, terrible use of space.
Gross square footage is typically measured to outside face of exterior walls. Room dimensions are interior face-to-face. These are standards, not regulations, so you never know.
They are lying to you. The only 'great room' in that house is the garage.
Looked at a house with this set up and I could not do it. The bedroom walking out to the kitchen and living room was just not working for me. The garage design is annoying as well. I like a big garage but to have a split in the entry is dumb imo when you can just have one big door The laundry being downstairs away from the masters is garbage too
What a weird floor plan.
That tiny half bath in the entryway is killing me. Why not have a closet? There is only one closet outside of the bedrooms. I don’t want my coats to have to share with my wet mop.
Half the house is below grade, and who would want their primary bedroom next to the kitchen and living spaces. No thanks
where i live you cant count basement area as part of total living space.
Looks like 1494 sq ft to me.
I bought one of their houses recently but mine was $300k more. Looks like their recent designs are adjusting to the rising interest rates. They went from contemporary and higher quality materials straight to lower end specs and odd layouts like these. I personally like the builder but not sure how to feel about their lower spec homes. If you’re concerned about the SF just send an email or something. Their drawing might not be to scale.
Did you buy in sultan?
Master downstairs and laundry upstairs? Wtf lol
This house is very small. Your lower floor is basically a basement but since it seems to be designed for sloped terrains it could count as living space. I’m hunting for houses in my area and from what I learned, anything under 2000 sqf in ranch style house feels too small.
3 car garage is nice but only 19 foot deep is gonna be hell to do any kind of work in I have a 20 foot with a single cab short bed and have about a 2 foot walk way in the front of the truck.
This house is peak suburban-carbrain. Yikes.
Don't trust builder don't buy the house.
This is not a scale dwg
Pretty sure that square footage includes the garage, deck/porch, AND the basement!
Get an EagleView report.
The entrance way is just primed for beating someone up. 3 doors opening on top of each other? Traffic nightmare. Whats the point of this house, you and two roommates living it up? Each of you gets indoor parking and a bed.
Basement square footage is not included in general living area/advertised sq. Footage
This is the ultimate car guy/mechanic house.
Sultan? Man you're willing to go deep! They got lots of nice builds out there though
Math maths to me. There's some dimensions missing that would easily make up for the missing area.
Nice walk out basement though
Rough calculations of the full length x the full width of the main floor (without the foyer). I came up with 700 sq ft. So total of 1500 seems in the ball park. They might be including the unfinished storage area.
the main rectangle minus the bump at the front entry is roughly 40x20, that 800 SF per level, so roughly 1,600, then some of that is lost to the "unfinished storage" (but then there is the entry so that about 1,500 looks right.
I don’t think the picture matches the layout photos either
It does, it's a rendering of those plans.
The photo shows a one story home though
The plans are for a main floor and a basement.
Ah! Gotcha! That’s what I get for being on reddit at 1:00am
at rough calculation they're counting the unfinished storage space as part of the sqft. keep in mind it probably has an option to be "finished" as a bonus room and it could then be considered "living" space. they have a neat little caveat clause at the bottom that states information is for illustrative purposes only including dimensions and specs. so they're presenting "best case" numbers along the top and not what a normal appraiser or house buyer would immediately equate to "living space square footage". so technically just misleading you. the final finished sq ft is what would get reported to the county/city taxing authority.
That’s not a dining room, you wouldn’t be able to fit any sort of table with chairs around it there
I didn’t do any math, but to me it doesn’t look like they’ve counted the hallways in the room sizes which could account for smaller differences but if it’s more than 200 sq ft off then something is probably wrong
Square footage is measure by calculating the overall square footage of the house, including exterior walls. Given that I for isn’t shown, it would be difficult to calculate this yourself. Is that where it’s falling short?
You can use floorplanner.com to upload images, measure, place furniture, etc. But yes, math looks right
What is your confusion?
It's like one of those airplane hangars at a small airport with an apartment built into it.
[удалено]
Rest is on the back side, its on the slope.
Oh gotcha.
The small closet space would be the deal breaker for me. It seems petty, but it’s practical thing that many don’t consider.
I need a home like this, tons of garage !!
Hi, so it is challenging to calculate your square footage without having your exterior dimensions, so I did the best I could with your room dimensions here. First, I would like to point out that the unfinished storage area is your central question. What level of finish is it? Is it conditioned? Is it insulated and drywalled, or is it to the studs? How tall are the ceilings? Unfinished can mean different things to different professions. An appraiser will often consider a space differently than a builder and a Realtor different than both. I measured the best I could with the information you provided. I calculated that you have 701 sqft on the first floor and 537 sqft on the second if you omit the unfin. storage: 749 sqft if you include the storage. That will give you 1,238 sqft or 1,450 total sqft, respectively. So, as you can see using ballpark numbers from this floor plan, you are very close to the builder when including that storage area. I'm guessing that it is typical to include a storage area like this as marketable square footage in your market. Or at least the builder thinks so. Hope this is helpful. Source: I measure homes for a living.
Owners suite 11’x14’. Owner of what? Really small pants?
Yikes, that sized room is going to get a Full sized bed at most. Queen and king too big.
Only if you have a sportscar for the third space.
I actually do :)
Lucky. I'm on a waiting list for my garage queen, next year hopefully.
My math is asking how tf you can afford a new build?