Home buying thread

Kobayashi said:

I like symmetry for the doorway, but I don't think it's the end of the world to be offset like that. I would definitely want a double door for my main entrance though. The amount of times I wished I had one in every place I've ever lived in, if I was ever starting from scratch, it would be a must.

Also, different style than what you're going for, but I'd rather have a huge front porch than those little overhangs you've got to the left and right of the entryway.

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Yeah we discussed the door size and whether we’d want a transom or sidelights, so that’s going to be modified as well.

With regards to the porch, that’s also a good idea. We had discussed making that whole area a porch because there is space to pull it out. On phone so kind of hard to clip, but yeah. We both agree with that too.

The overhangs he said were primarily added to break up the verticality of the front. But now that we’ve seen them and the front we’d like for it to be functional as well. In for a penny in for a pound.

Intrinsic said:

Going through another round of updates with designer / architect dude. Nothing really significant changed internally, just a couple of tweaks to walls and pushing and pulling things here and there. We're starting to get into looking at elevations and immediately had a glaring issue:

The entry way looked fine conceptually, but currently translates to this externally:

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A completely off centered front door! There's no way that is going to work. I also have a few concerns just generally. It is only one of the ideas though and we've got a lot to discuss. Some of my initial dislike really pulled back after dropping it into Gemini and seeing the ideas it put out. Some are obviously better than others. I really have no idea where we want to go with it. I keep getting stuck on this whole "we just want something nice" and that's the most I can come up with.

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Can you get rid of the tiny 1x1 windows on the left side of the house in exchange for symmetry? You'd be two less windows away from a McMansion.

Tmac said:

Can you get rid of the tiny 1x1 windows on the left side of the house in exchange for symmetry? You'd be two less windows away from a McMansion.

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Yyeeaahhh that was like item #2 on my annoying list we discussed. The current issue is they’re both bathrooms. You can see where the downstairs one is the floorplan a couple posts above. That bathroom is a full bath outside a planned guest room but acts as the downstairs powder/guest bath.

We had two requirements for that, one being that guests don’t have to enter the “master suite” area to go to a bath and also the guest bath isn’t a room off the kitchen. I don’t want to listen to someone or smell someone taking a dump while cooking.

Second there’s the same bathroom fire y above it upstairs for our oldest son’s room.

I’m not sure if a different style larger window would work better there or if we just need to move both baths so they aren’t at the front. That presents other challenges but we’ve brought it up.

And I definitely have the McMansion Hell site open in my other tab

edit: to also add, I think this is another problem I created somewhat by modifying his original design. There was a “reading nook” area similar to what is on the right side outside the laundry which would have made the exterior way more symmetrical. I asked for that to be removed bc it is a waste of space for us and asked for the bath to be moved there, not understanding how it would
impact things like this. Just something to work through.

I am looking for a third party extra set of eyes / consult though to also review with us. Just haven’t found anyone yet.

Intrinsic said:

Yyeeaahhh that was like item #2 on my annoying list we discussed. The current issue is they’re both bathrooms. You can see where the downstairs one is the floorplan a couple posts above. That bathroom is a full bath outside a planned guest room but acts as the downstairs powder/guest bath.

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Haha, my man.

Could you just do normal windows and use blinds for privacy? Or is the issue the window doesn't actually fit in the space?

Intrinsic said:

Going through another round of updates with designer / architect dude. Nothing really significant changed internally, just a couple of tweaks to walls and pushing and pulling things here and there. We're starting to get into looking at elevations and immediately had a glaring issue:

The entry way looked fine conceptually, but currently translates to this externally:

View attachment 614869
View attachment 614870

A completely off centered front door! There's no way that is going to work. I also have a few concerns just generally. It is only one of the ideas though and we've got a lot to discuss. Some of my initial dislike really pulled back after dropping it into Gemini and seeing the ideas it put out. Some are obviously better than others. I really have no idea where we want to go with it. I keep getting stuck on this whole "we just want something nice" and that's the most I can come up with.

View attachment 614871
View attachment 614872
View attachment 614873

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OK, regarding the offset front door....
By adding one light and a flower box below it makes it much more pleasing to my eye... (Forgive the cheap MS Paint shop work here)

Also, it would allow for you to have a murder slot snipers opening behind the flowers which would be accessible from the storage space under the stairs behind the "coats" (which I misread entertainingly as goats, but that's another story)

Break said:

The bottom of my garage freezer is full of a red liquid that leaked down and froze.

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So dead hooker flavored otter pops?

Haus said:

OK, regarding the offset front door....
By adding one light and a flower box below it makes it much more pleasing to my eye... (Forgive the cheap MS Paint shop work here)
View attachment 615026
Also, it would allow for you to have a murder slot snipers opening behind the flowers which would be accessible from the storage space under the stairs behind the "coats" (which I misread entertainingly as goats, but that's another story)

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I think you're right about that! We'll see what he comes back with for ideas, but you aren't wrong, it could work. And a murder hole of goats sounds appealing. That looks pretty good, thanks for doing that.

Wife wanted to see it in more of a Blue because as much as I don't like it, I actually kind of do. It is occupying a very odd space in my head. It reads so heavy into "Mountain Lodge" but like almost just kind of nice enough and interesting enough that I could live with it. We go through 50 of these and almost are all "no, no, no" and then hit something this and it is like "uhh, I'm really not sure."

Tmac said:

Haha, my man.

Could you just do normal windows and use blinds for privacy? Or is the issue the window doesn't actually fit in the space?

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Yep, we could do whatever we wanted. But because those are both bathrooms and they're just wide enough to fit a shower or tub in. So, what it would kind of look like today from inside is along these lines maybe (just grabbed a random picture). But we could do a larger window like the 2nd picture if push came to shove. Some people might feel odd showering in front of a big window like that.



For what it is work it is around $2/sqft for the plans, elevations, 3d renderings, meetings, revisions, etc. We'll be around $9,000 or so. We definitel want our money's worth in the planning stage and will go back and forth as long as it takes to get it how we'll be happy. The guy is really nice, he's just not the fastest at turn around. And we're not on a strict timeline to build. The longer the delay the more we save and plan.

Intrinsic said:

I think you're right about that! We'll see what he comes back with for ideas, but you aren't wrong, it could work. And a murder hole of goats sounds appealing. That looks pretty good, thanks for doing that.

Wife wanted to see it in more of a Blue because as much as I don't like it, I actually kind of do. It is occupying a very odd space in my head. It reads so heavy into "Mountain Lodge" but like almost just kind of nice enough and interesting enough that I could live with it. We go through 50 of these and almost are all "no, no, no" and then hit something this and it is like "uhh, I'm really not sure."

View attachment 615029



Yep, we could do whatever we wanted. But because those are both bathrooms and they're just wide enough to fit a shower or tub in. So, what it would kind of look like today from inside is along these lines maybe (just grabbed a random picture). But we could do a larger window like the 2nd picture if push came to shove. Some people might feel odd showering in front of a big window like that.

View attachment 615031View attachment 615032View attachment 615033

For what it is work it is around $2/sqft for the plans, elevations, 3d renderings, meetings, revisions, etc. We'll be around $9,000 or so. We definitel want our money's worth in the planning stage and will go back and forth as long as it takes to get it how we'll be happy. The guy is really nice, he's just not the fastest at turn around. And we're not on a strict timeline to build. The longer the delay the more we save and plan.

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Also, I have to ask... Are you sure about flower boxes on second story windows? I can't imagine a life of gardening on a ladder. Or are you gonna stock them with with "Eternal Flowers"?

Haus said:

Also, I have to ask... Are you sure about flower boxes on second story windows? I can't imagine a life of gardening on a ladder. Or are you gonna stock them with with "Eternal Flowers"?

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No lol Nano Banana did all that. We didn’t ask for it haha. I just never asked it to remove them.