|
Creating the Perfect Log Home Floor Plan
Creating a great floor
plan is essential to building your dream log home. Let's
assume you have decided on the basic structure of your
log home, such as cabin style, chalet, ranch, cape cod,
or traditional.
And we will also assume that you have
created your "must have" and "want if
possible" lists of features for your house.
With those things done, the next task
is to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together into
a floor plan - one that not only meets all your needs,
but actually excites you! After all, you're going to
be living in your log home for many years to come, so
it's critical to get everything right before the building
starts.
In some cases, your floor plan may be
completely flexible within an empty shell, constrained
only by the outline of the external walls.
If you are starting with a clean sheet
like this, it can be difficult to know where to begin.
One useful technique is to start with your existing
house and consider what you like about its layout and
what you dislike. What works well, and what have you
always wished you could change?
It doesn't matter if styles of your
old and new house are very different... here you should
be thinking about things like:
-The absolute or relative sizes of the
different rooms.
-How they are positioned in relation
to each other.
-How the daily traffic flows between
rooms and around the house.
In most cases, finding the perfect floor
plan is achieved by taking some form of pre-designed
layout and adapting it to suit you more precisely. Just
how much you can modify the plan will vary from supplier
to supplier and log home design to log home design.
So, the first thing to establish is exactly how much
flexibility you have.
Ideally, there will only be a few structural
elements than can't be moved or changed, but there may
be other reasons why your ideal log home layout can't
be achieved. The most common obstacles are cost (it
may be prohibitively expensive to do what you want)
and officialdom (there may be a building code that is
violated by your ideal layout). So, it's always a good
idea to get your rough layout checked before you get
too attached to it!
Let's look at some of the factors to
consider when arriving at your perfect floor plan.
Room Sizes
Most off-the-shelf plans allow you to move internal
walls around to change the proportions of different
rooms. But you have to be sure that each of the resulting
rooms is adequate for its purpose. Use the dimensions
of your current rooms to help you get an accurate feel
for what the dimensions on the plan really mean.
How Many Rooms
One area where your new log home is likely to differ
from your current home is that most log and timber frame
homes have more open spaces, combining most or all the
public rooms into one large space. Think carefully about
how this will apply to your lifestyle.
Use All Three Dimensions
While a few log homes are only single story, most are
at least one and a half stories, and you may also have
a basement to include in your planning. This means you
have to consider not only the layout of each floor,
but also how these floors relate to each other vertically.
For example, keeping water supply and waste drainage
on one side of the building is most cost effective.
Your log home builder can be of great help here.
Storage
Few home designs include enough built-in storage to
begin with, especially those that are based on designs
for vacation homes. Be realistic about how much storage
space you need, again using your existing home as a
starting point.
Extra Spaces
Designing a log home gives you the chance to include
some different forms of space that add little to the
cost of the home, but can greatly enhance the flexibility
of the design. The first space you might plan in is
a loft that can be used as an extra living room, a guest
room, an office -- or with a little planning, perhaps
all three.
The other space to include in your planning
is a porch or deck (or both). If you plan the location
of porches and decks carefully and integrate them into
the internal floor plan, they can add lots of value
and enjoyment.
While you may be satisfied with sketching
your plans out roughly before handing them over to the
professionals, you may find it useful to look at some
of the low cost packages for home computers. These can
be very powerful and will allow you to make many trial
modifications to your floor plan. Most will even give
you a three-dimensional view of your new home design.
And using home design software enables
you to hand over a very accurate representation of your
vision to the architect or designer to make sure the
finished building is just what you planned.
Another place to find great floor plans
is to simply search on the internet. There are many
floor plan websites that offer thousands of plans. They
can give you some really great ideas.
And, of course, perhaps the easiest
and simplest way to come up with a great floor plan
is to just ask your builder to come up with one for
you. They will be glad to take your input of home features
that you want and create a design that will meet your
every need.
Remember, with just a little thought
and planning, you can easily create your own perfect
log home floor plan.
1howto.com
--------------------------------------------------
Please
Share Your Tips with Us
|
