So last night I ran the square footage of the house we’re designing, only to find out it’s a tad….large.
It topped out at 5800+ sq ft.
Oops.
So I spent a couple hours drastically reducing it but still enabling us to have all our high-priority wants (library, big kitchen, front porch, office, home theater). I got it down to 4800 sq ft. Using Building-Cost.net to calculate how much it would be to built, it comes to $461K – much MUCH higher than we want to spend to build a house! In the updated floorplan all bedrooms are about 12×12, bathrooms are bare minimum instead of spacious, hallways are not as wide, closets not as big, great room not so great, and home theater downright cozy.
And it’s still too big. Denis and I really had hoped to keep the house under 4000 sq ft – in fact, we really wanted to keep it near 3500 sq feet. I just don’t see where I can remove another 1300 sq ft from this floorplan unless the rooms get REALLY small.
This morning Denis said, “Let’s just build the house the seller was planning on building.”
I responded, “That house is only 2000 sq ft – it’s basically the same size as we have now. Why build at all if we’re just going to stay in a house the exact same size?”
So I may be back to the drawing board, trying to find a floorplan that is more efficient with space so that we can keep it to 3500-3800 sq ft, thus keeping it in our budget.
Have you looked at the books by Sarah Susanka? She has a series of books about creating houses that are smaller but still fit in all of the wants. One of the better ones if you are in the planning stages is: “Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home”. I highly recommend the series of books.
Josh, yes, I’ve definitely heard and seen much about Ms. Susanka – we aren’t necessarily looking for “The Not So Big House” so much as less than 4000 sq ft!
I don’t know how the cost is computed in your software, but I know in reality that things such as roof lines and shared plumbing in bathrooms (aligning first and second floor bathrooms, for example) can reduce cost. Another way to cut cost is to shrink the footprint of the house and go up another level to add sq ft. Good luck!
This book was recommended in a newspaper article. Sounds like it would be perfect for you:
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/home/13677626.htm
I would like to suggest for you to read Unit Pride. It is a fantastic novel you can check it out on http://www.amazon.com. Great critical reviews!