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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3059 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 29, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Re. 2, how do you recommend planning for it? Do you have an example?

Re. 3, we have four kids and may have more. Our thinking is:

  • 1 master bedroom
  • 1 home office (wife and I are WFH)
  • 1 older boys' room
  • 1 older girls' room
  • 1 younger kids' room
  • Guest bedroom somewhere, maybe? The design we're looking at is 3,300 sqft. Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house? I'd actually prefer not to have to clean, cool, and maintain a huge house.

Re. 2, how do you recommend planning for it? Do you have an example?

Primarily by placing mechanicals (well pump, expansion tanks, water heater, air handlers, the first drain the septic system will back up into) in places where when they do leak, they won't destroy anything. Waterproof flooring, floor drains, leak protection, don't stack all your valuables and important paperwork right next to it, etc.

Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house? I'd actually prefer not to have to clean, cool, and maintain a huge house.

I've always been a fan, if not always a practitioner, of segmenting the house in ways that let you heat and clean selectively. I just have a ranch house, but the basement is on its own mini-split system, and as such we can keep it at a different temperature than the rest of the house, saving money. We also don't need to keep it as clean as it is primarily used as a hosting space other than the workout room. There's a lot of clever solutions to this. Though anyway, I'd imagine with five kids you shouldn't have problems getting chores done for cleaning the house.

Re. flooding, that makes sense, thanks.

Re. segmenting the house, after living in a place with poor insulation, I can definitely see the value. That house was at least designed so that you could essentially separately heat and cool different floors. They did this by adding a sliding door on the staircase landing. It sounds like I might need to work with an architect to accomplish this though.

The design we're looking at is 3,300 ft2. Do you think it would be possible to get away with less house?

I can fit your stated requirements into 1301 ft2. Use your imagination!

I can fit your stated requirements into 1301 ft2. Use your imagination!

Congratulations, you just invented the double-wide trailer!

lol, well, we could all technically live, Gilded Age style, in a single room, but I don't want that, so I suppose I have more requirements than just minimizing enclosed space. I'd want a garage, a living room, a space for a dinner table, and ideally a porch. I'm also trying to do a 2 floor build because I want to minimize the footprint on my lot.

But point taken. After this thread I think I need to hire an architect.

We could all technically live, Gilded Age–style, in a single room, but I don't want that. I'd want a living room and a space for a dinner table.

Clarification: That big central room is a combination living/dining room, as permitted under IPMC § 404.5.2. (I was just too lazy to label it.) A width of 7 feet may seem small, but under IRC § R312.2 it is permissible, and Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction fig. 2.24 indicates that it is sufficient for a dining table to fit, as long as everybody sits on the same side. (If I'd had the book in front of me when I made the drawing, I would have made the living/dining room 8 feet wide, so that people could face each other across the dining table. With that mild augmentation, the area rises to 1347 ft2 + 94.5 in2.)

I'm also trying to do a 2-floor build.

Note that the IRC's prescriptive design assumes that the second floor will contain only bedrooms and implicitly bathrooms. (Compare table R403.1(1) note b with table R301.5.) If you ignore that assumption, you may have to pay extra for an engineer's services, since the architect will not be able to just copy-and-paste from the IRC's tables.

Here's a design that meets your new criteria. (I'm assuming a detached garage, and not bothering to draw it.) (Whoops—swap the office and the kitchen.)

After this thread I think I need to hire an architect.

Come up with your own original design first, before letting an architect mess stuff up. Doodling random floor plans is fun!

Also, I think you should go straight to a homebuilder (which will have an in-house architect), not to an architect. I tried hiring several architects, and did manage to get one to help me pick a lot, but they generally didn't seem very interested in me. Presumably they have bigger fish to fry, such as designing larger commercial, industrial, and apartment buildings.

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