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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2706 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The front door's path is in conflict with the door to the utility room, since the utility room door swings outwards.

I fail to see how that is a problem. I do not expect that people will be using both doors simultaneously very often.

The layout of the utility room doesn't make sense. There isn't enough depth to store the washer and dryer without them sticking out into the entry path from the door. And, assuming you're putting the water heater, furnace, and panel box in here, plus possibly a stationary tub, the room isn't long enough to put them far enough back to keep them out of the immediate ingress path.

The washer and dryer are all the way on the left side, facing toward the door. There is no furnace, since heating and cooling are provided by a ductless heat-pump system (one of the versions that still works at low temperatures). See this image, drawn by the contractor's drafter before I remembered to have the direction of the laundry/utility room's door reversed.

The living-room-as-central-hall concept will reduce the usable space by half. My house was built in 1945 and the upstairs hallway is 36′ wide, and it's narrow; newer homes have 48″ hallways. I'd say three feet is the minimum clearance you'll need around the doors to have adequate movement without it being cramped. Since you have doors on both sides of the room, nearly half of the total width needs to be kept clear for ingress and egress through the area.

The upshot of the above is that there will be very little room for furniture. The couch will have to be practically in the middle of the room. I think I see how you have a plan to mount the TV on the wall between two doors. With this TV location, you'll have to get a very small "apartment sofa" dead center in the room, and you might have room for a small end table or another chair on the wall next to the door. And that's it. That also means that the highest traffic area of the house will be directly between the couch and the television.

I agree that 48 inches is a good width for a corridor. (My (mother's) current house has a 30-inch corridor, and it's quite annoying.) In corridor-based designs, I use 48-inch corridors. However, this is a dining/living room, not a corridor. There are two different 36-inch paths around the central tables for people to use.

The television mount is intended to be a mount that can pivot to face any direction.

Also, I never use the dining/living room in my (mother's) current house, so I don't care much about it.

Another issue with having a central hall is that the private areas of the house are exposed to the living area. If you're entertaining, people will be looking in bedrooms, and will be going to the bathroom with nothing but an inch and a half of birch between them and the party.

All four of the doors between the dining/living room and the bedroom+bathroom suites will be steel "exterior" doors with weather stripping, not flimsy "interior" doors that easily transmit noise and smell.

Also, I don't expect to be entertaining many people.

Why the double doors in the bathrooms?

The intent is to make either one of the bedroom+bathroom suites a suitable master suite, rather than locking in only one of them as the master.

What do you need two bathrooms for?

In my (mother's) current house, I generally have been slightly annoyed at having to share a bathroom with her. Also, having two bathrooms makes renting out one bedroom easier if it becomes necessary for financial reasons.

And two large bathrooms at that; a typical size for a full bath in a small house is 8′ × 5′.

ICC A117.1 prescribes several different levels of accessibility. Generally, under an "aging in place" perspective, I am seeking to make this house compliant with "type B"—not so extreme as "accessible" or "type A", but not so minimal as "type C". I have determined that 10′×5′ (or a little less than 10′, depending on how close the doors are to the perpendicular walls) is the minimum size of a bathroom compliant with ICC A117.1 "type B" (able to accommodate a 30″×48″ wheelchair clearance, but not including the extravagant 5-foot-diameter circular turning space required under "accessible" and "type A").

Why no basement? I know they're more expensive, but if I understand correctly you're in the Philly/NJ area, which isn't exactly the South. Here in Pittsburgh the frost line is at 36″, and, while I imagine it's less over there, it couldn't be that much less. Building on a slab means sinking a footer at 36″ and then building up frost walls, which is still ultimately less expensive but doesn't usually make sense considering that a basement gives you a lot of extra space.

Prior to hiring the contractor, I hired an architect for initial feasibility checking. According to him, adding a basement would increase the cost of one of my designs by 40 percent (for a 988-ft2 design, from 133 k$ to 188 k$, not including the contractor's overhead and profit). I don't think that's a reasonable use of my limited funds. (This was long before I became aware of the 2019 RSMeans book. Now that I have the RSMeans book, which estimates a cost differential of only 10 percent for an unfinished basement or 24 percent for a finished basement, I feel a bit more skeptical of the architect's calculation. Still, he's the expert. I haven't asked the contractor about it, and I don't see much reason to now that I've signed a contract for a no-basement build.)

The slab will have R-10 foam-board insulation underneath it. (I argued to the contractor that the IRC mandates R-20 insulation under a slab floor in zone 5A (cool humid). But the contractor disagrees with my interpretation and thinks that R-20 under-slab insulation would be prone to compression over time.)

The lack of a rear door seems concerning.

The IRC mandates that in every bedroom at least one window be big enough and low enough that a person can clamber through it easily, so I don't see much need for a back door.

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