Whether you are an architect or you are having your own home created from scratch, ensuring that the floor plans are done correctly should be considered the perfect starting point. Without these, you do not have the right canvas from which you can create all of your dreams. However, there are also plenty of common traps that people fall into, and there is certainly no point in imitating errors that have been committed repeatedly in the past. Taking this into account, the following blog post is going to be all about the most common floor plan mistakes and the ways that you can avoid falling into the traps that have claimed so many victims in the past. So, let’s get started on this right here and now.
A Poor Orientation
The first potential floor plan mistake that could be made is based on the orientation of the rooms in the building. Ultimately, you want to encourage as much natural light and heat into the place as possible. Not only is this important from the overall aesthetics of the home, but it should also be considered in terms of cutting back on the eventual lighting and heating bills. After all, energy efficiency is a bigger and bigger concern for people in the modern world – and for good reason.
Not Thinking About the Flow of the Rooms
Another common mistake that comes in the creation of floor plans is the failure to actually work out how the rooms are going to interact successfully with one another. After all, this is a house that is being created and not simply a collecting of separate rooms that have nothing really to do with one another. While you may think that you have designed the ideal room, this does not mean it should come at the expense of another one that you have created. The overall flow of the property should be high up on the overall list of priorities.
Failing to Factor in Outdoor Space
When you get too bogged down in planning out each and every one of the rooms within the building and the ways in which they are interacting with one another, you can get into a situation in which the outdoor space gets sadly neglected. After all, you want people to be able to interact with nature in their own homes – and this is certainly true if you are the one actually building the property in the first place. If you are building the house from scratch, then you have the perfect opportunity to have the outdoor areas interact seamlessly with the inside. You should be careful not to remove all the outdoor space you have by creating a larger and larger house floorplan as you won’t be able to easily create more.
Not Considering the Budget
While you may have a whole host of wonderful dreams that you would like to take through to fruition, this does not mean that you should simply consider the budget as an afterthought. After all, there is no point in creating a highly complicated floor plan if there is no hope that it is actually going to come to life. As an architect or a homebuilder, this is certainly bad practice, and it is going to be difficult to get your clients to continue to trust you after making this mistake more than a few times. If you are having a home created, sticking to your budget is one of the most important lessons that you can learn, and this starts by actually getting the floor plan right before going any further.
Failing to Plan the Details
While you may be highly focused on the floor plan with getting all of the major elements correct such as the doors, windows, and stairs, this does not simply mean that you should not get the individual elements and details properly planned out. For example, there is the furniture which is obviously what is going to be highly noticeable once the property has been actually created. Even if furniture is to change over time, it should not be ignored as the space that you set aside now for them is going to make all the difference in the future. There is no point having space for an armchair in one room if the layout and function of the space means that no one would ever want to sit there.
Poor Planning of the Sight Lines
If there is one element that should be considered floor plan creation 101, it is certainly getting the sight lines right. This means that you do not have crucial elements such as the door to a room opening out to something unsightly such as the toilets or a storage area. In lines of sight, you should be thinking about placing the more attractive elements of your overall build such as pleasant views of the exterior space or interesting architectural elements in such a way that they are highlighted when moving throughout the space.
Lack of Storage Space
There are the other practical elements that need to be considered in the creation of a floor plan, and this means the storage space as well. So, while you may be tempted to get carried away planning out the more ‘interesting’ elements of your plan, this should certainly not come at the expense of creating the kind of place that has a high level of practicality – which makes it a livable space rather than one that is only designed with an aesthetic purpose and nothing else thought of.
If you manage to avoid all of these common mistakes in the creation of your floor plans, you certainly make it much more likely that you will have a place that you can be proud of. This is true whether you are an architect who is looking to build up their portfolio or if you are in the initial planning stages of having your dream home created. Either way, you want to get things right – not just for the sake of this initial job, but for the future as well.
