Redesigning a commercial house plan

Posted On October 29, 2017

I know I need to talk about Halloween but first I want to talk about this other thing that’s on my mind.

So recently an advert popped up on my Facebook feed, for a development of new-build houses not that far from where I live now. I was aware of it previously but felt like having a look anyway, as house building is an interest of mine.

It showed me a remaining plot and I looked at its floorplan out of curiosity. It wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t help thinking of the tweaks I would make. So, I returned to one of my favourite websites, Floorplanner.com!

Here we have the “Abingdon” design by Barratt Homes:

Barratt Homes Abingdon Ground — Original ground floor.

87513604-top — My tweak. Added a wheelchair lift, utility room, small office with external entrance, and a shed. Made the skylight into one big one, increased general room sizes. Window in WC and sidelights by front door.

Barratt Homes Abingdon First — Original first floor.

87515026-top — My tweak. Increased room sizes.

Barrat Homes Abingdon Second — Original second floor.

87515518-top — My tweak. Didn’t attempt to recreate sloping ceilings on Floorplanner. Increased room sizes again. I think the wheelchair elevator would open at the side in this room, to avoid a tight squeeze.

So yeah, Barratt’s original house design for the Abingdon is certainly not bad, there are just things I would change about it.

There’s not a lot of variety on Floorplanner for things like some of the structures, so the wheelchair elevator was very plain and opaque. In reality I’d go for a clear glass one that let a lot of light in. Unfortunately there’s not the room for a galleried landing in the Abingdon design, so the elevator would kind of serve as that instead. There could even be a skylight above it in the roof, so that a pillar of light goes down through the whole house.

48-12

Here are all the floors stacked on top of each other:

Floors merged — I didn’t feel like fencing the entire garden.

I didn’t decorate every wall, because effort, but also I wonder if it might be better to just have an “accent wall” in each room and do the rest of them in fairly neutral colours. Not the fucking “magnolia” of rental houses though.

Jewel tones are my shit, so I tried to go with the closest equivalent of those that Floorplanner had.

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