Please critique our floor plan.

Hi,

nice plans you have - being a cook and canner/preserver of foodstuffs, I vote along with the majority - swap mudroom and pantry. Saves steps in the long run.

I know you are going to live in Alaska and I don't know a blooming thing about having more windows/skylights up there due to snow and cold. I do know that I have a skylight in my kitchen (it is 24" x 4") and believe me, it makes a difference in how much electric light I need. It cost me around $300 to put it in including the skylight itself, but I figure I only burn electric lights now about 1/2 as much as I used to due to the location of the skylight. It is halfway between the kitchen table and the stove and the sink and the woodstove. So it lights up the major portions of the kitchen that I use most.

Other than those two suggestions, I like the rest of the plan. I do have a question about wood storage....I use wood heat exclusively and have a custom box built to store my wood beside my wood heater as it saves tracking in and out to get wood. I didn't see anywhere beside or around your masonry wood stove to store wood. I'm talking about the old "get the wood in for the night" storage. Do you plan to have a place to put enough for a night/day next to your masonry heater? Maybe those kind don't need stoking as much as mine does (I have a large Fisher). It's just a suggestion for those cold nights when you don't want to go a long ways through the house for wood.

Best wishes and glad to see you're making your dreams come true....who knows, some of us on the board may come fish up there one day...gee think, paying customers!

Sidepasser

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ok , heres my thought , i agree , change the mud room pantry, around , and a wood storage idea as well, the house is huge, and the plans dont allow for an extra room , the island is too far from your kitchen triangle to be worth using
i would have a "guest bedroom" crafting room, etc,

change the french doors to go off the dining room instead of living room , less mess, assuming you have wood dining room floor

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The informal open plan is great. Others have made some good suggestions that I agree with. I did notice that there seem to be a good bit of wasted space in the bath and I would find a pull to open bathroom door unexpected....Glen

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Thanks for all the great advice. I would really like to figure out a way to show you all the real set of plans with the interior layout. For example the extra space in the bathroom, part of it is taken up by a hot water heater on the left as you walk in the door.

Masonry heaters are quite unique, they only require on charge of wood to last more than 24 hours, though I do need wood storage for the wood burning stove, which fits directly behind the masonry heater.

In the living room between the two large windows will be an oil burning stove.I am concerned about losing heat with a skylight, but I have not looked into them and don't know what I can get to help reduce the heat loss in the winter.

As for customers, we will be entertaining our first six quests this year in July and are charging basically what it costs us to run them; fuel, food, transportation etc. We will probabily operate this way until we have finished our construction.

I like the ideas all, and I will look real hard at making some changes to the plan.

Thanks,
Anataq