House Plans

For Braden and I, this whole project started because we wanted a house.  It was convenient that we knew of Vereco prior to the build and since these homes can cost about the same as a standard home, it was hard to say no!  As we all know, the key to sustainability is to reduce what we use and thus reduce our impact on the environment.  In housing, we talked a lot with Vereco Homes about reducing the overall home size.  Having watched several hundred episodes of HGTVs home shows based in the United States, I had a very nicely warped perspective on how big a home should be to live comfortably.  It should be at least 1800- 2000 sq ft, right? Representing the "average Joette" here, I know that people do believe homes of this size are very desirable; Saskatoon wouldn't have suburbs if they weren't.  Being very skeptical that anything smaller would work just as well, I set out to compare different housing plans of different sizes and styles with the 1500 sq ft Vereco Urban House Plan as a reference point.

Vereco Urban Main Floor Layout

Things I really liked about the Vereco in comparison to other homes were:

Sample home layout with attached garage

1. Circulation space:  This is the space that is taken up solely by hallways, walkways, etc.  There is VERY little unused space in this home design.  This home is approximately 1500 sq ft with almost no hallway space on the second level and one hallway on the main level which has closets and bathrooms on either side.  I found this was key to the usable square footage in the home.  Take a look at the attached garage example below with similar outside dimensions.  A huge chunk of the main floor is taken up by hallway which is useless space.  If you want more info on this, I found a great article on circulation space here.

2.  Big spaces where the majority of living happens:  Braden and I spend 95% of our time in the home in the living room hanging out or in the Kitchen cooking.  This is where the space is.  The Urban design creates a highly usable living area with space to put a desk (so no need for a big office!).  It forgoes on a massive separate dining room which will get used a couple times a year.  We don't need a massive dining room table all the time.  We don't need huge bedrooms where all we do is sleep.  We don't need a massive laundry room that we use for a couple hours a week.  We don't need a bathroom with anything more than a bit of counter space and a nice shower.  Heck, we don't even want that stuff!  Also, homes with garages on the main have little family space and big bedrooms above the garage.  This makes big spaces where you sleep, and small spaces where you live.

Sample floor plan with hallways and inflexible space. From Houseplans.com

3.  Open concept:  The beauty of open concept is that you can adjust the spaces depending on what you need.  We found several designs with main floors that had fixed spaces for offices, dining rooms, kitchens, family rooms and living rooms.  These severely limit how you can use the spaces.  With an open living/dining space we will easily be able to have a dining space that fits 12 people when needed, and then shrink the dining table down and set it aside when we want to host people in the living space.  We have an island that will seat 3-4 people comfortably as well for dining or entertaining.  These simple adjustments are easy for us to do and make for a space to suit our everyday needs as well as when we want to host.

4. Luxury spaces well thought out: For us, our luxury extra spaces are having a walk-in closet and 2 bathrooms on the second floor.  These are extra spaces we believe will get tons of use and were preferred over having bigger bedrooms or a second floor laundry.  It was good to really think out what you want to do with your space and realize what space you will actually use and what space you can do without.

5.  Rectangular shape:  I found many 'modern' house plans with things like angled walls, small pop-out rooms, oddly-shaped counter tops and unique layouts.  While many of these were very different and visually appealing, they added up to lots of under-utilized space.  The designs that added up to the most space were rectangular or square, no/minimal ceiling vaults, minimal hallways, and no attached garage.

My conclusions were this:  Size doesn't matter.  It's how you use it.  If you plan out a smaller space well, it can feel like a much bigger space.
And as Steve Jobs said, "Design isn't just what it looks like. Its how it works"

Looking for inspiration and cool homes? Read these!  We used these to help figure out unique ways to save space and learn where our most valuable space is.  We don't have to go to the extremes these people did, but it offers a great perspective (and subsequently makes our home layout seem HUGE)!

1.  How to make 540 sq ft look awesome!
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/4276209/list/Houzz-Tour--A-Family-of-4-Unwinds-in-540-Square-Feet
2.  Living with less:  how to get rid of the non-essential things in life- the story of a very wealthy man who's life stopped being about the material things.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1381978689-S9P/M53C1rTFRJalu1FfUw
3.  Micro apartments: A solution originally intended to deal with high-density living spaces and high rent, this is a look at living with just the necessities.
PBS http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec13/microapartment_09-22.html


Ali and Braden