Remodelling Single Family Homes In Atlanta

Posted on: August 11th, 2010 | 27 Comments

This is Day 204 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months.

It’s Wednesday on the Slow Home site and that means its time for another Design Project! We need you to re-work the second floor plan of this three storey, single family home located in “Habershal at West Highlands” – which is about 12 minutes by car north-west of downtown Atlanta.

The plan is us the “Veranda B” and it has an under-drive rear garage, so the balcony at the back of the house is one floor above grade. There are some
problems with the design of this floor that we need you to fix.

1. The laundry is poorly located in plan as it takes up potential valuable window space at the back of the house.
2. There is a poorly defined entry with no closet.
3. The kitchen divides the floor plan into three very uninteresting spaces – the dining room has a poor and enclosed side yard condition.
4. The powder room could be better located in plan.
5. There is a redundancy in living spaces with a formal living room and a family room.

So, we need you to re-design this floor plan – but keep the stairs where they are. If you can, try to get one living space, one dining space, the
kitchen, a laundry, the powder room, kitchen and a study without any wasted space. It will be a challenge!

We look forward to your schemes! We will be reviewing and posting the best plans in our Friday post.

Day 204 – PDF
Day 204 -Existing
Day 204 – Demo
Day 204 – Full Symbol Library

See John’s Completed Design

Make sure to join us tomorrow for our “In Detail” episode where we will be reviewing bedroom spaces in single family homes in Atlanta. You’ll be surprised at some of the strange designs for master suites that we have come across in this city!

  • Franco

    [img]f.jpg[/img]

    Here’s my attempt. For the most part it’s quite self-explanatory!

  • BradW

    [img]shdp772.jpg[/img]

    A G-shaped kitchen – not my style – but it works here…

  • BradW

    [img]shdp773.jpg[/img]

    Removed outdoor toilet…:)

  • BradW

    Further to the discussions yesterday…Walk score is an easy but heavily biased indicator for location – there are many other factors that determine a great location – job, affordability, property type, personal preference, etc. Just because there isn’t a Starbucks within a block of where of my house does not mean I live in bad location. Most of us would happily live on the beach in Malibu CA – too bad about the walk score. And let’s face facts it is not economically viable to build new single family detached homes in major urban cities. Heck, it is very difficult to find affordable family accommodation of any kind in a walkable urban location. So most people are forced into low walk score areas. I really do not see that as major issue for Slow Home. What I see is the community planning and the housing designs in these suburban locations are incredibly bad and this is what Slow Home can hope to influence. This is not a new idea just one worthy of repeating….

  • BradW

    [img]shdp774.jpg[/img]

    Modified original design to add a study. Note the privacy screen adjacent to the living room sofa – this could be an art piece or custom millwork – the idea is to filter the view from the living room into the entry (and vice-versa).

  • Mid America Mom

    [img]atsingle2.jpg[/img]

    This is a big space and I wanted to add more to it.

    Takes some time since I am a stickler for dimensions. I am one that does this on grid paper then transfers to paint. I know – scan it!

    Here is one of two plans. Not 100% pleased with the kitchen. I dislike refrigerators hanging out in the middle of a run of cabinets. But I am pleased I did this plan first since my second is about the same as Brad’s second with the study.

    *****
    Created a center hall. The back has a slider close to the study. The side facing windows in the living, laundry, and bath are meant to be high on the wall type (you know 1.5 high by like 3). That is a half wall between kitchen and living room. Built ins at one end of the living room. In the back is a small hall with access to laundry, study, and full bath. The study has its own bank of normal windows now at the back.

    Mid America Mom

  • Tayler

    [img]1_taylercaseyfloorplan.jpg[/img]

    So in the living room, that is actually a built-in entertainment unit and bookshelf. Not sure how to represent that. The dining room seems empty too… And my text function was disable on paint for some reason so I wrote those explanations by hand with my mouse, sorry!

    Every week I find myself more and more frustrated for not being able to put this “puzzle” together. Never going to be an architect…

  • Amanda

    [img]designforweek6.jpg[/img]

    The front room can be a study or an aditional dinning area. I added another window to the back becasue I think it needs more light.

  • Kyle B

    [img]1_draft1.jpg[/img]

    Here is my design. I am happy with the layout. However, I think there’s a bit too much transit space between the entry and rear door. I am not sure how to fix this! Any ideas?

  • ReneP

    [img]wk6redesign.jpg[/img]

    Here is my re-design. Kitchen stayed in the mid-section, but scaled down. Study at the front. Laundry tucked away by staircase. Powder room moved to center of plan sharing wall with the kitchen. I tried to separate the dining and living with a brick wall (something more substantial and heavy looking) – large tv on one side hanging from the wall, and large floor to ceiling built-in china cabinet on dining room side – centered on the fireplace on the far side. I also played around with the window in some areas and added patio doors to the deck.

  • nicole

    Here is one of my many options.
    Butlers pantry could alternately be some sort of mud room?.

    Kyle B
    As for your question – Here is a suggestion…I would align the back door with the front door so that your traffic flow would be straight and not jagged (a bit cleaner – that way more space can be allocated to the activities on either side.
    What is the dimension of your corridor from the back wall to the washroom wall? Maybe once the rear door is moved down, the ‘floating element’ can also move down to allow for a larger corridor to the washroom.

  • nicole

    [img]1_pp1atlantahouse.jpg[/img]

    Here is one of my many options.
    Butlers pantry could alternately be some sort of mud room?.

  • Terri

    [img]atlantasfh.jpg[/img]

    I played with both doors and the exterior windows, so maybe I stretched the rules a little. I didn’t like where the front door entered so close to the staircase and the door swing seemed better the other way.

    There’s a floating closet (again!). I just wanted more options for getting to the powder room or laundry without having to go all the way to the front hall (and past the study).

  • JPod

    Here is my redesign. I used a built in fireplace with built-in shelving around it.

  • JPod

    [img]redo.jpg[/img][img]1_redo.jpg[/img]

    And again, with the attachment this time!

  • Jamie L

    [img]jamielim.jpg[/img]

    Here’s my attempt.

  • BradW

    [img]shdp775.jpg[/img]

    Glories last shot…

  • Mid America Mom

    [img]atsingle1.jpg[/img]

    Hi. Ditched my second plan and did the kitchen on the interior near the stair. Den/Study/guest in front. Full bath and laundry in the middle.

    3 way fireplace can be seen from the front entry and principle living spaces.

    Mid America Mom

  • jim baer

    [img]100811slowdesign.jpg[/img]

    wow…this one has been tough. mostly because there was too much space!! i am used to working for every inch i can. this one…space… space … space……

    can we deduct slow home points for toooo big of a house??

  • Grace Coulter

    [img]designprojectsfhatlantastudentforgrace.jpg[/img]

    I didn’t have a chance to check out the site earlier today so there are some similarities between my plan and those done by others but also some big differences.

    So I wanted to find ways to open up this house. In the entry I added an open shelving unit to the books, etc. from the office are visible as décor in the hall. There is another open wall from the study to the kitchen which could be closed off or opened to change the levels of privacy. I wanted to add more windows throughout the space. I stacked the washer/dryer units because I find this more efficient use of space. The dining room is more defined and centered on the fireplace and windows.

  • jim baer

    [img]100811slowdesign02.jpg[/img]

    …i did not even think about enclosing the study until i looked at all the other submissions…so it was back to the “drawing boards” for some quick tweaking!!

  • bstone52

    [img]finishedproduct.jpg[/img]

    Here’s mine -

  • Dan M

    [img]dansfhatlantastudentforjohn.jpg[/img]

    Didn’t put in the annotation, but it is fairly straight forward, there is a bank of built in cupboards for storage etc. in the kitchen. I attempted to allow circulation while tying things together to make it logical.

  • Tara

    [img]atlantasinglefam.jpg[/img]

    Here’s my attempt for the week. I tried to keep the main living areas as open as possible. I created a block in the centre of the plan, away from prime areas of the house, to have the laundry and powder room. I also created an enclosed front room with french doors that could serve a number of purposes including a study, second living area, media room, or perharps a guest bedroom. I also increased the storage in the kitchen, added a decorative shelving unit and added a closet to the front entry

  • frazer

    [img]vanroekelsfh.jpg[/img]

    I really wanted to keep the living room at the front of the house and tried to incorporate a workspace/studyspace into the dining room. The patio door was a difficult element since it divided two very large areas of space which could otherwise fit three spaces. It did define a circulation path through the entire plan.

  • Andrew

    [img]designprojectsfhatlantamcconnell.jpg[/img]

    Here’s my entry for this weeks exercise.

  • Kyle B

    [img]1_draft2.jpg[/img]

    Reorganized the kitchen a bit. The pantry seemed awkward in my first plan.