Common House Design Problems

Avoid the following:

1. Long hallways: They are a waste of space, make houses look smaller, and cost a lot to build. They serve no real purpose, and have no real value for your house, so when you design your house limit the number of hallways if you can help it, and try to make the ones you have to have as short as possible. Not only does this make your house look and feel bigger, but it means you can spend the money you save on extras elsewhere.

2. Inappropriate connecting rooms: An example of this is a bathroom off a kitchen, while it is probably less expensive to put a bathroom in right next to a kitchen because you have the plumbing already set up to do it, but it does not make sense unless there is a bedroom very nearby as well. Also, if your eating area is in the kitchen it can create some conflict. What do that mean? Well, picture this...you have guests over, and one has to use the bathroom...do you think they want to relieve themselves right next to where everyone is eating? What if it smells bad? What if everyone can hear? Do you see the problem? So, try and avoid it.

3. Master bedroom in front: You will start building and realize that you get more privacy and less noise if you put your master bedroom in the back of the house. There can be times when putting it in the front of the house has advantages, such as if the front of the house offers a fantastic view, but for the most part, you will enjoy your master bedroom more if it is more private and more secluded.

4. Awkward Layouts: bad walking flow from room to room will be expensive to fix, and is easy to avoid. Basically you don't want to put doors in that make it so you have to walk through the very center of the room, or through a work space to get anywhere else. Think about flow, and move your entry and doorways to corners and edges to help direct traffic flow.

5. Dark corners in big rooms: Make sure you don't have too big of a room without proper lighting or windows. This defeats the purpose of a big room. If the room is too dark you will either have to spend a bunch in lighting, or you will have a room that feels much smaller than it is. Also, dark rooms are not as inviting, and thus, a room you intended to have as a central living space, may turn into nothing more than a waste of space.

6. Stairways behind front door: Instead of creating an inviting feel that welcomes you into the home it directs you down or up. This is not ideal, and will limit your market as many cultures and immigrants in American see this as a bad omen. Plus, it makes your house seem smaller.

7. Walk through rooms: You don't want the only way to get to a bathroom to be to walk past the TV area of the family room. You don't want rooms that are only accessible by walking through other rooms, except in the case of the master bathroom, and sometimes if you put a bathroom in between two bedrooms to adjoin them. However, if you do this you need to make sure that there is a bathroom accessible and available to guests etc. that does not require walking through a bedroom to get to.

8. Back door directly behind a front door even if one or two open rooms separate them: This creates a feeling of a much smaller house, or inadequate space. That is a horrible thing to do to your home. You want to make it feel more spacious, not less. This is an easily avoidable mistake, but one that will really make a difference.

9. Small windows: this makes rooms look and feel smaller, and it does not allow in enough light.

10. Square or boxy looks: this is boring and will make you feel as though your house is dull, plus it hurts resale value. So, be a little creative and add some artistic design elements to the shape of your house.