How to Pick the Right Floor Plan
If you’ve ever spent any time looking at a floor plan on paper – unless you’re a builder, architect, or have a superpower that turns blueprints into a perfect, 360º, 3D tour in your head – it’s hard to truly appreciate all the details. Not only are the words, symbols and numbers hard to understand they can be difficult to envision. If you’re shopping for a home, whether you prefer a single story or multiple levels, choosing the perfect floor plan can be a challenge, so it’s helpful to keep these tips in mind.
Matching Layouts and Lifestyles
Picking the right floor plan for your lifestyle factors in things like family size, ages of children and the need or desire to be all together in the common spaces like family/ bonus rooms — or have pockets of privacy built into the layout. Families with younger children like bedrooms and bathrooms grouped together in one area, while families with teens and young adults, often prefer separation. If you are house hunting, you may automatically gravitate toward these preferences, while evaluating the pros and cons.
As you privately tour a model home or finished but empty new build like the quick move-ins in Crystal Valley, take note of room sizes. Many home buyers prefer a rectangular room to a square one – since furniture is generally placed two to four feet away from walls. Do more than imagine your furniture in a room, measure it and place it in a digital floor planner app to make sure everything you want in a room will actually fit. Some create a graphic so you can actually visualize the arrangements.
Arrange Your Furniture Digitally
Room Scan Pro ($4.99 for iOS) lets you create virtual floor plans by holding your phone up to a wall to scan a room circumference, turning the measurements into a floor plan. Check out the video tutorial to see the app in action, and click here for Android apps. Room Sketcher is a mobile and online app for your desktop that allows you to create room layouts, floor plans and try different finishes and furniture in 2D and 3D. Now that we’ve moved from Stay-at-Home guidelines to Safer-at-Home guidelines, you can schedule safe private tours with app in hand to see for yourself how your belongings will fit/look.
Homes Where Hospitality Happens
There are floor plans that welcome guests the minute they walk in the door, opening right up to a foyer and family room with the kitchen – the most popular room in the house –front and center. Others have formal living areas right off the entryway that invite guests to sit and converse, with hallways to guest rooms and sitting rooms or dens spoking out – visually separated from the gathering spaces. For some homeowners, that separation is essential to create a feeling of privacy and distinct use.
The indoor-outdoor nature of a home is popular with home buyers who like to extend their living and entertaining spaces and host dinners and parties, especially during Colorado’s six or seven months of mild and warmer weather.
Ranch-style homes are quite popular in the Crystal Valley community offer extra space to maneuver if a family member needs wider hallways – a welcome feature in new home builds. Many have basements – a welcome prospect for expansion and storage Multiple stories offer views to the outside without gazing directly into neighbors’ windows, as well as additional square footage on a smaller footprint.
The pros at Fresh Home suggest home shoppers look for a floor plan that suits their budget now – rather than planning too far into the future. You can always add upgrades, but you can’t change the location of your home. Not only does a commute sometimes factor into a home consideration, so do the offerings and amenities of the community, and access to shopping, recreation and leisure activities.
House Beautiful has tips for anyone making choices about home layouts and floor plans, with a set of dos and don’ts and examples of mistakes to avoid.
Floor Plan Variety in Crystal Valley
With nine model homes to tour, and other quick move-ins to explore, the floor plans for the new home choices in Crystal Valley are nothing short of exponential. With four of Colorado’s top home builders: Richmond American Homes, Kauffman Homes, Century Communities and D.R. Horton, you’ll have your pick of architectural styles and personalization options in Crystal Valley. Set in wide open natural surroundings with easy access to nearby amenities, there’s a floor plan here to fit every home buyer — in ranch and two-story designs, priced from the $300s.
