Aside from location, one of the biggest decisions you will have to make when planning for your custom home in Northern Virginia is what type of floor plan you want. When planning for Arlington luxury custom homes, we at Sekas Homes understand there are many factors to consider when choosing your floor plan:
Establish a budget. While this might seem like an obvious first step, your budget will determine the size of lot and therefore the size of your custom luxury home.
Research other floor plans. Consult a variety of floor plans to determine what you like and what you don’t like. And don’t forget to consider your current floor plan. What do you wish you could change about it? Compile and incorporate these changes into your floor plan for your new luxury custom home in Arlington or Northern Virginia.
Consider the size of your lot. When thinking about the size of your floor plan, remember to factor outdoor space as well as indoor space. For example, are you interested in porches, decks or balconies? How much garage space do you want? Finally, calculate how much indoor square footage you want. Check out our blog post on lot selection for more information.
Decide how many floors you want. Do you want one, two, three or more stories? Are you considering a loft? Visualize what indoor and outdoor square footage will cover these stories. Consider privacy and overhead noise as well when planning for how many stories your custom home will feature.
Begin to plan your interior. Consider not only the numbers of rooms you want, but also the size of these rooms. Sure you’ll have a kitchen, but will you have a small or large kitchen? Consider your lifestyle when planning your interior. If you plan to have house guests often, this will impact the number of extra bedrooms you might need. Don’t forget bathrooms! How many full bathrooms do you need verses half bathrooms?
Arlington luxury custom homes can be great for entertaining, but you have to factor it into your floor plan. If you plan on entertaining frequently, you will also want to plan your foyer, dining room, living room and even outdoor area to accommodate a larger number of people. Or if you plan to work from home a lot, remember to plan an office area away from other high noise areas.
Finally, consider the measurements of any existing furniture you plan to incorporate into the new floor plan. Make sure this furniture will fit in your new floor plan, and with adequate walking room around it.
Choose between an open or closed floor plan. Open floor plans are much more common now verses the highly compartmentalized floor plan designs of the past. Once again, consider your lifestyle. If you have children, it might be a plus to have a more open floor plan to monitor your children. Open floor plans are also well suited for entertaining, such as an open kitchen, dining room and living room space. But if you’re concerned about noise travel and privacy or interested in hanging a lot of art, a more closed off floor plan might suit you better.
Decide the layout of the rooms. You should also heavily consider your lifestyle before you determine your room layout. If you have young children, do you want the children’s bedrooms near your bedroom? Do you want all the bedrooms on the same floor? And think about what rooms you want to receive the best natural lightââ¬âthe kitchen, living room, master bedroom, etc.
If you need more ideas, check out floor plans for our Northern Virginia and Arlington luxury custom homes.
