Floor Plans: Thoughts for Our Home!

We have met with our contractor, Brian Myers of SunBear, three times so far. The first was to interview him, the second to see some of his work in person and the third was at our property to sign a design contract with him. He asked for some input from us and we gave him that and more. Here's what we conveyed to him:

Our Guiding “Principles” in building this home:

• Passive solar, designed to minimize energy and water usage
  
• Small, minimize use of materials (especially mined materials such as concrete and drywall; “water wall” or at least minimize where plumbing is located)
  
• Try to minimize embodied energy
  
• Open floor plan – encourage use of outdoor living spaces
  
• Off grid sensibilities
  
• Rain water harvesting (design roof for this)
  
• Wildland fire smart
  
• Affordability also must be considered
  

We also gave him a list of the rooms we want and furniture we already have and wish to use and where.

Desired Rooms:

• Master Bedroom (w/ large closet, possibly walk-in or “room” that could manage our dressers also and then bedroom could be a bit smaller)
  
• Guest Room (functions also as a craft room, exercise room and home office) with a closet (not as big as Master’s closet)
  
• Utility/mechanics/pantry room (washing machine, chest freezer, room for shelving, tankless on demand water heater, pressure tank, etc – not sure if batteries and inverter will go here); easily accessible from Kitchen
  
• Bathroom (with walk in shower, deep enough to hold 2-3” of water near drain for dog bathing with my system; water saver shower head, but will also need wand low enough/long enough “cord” to rinse dog) – need to figure out an entrance that wouldn’t have guests going through the Master Bedroom to get to bathroom
  
• Great Room with entry area, maybe book nook, open to kitchen
  
• Kitchen (two hoosiers, antique stove, island for stove?, odd sized chest fridge) open to and part of Great Room
  

We also gave a list of our Likes:

• Organic feel
  
• Soft lines, no hard corners
  
• Window seats
  
• Exposed beams/vigas and latillas
  
• Outdoor living areas (probably different ones depending on season/time of day)
  
• Hacienda courtyard feel
  
• Hacienda and/or pueblo styles
  

Brian liked our site and didn't have any concerns with building there.  He seems excited about the project and creating a passive solar strawbale home that fits into the site (rather than forcing the site to fit the house design) and creating a home that celebrates the beauty of its location.

We have received three preliminary floor plans from him.  The third stemmed from some comments and suggestions we made on the first two.  We both really like the third plan (the other two were also good, but needed tweaking).  The house will be passive solar in design and will face south.  That will be where the great room is.  We asked for a two bedroom/one bath design that splits the bedrooms.  He was able to meet pretty much all we were hoping for and give a view through the house from north to south, which will really make the house feel a part of the outdoors.

Brian visited the site once on his own already, to look at the land and the slight slope and look at the larger trees to see how a house might fit in there.  We very much appreciate his thoughtfulness in fitting the house to the building site and maintaining the site's beauty.