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Which one is better - Condo choices
Topic Started: Nov 16 2008, 08:40 AM (730 Views)
George K
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Finally
Mrs. George and I are contemplating moving. The house that we've owned since 1984 is becoming too large (5 bedrooms, half an acre of land), and the thought of pouring a ton of money into it (it was built in 1911) for "upgrades" is not particularly appealing. Also, I'm sick of maintenance, etc.

About 3 blocks from where we live, a developer has put up some condos, and we're seriously considering one. We'd need 3 bedrooms, and here are two that we're considering.

Which works better? Price is similar.

Unit A
Posted Image

Unit B
Posted Image

Piano placement is important, obviously, and we would bring the dining room table that I built, as well as a china. The "bar" is optional, as the "A" unit is still bare walls, no doors, etc. The "B" unit is fairly complete (including a bar), but the developer is open to hopen change. We don't need a kitchen table - eating at a counter is fine for the two of us.

I have other thoughts, but I'd like to hear which unit works better, from a daily living viewpoint.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
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dolmansaxlil
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HOLY CARP!!!
Having lived in an apartment in a round building, I'd be wary of unit two. Obviously, it's hard to tell from just a floorplan and not actually being in the space, but it seems to have a lot of weird angles and nooks and crannies that may make it awkward for furniture placement - especially since I assume you'll be trying to make the stuff you have fit into the new space. The two bedrooms in B look especially aggravating. I also like the more open feel of the living/dining area of A, and I think it would be more suited to your piano.

But what do I know? I live in a very tiny apartment!
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Both are really problematic George, and both waste a lot of space. You are paying for space, and it should be efficient as well as well related. Strange shaped rooms cost a lot of money in added I like the separation of the bedrooms from the living space.

A: With a piano like yours a huge open room sounds good but the piano will dominate the whole apt.

The path from the front door to the kitchen for groceries is not good -- it should be more direct.

large foyer seems like a waste of space

the bedrooms opening off the main area is not optimal (though the private baths are better if that is the case)

I'd get rid of the bar -- unless you are going to stand around in your smoker pouring martinis. Its pretty intrusive

The master suite is very nice, and all the bedrooms look easy to furnish

The redundancy of the dining / breakfast does not make sense.

B: Great and interesting living room -- this is better for the piano.

large foyer is a waste of space.

Master suite is good with lots of closet

Breakfast area is odd shaped and a pass thru space, which makes it difficult (A table is always in the way)

Meager kitchen for such a large condo -- I would look at reworking the walk in closet at Bed 2 and capturing more space from there to fix that and get the breakfast and kitchen working as a country kitchen.

The wall between the living room and bed 3 should probably have special acoustic treatment (double staggered studs with sound batt, and doubled sheet rock both sides). circulation and limiting furnishing options.

Bedroom 2 is unfurnishable for anything but twin beds. Very bad planning. I would change the wall from the first dog leg left of the door to go at an angle to the window, capturing some unusable space from Bed 3 into Bed 2

Bed 3 closet is bad planning. maybe making the wall between Bed 3 and the living room into a long closet would solve a couple of issues at once.



There is a technical architectural term "SLOIP" -- "space left over in planning" that this plan is guilty of. But it can be remediated if you are willing to move some walls.

Plan A you might be able to rework the Foyer/Kitchen/Powder/Breakfast/Laundry to solve some issues (not as serious as plan B but a lot more expensive to rework utilities and appliances and kitchen cabinets) and make it more livable. If Mrs K is willing to be in the master bed while you play piano this could be a workable plan.

Overall, I'd go with plan B if you are willing to move some walls it could be a lot more livable.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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dolmansaxlil
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HOLY CARP!!!
See! Told you I didn't know what I was talking about! ;)
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
If you're a "rushy" type of person, one who "rushes" in to/out of the door a lot, "rush" to your room, "rush" to work, etc., Unit B can logistically accommodate that better.

But if you're a more "relaxed" type of person, Unit A would probably give a stronger sense of privacy. Longer walk between entrance/foyer to the bed rooms provides for a larger mindset transition buffer between "home" and "the outside world." (Besides, surely you can appreciate the somewhat romantic notion of playing a piano right besides a bar. ;) )
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George K
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Finally
Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

IT, let me bounce a couple of ideas off you, and address some of the points:

First of all, those dotted lines represent a raised ceiling. Nothing structural on the floor.

Unit A (which I prefer):

I see your point about kitchen away from entry. The foyer is not all that big, and allows for placement of a mail dump coat dump side table for all of those "drop and run" items.

Bedrooms off the living area. True, but, one will be an office/den, and the other will be a sewing room for Shirley. Both will be able to accomodate a guest via a Murphy bed (I found one with bookcases that slide open).

No bar....ever.

I agree with the redundancy of dining/kitchen. However, the kitchen is just roughed in, and we'd put a sitting area as part of the counter for our casual meals, saving the dining area for more "formal" occasions.

The large utility/laundry area is a nice spot as well. It's big enough for another refrigerator or freezer, and with a stacked washer/dryer, still has a ton of storage left over for shelving, etc.

I don't see the need for moving walls in this one.


Unit B:

I don't like the idea of a long walk into the place with the kitchen to one side, dumping right into the dining room.

The isolated master suite is nice, albeit a bit small.

The owners of the unit above the one we looked at put a fireplace where the bar is, and a nice sitting area. The living room opens into bedroom #3 via sliding doors. #3 becomes the office. The walk in closet of #2 becomes a hallway into the kitchen, and the hall is walk in closet for #2.

Utility area is very small.

My problem is with large spaces like unit A has. We struggled with our current living room (16 x 25) until the piano made a natural division in the room.

I would love to see more storage in either place.

Whaddya think?
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
If I had to choose between the two I'd choose the first one. I'd ditch the bar, add the fireplace, and put a door in the end of the walk in closet in the master bedroom so that laundry could be simply walked from the bedroom/bathroom into the laundry room instead of having to carry it in a big circle through the breakfast room, dining room, foyer, then into the utility room.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Hmmm....

I'd also move the powder room and closet as you come in, putting them up against the wall where the door into the living room is now, and redo things so that the foyer flowed into the breakfast room/kitchen area, making the living/dining/breakfast area more of one big "room".

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
ACK....

I'd also eliminate one of the bathrooms in the second/third bedrooms and have a shared bathroom for those rooms, since they will only be guest rooms anyway. That buys you a lot more space in the bedrooms.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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blondie
Bull-Carp
Neither. Find or build something else.

IT described it best.

IMO, you're at a stage in your life where you can't waste space. You need to incorporate what you love & own. You need storage. You need a decent kitchen and laundry area.
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George K
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Finally
FYI, the drawing on unit A is not quite accurate. There's a third window on the left hand wall, at the bottom, where the fireplace is located. The fireplace can go anywhere on that wall (zero emission).

One thing that Mrs. K suggested is adding a small room in the lower left hand part of unit A. Something around 10 x 12, as a little "sitting area." I'm not sure on that one.

I like the idea of the laundry, Larry. It may be too late to eliminate a bath from either 2 or 3, however.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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plays88keys
Pisa-Carp
I agree with IT about the second one. I love the living room space, and reworking some walls could make the other areas more user-friendly. Also, I'm not wild about the idea of such a big rectangle for a master as shown in the first plan. It reminds me of a hotel room! Have you ever tried to place furniture in a long rectangle? It's a freakin' nightmare. (my living room is 25 x 13 so I know what I'm talking about) The more squarish master would be so much easier and comfortable.
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
I like the second one better because of the two walk-in closets. If there's only one walk-in closet, George, where will your stuff go? You'll be lucky to get a drawer.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Make that FOUR walk-in closets, as compared to one in the first. Unless I'm misreading the drawings.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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George K
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Finally
You're right about closets. However, plans are, to some extent, flexible, and we may be able to add storage to the spare bedrooms, or even in the master.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
blondie
Nov 16 2008, 10:22 AM
Neither. Find or build something else.

IT described it best.

IMO, you're at a stage in your life where you can't waste space. You need to incorporate what you love & own. You need storage. You need a decent kitchen and laundry area.
:yes:
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Without getting into microcritique, I prefer A over B. Option B, as already pointed out, has lots of wasted space and oddities. Also, while I'll bet it's really dramatic to be standing in, the Living Room in B would seem really problematic for furniture placement - especially if the optional fireplace occupied the only length of solid wall space. Odd-shaped bedrooms, too. Overall, I'm just not all that impressed with B.

On the other hand, the circulation in the Master Bath in A is awkward - it's one thing for a door to swing open & block a sink in a bathroom assumed to be for a single user (you're either standing in front of the sink, or using the door, not both at once), but for the door to swing in front of a sink that may already be occupied, as in the master bath, is another problem (our master bath has this exact same problem, so maybe I'm overly sensitive to it). Plus, the access into the WIC is difficult if the adjacent sink is in use.

I'm not all that keen on the symbolism of the prominence of the bar in either plan - especially in Plan B, where it's placed deliberately at the end of the long view from the entry, and made the spiritual "hearth" of the home. Of course, if you didn't want the bar, both locations would be great places to showcase a piano.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

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"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Copper
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Shortstop

What will the neighbors think about the piano?
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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George K
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Finally
Don't know. The place is built with quiet in mind. There's 10" of concrete between each floor, and between each unit's walls. In addition to that, the contractor put extra sound insulation. Each unit has 4 layers of drywall between it and the adjacent one. My current home is about 4 blocks from the train station, this condo (in the same town) is about a block and a half away. Yesterday, I couldn't even hear the train when it went by, but I hear them from my house.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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brenda
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..............
My daughter is playing one of her "plaster crackers" right now. She loves to be loud!
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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apple
one of the angels
are either handicapped accessible?

can a wheel chair fit into a bathroom or fit thru doors?

(i kind of like the 2nd for the flow)

is there only one out-door in each?
it behooves me to behold
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George K
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Finally
Each is accessible via elevator (big enough to hold a 6 foot piano - I measured). The doors are standard width, I assume, but are 7'2" tall, rather than the usual 6'8". Yeah, there's only one way in/out.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Plan A: How high are the walls and ceiling?

How much has been built out -- walls to sheetrock, no appliances or cabinets?

Are those ceiling coffers shown dashed in?

Are you willing to lose the powder room?

Do you want pantry space?

Do you really want to go through the bath to get to the closets?

Do you want baths to have natural light?

BTW, is this a new building or a remodel/adaptive reuse?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Oooh.. would you be on a train line that goes direct into town? THAT would be great.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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George K
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Finally
I believe walls and ceilings are 8 foot.

There's nothing there except walls and sheetrock. Roughed out plumbing in kitchen.

I assume a ceiling "coffer" is like a raised part of the ceiling. That's what the dashed lines are.

Powder room has been roughed in. I'd like to keep it. What do you have in mind?

Pantry space would be nice, but it's just the 2 of us.

I agree about the closets, kinda strange at first, but not a deal-breaker for me or the wife.

Natural light is not critical in the baths.

Brand new building.

Mick: Yes. A block and a half from the train into Chicago.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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