Here are the items to look for in a home.
Aesthetic is the curb appeal of a home. Architectural elevation should be accurate to the style. Most trophy properties command higher prices if the houses display high degree of pedigree.
Roofs should be simple. Complicated roofs with valleys and water diverter pans (crickets) are most likely to leak. Water should flow down the roof to the rain gutter in a straight line. If flow turns direction then water can potentially splash and make its way in below the roof tiles and damage the water proofing membrane and thus cause dry rot, mold, and leaks.
Entry Foyer should be well defined with hard flooring. It should be appropriately sized for the home and not wasteful in circulation. A poor location for a front door is when the door swing right into the living room and a 3?x3? tiled area is notched out from the carpet. Many builders hide this flaw in design by doing a hardwood floor or tile floor through out the lower level. The front door must not align with the bottom of the stairs or the back door or any French doors.
Privacy is essential for a home. The ideal home should be detached with windows on all 4 exterior walls. End unit of a duplex or attached town house complex is acceptable. Sandwiched units and stacked flats are not good due to noise transmission and water leakage that causes mold. They are very trouble some after 13 years and any reduced value ratio is just not worth the trouble in the future.
Bedroom is the most important and we spend 1/3 of our lives there. Secondary bedroom size should be 9% and Master Bedroom 12% of the overall footage of the home. Secondary bedroom should never be smaller than 11?x12? and master bedroom 12?x14?. Any bedroom less than 11? is just bad design.
Ventilation is crucial for comfort in hot Southern California weather. There must be at least 2 windows in every room and the distance between the windows should be more than ? the diagonal distance of the room for best ventilation and light distribution.
Furnishing is extremely prudent for livability. Every bedroom should fit a full size bed and bed wall must be against a solid wall and it is ok to have windows behind the night stands but not over the bed. A dresser must be at the foot of the bed so husband and wife can use it without stepping into each others side zone and not acceptable at the side of the bed. Never furnish the side of a bed against the wall like a prison.
Door into the bedroom must be located at the left foot or right foot of the bed but never at the middle foot of the bed, side of the bed or behind the headboard. Master bath door should not interfere with night stand nor interfere partners side of the bed. Toilet must not be seen from anywhere of the bedroom.
Living room must be able to furnish an ?L? grouping against walls and window walls and a flat screen TV perpendicular to one of the sofas. Never float a sofa where you can see the back of the sofa. Never buy a house with a 24? TV niche. Never buy a house with an angle wall. It is hard to furnish and people run into the furniture corners often.
Circulation such as stairs and hallway should not exceed 8% of the entire house footage.
Every detached house must have a private yard off the active rooms such as the family, dining or living room. Never accept the entry front yard as the only yard. Town homes must also have a yard, patio or deck off the active rooms. Never accept the only primary deck off the bedroom.
Storage is paramount for our lives. Master closet must be 1% of the entire house footage. For example for a 1,600 sf house the lineal foot in the closet should be 16 lineal feet of poles. The amount of upper cabinet in a kitchen must be a minimum of 13 lineal feet.
Several return air grilles spaced through out the house are the best. This eliminates stagnant hot air. California Pacific Homes?s recent detached condos have an extra return air in the master bedroom to help get rid of the hot air when the door is closed for privacy. Most builders are still using just one return air grille and this is why there are too many hot spots in the house like the upstairs.
Solar orientation is important. Never buy a house with too many windows facing west. The heat gain is the hottest and more direct. The late afternoon heat gain would not allow sufficient time for cooling off before bedtime. In addition, hot air also rises to the upper bedroom level and air stay trapped if there is no positive cross ventilation.
Many years ago there were some homes in Turtle Rocks designed in the 70?s. Fatal accident and bodily injuries were because of the backdoor and stair alignment with the front door.
I remembered one of the condo units with the sofa furnished between front door and the back door. An infant was sleeping on the sofa and there were some decorative objects on a knick knack shelf above the sofa. The back door was opened for ventilation during the evening. Dad came home from work and opened the front door and a draft created enough wind pressure to knock the decorative items off the shelf and smashed the head of the sleeping infant. The infant did not survive. He would have been 29 years old this year.
Door alignment often slammed door when one door is already in an opened position while the other is opened thus creating a draft strong enough to slam a door. The unfortunate timing was the little child running his matchbox car along the baseboard and up the door and along the hinge jamb of the door. This incident sent many children to the hospital for crushed finger bones.
In older homes the stairs were designed in dark stairwell. Stairs were often a straight run. Many old people fell and tripped over risers when the front door suddenly opened sending in the bright exterior light blinded the eyes of the older folks. This happened a lot in a theatre when going from a bright space to a completely dark space or vise versa everyone needs time to adjust before one can see clearly.
Chinese Feng Shui philosophy does not explained the scientific logic and illustrate the bad accidents occurred. So as this idea passes down the many generations most perceived the theory as superstition.
I hope this will help you to better understand our environment as many forces such as wind and heat including unhealthy electronic magnetic field are not seen by the naked eyes but could do a lot of damage to our health.
Floor plans and its site location are extremely important for safety, good health, and good mental spirit and energy to live longer and be more successful in career.
