I've just had the first draft of my new house from the architect, and I hate it.

[TimTamTerrier]

I dislike it so much that I don't even know where to start fixing it. Please tell me this is normal for a first draft and there's no need to panic.

[whoopitywhoopitywhoop]

What do you hate? Style? Layout? How fixed was your brief to them? Have they actually hit the points but as a whole it doesn't work? Or have the just ignored what you told them? Have they talked you through it? Whether it is easily fixable depends on what and why there are problems!

[TimTamTerrier]

Well, some of it is stuff that I asked for but it doesn't work in the location that it's been put in. Some of what I asked for is completely missing, for instance I asked for two master bedrooms and three other bedrooms and I've got one master and four others. I asked for an upstairs laundry room big enough to sort all the laundry and do ironing in, and I've got a cupboard off the upstairs landing big enough to have a washing machine and dryer side by side. The biggest problem is that I asked for fairly open-plan and an easy flow and I've got tons of little passageways, honestly about 20% of my floor space is lost to passageways. My kitchen isn't a kitchen diner, there is an awkwardly placed separate dining area, and the door placement means that everyone will walk right across the middle of the kitchen to get to the family room, which is accessed through the awkwardly placed dining room instead of being open-plan to the kitchen diner.

I think he's got the styling right, but that's no good if I can't move from A to B without navigating several doorways and squeezing past my family in corridors.

I told him that H and I don't like each other very much, yet he still gave us one master bedroom (which H would have to get or he would bitch about it until I had to stab him). I told him that I'm part vampire and don't like direct sunlight, but he's taken little chunks out of the smooth flow of the house to create outside sun-traps that will never get used. I know they won't get used because we have a sun trap at the back of our current house and we never eat dinner outside on nice days because there's no shade there.

I asked for a 'back door' beside the front door that goes into a big mud room for when the DC come back from sports. It has to be big to store all their sports equipment and all the family's shoes and coats. Instead he's given me a tiny mud room, slightly bigger than a downstairs loo and the DC have to walk in the front door and across the hall to get to it, shedding mud from their boots as they go.

[PetraDelphiki]

Sounds like you need a new architect

[Flumpsnlumpsnstuff]

I would be asking him if he's given you the correct design ?

[EssentialHummus]

If you haven't given up on the architect, then detailed fredback (like your post) is needed.

[EssentialHummus]

Feedback. No idea who Fred is.

[GeillisTheWitch]

Sounds like you need a new architect

And a new husband.

[prettywhiteguitar]

Sounds like they are just a crap architect, can you point out all that in an email and request reasons for the ignoring of your requests ?

[prettywhiteguitar]

Have you paid them ?

[TimTamTerrier]

He designed my DB's house (which I love). I've just emailed my DB to tell him that I hate the design of mine and he said that's completely normal. So I feel a bit better and will take a massive red pen and move everything around and not feel at all bad about it.

I think I might be over-reacting slightly because we are building two houses (because the plot that we bought is very big). We will build the small house first, move into it and sell our current house and then build the dream house. He sent me the plan for the small house last week and it was perfect, I only needed to slightly change the boundary wall and move one window, so I was probably being unrealistic about getting the dream house right on the first draft.

[QuackDuckQuack]

Could you sketch out what you are after and show this to the architect?

[Iamcheeseman]

I was at the fact you are able to do in real life what I do on sims (build a house exactly how I want it)
But then at you not liking your husband! Why build a new house with him?
Missing the point completely I'm sure.

But yes- new architect. As it happens i can design you a house on sims exactly like you want and I'll do it for free

[TheWildRumpyPumpus]

If you and your husband dislike each other that much why spend all this money on a new house?

On the architect front, is he the only one you have approached?

[Faries]

We re did the first draft that the architect sent us, I think in total there were 4 drafts before we got what we wanted. That element is normal. We are actually going on draft 6 as planning didn't like the one we submitted.

[Goingtobeawesome]

It's obvious. You need a new architect and a divorce .

[RandomMess]

Why not build 2 more equal size homes and live next to each other if the marriage is that bad???

Lots of red pen and point out to him he's not read the brief properly!

[Footle]

Draw a diagram of the husband as he is currently. Take red pen and put in essential improvements. Take a blue pen and mark the bits that work for you as they are. If there's more red, take appropriate steps.

[TimTamTerrier]

The husband thing is complicated, and not relevant really to the house issue except in the sense that when we move I will have a proper bedroom and my own bathroom instead of the box room that I currently have.

[TimTamTerrier]

Footle

[MadisonAvenue]

Maybe he thought you were joking about your husband, hence just the one master bedroom? Seems a bit strange to go to the trouble of building a house to live in with someone you don't like.

[TimTamTerrier]

Well, I don't hate him anymore, we had months and months of relationship counselling because he is desperate not to get divorced and he is vastly improved. But even if I find someone else who turns out to be the love of my life (not likely tbh) I will never share a bedroom again, it's so blissful having a room all to myself, even the tiny one that I currently have. But, this is not a relationship thread, I've had relationship threads in the past when we were in crisis but we are now, if not exactly happy, in an acceptably tolerable relationship.

[dynevoran]

Side stepping the obvious intrigue at your situation which is totally none of my business... I would say that the first draft for us really didn't work. And the second and third were almost exactly perfect after a long discussion about what didn't work. That said it wasn't a house from scratch and wasn't as many issues. I'd give the architect a chance to make changes and see how that works. Good luck!

[Oblomov16]

Go back and politely subtly tell him the truth.
Tell him the first house, the smaller one was perfect. He totally got you.
But this isn't at all. He hadn't 'caught' what you wanted at all and unfortunately you really hate it, all.

[QuackDuckQuack]

Having 2 bedrooms ensuite is fairly normal in new build 5 beds now, albeit with a larger master and the second being a guest room. Having lots of hallways is odd.

[another20]

Any chance that it is short on square footage for you list of requirements? or is it that the layout is inefficient? Can you get standard floor plans and layouts off the internet to show him - I have copied the layout of new builds that I like on RightMove....