Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common house design, rooms, and room sizes?

[kristina muten (kmuten]

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 4, 2015, at 4:35 AM, Douglas McCarroll <list.cohousing-l.001 [at] 
> brightworks.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> We (http://villagehillcohousing.org) are in the process of refining our
> common house design, trying to find the right balance between usability and
> affordability. On the one hand we'd like to have a common house that meets
> all of our community's needs. On the other hand we need to conserve
> expenses wherever we can in order to make our community affordable to a
> diverse group of people.
> 
> Your input would be helpful on the questions below. This is a rather long
> list. Please don't feel that you need to answer all these questions -
> instead we suggest that you use your judgment as to which to answer, taking
> into account a) how much time you have available, and b) what info you
> think might be most helpful to our group and other groups who are in the
> process of planning a common house.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Your friends at the currently a'bornin' Village Hill Cohousing  :)
> 
> 
> How many households do you have in your community?
> 16
> 
> Does your common house have a dedicated "kids room" for younger children? We 
> did but as kids grew up changed to exercise room
> 
> If so, how large is it? Roughly 14x18 (guessing)
> 
> Do you wish it was larger? Feel it could have been smaller? Is it just
> about right? It was good. We put a window between it am the kitchen so cooks 
> could check on kids
> 
> What works well (or not) to make this room attractive to kids? We had a big 
> play/fantasy castle they loved!
> 
> Other comments? We have been here 17 years and no one ever leaves so kids 
> have grown up
> 
> 
> Does your common house have a "noisy activities" room (for ping pong or
> similar activities)? Yes
> 
> If so, how large is it? Maybe 12 x 15
> 
> Do you wish it was larger? Feel it could have been smaller? Is it just
> about right? Too small for anything but pool and ping pong as table nearly 
> fills room
> 
> What is it used for? Pool and ping pong
> 
> How much is it used? Quite a bit
> 
> Other comment
> 
> Does your common house have a dedicated "teens room", or a room where teens
> tend to congregate? No
> 
> Is this the "noisy activities" room? (If so, you can skip the next four
> questions.)
> 
> If so, how large is it?
> 
> Do you wish it was larger? Feel it could have been smaller? Is it just
> about right?
> 
> What is it used for?
> 
> How much is it used?
> 
> What works well (or not) to make this room attractive to teens?
> 
> Other comments?
> 
> 
> Does your common house have one or more guest rooms? We did but changed it to 
> crafts and storage
> 
> If so, how many, and how large are they?
> 1 bedroom size
> Do you wish you had more guest rooms? Feel that you could have made do with
> fewer? We changed because there was no dedicated bathroom We also have big 
> enough houses that many of us don't need the CH guest room but we do use an 
> RV on site for guests
> 
> Do you wish that it/they were larger? Feel that they could have been
> smaller? Are they just about right?
> Need dedicated bathroom
> How often are guest rooms used? If your registration log exists in some
> easy-to-access electronic form, might you be willing to share it? (My email
> is douglascoho <at> brightworks.com.) If not, a rough "percentage of nights
> occupied" figure would be helpful.
> 
> Other comments?
> 
> 
> Does your common house have a "living room", i.e. a quiet room with couches
> etc. suitable for small groups?
> Yes
> If so, how large is it? Not big enough maybe 10 x 18? It has three couched a 
> coffee table a chair and a big screen tv

> 
> Do you wish it was larger? Feel it could have been smaller? Is it just
> about right?
> Yes bigger
> Other comments?
> This is the single thing we regret the most. We use this room for meetings TV 
> hanging out. We also wish we had included a gas fireplace


> 
> Does your common house have an exercise room (with a treadmill etc.)? Yes
> 
> If so, how large is it? Same as kids room
> 
> Do you wish it was larger? Feel it could have been smaller? Is it just
> about right? Good size though a bit more open space would be nice
> 
> Other comments? We use his room a lot!
> 
> 
> Finally, do you have any thoughts that you'd like to offer regarding what
> changes you might make to your common house if you were able to go back and
> redesign it? We would have a better connection with outdoors with a wrap 
> Around deck
We have a huge dining room probably bigger than we need and a wonderful big 
industrial kitchen.
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