A Guide to House Plans With a View

If you have a property in a location with plenty of views, you likely want to build a house that can accommodate the natural beauty. Any of these panoramic view house plans could be vacation homes or a place where you live all year long. At Family Home Plans, we’ve designed hundreds of home plans with a view. Use this guide to explore our inventory of view lot house plans to help you get started.

Standard Features of Houses With a View

Front view house plans are the symbol of luxurious beauty. When designing your house, make sure it has the following characteristics.

1. Floor-to-Ceiling Windows

To take advantage of the views around your property, design your home with large windows. Houses with big windows come in a variety of shapes that can complement your unique design aesthetic. The abundance of natural light will make your house with lots of windows look more spacious, and you’ll be able to enjoy the view from anywhere on your property. To give yourself privacy, you may want to position the house so the majority of the windows are at the back of the house.

2. Open Floor Plan

The fluidity of an open floor plan allows you to establish clear sightlines for your space. Removing the walls separating each part of your living space provides a view of your backyard throughout the whole house. Highlight the scenery around your property with a great room as the focal point. You could use a great room with a vaulted ceiling to highlight the view around you.

3. Eco-Friendly Materials and Appliances

Energy-efficient appliances can reduce your energy bills, but they also use fewer natural resources and produce fewer carbon emissions that could deplete the ozone layer. Make sure you design your home with eco-friendly materials, such as hardwood floors and natural stone exterior siding, to complement the aesthetic of your new property. You could also decorate your home with earthy tones in the mountains or coastal blues and sand tones by the beach.

4. Patio or Porch

A patio in your backyard can help enhance house plans with a view to the rear. Besides lawn furniture, you could also dress up your patio with functional decorations, such as a wet bar or an outdoor fire pit. You could also install sliding glass doors to provide easy access to the backyard.

For house plans with a view to the front, add a porch to your property. Get a couple of porch chairs and create a welcoming environment for your home. If you have a house with a panoramic view, you could also create a wraparound porch.

5. Walkout Basement

If your property is on a slope, you could maximize your space and create another safe exit and entrance point. A walkout basement provides an additional floor for entertainment. It can also serve as a place for out-of-town guests to spend a weekend. Our house plans for view lots can work with unevenly sloped properties so that your walkout basement has the proper footing.

Typical Locations of House Plans With Lots of Windows

The features you choose for your house with a view depends on where your property is. Each of these view lot homes would benefit from a wraparound porch or large picture windows for a panoramic view of the house.

1. Lake Houses

For a slower pace of life, explore lake house plans with a rear view. Design your lake house with these features in mind:

• Comfortable furniture: Depending on the time of year, the air around the lake can get cold. After a long day of playing outside, you and your family can relax with blankets on your soft sofa.
• Earthy tones: To fit in with the natural beauty that comes with a house by the lake, consider a neutral palette with green and orange hints.
• Large open great room: A spacious room for the whole family to gather is the symbol of luxury for lake house plans with lots of windows.
• Fireplace: A lake house needs a cozy feature to create a focal point for the game room and warm up your home retreat.

2. Beach Houses

Most houses by the water tend to be small cottages or bungalows, but you could also design them to be spacious seaside estates. Here are some of the characteristics of a beach house plan:

• Raised foundations: If your home is near the water, you should protect it from flooding from waves or a hurricane by putting the foundation on stilts.
• Coastal tones: To complement the sand and water around you, decorate your home with white, tan and blue colors inside and outside the house.
• Open concept: The coastal sea breeze is pleasant as it flows through your house, and an open concept house provides natural airflow throughout your living space.
• Weather protection: In addition to a raised foundation, you should also use moisture-resistant cushions and wicker furniture to guard the decor against storms and excess humidity.

3. Mountain Houses

Houses in the mountains feature a breathtaking view of the expansive terrain and wildlife. Here are some of the characteristics of a home by the mountains:

• Earthy tones: Design your living space with a neutral color palette to blend in with the dark greens and browns that make your property unique.
• Vaulted ceilings: Create a great room by raising the height of the first floor to take in the tall mountains in your backyard.
• Local materials: With plenty of stone and wood around you, try to buy your resources locally to establish a sustainable environment.
• Low-maintenance landscape: Invest in a low-maintenance landscape so that you can hike or swim instead of taking care of the garden.

4. Country Houses

A house in the country could give you the view of beautiful fields or decorative vineyards in your rural community. Include these elements in your country house layout:

• Casual eating area: The kitchen is the focal point of the home, and it gives your guests a place to hang out and talk while you’re cooking.
• Formal dining room: Decorate your formal dining room with wood furniture and comfortable seating so you can invite the whole family over for the holidays.
• Simple floor plan: Country houses often feature a straightforward design and layout to provide a natural flow to the house.

How to Find the Right House Plan for a View

Family Home Plans has an easy-to-use search engine that will help you find your dream home. Browse through modern house plans with large windows to find a house that can accommodate you and your family. Our search engine includes the following filters to help narrow down the thousands of options we have:

• Square feet: Choose a house plan that can fit within your plot of land. Some of our floor layouts are larger than 18,000 square feet, and others are smaller than 400 square feet. No matter how much property you have, our house plans with big windows will allow you to enjoy your view.
• Bedrooms: Consider how many people you have in your family and how many guests you want to be able to host in your house with big windows. You could have a home with only one bedroom if you have a small family, or up to seven bedrooms if you want all your extended relatives at the dinner table.
• Stories: Think about the terrain around you and whether or not you like climbing stairs. We offer one-story, two-story and three-story houses that each give a breathtaking view of your location. You could also build a split level or split foyer house if your property is on a sloped hill.
• Garage bays: Along with our house plans, we also offer a one-car, two-car or three-car garage. If you don’t have a car or prefer to park it in the driveway, you could get a home plan without a garage.
• House style: Our website has more than 30 architectural styles to complement our house plans with window walls. View the drawings and photos of each floor plan we offer to determine how they would look against the landscape of your plot of land.
• Foundation type: For your house with a lot of windows, you need a sturdy foundation to withstand the elements. Depending on your area’s soil type and weather conditions, you could choose a concrete slab, a small crawlspace, a standard basement, a walkout basement, or a post foundation.
• Exterior wall type: You also need durable exterior walls to prevent your house from blowing over in harsh winds or floods. Our floor plans come with outer walls made from 2×4 lumber, 2×6 lumber, concrete or ICF.
• Garage type: An attached garage will be part of the house for easy installation, while a detached garage gives you the flexibility of placing it wherever you want. You could also get a carport or a drive under garage to protect your car from the elements.

3 Examples of View House Plans

Here are some of our house plans with a view that we offer on our website.

1. Big Traditional Style House Plan

This house with large windows measures 2,435 square feet over two stories. It features three bedrooms, two full baths, a half bath and a two-car garage. You would have plenty of outdoor living space with a wraparound porch off the kitchen and the dining room and a rear porch off the master bedroom and the living room.

The master suite is on the first floor, with the other two bedrooms on the other side of the house, and there’s an optional bonus room on the second floor. The living room with a 10-foot-high ceiling is in the center of the house, providing a prominent focal point.

2. Narrow Lot Style House Plan

This narrow house with big windows includes three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. It measures 2,060 square feet over two floors, and it’s small enough to fit in a narrow lot or on a slope. The deck wraps around the entire house, from the left side off the kitchen to the back behind the two bedrooms, where it converts to a vaulted covered porch.

The master suite is on the upper level, with a gorgeous view that opens to the great room below the loft. With big windows, the home allows you to catch a glimpse of your scenic property from any part of the house. A vaulted great room with a ceiling that extends to the second level gives this house an air of elegance and beauty.

3. Small Traditional Style House Plan

This modest house for a view is only 1,500 square feet, and it comes with two bedrooms and two full bathrooms. While it’s a one-story house, it comes with a basement that you could finish to add another level to your living space. The front of the home features a vaulted porch, and the back has an open deck, a screened porch and a covered deck, each providing a different meeting place depending on the weather for the day.

The master suite has direct access to the screened porch, and the tub in the master bathroom overlooks the view from the front of the house, giving you a panoramic view of your property. To enhance the luxurious appearance of this one-story home, the great room, kitchen and breakfast nook feature vaulted ceilings.

FAQ of House Plans With a View

If you have a property with a view and are still not sure what to get, here are some answers to the questions you may have.

1. Are Floor-to-Ceiling Windows Safe?

Floor-to-ceiling windows are safe when properly installed and appropriately treated. These large windows contain sturdy glass panels that can be pre-treated to increase their resistance to weather and impact damage. Talk to your builder about safe frame material, a sturdy locking system, glazing for extra protection and safety rails on upper levels.

2. What Are the Best Types of Windows for a House?

Builders install the following types of windows in residential homes:

• Bay window: A bay window features a picture window with a casement window on either side.
• Casement window: A casement window opens outward using a crank.
• Fixed window: A fixed window doesn’t open, but it makes the room feel spacious and lets in plenty of natural light.
• Picture window: A picture window also doesn’t open, but it gives you a full view of your yard.
• Single or double-hung window: A single or double-hung window opens up and down to provide fresh air into a space with high humidity, such as a kitchen or a bathroom.
• Sliding window: A horizontal sliding window glides along a track and lets in the fresh air.

3. How Often Do Windows Need to Be Replaced?

The average lifespan of a window is between two and three decades, so you won’t need to replace them in your new construction house for a while. Follow these signs for when to change out the windows in your home:

• Drafts: If you feel drafts throughout your house, that means the seal around your windows has deteriorated.
• Broken frames: If the wood or vinyl frames around your windows have broken or have rot around them, insects and water damage can get into your house.
• Foggy glass: Condensation between the windows means that they have lost their energy-efficiency.
• High energy bills: Another sign that your windows have lost their energy-efficiency is if your utility costs are higher than usual.
• Poor operation: You may need to replace your windows if they stick or don’t open, and there’s no debris along the track.

Search House Plans With Lots of Windows

At Family Home Plans, we offer a wide variety of custom-designed house plans for view lots. We’ll work with you to customize your home if you can’t find a floor plan that matches your exact specifications. Browse through our front or rear view house plans with our easy-to-use search engine. For more information about our house plans with a view, you can call us at 800-482-0464.