ugh. What is the longest hallway span? If it's only 4-5' long that would probably be ok, but if it's much longer it will seem pretty small, especially coming in from the garage. Our garage hallway is 15' long and 52" wide.

Our hallways are 3 feet, and they're fine.
I wouldn't go narrower, and I go wider if possible.
But 3 has been fine.

If you ever have a physically challenged family member or visitor, then the 3 foot wide hallway will be too narrow.

In our house we have a 3 and 1/2 foot wide hallway and our daughter who uses a walkter cannot turn around in it.

And, with getting older, it might just be us who ends up using the walkter a few years down the road.

The wider the better.

Dan

Definitely go for the additional 3". You'll be glad you did.

Anne

Add the extra 3 inches...we have a very long hallway on our second floor and we are going with 4 foot and 2 inches...the shorter the hallway, the more you can go narow. but believe me, 3'3" will make a big diff over 3'0".

The longest span on one side with no opening is 8 feet. However, there is a powder room door on the other side. There is also a French door at the end of the hall so there will be plenty of light.

It is not the only way into or around the house, so I don't think anyone with physical limitations will have a problem. I was thinking more about carrying large items. Can't count how many times I've banged my knuckles and wrists in a narrow spot. Still, anything really large will come into the house another way. And anyone with physical limitations would probably need a different bathroom anyway.

I did manage to get that extra 3 inches which I will lose on the kitchen side, but in this case I think I need it in the hallway more. I will now have 45 inches between my cooktop and my island rather than the 48 inches. I've been reading on the kitchen forum that sometimes 48 is too large a distance when carrying hot stuff so I feel pretty comfortable with the change.

Thanks a bunch.

Glad you got the 3" in!

I have 42" between my cooktop and island, and it's fine. It, of course, depends on what's where in the kitchen and what's on the island. My cabinets are in an L, with an island that has just a countertop and no appliances or sinks, and the traffic pattern is not through the 42" space.

Anne

3'-0" is the minimum corridor width allowed by every building code I have used. The narrowest corridor I have ever designed was 3'-6".

The dimension of a kitchen passage is most critical at a range where someone will have to back up and bend over to open the oven and take something out. 3'-6" is the minimum and usually a few more inches is helpful at the range.

Yes, 3'-0" is too narrow. If you can add 3" that is almost 10% wider -- you will notice the difference.

Mightyanvil, this is a remodel, but I post here because the remodeling forum isn't very active. When we added our addition, we made sure the hallway was 4 feet wide.

Anne, I like to look at model homes for ideas and I am amazed at the way some of them are designed. In one particular kitchen, the range and sink/dishwasher (which was on the island) were back to back with only 3 feet in between. They are mostly tract homes, but some around here are still over a million dollars. I think I'll be happy with the 45.

It looks like I'll actually get an extra 4 inches. I realized that my walls were too thick in my design program. Can someone tell me the exact dimensions of a 2x4 wall after drywall?

Depends on the thickness of the drywall + whether actual or nominal stud width. i.e. true 4" studs with 5/8" thick drywall on either side = 5 1/4", but nominal will bring the total down, and using 3/4" or 1" drywall will bring the total up. Also add up if you are going to plaster over the drywall. The finished width may also depend on your carpenter -- I know one guy who sets interior wall 2x4 studs alternating and insulates. His 2x4 walls are actually about 6 inches thick.

Who uses true 4" studs? Nobody.
Who uses 3/4" or 1" drywall? Nobody.
Who alternates studs and insulates and makes a 6" thick wall? Nobody, that's who.

The exact thickness of a standard 2x4 wall after drywall is 4-1/2".

That's why all the pre-hung door jambs are 4-1/2" wide.

houseful, from the time we bought our lot, until the time we broke ground, was 6 years. During that time, I visited hundreds of homes in various Parade/Cavalcade/Showcase/ Homearama tours in our metro area, ALWAYS with a tape measure! DH used to joke about it, but now that our house is built, there are no measurements I can think of that I'd change. It's perfect for us. Using 3D Home Architect really helped.

Now colors, lighting fixtures, cabinets, etc. are another story--there are a few changes I'd make there. I spent lots of time looking at these, also, but didn't do quite as well with them. It was just too hard to pull everything together by myself since I'd lived in the same place for 30 years and had no real experience with decorating. I wish I'd paid someone to do this in retrospect.

Like you, I also saw many high-end homes with some measurements, layouts, and features that I thought obviously missed the mark. Many of the consistently best designed homes I saw were done by husband/wife design/build companies.

Anne

rbanks ~ You are right in that I shouldn't have brought up the difference between nominal and true measurements; however, non-USA folks often do not deal with USA's actual "nominal" dimensions as they are sold today. (Please remember that it is only within the past 50 years that 2x4s began to be commonly sold dressed [finished]; and it is far more recent than that for "nominal" to indicate a ½" loss from the original 2 or 4 -- for quite a while a nominal 2x4s came in different measurements, depending on who was doing the finishing. I can remember buying 2x4's in the late '60s which were actually 1 3/4 x 3 3/4 -- and being appalled that they weren't really within 1/8" of being 2 or 4.

My point was an attempt to explain that one uses wall finish "a" plus wall finish "b" plus actual width of studding to obtain the width of the wall.

Please note that NOT all pre-hung door jambs are 4½" wide, and in fact, many are sold with adjustable jamb-widths to accommodate the common variability of wall widths. Custom and upper-line doors can vary even more so, with a 6" jamb-width not being rare. Those who have built well-insulated houses (which often have very thick walls) know that mass-marketed pre-hungs are usually not suitable, and thus have their door jambs constructed on-site to suit their particular needs.

And, although you may not be familiar with the practice, staggered studding with insulation is not rare, and is used as a means of reducing sound transference between rooms, or between the interior and exterior of the house. In my real-life experience, the guy's OB house used staggered studding for the bathroom and for the laundry room walls, with the noticeable effect of blocking most sounds.

yep, you want the a wider hall. every house i have ever lived in had a 4 ft wide hall, until this one we currently own. it is 3' and is not a problem for 99% of the things we do. but my wife decided she wanted to move her treadmill to the bedroom so she can have a place to store her dirty clothes, since that is about the ONLY way the dust won't collect on it. problem is tha twith teh 3 ft hallway there is not enough room to turn it to get it in the door! if we had just 2 more inches we could do it. now i have to disassemble the darn thig jsut to put where she wants it!

plus our MB is huge and we wanted to put a couch and chair in it for a sitting area. that too was foiled by the hall.

LOL, David! That's quite an expensive clothes hamper!
So far, on paper, I'll have at least 39-40 inches. Once we start framing, we'll see what happens. I don't anticipate any large furniture pieces coming through this way.

Anne, you did bring your camera too, didn't you? ;) I've memorized lengths of certain parts of my body for those occasions I might not have my tape measure. I probably should hire a decorator as well, but I probably wouldn't be able to afford the decorating items after paying for his/her time, haha!

Rbanks and Meldy, didn't mean to cause an issue, but I do appreciate the information. Now that you mention it, I do remember pre-hung doors being 4.5". Since this is not my dream home being built from scratch, we will be using all pre-hung; no custom-built doors here.

As for sound-proofing -- you can just pad the walls and then line them with fabric. At least that's what they did in the model home we saw last weekend. Sounds funny, but it's not a joke. If I could find my digital camera plug, I'd download the pic for you. Now this house started at $1.5 million. Of course, the padding is an upgrade. ;D