I have a place approved for a leach field, I had a soils guy come out and do the testing for that. It's downhill of the house location. It's location of the tank and the foundation that I need help designing. Does a soils engineer do that type of work? Or is there another type of company that would design the footings, foundation, tying into the ledge, etc? thanks

Landrey-great job on the plan! I think that's why you didnt get alot of responses initially. There are only a few things I see that I would do differently other than those mentioned above. -I would move the powder room into the mudroom area. Reduce the size of that giant walk-in closet in the guest room to about 4.5'-5' wide by sliding the mudroom wall to the left and move the closet entry over toward the side wall of the bedroom as far as you can. You should have enough space to do a 1/2 bath there. My reasoning for this is that right now if someone is outside playing/working and needs to use the bathroom, they will often come through the garage and now have to traipse all the way through your house to get to the powder room potentially leaving a trail of dirt/mud/debris behind them. Or they can come in the front door and trail dirt/dust/debris through the foyer (granted a shorter trail.) Just my $0.02. Laundry room upstairs--I'm guessing that's a counter next to the W/D? How big is the sink you're planning to use? I would shift the W/D down to where the sink is and run a counter from the end of the W/D to the corner and then down across under the window. I'd put the sink next to the W/D with a sink base cabinet and hanging space above then I'd put pullout hampers along the short wall like these: Reasoning--that's a small space and as the kids get older, the laundry only gets worse. Having an efficient space that easily allows for sorting and storing the dirties, as well as allowing for plenty of folding and hanging space will help keep the laundry (and potentially the rest of your house when it comes to laundry) neater & more organized. I think you posted the kitchen in the kitchen forum and asked about building in a regular sized fridge or making the counters deeper. Personally, I wouldn't make the counters deeper--that will significantly increase your cabinet & countertop costs. Since you have the fridge placed on an exterior wall, recessing it back likely won't work as you need space for insulation in that wall. I'd suggest either going with a counter depth fridge (we love ours & I was really worried about going from full depth to counter depth--link to ours below) or moving the fridge to the opposite wall where the bar sink is and you could either leave the bar sink there or move it to the island. Hope this helps! Here is a link that might be useful: mydreamhome's CD Fridge

Our family room in our last house was 14.5 x 22. It was a wonderful size. It was set up much like yours, but the fireplace was centered on the wall. We had slightly more room than you but here is what we had. . . I would center the fireplace on the wall - absolutely. The off center fireplace would bug me incessantly and would be very difficult to decorate around. If you can't fit a double french door, put a single. Put a large window on the other side. Have corresponding transoms on both (this is like ours and I am a symmetry nut but it never bothered me). I am attaching a link to our old house, which sold, but I think the pictures are still online. There are some ariel views of the family room. We were able to fit two very large leather club chairs, an ottoman, a sofa, a club chair and a bench, plus two extra benches beside the TV armoire. We could comfortably seat 8 in there and 10 in a pinch! You will have to flip through the real estate pics to see but maybe that will help you with furniture arrangement. FYI the passageway between the right bench by the armoire to the table is 24". Minimum recommended distance is 22". That was our main passageway into the master bedroom and it didn't feel tight at all. Here is a link that might be useful: Family Room

Yes it is in a high COLA area. Average cost per SQFT foundation is $ 33. Average cost to build a new home here is $ 300 per SQFT. Foundations here also include two car garage footings, garage slab and double wide cement driveway. The price of a home here is very high, but as it is a desired retirement/resort area with single family houses selling in 2- 3 days. I was fortunate to get into this market 27 years ago when this place was not popular. Now everything is a a premium as builders cannot build fast enough to meet the demand. I got two quotes on the existing foundation replacement and then checked those numbers against the local building commission. Last time I built here was in 2001 and it was a shock to me also how much everything had increased in price.