Thank you all SO much for your thoughts. Very helpful!! MrsPete your preferences are very similar to mine. I like the exterior and upstairs of #3 and the kitchen of #2 including the big pantry and a lot of space to work with for a nice mudroom area separate from the laundry. I don't like that you just walk through the laundry room in #1. I'm also not sure about the walk through guest room in #1 but you make a good point about a potential dining room for a future owner (not something we'd ever want). I do like the big master closet in #1 but the bathroom is overkill for us. We don't even have a master bath at home and the one at our current lake home is small and basic and we're okay with that. I definitely agree no need for two bathrooms upstairs. We did look at one house we really liked and I loved the dormers and nooks and crannies - so much more interesting than the basic rectangular spaces. I also didn't think about it until mentioned here that only #2 has a view of the lake from the upstairs bedrooms but the other views wouldn't be bad either. I didn't like the exterior of #1 but having a garage up front is typical and what we're used to so that's okay. I just like the looks of #2 or #3 exteriors better. We also want to keep the structure narrow due to setbacks from a river on the side of the lot and also because we want to keep as much woods as possible between us and the neighbors so garage up front is probably more conducive to that. I think the dining space is okay considering I could expand into adjacent living space if needed for a large crowd. I will check the size of my current dining space though as a reality check. The covered porch would be a screen porch so not sure if that's better or worse in terms of the darkness factor. I did have that concern though. The main living space would have southern exposure. Our current place has skylights in the great room. Do people do that any more? Or skylight in the porch to bring in more light (and more expense of course) I love the covered porch (one place we looked at had that) but with MN mosquitoes we really need screen. It's easy to get caught up in all the things you could have but I'd be fine with something similar to what we have now if I can't afford more bells and whistles. I just want a place that isn't four levels with 43 steps down to the lake and neighbors practically on top of me. I probably should think somewhat about resale but our plan is to die here but things don't always work out as planned. I'm all for "the not so big house" concept - less money spent on square footage and more on features and finishes that give the house more character. To answer the question about what's most important: #1 Kitchen - I love to cook so I have a fair amount of equipment I need a place for. I also love having a kitchen open to the living area. Don't like a sink or cooktop in the island/peninsula and want my sink looking out a window so I'd need to do some tweaking of all these plans to accommodate that along with double ovens. #2 Storage - don't like clutter so I like good space for stuff to be stored out of sight. Our current place has a walk in pantry and two good sized closets by back door and a good sized closet by front door. Not huge closet space in our bedroom now but we each have our own so I'd at least want us each to have our own "side". #3 Bathrooms - not a big priority. A basic master bath is fine (probably not good for resale) and one basic bathroom for upstairs guest rooms and one for downstairs guest room. #4 Master suite - have never really had one and don't need one. Just need a room big enough for the furniture, nice windows overlooking the lake, decent closet space and a basic bathroom. Somewhere we want a longer than average tub (as we have at home now) but it could be in the other main floor bath. If money were no object, I'd probably start with #2 and tweak it to my liking. However I think #3 would be less expensive and it's very close. I'm concerned about making the kitchen the way I'd want it since it's a bit smaller and has no pantry. Also the back closet is small and there's no front closet. The closet issue could probably be addressed by somehow increasing the garage space and encroaching on it. So now we ponder just how much we are willing to spend on this as it's more than we would have spent on an existing home. That's one reason I never really wanted to build - you get more for your money in an existing home if you can find what you want. Plus I get analysis paralysis making decisions and choices. One place we looked at we really liked but it was bigger than we needed and operating costs were quite high but purchase price would have been a lot less expensive than this new build we're now considering. Annkh - where is your lake property?

thanks so much for getting that posted, e, i really appreaciate it. now, thanks for those questions, they'll help enormousely when i go back to my kd. i'll try my best to answer them all for you. ok, the room will be 17'6" x28'---up to 34' if we need the extra length. the wall with the sinks face the water, so no upper cabs, while the fridge wall faces the road and second floor overhang. we are keeping that walkway for a wheelchair entrance, as it is well suited there, and we may need it someday. the first floor of the house is already all ada ready, this entry completes that. dw goes to the right of the sink closest to the pantry. that will be the dish sink, as it will be closest to the dish pantry and the large table in the room.(besides, we only use it once or twice a year--but it seems to be required if we ever sell). microwave on counter between fridge and antique icebox, (which measures 56"x33"). that icebox will hold the larger pots and pans, they are now in another room, since our current kitchen has no space for them, dh is in the habit of collecting everything he needs to cook before commencing chopping. pantry is larger (deeper) than inspiration pic --will also have base drawers and counter, with open shelves to the ceiling for open dish storage and accessability. we now have the dishes stored on an open shelf in the kitchen (no cabs) so this works for us already. dh is retired, a former restaurant /bar owner and he cooks for fun. we are a family of four (we have two young people living with us--a young man who is challenged and our assistant--they eat with us as well), with several large family gatherings a year. he holds court in the kitchen!! he is a baker, italien chef, experimenter, etc. he spends most of his day in the kitchen,lol. the closet is my way of getting more storage into this farmhouse. we have none on the first floor, so i will keep all of the extra flotsam in there. dog food, leashes, cat food, etc. dh will have his spice cab to the left of the range, in an 18" upper cab between the range and the main kitchen door. the door to the outside fron the pantry side goes to the new terraced back yard and down to the water. whew, what did i forget? i am concerned about having storage space, even with the pantry and closet, due to the sink wall being all base units. but the antique ice box has tone of storage as well. plus i think i can get a floor to ceiling storage for food on that wall--kd is working on it. thanks, keep it coming!! oops, this sentance got left out of above, and my pasting skills are very marginal... sink closest to the corner will be dh's commercial sink, which he had fabricated many years ago and loves. he wants it closer to his stove, for prep and pots. (i'm the one who sets and clears the table, so my sink and the dish pantry are out of his prep and pot washing station).

Are you sure it's a "Frank Betz" plan? There are plans by others with the name "Westport" - e.g., Don Gardner has one (DG Westport). I'd post the exterior here and see if others recognize it - in case it's not a "Frank Betz" plan. (If your house # is on it, blur it out b/f posting the image.)

Being retired, I don't want a lot of floor space and rooms to clean. I agree. I HAVE 40' OF 3' deep closets just for 'stuff'. Kitchen. Towels. Sheets. Cleaning. Vacuums. Sewing. Whatever. !! I LOVE LOVE their M. bedroom closet. Hmmm, this makes me want to measure my proposed closet space. I'm not sold on the idea of 3' deep closets though ... too shallow to be walk-in closets, yet they take up square footage and must be heated/cooled. As I am a homebody, and just fully retired I do not need all the 'good' clothes I have. I'm remembering cleaning out my grandmother's house when she moved out /went to live with my uncle at age 99. She was holding on to SO MANY "good clothes". She loved her job and enjoyed dressing professionally; plus she and my grandfather "went out" often and took fancy vacations, so she had piles of evening gowns ... all so tasteful and so "her". At age 99, those days were past, yet her clothing filled the closets of all three bedrooms in her house ... filled them to the point that it was difficult for her to store the comfortable elastic-waist pants and embroidered sweatshirts that became her standard everyday fare in her elderly years. She was NOT open to getting rid of ANY of those clothes, even though she had lost weight from a size 12-14 to a size 6. She had good memories attached to those clothes, but she was never going to wear them again, and no one else wanted her business suits, though they were very stylish (and expensive) in the 1980s. To make her happy, I purchased plastic bins and carefully put all those things away (wrapped in white tissue paper, boxes labeled diligently according to her requests). We all know that this makes NO SENSE. Sometimes having LOTS of closet space just allows you to build up /save clothing that, in all honesty, you know isn't going to be used again.