I'm not sure the great room is a good size if it houses both dining/living. I think it might be a bit tight. Take a table standard width of 42" then min 4' on each side of that to move around (and that is tight when people sit). So add two more feet Then you have 28.5-13.5 ft left for a living area. I had a 15 ft x 18 ft in my old house for the living part of my great room and that 15' makes it really narrow and very limited for furniture arrangement. I'd do as others suggested play with graphpaper and furniture sizes to see that you have plenty of room. Since your Great room will be used as a walk through area to get between kitchen and bedrooms make sure you have 3-4' of walking space on both sides. One from the master side and one from the front door/other bedroom side with nothing interferring and still allowing you to have the pieces of furniture you want. Remember the FP as drawn will be sticking out into the room as well. I'd maybe consider putting it where one of the French doors are and have it stick out on the porch. This way you have more space and a wall where a TV could go and still be able to arrange furniture so the FP is also a focal point. Our current great room is set-up that way and I really like it. The FP provides warmth and coziness closer to where we sit flanked by french doors (one set stationary and one where both open) and the TV and book cases are on the other wall. My old house had an open great room with dining and living where the FP was placed in between the two. It was great for using the FP as it heated both areas and it was not in the way of furniture placement, however I didn't like that it was sort of not a focal point from one area to the other. Since you have the bonus room maybe you could set that up so you can have guests there. Otherwise you could just make that half of the porch screened in all the way to where you have it now. Not all will have a view, but you'll have a little private area in front of the casita too. You only need a little extra screen since there will be walls covering the other areas so the cost wouldn't be much more.

There is a thread on here about the plan with some some nice pictures from another member who built it. We just moved the laundry to the area off the kitchen, turned the upstairs office into a play loft, added a basement, and removed the back porches in favor of a deck. I would think any two story rectangular plan that you find could be made to look like the outside of Carolina Island house. Hope you find something you love!

We have lower cabinets extending along the back kitchen wall and floating shelves above on either side of the window. We use those for our everyday dishes. There’s plenty of lower cabinet space in both kitchen areas. One other thing we did was to make the closet in the dining area a storage area for our extra dinner ware etc. I LOVE all the light provided by the kitchen windows. Great trade off for cabinets.

@cpartist exactly what you said really bothered me - even if she was willing to "redraw" a plan online, (which is what she did even when I told her it wasn't exactly what I wanted), I would have bought the rights anyway because I'm a rule follower and this has just driven me crazy! I'm sure it's done all the time but still... I triple checked her credentials but we were definitely getting the "draftsman" experience. The builder has a (very talented, might I add, based on her work I've seen) interior designer on staff too as the selections coordinator - guess I need to clarify those expectations, does she actually help with selections or just write down what I want - ha!