Yeah, master down, two story, kids' rooms up. The main floor most likey around 2500 sq feet to fit it all in.

I have a question. If this house will be on a wooded five acre piece of property, do you really want all the rooms you live in at the "back of the house"? We live in the woods and I feel there is enough privacy on all sides of our home. I enjoy the different views. We went ahead and did put our laundry room in the front, and the kitchen and deck are off to one side. Plan a home to take advantage of the site your on. We had always been in town and it is a different home out here. I notice most plans have very few windows on the "ends", too.

What you want is very similar to what we are building. We started out with this southern living floor plan ( made quite a few changes, but it was a place to start:

First of all, congratulations! :-)

Next, sounds similar to what I tried to accomplish also. No formal spaces, my foyer might be a little larger than necessary but it also acts as a buffer to the private spaces. It is also the hub for traffic in and out, up and down.

It was important for me to have our main living spaces on the back of the house also. We live in the country, and almost at the end of the road, but we still sit close enough to the road, but mostly I wanted this because our pond will be to the back, our horses are usually out back rather than across the road, the deer and turkey are usually to the back, the river bluff is to the back, etc.

I am sure I could have done a much better job on our layout, but I think we will be very happy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Home Page

Our plan is unconventional layout, in a very conventional looking home. Has a lot of what you want. Our DR is very close to the kitchen, in the back fo the house and we use it everyday. The master is upstairs but it would be very easy to make the library wing into a master suite area.

Our house "lives" very well. We use the hearth room area as a family room...we adore that room. Last night with the snow storm raging, a roast in the crock pot and a fire in the fireplace we snuggled in and watched a movie. Today with 22 inches of snow on the ground and dogs and kids in and out with all the gear, the clutter room was invaluable!

We made some changes, moved a bathroom, changed the master bath and closet a bit.

We have a full basement, walk out. It's not finished yet but will be in the near future adding another 1500 or so sq ft.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our plan.

Just a quick check in to say thanks for the responses and plans. looks like some nice ideas to study and ponder. I greatly appreciate the feedback. I work ealry in the morning and will be looking at these ideas closer after that.

pps,
What a nice plan! Would you mind sharing the title? I'd love to look it up on Southern Living.
Thanks!

It is the 2007 Tucker Bayous Idea House.

Here is a link that might be useful: tucker bayou

It seems to me like a U-shape courtyard/atrium plan may be best for you. It sort of puts the formal entry hall outdoors. One flank is bedrooms, the other flank could be garage, and you enter right into a great room that's in the middle between the flanking wings.
Casey

Take a look at the plan below & linked. Sounds somewhat like what you're looking for. We like it. The front (plan below is sideways) is just a large entry hall, stair, and small sitting room. The whole back of the first floor is open kit, din, liv room. I think of the plan as being a "room and a half" deep. Off the kit is a large ell with office, mud, lockers, and laundry, leading to a garage. The beds are large and could work if you planned to double up some kids, plus there's a large playroom over the garage. We too have a couple front rooms that don't get much use and would rather have a large open plan like this plan has.

{{gwi:1414615}}
{{gwi:1414616}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Beaconsfield (Wayne Visbeen)

Thanks, pps7! Those pics of the plan are great. I love the layout. It's unique and welcoming.

Gopintos- I've never seen a plan like yours, and I'm smitten. I love the library and the clutter room!

Mommy-
Are you familiar with Mitch Ginn and Moser Design Group. Both have some "informal" plans. Though many have a "dining room," I often find myself reconfiguring the nook to be a dining room at the rear (like you!) and using the dining as a library space for DH's computer...and to someday have a place to sit and read to the kids. I'll have to tell DH I'm NOT the only one who stays up late drawing all over plans. He won't believe it. :)

We are building our first home soon and searched hundreds of plans to find something similar to what you're wanting. We knew we didn't want a formal living room or dining room-just a large family room open to the kitchen and dining area. It's only 2195 square feet, certainly a downsize from what you have now. We only have 2 children now, but plan on at least 2 more, possibly up to 6 kids so we needed something that was very family friendly. The bathroom upstairs absolutely had to have two sinks and had to be separate from the toilet and shower. If nothing else, hope this adds something else to your thinking list. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Simple Plan

I'm so frustrated, as I just lost a post responding to half of you. The kids are all home (snowed in) and rowdy. Thanks for your floor plans and ideas. I have been getting ideas and enjoying them. I'll BBL for more individual responses:)

Frank Betz's Bitterroot has a dining room like you mentioned. You could adapt the second story for more bedrooms, and make some main level changes for a nice clutter room. The sqft. reads high because they counted the daylight basement.

I have sat here today and typed and lost numerous messages. I keep going on links to refresh my memory as to not forget something and then I lose my message. I'm getting so frustrated. So this will be the shortened version. Thanks for all the plans posted, they are so nice and so much more of what we are looking for. I wanted to be very personal and respond carefully to each of you. Now the quick way, before I go crazy and the little ones get up from naps.

toning- thanks for the suggestions, we will have more land and better views to work with for this build. I have actually seen a few plans since and in the past would have nixed them because of the "front" kitchens.

pps7- Your plans are very well thought out. I do really like them, especially the layout, front foyer, and mutipurpose room, etc.

sombreuil- Yes, I too have thought a courtyard plan would meet our needs. I will study that more.

gopintos- my memory is getting bad, but I know your plan was nice. I specifically recall that I loved the front stairs. Do you happen to have pictures?

ponydoc- i'm sorry, now i'm confused with gopintos, perhaps your plan has the stairs in front of the entrance doors. I will go back to review.

oicu812- thanks for sharing the lovely plan. I so love the back mudroom, pantry, 1/2 bath, management area. I want them all and they are on my MUST HAVE LIST.

Young gardener- How funny, I'll let my dh know I'm not alone:) I will check those plans out, thanks!

First time builder- VERY NICE PLAN and best wishes to you on building your home. The back of your home is very so much what I like to see! A nice family home!

Thanks again for all the help, I'm now going to reviw more details.

Young Gardener---- Frank Betz's Bitterroot has a lot of things I do like. Thanks for the suggestion. I would definitley see something like that working, with some changes. I would most likely turn the main floor bedroom into a laundry room and then work on that back area to have a large mudroom, pocket office/management room, etc. I'm sure I would extend the kitchen and I'm not sold on the sunroom. Sounds like I would change everything, but I'm not. It is actually very close in bones to what we want. Thanks for finding it:O)

So, I wanted to share this plan with you all too for your feedback. Bigkhauna shared it on the thread about kitchen islands with cooktops and/or sinks. This is very similar in some ways to what we have been playing with. If you can imagine, the changes as follows...

-The sun room and plant room side of this house would become the master suite area.

-The dining room would be enlarged and have a cased, arched opening, to give it a seperate room.

-OR expand the kitchen area into the dining room some and move the screenedporch closer to the kitchen and have the screenedporch become the dining room. I love a super large kitchen and would not want to have the sink and cooktop in the island. So spreading the kitchen over to the dining area too and having the dining room become the screenedporch could be neat. I think an angled dining room off the back of the house with vaulted ceilings and a firplace would be so cozy.

-I would most likely not have the back set of stairs and enlarge the mudroom area. Also, we would only want one 1/2 bath in that area of the house. Perhaps the closet back in the corner between the gargae and screened porch could be my little office/management area.

-Not sold on the foyer, seems very open and close to the family room. Perhaps with the arches and all it would be fine. Else, move the stairs, kind of like em' where they are? One idea I had (think it was discussed here a few months ago) to have a stone fireplace directly across from the front door and block the family room with the fireplace. Then the existing fireplace wall could just be one huge built in with tv in center and shelves, etc flanking each side???

Love to get some feedback on these ideas !

{{gwi:1414617}}

No pics of stairs yet, well no STAIRS yet ha. But we have turned some attention that direction. :-) I have an Amish fella doing most of it. Will let you know how it goes :-)

Hi there, I am planning on building a home soon with a similar layout to what you are describing. Shoot me an email and I will email you back a front elevation and floor plans to the house. The house is 4,000 sf with first floor master and four bedrooms upstairs. My email is jkravito@yahoo.com

Have you seen the Southern Living Kousa Creek? It's similar to Tucker Bayou (large living/dining/family area), but a little more formal, and has a 2 story family room.

{{gwi:1414618}}

{{gwi:1414619}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Kousa Creek

Smaller homes actually can cost more per square foot at a certain finsh level than can larger homes. You don't end up eliminating the expensive to finish square footage like kitchens and bathrooms. You end up eliminating the inexpensive to finsish square footage like dining rooms and bedrooms. So, I don't think you are really going to realize very much cost savings from the "downsizing" as you think you will. And you'll actually have to sell your current home. Which is an adventure in market reality all it's own. Very few parts of the country have anything moving at all right now. Forclosures are everywhere bringing the prices way down. Many many people who have newly built are now horribly underwater on their homes right now and won't be able to think about another project for years and years, if ever. I think the best thing you could do is to get a couple of market estimate from local realtors and maybe talk to your current morgtgage holder about helping you out with some restructuring to stay in your current home.

We have 5 girls and this is the plan we drew up. We, too, had very specific desires in what our house layout would be -our desires sound somewhat similar. This plan is right around 3,000. We have not yet built it b/c we wanted to sell our house first and who knew that when we first put our house on the market in the fall of 2007 that the bottom was about to fall out ..eye roll.
I also have some 3D renderings but would have to email those to you. Let me know if you would like to see those as well.

hollysprings- We all have different situations. I understand wht you are saying and we have thought this out clearly. Most important, our numbers do add up. We have had market evaluations done on our home and the going price for our home (today) as it stands, we most likely would go on the market for $710,000.00 (today). Comps in our neighborhood are current at 734k and 699k. It won't happen over night, but we feel it will sell (eventually)and would be thrilled to walk today for a 650K offer. We owe 350k, so yeah, we'd be in a better situation financially. We could reproduce pretty much the same house and have less than a 200k mortgage. Much more at our comfort level. I guess I should make myself more clear on using the word downsizing. I'm expecting to get all we want in this house we will still be around 3500+++. I do believe I have learned a lot as to where to put the bling and expensive upgrades this time around. We spent entirely too much money in our master bath. Some of our light fixtures are very, very expensive. We are so very fortunate that we GC'd successfully and have countless hours of sweatequity into our home.

Our happiness, the way we live and our boys are such an incentive for this move. We really aren't that comfortable in our home or neighborhood. Basically we have upgraded, decked out, trimmed out to the hilt and back and it doesn't make us any the happier. We spend too much time cleaning and dusting chandeliers and worrying about dinks in the cherry woood. I have gone back to work part-time to make up the difference in the extra mortgage and we just rather not live like this. DH from the start wanted more land and less sub-division. Him and the boys can't race around on their "toys" quads and all. We figure if we can do this one more time, we'll have a much more enjoyable place for us, more casul, more woods for the boys to explore and less mortgage. Trust me, I have learned a good lesson on wants/needs and the cost of 4 different granites in my main floor alone. I agree that a smaller house can be much more expensive, after I didn't say "NO" to any extras this time around. Bottom line, just a simple family looking for a simpler forever home.

pps7 - We are thinking of building the Tucker Bayou plan! What changes did you make? What changes would you make now? Thanks!!!

Lambgirl, we didn't actually use the Tucker Bayou plan. We were vacationing at Water sound when the Idea house was open for tour and liked the general feel. It is a nice house. I really liked the first floor-didn't care for the second floor too much.

We ended up doing a custom plan with an architect. The main changes were:

-we got rid of the eat in kitchen. We wanted only one dining area.
-we moved the multipurpose room to the back of the house, we wanted acsess from the backyard.
-we wanted 2 bedrooms on the main level.Laundry area near the bedrooms.
-attched 3 car garage.

Good luck!

Just wondered if original poster is still on here - she has described almost exactly what we are looking for and I want to know if she has built yet. :)

EK - check out the Mitch Ginn Tallaway house plan. When we had vacant land and were going to build I fell in love with this plan. We ended up selling the land and buying property with a house to be remodeled instead but I really wanted to build this house!

I made a few tweaks - was thinking about using the formal dining room for a second media/family room, using the keeping room off the kitchen as the dining room (would love the fireplace in the dining room!), switching the master bedroom door and closet, making the powder room a coat closet open to the foyer, using the the front bedroom as an office/guest room and making that room's closet the new powder room.

I should have a post on Gardenweb with others' suggestions on making changes but here are the original plans.

Eta - I would have also done a huge front porch along the whole front of the house, perhaps with French doors from the master.