wow....a lot of reading for the mind and soul during insomnia. So many ideas and so many things to think of..... This post just reiterates more that we are all products of our "families" and our experiences. The bad comes with the good and we grow and we hope to make the best of it and for some....I suppose the main goal is to not repeat some things that have damaged us the most. Brings us to the OP and the reason for custom homes. We all have a dream of the way we want to live and how we want our dream home to be a part of that life. I understand that most downsize to below a 2000 sq ft ranch. That doesn't mean it has to be done that way. I'm not trying to sound ridiculous or anything, but is it more a modern thing for people to down size or is it regional? It seems I know very few who have done this. My Grandparents just closed off their cellar and upstairs and lived in the main-level. They made adjustments when needed to the bathroom. I suppose it must be more modern as farmers used to stay in there homes and their family would move in and care for them. Nowadays I know a lot of farmers who give the "home place" to their youngest and then build a new "retirement" place for themselves. Just wondering?!?! Anyway....I'm from rural, farm country and where most have large families and super extended families. Most of my friends and family were raised in ranch homes or simple 2 story homes. Average sq ft being 1800-2100, often with a semi-finished rec room in the basement. The trend with my parents, their friends and our family is that they usually stay in the home until they pass away or a few go into a nursing home. I can honestly say that all 10 Aunts/Uncles and many family friends have added onto their homes in their 50's or early 60's. Actually 1 moved instead:). They all wanted a larger "gathering" room and built on for that reason. Many (prior to building on) used the lower-level rec room for this and then just for reason of stairs, location to kitchen and bathrooms, aesthetic, etc had added on to accommodate. So, they were all adding onto their homes, when I suppose many would think they were getting closer to downsizing. They all now approaching mid 70's and some into their 80's and are still in their added on homes. We have just found over the years that when a hall or other place is rented out for a holiday, etc....our family loses it's closeness. All the cousins arrive, eat and leave. We have found it more inviting, relaxing, etc to have it in the home where we can hang, relax and gather for hours. So, if you don't want people for hours, rent a place with tables and folded chairs or go to a restaurant :-) My parents actually were the ones who built a new place 2 years ago. They had owned acreage/wooded for years. They originally built a cabin on it and found themselves spending so much time there, they decided to build. Oh, we were so against the idea, everyone was! Too far out, too far from hospitals, too much land, too much too much. My dad said everyone thinks we are crazy, but it is what WE WANT, do you think we really haven't thought about all these things.....we will sell and move again if and when it becomes too much. So, they did what they wanted and they are thrilled. It is a smallish ranch with an open floor plan and a guest bedroom for occasional grand kids sleep overs. However, they have a large family room that is very cozy most of the time. They have the furniture placed in a groupings with large walk-ways all around. For Christmas it takes 2 people to move their one couch to open the room up and make room for all. And there solution to host really large parties was a "finished garage." They finished the walls with drywall and had breadboard added all around below the chair rail. They added cabinets and a counter top with electrical (crockpots etc) and a refrigerator. They have ceiling fans, highly insulated, and a nice epoxy (???) floor. They have a half bath directly inside the house from the garage. It is party ready just by backing the cars out. Of course they have an out building for all the junk that most people would have in their garage. What they didn't know is that it is the younger grandchildrens favorite place. It works out lovey when the young ones are out there....we pull out some old cars and trucks and they go crazy and then the adults can converse and hear each other. So, just to mention a few ways that many others have actually added to their homes in order to manage growing families. Personally, in our new build....we added on a huge dining room with surrounding wrap around covered porch and hope to be able to entertain large numbers in this space for many years. OP...I do wish you the best with your new home and your family is lucky to have you and a wonderful place to spend with you!

Your linked version is much easier to see and I think what I thought was a wall may be something else either "showing through" or markings for measurements, or something. I think it looks really pretty good! I am never crazy about a shared bath (J&J) where the toilet has to be shared. And, you have it set up now, upstairs, to where you cannot get to a bathroom without going through a bedroom. Is that okay to you? Do you have all boys or all girls? or one of each? I ask because if you have a sleep over and you had 1 of each, I definitely wouldn't want to see a shared bath there. I am guessing you don't have that situation though. Your laundry room and hall space, esp entry to the Master Bedroom is HUGE. So, I think if you wanted to, you could easily get another full bath in there so you didn't have to have the shared J&J. That said, I am sort of of the opinion generous laundry rooms are wonderful. But, I am not crazy about the huge entry hall to your master bedroom on one side and closets/bath on the other. Any particular reason for double double entry doors? (Does DH work nights and you don't, for example)? I think that is the awkward thing about this plan at this point.

Marcolo and Blfenton, the box thing in the southeast corner is just that, a box constructed out of drywall to take up the corner. I hate blind corner cabinets, so I would rather "waste" the corner entirely rather than spending money on corner cabinetry I hate, especially since it lets me put more efficient drawer storage on each side of the corner. It also allows me to have tall cabinetry on the east wall and uppers and lowers on the south wall, without having an issue where they meet in the corner. I might put a door in the guest room wall to utilize the 27" x 27" space from the other side to store items we do not need to get to often, like luggage. I agree that having the wall ovens 4' away from the nearest landing spot on the island is not ideal, but it is a big improvement over the 7' walk between wall ovens and counters in our current kitchen. If we move the wall ovens to the east wall, there is still at least a 4' walk to the island. Amanda, the trash pullout and dishwasher are on opposite sides of the sink cabinet. I will also have storage for dishes, Rubbermaid containers, plastic wrap, etc. on the south wall. That way, after meals, the plates and pots all go to the counter next to the sink, leftovers can be packaged, dishes can be scraped into the trash and then go into the dishwasher. When I empty the dishwasher, the dish storage is on uppers on that wall. It sounds like cooktops on islands are not popular. I agree it is not ideal, but it was the only way to get the entire wall of tall cabinets on the east side. My DH loves the look of that wall, and that wall will be highly visible from our kitchen and dining room. I would prefer a real hood to a downdraft vent, but, then again, I have lived without a proper hood for 10 years. Mahlgold, I am having trouble balancing the look we want with function. We plan to do prep on the island and the counter to the left of the sink. Those 2 areas give us more counter space than we have had in any prior kitchen. We do not own a coffee maker or toaster oven. Our only countertop appliances are a KA mixer, small toaster and blender. The mixer and blender will go under the uppers to the left of the sink (mixer in far left corner on an angle). The toaster could also go on that counter, or maybe behind the lift door on the left side of the east wall along with bread storage. We only do breakfast and lunch at home 1 or 2 days per week. I am not sure how many or how deep of drawers to put in the tall cabinets. I drew each side with 5, but it could be 3 or 4. This kitchen has so many more lower cabinets than we have ever had before, that I am not sure what to put in all of them. On the right side tall cabinet, I thought I would want a couple of shallow drawers at the top to store extra trays for the Advantium, pot holders (those will be kept in 3 different locations near all the hot appliances) and wine tools like the opener, Vacu-vin, etc. Maybe a drawer for DH's vast tea bag and leaf collection and related tools. We could put all the empty baby bottles and plastic plates for the kids in a drawer in that tower or on the south wall. On the left side tall cabinet, I could use the drawers to store pyrex, roasting pans, pie tins and other baking dishes that might not fit in the drawers below the wall oven. My stove top pots and pans and utensils will go in drawers below or next to the cooktop on the island, as I have several feet of drawers on the south side of the island. The wall ovens were put on the north wall (where they are in the current kitchen) because they are less attractive to look at. Also, if we get the side opening Gagg ovens, they would be difficult to place in the east wall because they need at least 8" between the hinge side of the oven and an adjacent wall, so we could not put them at the very end of a cabinet run. It is also tricky because we are trying to find space for 3 wall ovens: standard 30" convection oven, speedoven/microwave, and steam oven. They are too tall to stack all together in one column and still have at useful heights. I will use the speedoven/microwave more than once a day, so I would be miserable having that oven below countertop height. I also hope to use the combi-steam oven regularly. I feel like we should have 1 full size oven, but that one will get the least use (I very rarely bake or cook large meals), so I could buy the Thermador wall oven with the standard door and put it under the counter somewhere and stack the other 2 together on a wall. The problem with swapping all the cooling appliances to the north wall and the pantry to the east wall as was suggested is that the pantry is only 16-18" deep and the appliances are 24" deep, which would prevent us from having a 24" deep coat closet on the hall side of that space. (We really need a coat closet because the house does not have one now.) I will think about whether we can steal coat space from another room, like the guest room. I am debating the idea of a prep sink on the island. DH looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested a second sink 5' away from the main sink. We do not use the sink a lot for prep. We rinse the veggies, but then put them on a cutting board and move it to where we want to work. We use a large bowl to collect veggie or meat waste when we peel, chop and trim. Sadly, we do not have any family in this state, so no one brings us food to prepare. It is just DH and I in the kitchen now, although we hope our two daughters will like to cook as they get older.

To me architecture is as much an art as it is a science. However, some prefer one type of art over another...just like in genre of music. I for one can't stand rap music. I detest it. My dislike does not make it 'wrong'. Yet, I will not spend any of my money on anything related to rap. Many love rap music and it makes plenty of money. So...apply this to architecture. Do many architects prefer a certain 'type' of construction and disprove of 'fat' layouts or big roofs? This is obviously not my profession, but I do love learning about other professions and other perspectives. I understand your analogy, but the thing is, you're not talking about musical preferences here -- you're talking about misplaced notes, or a tempo that doesn't work with the melody, or instruments that don't blend well together. Even when you're talking about forms of art, rules still exist. You got it right in your title: This is a first draft. It can be polished and improved significantly, but -- for that to happen -- you have to be willing to listen to advice. And you're getting good advice here. I have actually thought about an L shaped house, but I think for us the flow of this works better. Let's test that theory and see if the house has good flow. The red lines represent the path you'd take from the various parts of the house to the laundry room. Note that EVERY ONE OF THEM funnels through the kitchen, one of the busiest rooms in your house. So while you're cooking, people'll be squishing through carrying large baskets of clothes to and fro. This is the exact opposite of good flow. On the other hand, let's consider getting groceries into the house, into storage and to the table -- this works! You bring groceries in, there's the pantry, there's the refrigerator ... when it's time to cook, you bring them into the kitchen ... then straight on to the table. I'd think about the sink location, but everything else is set up to run like a well-oiled machine. So the question is, how can you make ALL (or at least most) of your daily chores run easily like the food storage ... instead of horribly like the laundry lay out? Consider all the other things you do on a daily basis that could either run poorly ... or be designed well: Bringing in the mail, taking out the trash, taking care of the dog, managing the kids' homework, storage of sports equipment, wrapping a present, sitting down to read a book. Think through all these things, and then work on laying out the house so that everything you need is logically organized.