The rules and design sequence for overhead lighting that I have developed in my architectural practice over 45 years are: 1. use the smallest practical recessed fixture paying attention to lamp (bulb) choice for insulated ceilings and the height above the floor 2. avoid placing a fixture in the center of a room unless it is a utility area 3. if furniture location is known, avoid lighting the tops of people's heads 4. first, light the walls with special attention to potential artwork and mirror locations. 5. then light the stairs 6. then determine where built-in cabinet, under-cabinet and appliance lighting will be located 7. then determine where decorative floor, table, wall and hanging lighting is preferred (some redundancy is OK but think about shadows) 8.then light the task areas (kitchen counters & islands, dining tables, etc.) 9. then light the floors only in high traffic areas or where featured rugs will be placed (grandma's oriental) and put the fixtures on a separately switched circuit where floor and task lighting are used together put them on separately switched circuits then light the exterior and coordinate with the interior then review the switching sequence for arriving and leaving the house; retiring and rising; and emergencies. review the plan for day and night use as well as special occasions and select dimmer switch locations this is a good time to locate the smoke and CO detectors I find it useful to use a yellow highlighter to mark up the plan with the expected light pools indicating where reflected light might occur with dots or dashes. The choice of lamp (bulb) types and voltage (Line vs Low) also need to be considered because of different light quality, intensity and pattern as well as appearance and safety.

Hi, welcome to the forum! I think you've made a pretty nice start on a workable first floor but - and please don't take this wrong - I also think you're kind of getting the cart before the horse in worrying over little details in THIS design. While it is great to be thinking about what you want in a home and looking for inspiration pictures and sketching possible floorplans and all of that, it would be better to find your land first and then design your home to fit that property. A design that is perfect for a flat lot, won't work well for one that slopes from front to back. And one that is perfect for a building site that slopes front to back, won't work well for a site that slopes left to right. If you were planning to build in town somewhere on a standard flat city lot, then other than making sure you got a lot wide enough for a side-load garage if you wanted one, you could probably go ahead and design the house. After all, for houses on city lots, most major windows face the front or the rear because your neighbors' houses will be, at most 10 or 15 feet away from you to the left and right and, about the only views one can have are of the front and back yards. But you want to buy 2 to 5 acres which is wonderful! Until you find your land tho, you're not going to know whether there is going to be a pretty little pond right in the middle of the lot or a gorgeous view of a lake right across the road in front of you or a wonderful view of the sun setting across a marsh at the back of your lot. You won't know if the best build-site is on a slope that is perfect for a walk-out basement or if the land is going to have gorgeous views in all directions EXCEPT for that neighbor's horribly ugly garage immediately to your west. In designing a home, you also should take into account the direction it faces relative to the sun and, as much as you can, design the house so that you maximize the amount of sunlight that enters the house in the winter and minimize the amount of sunlight that enters the house during the hot summer months. If you love being awakened by the rising sun, you'll want your bedroom to have east facing windows. If you're a night owl tho, the last thing you'll want is east facing windows. If you watch TV in the evenings, you're probably NOT going to want your TV sitting on a wall across from windows that face west because glare from the setting sun will make it difficult to watch. If you dream of sitting out on your porch and watching the sun go down, you don't want to settle on a plan that puts the porch on the northeast on YOUR land. But, until you find your land, you can't know which direction the front of the house will face so you can't possibly decide where various rooms should be. Make sense? Once you find your land, you'll want to position your windows and screened porch to take advantage of your best views, maximize your privacy, screen bedrooms away from potentially noisy areas, position your garage to block ugly views or the hot afternoon sun, etc. While you look for property to buy, spend time reading about residential design, looking at lots and lots of floor plans, and walking thru lots and lots of houses. Pay attention to how they integrate with the land around them. I think you've already thought deeply about what works and doesn't work for your family - which is great - but you also want to think about the house as an integral part of the land it sits on. Then, once you find your land, you'll be ready to design a home that fits you and your family AND the land.

It looks fine. However, you've lost some of the important features of the plan I proposed, not that I'm surprised or offended. I still recommend increasing the length and width of the kitchen island and allowing 42" of clearance at the counters instead of 48" but that is just my personal preference although it has worked well in a lot of kitchens so far. I would use 48" only where an oven opens toward an island. I intentionally put the refrigerator out of the view of the living room and intended that corner to have wrap around windows above the sink. That requires a longer travel distance from the breakfast table to the refrigerator but a shorter distance from the dining table. I know it is easier to feed children in the immediate vicinity of the kitchen but you have invested in a formal dining room and because I have raised three kids I can tell you that it will serve your children well to eat there as often as possible when they are old enough to stay in a chair, you know, table manners, may I be excused, etc. It is one of the few times in their life when you can hold their attention face to face so it is really important to do it. When I built this plan before the family had no interest in a breakfast table; they always use the dining room but their kids are high school age. At any rate, the window at the sink should be a wider awning type window (operated with a crank) instead of the tiny double-hung shown on the elevation drawing which will be more difficult, even dangerous, to lift open. I would get the stove out of the corner and allow more counter space between it and the sink. Unless you buy special cabinets that allow a stove to fit properly in this configuration it will result in awkward alignments of upper cabinets, lower cabinets, the stove, the hood. I've only seen it done well with high end cabinets. I wouldn't use bi-fold doors in a kitchen; they don't work well and get beat up fast. You'll probably have to replace them in a few years. Regarding windows, don't jamb a pair of windows together with those narrow little trim strips from the manufacturer; put two or three studs and sheathing between them so trim can be put there. The fake shutters are a waste of money because they add nothing to this kind house IMHO. The windows in upstairs bedrooms that are narrow in order to miss the roof below would be more attractive and functional if they were awning windows that match the size and placement of the upper sash of the double-hungs around the corner. Of course, this only works if there is another window that meets the emergency escape requirement. To me the 4 over 4 lights look inappropriate on full sized double hung windows unless they are only 24" wide. I would use 6 over 1 which saves the cost of one muntin per window and gives a nice horizontal visual element to the paired windows. At the back side windows I would at least add one vertical muntin to the upper sash. Sometimes cottage style windows (upper sash shorter than the lower sash) are slightly cheaper than equal size sash windows for the same opening dimensions (at least it's true for Andersen windows). I would add a window to the fake dormer. There should also be windows in the main roof gable ends. It might also look better if the front wall was continuous with the dormer wall and there was no pent-roof (that little roof eave/gutter that sticks out below the dormer. This is a tough detail to pull off and it appears that your designer doesn't have clue about how to do it. There's something overly restrained about the current gable dormer and it would not cost more to improve it but I do like the shingles. It's a bit odd that the shingles don't continue at the gable ends of the main roof. The upstairs toilet/tub room doors should open in to avoid injury at night and I would put the toilet on the wall that aligns with the study wall below to allow easier construction and better sound isolation from the dining room since that's the room where you are most likely to not want to hear a toilet flush when you have guests. If the ceiling height is 8 ft. then depending on the size of the second floor joists (10" instead of 12" I-joists) the stair might be able to have 14 instead of 15 risers which might help out the upper landing layout. But be careful about floor bounce upstairs. Make sure the plumbing stacks will fit in the first floor walls and allow room for insulation. That's not usually possible with 2x4 studs. Double drywall is also a good idea. I would try to avoid offsetting the center bearing wall at the first floor and would try to keep the symmetry of the central corridor. I've built a similar plan and it became so obvious that the center hall needed to be formal that the contractor persuaded the owner to add arched openings at each end. I don't usually like arched openings in an open plan house but it turned out that he was right.

"In my mind, you'll need at least 100A service to this subpanel. The reason is that it sounds fairly likely that the AC, the lift and the compressor will need to run at the same time. It might be possible to get away with 75A, but you're probably heading for a lot of nuisance trips. Not only will that require a visit to the main panel in the house, but you'll be left in the dark while removing that coil spring." That was my exact thought. It would be approximately 20' of cable to run out of the house, down the conduit, under the concrete breezeway, and back up inside of the cinderblock wall, where it will exit below the sub panel. Another issue I have, is where and how to put the grounding rods. Everything is concrete. The closest non-concrete area is 20' across the garage on the far side of the building. I guess I have to drill holes in the sidewalk/breezeway concrete and drop the spikes down. Not sure how to sink them though. Maybe a sledge on a ladder, or a picket pounder if I can find one. I'm trying to get a copy of the NEC from the library. Is there an easy "how-to" on doing a load calculation for the main box. Someone on another site suggested it. I did a google search and found an automated one. Also, my gang boxes have 1/2" punchouts. All my conduit is 3/4". I tried to get the gangable boxes with 3/4" punch outs and the depot doesn't carry them. Can I grind out one of the 1/2" punchouts to 3/4" or is there some code restriction on this. Last question is kind of stupid, but again, I appreciate the help.