Are there other bedrooms upstairs? Do you have kids? It's easier to run up and down the stairs empty-handed to do laundry than it is to lug baskets of clothes up and down the stairs.

If the laundry room is well soundproofed, there's no reason you can't throw in a load of clothes before you go to bed, and toss them in the dryer when you get up (we do this all the time).

Our house is a split, with the laundry downstairs (master upstairs, kids' bedrooms downstairs). I consider the trips up and down the stairs a part of my daily exercise routine.

How old are you and how old are your kids?

If you have the master up will you have a bedroom on the first floor in the event that anyone for whatever reason cannot climb stairs?

How long do you anticipate that you might stay in this home?

Re posting your plans on a public forum, the only way to do it honestly is to obtain your architects approval.
Now you could use graph paper and draw a sketch showing room placement and sizes, to get feedback about function. But as far as posting a copy of your architectural drawings, I don't think it's a good idea without permission.

When I was raising kids I always had houses w master and all bedrooms on second floor. When they were teens I really would have appreciated the separation of having the master on the first floor.
The last house we built the girls were still in their teens, we did master and laundry on first floor and their bedrooms on second. Story and a half. They carried their laundry down if they wanted it done, I set it on stairs and they carried it back up.
This house is our retirement house so again we're building 1 1/2 story. All our living will be done in 2100 sq ft main level. 600 sq ft upper level has 2 guest bedrooms and a bath.
You need to answer the question, how long do you anticipate being in this house. I sure wouldn't want my master on second floor now.

Second floor laundries and masters are the rule in our area, not only in high-end homes, but in modest homes and renos.

For the past few years we've been stuck in a 1960s dreadful with a basement laundry vs. our previous custom homes with first floor laundries.

While running up and and down stairs for 20+ loads a week may be good exercise, I'd prefer a more entertaining venue.

Red Lover is asking the right questions: They are all focused on the idea of how convenient a second-story bedroom will be for you -- today AND tomorrow.

I'm mid-40s, and although I'm perfectly capable right now, I can feel my knees and feet slowing down. Because we are planning a house for our retirement, a downstairs master is non-negotiable.

I just turned 40. Hubby is a young 51. Kids are 12, 9, and 5. All bedrooms are currently upstairs. We do intend on living in this house for a long time, if not indefinitely.

Also there are no bedrooms on main level.

So, I'm really leaning towards moving it back down to the main level (the master suite that is).

But, my main concern is that this will raise the overall cost of the build. Thoughts on this??

Sigh....builder told me it'd be $30 to $40k to put master suite back on main level (keeping square footage the same).

So....that's huge. I can do a lot with that money. If you were faced with this decision....what would you do?

At your DHs age I would not build a home that I planned to stay in indefinitely without a bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. I would not do it at any age to be honest. None of us know when someone in the family will be unable to climb stairs.

I know it's a tough decision.

I wish you could show us a sketch of the revisions.

I have a second floor master and I love it. If we were to build that is how I would build. Though I do understand sudden medical issues may create a problem, under normal aging circumstances it seems like you have many, many years left before you cannot go upstairs to go to bed at night.

Around here, it is almost unheard of to put a master up in a custom home. Seriously, there isn't a single one on my street. There are all different ages of families, from some with toddlers to college age to empty nesters...everyone included a master down. I think most intend for this to be their "forever" home and thus planned for the future. My kids are 11 and 14 now (8 and 11 when we built) and I would really dislike having the master up the way we did in our first house (production built.) It is so nice to have some separation especially when they have sleepovers and such. Our
laundry is down...they bring dirty clothes down and take clean up.

Our house has the master wing stuck out from the house in the back, so it is private and away from all of the living areas on the main floor, plus no rooms over it so we could vault the ceiling up. I imagine it cost more as it made the foundation larger. I think if your architect could draw your master within the existing footprint he made (changing room sizes, deleting a room or something) it shouldn't cost much more. But of course I am not an architect, so I don't really know. :)

We faced the same dilemma. We started out with a second floor master but switched to first floor. My math put the build cost of a first floor sq ft at about 50-60% more than a second floor sq ft once you remove all the allowance type stuff (cabinets, hardwood, lighting, landscaping, etc). In our case this was something like $105 per sq ft on the first floor and $65 per sq ft on the second floor with total cost per sq ft all in around $150 per sq ft.

So Wynn, $30-40k more to put the master down is probably not far off?

Can you tell us what other rooms are on the first floor? Do you have a family and living, or a large dining area and an office?

Our plans ended up having the master on the main floor. At the budget discussions we seriously debated moving it to the upstairs to reduce costs. In the end, because of the slope of our lot, the elevation looked much better just having a single story on that side as we already had most of the basement level above grade. One of the drawbacks of having it take up a significant part of the main floor is that it definately impacted the sizes of the other rooms on that floor. There are definately rooms, like the dining and great room, that I would have made larger. However, my husband regularily pointed out that they were all still bigger than what we have lived comfortably in for the last 14 years! It is one of those things that is a tough choice...one of the suggestions that was given to us when we debated master upstairs was stacking closets with the plan to put in a elevator in case we needed it in the future. Good luck with you decision!

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This post was edited by happyvalleyhome on Thu, May 22, 14 at 6:40

Main floor has great room, husband's office, kitchen, and dining room. No extra rooms that could be cut. And, none of them are small enough that I'd feel comfortable reducing their size. I'm so frustrated. :(

Your original floor plan had master on the main floor, right? What was that square footage, and what is it now?

Michelle-we are sort of in your area, small town by the lake but near Holland. We built main floor master-story and a half. How many square feet? We are at around $125 a sf but we did a lot of DIY. I hope that helps. You can send me am email if you want more details, I will gladly share. Hang in there.

We are 41 and I am very glad to have our own space on the main floor. I can do stairs but love that later on I won't have to if I don't want to. :)

Can you move husband's office to upstairs - at least that will save a little money although probably not dollar for dollar assuming master suite bigger than office

Is there a full bath near/ off the office so that it could become a bedroom if needed?

I think we're going to just bite the bullet and move it down. I can't shake this nagging feeling that it would be a mistake to leave it upstairs. I think we're going to look at yet another redesign.

We had this same dilemma. Our lot couldn't take the footprint of a master downstairs and we really couldn't afford the expanded footprint anyway. We could have made it work if we didn't have an office for DH, but he really needed one and it needed to be downstairs.

I'm early 40's, DH early 50's. We planned this to be our long term home, so we tried to minimize costs by going up instead of out, yet still make provisions for the future.

Here is what we did:

>>We put the master upstairs in the back corner for privacy, separated from the other rooms by a laundry room on one side and a wide hallway at the landing.

>>Just in case we can't get up there in our old age, we have a slightly wider stair case to allow for a lift chair.

>>We put a full bath (instead of a powder room) off the living room.

>>We put french doors on the living room entry so this can become a first floor bedroom in the future, but looks like a nice sitting room for now. It can also act as a downstairs guest room (hide-a-bed couch) for company or in-laws.

>>We plumbed the downstairs coat closet for a washer/dryer to have the laundry downstairs in the future. For now, the main laundry is upstairs. I prefer it up because I don't have to hall the clothes very far. Downstairs laundry and upstairs bedrooms is a hassle. Carrying heavy hampers hurts my back, so although I will have to go up and down the stairs, I won't have to carry anything. I am thinking about getting a rolling hamper basket like in laundry mats for the future - then I can just roll the cart around upstairs. :-)

>>We have a blank section of wall on both floors that can have an exterior elevator added in the future - where a door can be cut on both floors directly above/below each other without removing closets. Before building I got a quote for an elevator. Interior elevators cost around $40K, exterior around $25K. At that rate, we would just move downstairs or use the stair lift (unless we won the lottery).

>>All doorways up and down are 30" at the smallest, but most are 32" to allow for wheelchair/walker access in the future.

>>Made the rise of the stairs less (7.5" vs 9") so more steps, but less effort.

Hope this helps with some ideas. If you could put a full bath downstairs near the living room or the office, either of those rooms could become a bedroom later. It doesn't have to be a full size tub/shower - a smaller shower stall will work.

Oh - be sure to add blocking behind shower walls and around toilets for future grab bars.

Michelle-I would say follow your gut. It is not something you can easily change later (unless you have two masters one up one down) and you would hate to kick yourself over something like that. Now is the time to get it how you want it. Best wishes!

To me, this is almost like insurance. What I mean by that is - if you need it some day down the road, you'll be happy you were smart enough to think ahead. If you never actually "need" it, then maybe it won't ever matter to you.

The problem is, no one can predict the future.

I'll never again live in a house without a bedroom and full bath on the first floor. But lots of homes are built every day that don't have this - so obviously there are a whole lot of people who don't care.

Another possibility is to include vertically-aligned closets on both first and second floors that could be used for future installation of an elevator if needed.

We are putting our office in the basement so that our main floor can use some of that space towards the master suite. Our plan is a 2 story look with 1 story wing for the master and 1 story wing for garage kitchen breakfast and hearth rooms. The master wing uses part of the "2 story footprint" so it doesn't have to be as huge. Main floor master plans can run the range of square foot sizes and there are designs that can be more efficient, so we looked at tons of main floor master plans within our desired square foot range to get ideas on what we liked / didn't like and then worked with architect from there.

My experience watching older relatives has been that when they are no longer able to negotiate stairs, other aspects of living in a large family home are also taxing. We have a 2nd floor master, and my plan is that if we are permanently unable to climb the stairs, we will move to a home that is a better fit for that stage of life. Probably something that is one story and requires little or no exterior maintenance.

I don't know anyone who has remained in the home where they raised their kids through retirement, and those who delayed moving often ended up moving in unpleasant circumstances (i.e. selling a home after years of struggling with it once a hospitalization brought a younger family member in to make the hard decision).

I'm sure some people manage to stay in their family home forever, but it is uncommon among people I know.

If you plan on living there the rest of your life, the master really should be on the 1st floor. I can't image why it would cost 30-40k extra to have it on the 1st floor with the same overall s/f. What was their reason for this? That doesn't make any sense.

I have two masters.
Upper floor master has shower and bathtub, while the main floor one has bigger shower with no tub.

In her late 80s, my mother had extreme difficulty getting up and down stairs. Rather than pay a few thousand dollars for a stairlift, she opted for surgery, picked up an MRSA infection and died a long and agonizing death. Choose a bungalow (or downstairs master) or provide for a lift.

robin0919, typically when you move the master to the first floor it increases the house footprint. With that things like foundation and roof increase driving up the cost. A stacked two story is a very efficient build.

That's a tough question, but if you are having nagging doubts you need to make a change. I had nagging doubts the other way. We originally had our master down and I felt such a huge sense of relief when we changed it to upstairs. You have to be happy and content with your decision or it will drive you crazy.

We do, however, have a guest room downstairs so we have a fall back if something were to happen where we could not negotiate the stairs.

My husband and I are in our mid-thirties with two young children and plan to be in the home for at least 20 years (but, really, who knows!). At that time I would imagine we would want to downsize.

Best of luck with your decision!

We have our master upstairs, where I prefer it due to noise and privacy.

On the main level we have a multi-purpose room of generous size, currently my office, that is attached to a generous utility bath with walk in/seat shower. Also attached to the room is a walk in closet. This space was designed as a fall back in case we ever needed a main floor bedroom for us or relative. The bathroom could easily be converted from utility fixtures to nice ones. The closet would suffice. All doorways on the main level are 36" wide or wider, in case of wheel chair.