View of our land from road, house will be on the hill.

This is the look I am going for. I do want to use vinyl cedar shakes. However our House will be on slab and a little wider than this, I think the front porch is 25 ft on this house and mine will be 37ft.

Photo: allison ramsey, holiday house

You don't need a half bath, but it would be nice to be able to get into a bathroom without going through a bedroom. Having bathroom that has outside access is nice for pool use as well.

I'm not really obsessed with bathrooms. Honest!

I think 8'x8' is too small for a breakfast nook, unless you are putting in a booth.

Make the garage bigger! Pool supplies take up a lot of space.

And I completely agree with having a bathroom accessible from the pool area. Our neighbors have a pool, and one has to either walk around the house and go through the garage to get to a bathroom, or drip through the living room and up a half flight of stairs. The house was built without a pool in mind.

The family room is going to be dark, with the covered porch on one side. Consider skylights/sun tunnels in the family room and kitchen.

Make sure your range hood vents through the roof.

Where do you plan to eat meals? Will there be a table in the family room? Your island - with a sink in the middle - isn't really big enough for seating.

Try putting furniture in the family room. It's a nice size - but walkways down both sides will reduce the size in a hurry.

The walk-in closets in the kids' bedrooms are an inefficient use of space. You can realistically only hang clothes on one side, giving 5' of hanging space. You could achieve that with a reach-in (though with the placement of the bedrooms, I can't immediately see here that space could be used).

Do you need a coat closet near the entry? And speaking of the entry - kids' opinions notwithstanding, the 17' entry is a huge waste of space.

The more I look at it, the more I think you can get a lot more usable space for that square footage.

I really appreciate the time and effort y'all took to look at my plans. I was really nervous putting myself out here to be analyzed... Whew so far so good

We have a pool now without bathroom access, and it would definitely be nice to have one convenient, I think I could work figure something out, or just plant a tall bush close by ... Hmmmm

I was worried about the breakfast area, being on small side, I might increase to a 9x10
I can always use bigger garage, ours now is 24 x 24 but it's an open carport.. So we don't use it for storage, so I'm glad you pointed that out.

I'm a sun worshipper but only when outside... I'm hoping with the rear covered patio (which I don't have now) I can keep curtains open so we can have a view but without full sun beaming in. My husband has turned us into vampires with his desire for low electric bill.

Good call on vent for oven
I think I might rethink the 2 openings into sunroom.. I overlooked those as pathways... Completely overlooked that!

I guess I can do double rods in kids closets instead of a shelf across back wall... The rest of space can be for their sports eqipment and such, they have walk in closets now and I really hate to downsize them.

I think I'm the only family member who ever eats at a table, the rest sit in front of tv, or at the coffee table...so the breakfast area and the island will be where we eat.... The only reason I have the sink in the island is bc I dont have an exterior kitchen wall to have a window over sink... I just can't do a sink facing a wall. I think I might widen the island, I

I agree about the foyer length... But it is the only hallway I have other than the garage entrance.... I could narrow it from 5 ft to 7ft but then I'm afraid the space might be too long and narrow.... Hmmmmm.. I will ponder on an alternative for kids Bdrm and bath and see if I might can switch it 180 degrees... This might be a solution to that...

I poured over thousands of plans inder 2200 and none offered anything over 12x12 bdrms and itty bitty second baths for kids to share...and we want a one story and it just seems you can't have it all... On a budget anyway!

Going to do some tweeking and rethink some things.... Thank y'all!

King bed or not, you don't need a 12x15 bedroom... He is 17yrs old. By the time the house is built, will he even still be living there? Do you *want* him to? It can be a huge reality check/disincentive to move from a 12x15 king sized bedroom to needing to share a 12x12 residence hall room with another person in college... Just saying.

My master is 12.5x13.5. I can get a king sized bed in. So, what is the hold-up for your son's room? What does he have in his room that is taking up so much space in addition to the bed?

I think it odd to walk past 2 bedrooms to get to the home's living spaces. At least, I think that is the orientation of the home (front door/porch along bottom?)

Just my 2 cents to start.

Well there are the two dressers and nightstand that come with it, but we could ditch any of it to make it work... He has one year left of high school; but reality is they don't necessarily move out right away... I guess I'm just trying to make everybody happy; I
I am glad to know a king can fit in a smaller size though... Definitely don't want to pay for uneccessary sq ft, especially if it can be used somewhere else.
And yes it's very unusual to have bedrooms open off of the foyer like this... I'm very unusual in my ways! Lol
The usual house with this set up would have a dining room and study in my bedrooms place, and I definitely don't want rooms that we never use, so I figured why not. The living room is going to be my husbands trophy room ( he's a hunter) and the sunroom will be my yoga/ office space... So they will be used
Thanks for your time you took to look at my plan and the advise on the bedroom sizes :)

Could you move the bedrooms toward the sunroom, put them together, and put the entry to the right of the bedrooms, coming into the living room? I'd put reach-in closets on the shared wall, put the bedroom doors where the WIC are now (so they don't open directly to the family room), and reconfigure one of the bathrooms so the door is at the end, allowing guests to use the bathroom without having to go all the way through the bedroom.

I also noticed that the house faces west, so your sunroom is on the north side. Perhaps in LA you want less direct sunlight in the house, but here in North Dakota, I'd want that sunroom on the south side of the house. I'd flip the whole house side to side.

In the South, a "sunroom" on the South side is an oven, and only usable for a couple of months during the winter. A "screen room" is a better term for an outdoor room that you can spend a couple of months in, but without temperature control, it will still be too hot to use in the summer, even on the north side of the house.

The basic shape of the home is at the root of most of the home's issues. With 10 acres, you need not worry about squishing everything together to fit on a narrow city lot. Yet, that is how the home is designed. A more gracious approach might be to have a long axis central wing with flanking perpendicular wings to create a U shape for the home. Think hacienda style, as it was designed to work in hot weather climates, which LA most certainly is.

Thanks for looking and taking time out of your busy lives to give me feedback... it amazes me how insightful this community is.

I know it's hard to believe that anyone would want a sunroom that doesn't get direct sunlight but live_wire was correct, it would be way to hot especially during noon to enjoy it... Even with air conditioning.

The house shape has been one of my biggest Hangups, I want a southern home but most are 2 stories... I was searching for u shaped homes and that was how I ended up with this one... I have lots of land and don't want it to look to thin on the hill, so that has been a big concern.. Definitely going to go back to drawing board, I have more time now that the appraisal came in really low on our current house . Buyers agreed to pay what we are asking but we might have to renegotiate, joy!

First, your land is lovely, and your inspiration picture is wonderful -- just my taste.

Having said that, do keep in mind that a U-shaped house is going to be much more expensive than a more conventional square or rectangle. Why? 1) Because exterior walls are more expensive, and a U has a lot of exterior -- this means more exterior walls and more roof. 2) In this case, it means you're stretching your plumbing across the whole house; whereas, if you cluster your bathrooms and kitchen together, you save a ton on plumbing -- and you cut down the possibilities of expensive leaks in the wall later.

Kids' space: I know you say you're fine with your secondary bedrooms being the first thing people will see when they walk in the house . . . but it is unconventional and will be a negative to most people -- it will be the kiss of death for resale, if you should ever need/want to sell the house.

You mentioned budget. Foot for foot, bathrooms are the most expensive part of a house. Since you've mentioned budget (or square footage) more than once, I would not build private bathrooms for two kids, one of which has one foot out the door already.

I like the two doors into the sunroom. We lived in a house with a similar set up when I was a little kid, and it was nice. However, two doors + the narrow width will greatly limit what you're able to do with the room.

I agree with those who say your eating area needs work. I totally understand your lack of interest in a formal dining room -- you're certainly not alone in that -- but if you're only going to do one eating area, it needs to be done well. And that starts with enough space for at least a medium-sized table.

Thank you for the compliments on our land and inspiration. We live in a subdivision with 2 acres now and are so excited to be going somewhat "country".
You gave me great advise and you addressed everything that I was fearful of. I am a very resourceful person and take pride in that, especially since most of my friends want want want... And are broke broke broke, lol. My dad told me to build a square house...(which I did the first time), and I knew I was running up cost but it's so hard to not get caught up in the want want want! I fell in love with the sunroom after I drew it and hope I can incorporate that and the family room into a different and more practical layout. I took the day off from working on it today...