Only 2 bedrooms?

robin0919, the master bedroom is on the main floor, there are two spare bedrooms on the lower level, and the possibility for another bedroom or two on the second level when it is finished in the future. So 3 bedrooms in the beginning. No kids at the moment, and probably won't have any.

Did you decide against the prep sink? And the door to the grilling deck from kitchen? I really think you will regret not having a secondary sink closer to the fridge, pantry and prep area. Overall, I like the plan a lot. Love all the big closets, and that pantry is to die for.

Looks very interesting...just a few comments.

Do you want 2 laundry rooms? Seems like a lot of extra plumbing for little gain.

The bedrooms downstairs that look out under a covered deck will still feel very basement. To make a lower level feel like it's not, the windows need to be uncovered. And for lower level rooms, they should have greater window to wall area than upstairs rooms, again to avoid that basement feel. So esp in BR#3 I'd add more glass....that would probably have to be an egress window anyway.

Make sure you add accommodation for pumped septic if you need it for those lower level fixtures.

Think about how you will get furniture like a mattress through the "rabbit warren" to br#3.

Upstairs, there's a "lover's leap" ? A doorway in the loft that opens to the foyer below?

Also, on the upstairs, not sure how the rooflines come together but don't do that bump-out linen closet if it requires some special roofline treatment.

The only other issue is a question for you....you have more sq ft devoted to master bath and closet than you have for the bedroom. Is that the balance you want?
Also you have more windows in the bath and the closet than the bedroom. Typically you don't want a lot of windows in the closet because sun can fade clothing. Also, do you want a window looking out onto the driveway from a room where you will be changing clothes? The toilet is up against the bedroom wall. This can make for noisy plumbing if someone is flushing in the night. Same thing with the powder room toilet and sink. Further, the bathroom has 2 walls with windows but the bedroom has only one. Is this the balance you want? (In our home, it was essential that our bedrooms have 2 window walls to have cross vent.

Also, with a finished basement, you may want to insulate under the basement floor, and waterproof and curtain drain the heck out of it. We knew an architect from over 30 years ago who always told us that, when building a home, put your money underground. Still good advice today. It's so much harder to fix things that are buried vs. doing it right when it's all open and available. We put a curtain drain in around our house even though the guy installing it said it will never see a drop of water. The good news is our basement has never seen a drop of water....just the way we like it.

A couple things:

The covered front porch looks narrow; how about at least extending it to be even with the front wall of the office? Think about how you'll use it and what you want to put there (chairs, etc.) and see how it fits.

Where will you vent the range hood?

Be sure to post on the kitchen forum too for feedback on your layout. (For example, jenswrens mentioned a prep sink in the island; without one, the island becomes a barrier between the refrigerator and the sink, so you'll be walking around the island a lot.) You have lots of room; you might be able to get a more functional layout. Great pantry!

The first floor seems like a nice space for 2 people with the option to then expand to the second floor and lower level as needed.

Regarding the master bedroom, I think the size is good but where will you put the bed? It might look odd crammed in a corner.

Also, why the 2 entrances from the garage? Do you need that entrance from the garage to the front foyer? If not, I would get rid of that door to the garage and move the powder room to that location. This keeps the mudroom/master suite area completely private and there would be no reason for guests to go to that part of the house. You can even make it a 3/4 bathroom with a shower so that the office can be used as a guest room in a pinch.

Back to the master suite. If you move the powder room, then you can create a hall to the master closet and bath and eliminate the door from the bedroom to the bath. Some would hate this but I so wished we had this. Then the bed could be centered on the wall between the bedroom and bath.

Will you really be using the door from the master to the deck? We have one and haven't used it in 3 years. Doors are much more expensive than windows and not as airtight.

I would flip the toilet in the water closet so that you don't hear the plumbing in the bedroom everytime someone flushes.

Where will you hang the towel rod or hooks in the master?

I would sketch out furniture placement in the great room. It's big room but it has a lot of doors and doorways. Is the tv going over the fireplace?

How about moving the entrance to the kitchen from the mudroom to the other side of the range. It will be closer to the garage and a better unloading location:closer to the fridge and pantry. Of course the configuration will need to be edited but It ill also give you a bit more soundproofing in the master bedroom.

For the front elevation:the uneven spacing of the posts would bug me as well as the fact that the window under the porch is the only one without shutters.

Good luck on your project!

pps7..... I basically second everything she said, especially about moving the powder room to the foyer area and creating that hall in the master. Our master is set up that way (with one hall that both our bathroom and the entry door is off of) and it's lovely for people who work different shifts. (OP, I remember from a previous thread that our husbands are in the same field.)

RE: The kitchen, I think I said it last time, but I would move those double ovens to the far right or next to the fridge. I can see they are there to create symmetry, but try to look beyond that. The space next to the cooktop would be nice and more functional if it took advantage of the extra counter space currently hiding to the left side of the double ovens. I obsess about symmetry, so I know where you might be coming from... If it were my space, I'd move the ovens to the far right of the cooktop area so they finish/close off that area and then center the cooktop in the remaining space. (That would make the far right area look more finished, too... the backsplash would end at the ovens instead of just ending on the wall... that always bothers me.) If this doesn't make sense, I could sketch it up...

I'm a little confused about the upstairs. At the top of the stairs is a small enclosed landing, with a door which opens to a future loft, which is open to a hallway. Why not enclose the loft, and open the wall from the overlook to the hall? If you were using the spare bedroom upstairs, it would be a needlessly long trip through the loft.

What is the square feet for the first floor?

The huge master bath-laundry-mudroom is improved since your first draft, though I think they're over-done in proportion to the rest of the house. If you ever sell this house, these areas'll be a plus . . . but you won't get your money back out of them -- not when the rest of the house doesn't "match them" in size.

I think you were wise in moving the gun-safe to a more immediate location.

I would consider, as someone else suggested, moving the powder-room toilet to the other wall . . . AND I"d move the washer/dryer AND the laundry sink to the other side of that same wall. This'll keep all your plumbing lines in that one small space, which is a big money saver.

I agree with the poster who questions two doors from the garage. Only you and your husband are going to use the garage -- and you're going to enter through the mudroom. I'd eliminate the second door and enlarge that coat closet.

The kitchen is large, but inefficient. The work triangle is set too far apart, and the island is smack-dab in the middle of it. Everything's too disjointed, and nothing's close to anything else.

The pantry, on the other hand, is very nice.

Upstairs, I would eliminate the toilet-in-a-closet. People don't typically share a bath this size; by that, I mean people don't typically use it at the same time. Same thought process, I'd eliminate one of the sinks. Your basement bathrooms look much more reasonable for guest baths.

You have a lot of doors to go through to get to the grilling deck (unless your window over the sink is a pass thru? even then, you, physically, if not all the ingredients, have a long, door-filled path to the grilling deck).

I suggest you put a prep sink where you have your double ovens, or else in the island. Then, you could keep your clean up sink where it it, in the kitchen, and your island won't be in the middle of where you need to be working.

If you want your island clear of sinks, put your prep sink where the ovens are, and move them either under your island, or over near your clean up sink. They can almost be put anywhere because they are only "in use" (with door open) for seconds at a time, rather than in use, with someone standing in the traffic pattern for minutes or longer at a time (my primary "complaint" with your current sink location--you are blocking the traffic path if you are doing work there).

I think there must be an extra wall upstairs separating the loft and the bonus loft? or, separating the loft and the "hall way". I am not sure what this wall is for (or meant to visually demonstrate, if not a physical wall).

I don't mind your upstairs bath. I think it is logical for a bathroom that would serve multiple bedrooms. However, since you only show one bedroom, I think changing it as MrsPete suggests might be a fine idea. If you ever think this would be a family house, and that bonus loft might become a second bedroom, than what you have drawn is a fine and logical bathroom.

I think the closet in the upstairs bedroom is unnecessarily deep. Decide if it will be a walk in or a reach in. But, the in-between size that you have isn't an efficient use of space. (realistically, you'll only be able to put a bar across the back...not the side too, as drawn).

If you really love a 2 story open foyer, ignore this... I suppose it is too late to reverse your staircases? I would think it would be more convenient to enter the basement in the middle of the area, as well, enter the main floor from upstairs to the middle of the main floor, than the way you have it... Just a thought.

Jenswrens, we are going to include the prep sink. Here’s the updated kitchen plan.

AnnieDeighnaugh, no, we don’t want two laundry rooms. That’s a leftover from a time when all the bedrooms were upstairs and we will ask for it to be removed.

We are adding more windows to Bedroom 3 downstairs. There’s not much we can do about some of the windows not being under a deck, though. The ceilings are 9 feet, so I hope that will help. Good point about the “rabbit warren” in BR 3- I’ll give that some thought. I can see why you think there’s a lovers leap upstairs, but the door actually opens onto, I guess “landing” would be the best word. The landing is open to the foyer below. The door is there because the upstairs won’t be finished right away. The upstairs linen closet won’t require a special roofline. It just takes advantage of some otherwise empty space.

I do think I’m OK with having more space in the bathroom and closet than the bedroom. We won’t be storing any clothing of anything in the bedroom- just our bed, two nightstands, and something for the TV to sit on/above. I think I like the idea of a cozier bedroom. I’ve been in some similar sized rooms (I’m weird in that I carry a measuring tape around in my purse and whip it out to measure rooms that seem to have nice space) and I didn’t think they were cramped. Do you think we’ll regret it though once we’re in- I’ve never been in a house with this layout so to some extent it’s a guessing game.

The windows in the closet are just small windows up high on the wall- they’re not full sized windows and you won’t be able to look out and no one will be able to look in. They’re there for aesthetic purposes on the exterior so there are not big blank walls. We will probably upgrade the UV coating on those windows.

I’ll look into switching the master bath toilet to the other wall. I don’t think the powder room would be as much of an issue, as hopefully when we’re trying to sleep no one will be using the powder room. The bedroom has windows on only one wall, but it does have glass French doors on another wall. Should I add a window to the wall with the French door?

Waterproofing the basement is a main priority for us. In our current house the basement leaks like crazy and anytime it rains the sump pump goes wild. So water issues in the basement are an issue of which we are acutely aware. It’s one of the first things we asked about when we interviewed builders.

Thanks for your input. I really like your house, by the way.

Chicagoans, I don’t anticipate that we will really use the front porch for anything other than some decorative flower pots and the like. We will use the back and side decks mainly, as that’s where the view is. The front porch is really just for aesthetics, but if we were going to use it I’d definitely make it deeper.

I think that I can vent the range hood up and out the wall above the kitchen. The second floor space is over the kitchen, but the wall the range is against is the exterior wall on the upper floor, if that makes sense. I have posted on the kitchen forum, and mistakenly didn’t post my updated layout here in my original post (but it is posted above in my response to jenswrens.)

pps7, in the master bedroom we plan to center the bed between the two windows on the rear wall. We had them spaced so that we could fit a king size bed between them.

We don’t need two entrances from the garage. That space off the foyer has been a pain- it was sort of a leftover space after everything else was placed and we haven’t been able to find a good solution as far as what to put there. We originally had a powder room in that location. But, then we started asking whether we really needed two powder rooms on the main floor and decided that we didn’t. I thought the conventional wisdom was that you needed a bathroom close to the family entrance/mudroom area, so we chose to keep that powder room and eliminate the one in the foyer. Of course, as long as it is just us we can just use the master bathroom. I’m not against eliminating the mudroom powder room as long as it won’t create a problem.

Your idea to make a hallway to the closet and bath area is intriguing, but I’m not sure how eliminating the powder room would allow us to do that. Can you describe a bit more how that would look?

My husband and I talked about the door to the deck from the master. I’m fine with changing to a few windows, but he wants to keep the door. We do have several dogs, and he likes that we could just open that door and let them out in the mornings. I’m not sure how much we will actually use it though, but I have to let him win sometimes.

In the master bath, we’ll have two towel rings at the vanity area on the side walls, and will hang a hook outside the shower on the wall next to the tub for towels to grab when you exit the shower. We will probably also put a towel bar under the window between the shower and linen closet. We don’t re-use towels, after one use they go to the laundry, so we don’t really need a space to dry towels for reuse or anything like that.

I have considered moving the entrance to the kitchen to the mudroom area instead of the current hallway location (moving the entrance to the other side of the range, so to speak). However, I have a couple of concerns about that. If we keep the powder room in the current location, I think it makes it much less accessible. My next concern would be that if the entrance is moved, you could probably see from the living room into the mudroom. I’m thinking the mudroom will probably not be immaculate most of the time. Would you think either of those things would be a problem?

I hadn’t even noticed the uneven spacing of the front columns! Does the window under the porch need shutters, since it’s protected? I’m also not sure if correctly sized shutters would fit in the space, but I have no problem including them if they fit. We could also slide that window to the right I think to create more space for shutters.

Thanks so much for all your advice.

Lolauren, I think what you’re suggesting is to move the ovens next to the doorway from the mudroom/master hallway into the kitchen. Is that correct? Do you think that would be an issue with traffic flow by that area?

Annkh, I understand that it’s a little confusing. We won’t be finishing that area now, so the landing is enclosed so you’re not looking from the foyer up into an unfinished area. The doorway was moved to the loft side just so you didn’t seen it from downstairs. At the time the upstairs is finished, that wall will be opened up to the hall as you’re suggesting.

jlband25, the first floor is about 2800 square feet. Our community has a 2500 sq. ft. minimum for the first floor.

MrsPete, I’m OK with not getting our money back out of the master/mudroom area. We don’t plan on selling, as least for quite some time, but I know that things don’t always go according to plan. I think it will really work for us. Are you suggesting movng the laundry fixtures to the wall where the door to the mudroom is currently located, or to the wall the mudroom lockers are on? I’ve not looked at the upstairs as closely as the others levels since we’re not finishing it right now, but I agree with your point about the bathrooms and will ask for that to be changed.

Kirkhall, point taken about the grilling deck and doors. That’s a subject of contention between my husband and me. Does the revised kitchen layout above look any better to you? And does my explanation of the upstairs layout clear up that issue?

I don’t necessarily love 2 story foyers, but my husband does like them. How would you propose reversing the staircase? Are you suggesting putting the landing against the front wall and you would enter the stairs from the kitchen area?

Thanks so much to everyone for your advice! Every time I post I’m blown away by everyone’s ideas and the things that others pick up on that I never noticed.

Ashley

Would you consider moving the island sink to the middle or other end of the island? The reason I say this is because the end of the island closest to the refrigerator would make a good landing zone for when you take things out of the refrigerator. I tend to need somewhere to put the things in the front of the refrigerator when I am trying to get something from the back of the refrigerator and I find it awkward to have to go around the refrigerator door to put them on the counter near the refrigerator.

Would you consider moving the island sink to the middle or other end of the island? The reason I say this is because the end of the island closest to the refrigerator would make a good landing zone for when you take things out of the refrigerator. I tend to need somewhere to put the things in the front of the refrigerator when I am trying to get something from the back of the refrigerator and I find it awkward to have to go around the refrigerator door to put them on the counter near the refrigerator.

"I thought the conventional wisdom was that you needed a bathroom close to the family entrance/mudroom area, so we chose to keep that powder room and eliminate the one in the foyer."

We don't have one in the garage entry area, but I've never understood that "conventional wisdom." I don't think it's a big deal to walk to another part of the house, but I don't have kids. Maybe that would change things. (We have our master bathroom laid out like yours, so it's easy to get to from the garage entry for just us.)

If I had a half/guest bathroom adjacent to my mudroom and bedroom, I'd constantly have to run over there to close all those doors when guests come over (since they'll see your messy mudroom, possibly unmade bed, whatever.) If your half bath is in the entry, you don't have that issue as they would have no reason to be in your master suite area. Also, with the bathroom near the front entry, people using it will have slightly more privacy. They aren't right off the kitchen and are slightly tucked away in a room that isn't adjacent to rooms w/ people... I think people using it would be more... comfortable... in the entry area instead of in an area where people can watch them walk into the room. Again, if your hubby is sleeping, you could use that front bathroom without worrying about making too much noise.

RE: the kitchen, yes I meant move the ovens to near the mudroom entry. As Kirk mentioned, traffic is a non-issue since the doors only get opened for seconds. They could be anywhere.... I just like that they would finish off that cabinet/backsplash run without the backsplash just ending into nothing. Does that make sense?

RE: your closet and master bathroom size. They are large. They'll probably be amazing. Ours are oversized also and we have NEVER regretted it. Compared to previous homes where our closet items were packed in tightly, we have plenty of room for storage and everything is really organized. I don't want to ever sell this house because I am that much in love with our master suite area...

Prep sink helps your kitchen tremendously. Good job. I wouldn't move it to the far end. You have it in a good spot, unless you want to move it a little more center.

I need to read the upstairs explanation again.

And, yes, on reversing the stairs, I was thinking the landing would be in the front of the house, and therefore, you'd enter the stairs to go upstairs from the "middle" of the house. It'd keep you from needing to go to the front door to do so. Though, if you are more likely to use the basement than the upstairs, your current set up is fine. (no basements in my area).

Clarification: Yes, I'm proposing that you move the washer/dryer and the laundry sink to the spot that currently houses the lockers. AND I'm proposing that you flip-flop the powder room toilet /sink to the other side of their little room. The purpose is to house ALL your plumbing (for these two areas anyway) in one wall. In your case, these small changes neither help nor hurt the function of your rooms, but they improve your plumbing function.

Benefits:
- Lowers the cost of installation because the plumbers only have to install water lines in that one wall.
- Fewer, shorter plumbing lines means less chance of an in-wall leak in the future, and if you do have a leak, it'll be centralized to that one wall -- you'd not face the need to tear up two walls.

Common wisdom dictates that centralization of plumbing is a good thing, and this is why a narrow straight-line bath (typically sink-toilet-tub/shower all on one wall) is cheaper than a wider bath (perhaps sink and toilet on one wall, tub/shower across from them).

Along that same thought line, could you "stack" your basement and 2nd floor baths so that they're "on top of" another bathroom or the kitchen? Again, the idea is to keep the water lines all in one spot. As I said, this is a big money saver -- both at installation time and when it comes to inevitable maintenance issues.

Master bedroom: that's a good spot for the bed- I just like to look out the window while in bed :)

Kitchen: Nice layout. Mine is very similar and very functional. The only suggestion is to move the prep sink 18-24" closer to the range. You will need a landing area at the opposite the fridge. That part of the our island is the most frequently used.

Mudroom: We have 2 powder rooms and I agree it's pretty wasteful. We love our mudroom powder but our master is on the opposite side of the house and the mudroom is how we access our yard. So it's very usefull for us. In your case, I would move the powder to the front of the house and use that space for something else.

Another thing I just noticed is that you have cabinetry next to the desk. That was on our orignal plan as well and we changed it to a wall of closets. I'm so glad we did. It's very usefull to store the vacuum, mop, wrapping paper. So maybe move the lockers next to the desk and then just have a whole wall of closets.

If you move the powder room, you can create a large walk-in utility closet or a hall to the closet/bathroom. This might seem wasteful if you are okay walking through the mudroom and laundry area to get to your closet.

Good luck!