Just had long answer and lost it to bad connection..arggggghhhh

1. Widen laundry to get wheelchair turning. Take space from bath to left Pantry seems ok I think

2. Hall to kitchen entry seems bit tight

3. Kitchen could use another /more windows for size of space. Dining is a bit tight for such larger kitchen if you entertain much

4. Screen porch is too shallow. Should be 12' min deep in my opinion. Possibly 14 at some places if roof allows it for furniture grouping. Screens seem to narrow to me. Blocking lots of views with verticle dividers. Screens can be 4',5' or 6' wide.

5. Entry hall. Lose Dining walls and add columns to open it up. Move closet from stair to in the guest bedroom closet and leave stair open and scuptural.

6 Move guest bedroom door back to wall between baths to open hall up and shorten hall in room.

7.Family Rm Is decent size ( not huge) but with tv on back wall you lose window space to best views. Consider moving it to end /side wall so it can be seen from kitchen and open wall between kitchen and great room with columns.

8.Master Bedroom is huge but windows are too few. Bed should be acrossed the the room when you enter between the windows and tv on wall next to office.

9. The bigger closet would work nicer with a nice long island running front to back and using all the exterior walls for rods /shelves. opening the room up and allowing folding on the island( leave a space open for wheelchair access. Gets you lots of drawers as well and easier access for wheelchair. Consider changing doors to a small set of double doors into closets that reduce door swing interference and move them to the center to better balance hallway length visually.

10 Bath seems huge but tub deck depth seems tight at toilet door.

11. All doors where wheelchair access is an issue should be 36". Stairs down should be 42-48" wide.

Good Luck

Also add door to other side of Dining to get access to screen porch. Might even conside making the dining take up the whole left corner of screen porch and just keep porch to the right of dining. Not sure how that would affect your views.

I would think about placing the vanities inside the toilet rooms. Having a basin adjacent to the toilet can be a lifesaver esp. for certain elderly people and their caregivers.

Big Kahuna & Iread06 thanks for the feedback

1. Widen laundry to get wheelchair turning. Take space from bath to left Pantry seems ok I think -- Done

2. Hall to kitchen entry seems bit tight -- it is 42"

3. Kitchen could use another /more windows for size of space. Dining is a bit tight for such larger kitchen if you entertain much -- I've relabeled the upper dining area as a breakfast area. It should be fine

4. Screen porch is too shallow. Should be 12' min deep in my opinion. Possibly 14 at some places if roof allows it for furniture grouping. Screens seem to narrow to me. Blocking lots of views with verticle dividers. Screens can be 4',5' or 6' wide. - I've increased it to 14' and set the screens to 5'.

5. Entry hall. Lose Dining walls and add columns to open it up. Move closet from stair to in the guest bedroom closet and leave stair open and scuptural. --good idea, I've made the changes and like that look much better..Thanks

6 Move guest bedroom door back to wall between baths to open hall up and shorten hall in room.-- Didn't quite understand this but I have made some changes.

7.Family Rm Is decent size ( not huge) but with tv on back wall you lose window space to best views. Consider moving it to end /side wall so it can be seen from kitchen and open wall between kitchen and great room with columns. --that is actually a fireplace that will share a chimney with one in the screened porch.

8.Master Bedroom is huge but windows are too few. Bed should be acrossed the the room when you enter between the windows and tv on wall next to office. --that is also a fireplace on the outside wall

9. The bigger closet would work nicer with a nice long island running front to back and using all the exterior walls for rods /shelves. opening the room up and allowing folding on the island( leave a space open for wheelchair access. Gets you lots of drawers as well and easier access for wheelchair. Consider changing doors to a small set of double doors into closets that reduce door swing interference and move them to the center to better balance hallway length visually. --I've incorporated this ..thanks

10 Bath seems huge but tub deck depth seems tight at toilet door. --I've updated the tub to reflect the tub we have in mind which is narrower than the tub pictured originally.

11. All doors where wheelchair access is an issue should be 36". Stairs down should be 42-48" wide. --I've double checked all of them and modified where needed.

The door out of the dining room on the left leads to the screened porch and then there is a door on the porch that will lead to the grilling area on a back patio.

I appreciate all of your suggestions and am including an updated drawing.

Iread06 - At this time the wife doesn't want them in there but I understand your logic - we have been dealing with parental care issues with 3 parents in their 80's. I think with placement of the vanities now, if needed in the future it would be easy to add them on the opposite side of the wall. I looked at some small wall mount units that would be appropriate.

Bamahostaman...It looks better..Just a few things...

1 The opening to the kitchen from hall still looks tight..If you use casing on the opening and other doors as well.. it will be very tight as you need space in front of the cabinets in hall and next to refrigerator. These are little things that if not looked at close you will regret later. You have plenty of Kitchen space. I would allow another 3"-6" on each side for casing

Be careful of the pocket doors. They work best in 6" walls . 2x4 walls leave so little framing lumber left the wall becomes flimsy. Also realize you cant put switches and outlets where the doors slide into the wall. Plan carefully.

The guest /1/2 bath seems too narrow. ( should be 5 ft min.) This gives you room for vanity. Consider widening office and guest bedroom to 15" ( carpets come in 12' and 15' widths) This will allow you to widen the 1/2 bath 12 "

This will make it 12 in wider than dining but you could fake it and add 12" to just the exterior width of dining room ( leaving inside at just 14'.

I would also widen hall to Master Bedroom to 4'-6" so you have plenty of room on each side of doors for casing . Take it from front bedroom which is plenty long. Push the guest bedroom back into bedroom 24" to break the hall up and open the hallway feel to the front bedroom.

I still am not a huge fan of fireplace in back wall of great room as it should be 6 feet wide or a bit more when you use a 42" fp or larger and have tile surround and some drywall as well. See link below for example. Notice the side loaded fp that leaves rear open to views. Porches on this house are 14' deep for reference.

http://s952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/DesignDirective/Hackworth%20lakehouse/?albumview=slideshow

Also see this for FP location and rear great room windows

http://s952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/DesignDirective/Helton%20Residence/?albumview=slideshow

Also back to Master bedroom. There is no reason the fireplace cant move to opposite wall. The bed should be on that wall between windows. across the room when you enter. The larger closet is better but you might look at rotating the island and centering it(42" wide should be fine) and allowing for walking all the way around the island. 14' might work better if you do but the side closest to the hall could be shallower shelves(12-15") See similar closet ( 14'x17') in the first link /slideshow listed above.

Otherwise its getting much better. Good luck

I would have the entry to bed #2 from the house entry. Include the hall to bed #2 in the baths, you could then have the WC's as a separate room in each bath. The robe in bed #2 could be wider with the entry to the bath thru the middle..ie..hanging space on either side.

I also think you could do away with the bath in that area as you have the one near the garage. I would move that door to the passage, so it is accessable from the house itself. Seems a waste to only have it accessible from the garage.

Here is my 2 cents...

1. I think it would be better to modify the mudroom from the garage a bit so that the entry to the bathroom is a step or two inside that door, rather that entering from the garage. You've essentially isolated the bathroom from the rest of the house. Maybe move the shower to the opposite wall.

2. It is going to be a little unusual to open the front door in a house of this size and essentially step into the dining room. The dining room is quite a walk from the kitchen, which IMHO will mean it's used less frequently.

3. I know you want a huge kitchen and I don't blame you. However, if you relocate the pantry i might be easier to use and get to if you do the following....take 8' off the length and have the pantry run along the wall as you enter from the garage. The kitchen will still be huge 20 x23' and the pantry will be mere steps from your main work areas. That will free up some space to reconfigure the laundry/ mudroom and bathroom which will get SO much activity, especially if you're out in the yard a lot.

Sorry- husband just walked in the door with the kids but I will look at this again later :)

Since you do a lot of canning and you have a walk-out basement, have you considered having a root cellar?

I garden a great deal and need a bathroom just as you do, immediately inside the house when we build. Sure keeps the dirt from getting tracked through the whole house. However, I would have a doorway that allows access from inside the house as well. Perhaps you can move things a bit and have the door to that bathroom just inside the entryway. I'm also thinking a refrigerator in that area (not in the bathroom, of coarse) might be nice to store drinks and perhaps a healthy grab and go snack for when you're hot and thirsty.

My last house had three bathrooms in it, and as I hate cleaning bathrooms, this house will only have two. Perhaps even just one and a half. I think I would eliminate one of the bathrooms between the office and spare bedroom, keeping the one that can be conveniently accessed from both rooms. You can turn that little powder room into another storage closet.

I am planning on canning and freezing as well, and am working on a kitchen design that has a nice walk in pantry. It's amazing how much one can store in a walk in.

My other question is, have you had a kitchen as large as this one before? I had one almost as large as the one in your plan in my last kitchen, and I hated how spread out the work areas were. It was worse than having a kitchen that is too small and I didn't enjoy cooking in it.

However, like you I need counter and work space. I am toying with the idea of a nice portable island that can be called into sevice when needed, and moved to a nook on the wall when not. I love islands but am afraid I may not like it sitting in my kitchen all the time. On the other hand, you may like working in a large space as such, and that is wonderful if it works for you.

I was in a model log home yesterday, and actually saw a kitchen I liked (with mild tweaking on my part....for a walk in pantry added nearby). The dimensions were about 20 by 20, and had room by a bay window for the table in it. It felt spacious, seemed to have more than enough counters, yet the kitchen table was convenient for serving and clean up. There was even a good sized desk in it, though I would have a hutch there instead.

I do agree that when freezers and such get added into the equation, it complicates things. I want two ranges, and have freezers as well. I'm still working on that myself, and the freezer(s), may need to be in an adjacent "room", perhaps with my washer and dryer.

Overall, your floorplan is nice, and has been given a great deal of thought.

Sandy

Bigkahuna, Ive adjusted the kitchen opening. We have pocket doors now and understand the issues but thanks for the reminder. Ive altered the guest bath to a new layout. Ive widened the hall to master bedroom to 5. After seeing the slideshows you provided, the wife agreed to move fireplace to the side in the great room. As to the master bedroom bed location, we prefer it to be opposite the windows. For 14 years we had a layout similar to what you recommend and for the last 8 like the plan shows.
mrsmuggleton, mdev & sandy808 Ive moved the entry to the mudroom for the bathroom near the garage. I will forgive you since you agreed with my wife and I have now been pummeled into submission!
Mdev, Ive tried your suggestion with the pantry but could not find a layout that we both liked as much. One feature that we like about this layout is that rarely do we bring groceries directly from the car to the kitchen area. Our current kitchen (14 x 22 ) has less than a dozen food items in it. The rest of the food is in the pantry. We would be carrying the groceries to the pantry or the spare refrigerator/freezer in the laundry room.
Dekeoboe, We have a root cellar in our current house and were planning on repeating it in this one. It is located under the concrete floor of our front porch. It has concrete ceiling, block walls and a gravel floor.
Sandy808, good idea about the refrigerator. I was planning on third one in the garage. The number of bathrooms is a bit of joke with us. Our first house (14 years) had 3 bedrooms and only one bathroom. Our next house, which we designed had 4 bedrooms and 4 ½ bathrooms for 3 of us. Our logic on this house, is that the guest room will be primarily for visiting grandkids when we babysit. Considering the shape that room may be in, we would prefer to have a powder room that would be presentable to visitors. The basement will have another master suite and then two guest rooms that will share a bathroom.

I appreciate all of the help that everyone has provided. Thank you!

Looking better..I noticed a couple small things. The guest bath: Consider switching toilet and sink and sliding the door down in the hall to provide a bit more privacy, modesty for it from the Family room, as it's easy to look right into the bath.

Guest Bedroom bath Consider moving linen to other end of tub next to vanity. It can be wider and slide behind the tub as well. The space between tub and vanity as it is seems a bit tight /awkward.

Also now your plan allows you to pull door to guest bedroom back in the hall 2-4 ft. if you want making it easier to move furniture around the corner and shortening hall length in bedroom.

Master Bedroom: Just a personal preference that maybe you dont like or need but I would like to see more windows looking out the back.

Given that your laundry and pantry are so large. You may even consider making hall wider. (5ft) since that is the entry you will use most often. Letting it be a bit more welcoming is not a bad thing!

Good Luck

This is a really good start, but you should show it to a professional (hire an architect). There are dozens of small details that would make this good plan great. For example, the bedroom closet entrance should be in the hallway, not in the bedroom. The kitchen/breakfast/family room is also a little awkward. The proportions look a little off to me. Just my thoughts after a quick glance.