Hello Everyone - I'm new to these forums but am looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas on the floor plans I drew up. We plan to start building in spring. We'll be meeting with the architect soon and wanted some opinions on the plans before then. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and help! - Kelly Image link:

I made a couple more changes and updated SF. Total SF is a little under 3600. bpathome, I moved the sink to the front of the pantry. My wife uses the Keurig every morning so it probably makes more sense to have that at the front of the pantry adjacent to the sink. Does the pantry look good now? I also decreased the offset between the kitchen and the foyer by a foot (adding a foot to the south for the kitchen), which added a foot to the pantry and allowed me to move the island a little bit farther south so it doesn't block the walkway from the garage to the great room/master suite. I added a foot to the north for the great room and dining area, which decreased the depth of the covered patio to 11 feet. Is this deep enough? We want to have a sitting area on the covered patio, but also don't want it so deep that it severely limits natural light in the back of the house. I could add a foot to the north for the laundry room and sitting area if the patio needs to be at least 12'. Jackson, We appreciate the suggestion, but I don't think I want the laundry room directly behind the great room (in case the laundry is running while watching TV, etc) and would prefer the W/D to also be a little farther from our bed. We're not concerned about having to walk through the master suite to get to the laundry. Other than kids bringing dirty clothes in there, my wife and I should be the only ones using that room. We would love to have more suggestions for our floor plans. We have incorporated most of the suggestions from our first thread into the updated plans, but would love to hear more ideas! Thanks again! Updated floor plans:

Very nice plan. I agree with pretty much all of MyDreamHome's suggestions for making it even better. I can't see some of the dimensions so I am a bit worried that the master closet might not be wide enough to hang clothing on both sides as sketched. A closet needs to be at least 7 ft wide to do that comfortably. If necessary, I'd steal a few inches out of the master bedroom rather than have the closet too narrow. You'll never miss 6 to 10 inches less in a bedroom that is 16 to 17 feet wide but the extra space in the closet (and bathroom) could make a major difference in how comfortable and useable they are. In addition, since you're going to get rid of the door from master bedroom out to back porch anyway, I'd suggest a couple of other changes. First, bump the breakfast nook back another foot of two at least. With a family of six, you can't all sit at the breakfast bar. So, unless you're actually planning to use the dining room for all family dinners, your nook needs to be large enough to accomodate a dining table that will seat at least six... more when one of your kids invites a friend to stay for dinner. Using a window seat to create partial 'booth' seating would allow you to fit a larger table into a small room but I still think you would do well to add another couple of feet. Then, if your building codes will allow it, condider using a patio door that opens outward from the nook to your covered back porch. Doors that open outward work very well when they open onto a well-covered outdoor space and they're actually safer in areas prone to high winds because they don't blow open as easily. Then, since the left end of your porch won't really get much use if you don't have a door into the masterbedroom, consider closing in the left three feet or so at the end of the porch and make that space into a nice large outdoor closet for storing all your grilling supplies. And, consider moving your masterbedroom door to where you have that little hall closet now and then see if you can't then get rid of the walls that turn your back entry area into a maze of hallways. With four kids, a single fairly-large open room (like a back foyer) with storage cubbies and benches around the edges would be much more useful than what you have now. You might need to shift the opening from the back foyer into the kitchen/breakfast nook area and the laundry room door but I think you can create a 7x12 'mud room' with cubbies that will be more useful than the spaces you have now. You would think in Oklahoma (and here where I am in Texas) everyone would have a basement as a place to retreat to in case of a tornado but here in Texas everything is now built on a monolithic slab with no basement. So, if you're not going to have a basement remember that you can open up the space under the stair case landing and make it part that storage room you show opening off of the garage. And, if that garage storage space is for storing things like bicycles, I don't think I'd bother with a wall and door there. I'd just leave all the space UNDER the stairs open to the garage. Would make it easier to access. And, if you do that, you might be able to move the entire staircase forward a couple of feet so as to make your back foyer/mudroom larger and more comfortable. Just my nickle's worth... Except for the cramped back hallway and a few other minor things that mydreamhome already discussed, it's a great plan and your new home is going to be lovely! Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Naween, Thanks so much for your thoughts. To answer your questions, I haven't tried sketching out an upstairs, but I will. As for the yard, I think kids will probably be playing in both the front and back yards, but if they're riding bikes, scooters, catching the bus, etc, it would all be out front, so it would be nice to have a place to watch them from. I completely agree with your thoughts about moving the powder room. When looking more closely at the sketch, it occurred to me that I could bump the sun room out a bit (i.e., giving it windows on three sides) and maybe slide the powder room and laundry room over to the left, so they're "underneath" the sunroom, essentially. So it would make the powder room more accessible, while also giving us a few more windows in the back. To do that, though, I suspect I'd have to make it a side entry garage, rather than an angle.