Do you have a bigger pic? That is a bit hard to read.

Welcome Chance! Here is your floorplan image. You almost got the process completely figured out. For future reference, when you log in to your page on photobucket.com, immediately below each image you have uploaded you will find 4 link boxes. The third one down is labeled "HTML Code", If you place you cursor over the code in that box, your computer will automatically copy it and a little message will pop up saying "copied". You can then do a "CTRL V" paste into your message on gardenweb. You will see a bunch of computerese but when you click to preview your message the image will appear in place of the computerese.

I see a lot to like in your plan but also some things I don't think I would care for although those things might be perfect for you. In making suggestions, it is often helpful to know a bit about the person/family that goes with the plan. I.e., do you have kids or will the secondary bedrooms be used only buy occasional guest? Do you entertain often? Do your entertain large numbers of people or only one or two couples at a time? Are you designing for resale or thinking of this as your "forever home?" Do you want to build a "WOW!" house or something more "cozy"? (I like to call the latter an "AHHH" house.) Will you be building on acreage or in town? Are there views you want to take advantage of? etc. Are you in a hot or cold climate area? If you already own the land, which direction would this house face? Whatever you're willing to share with a bunch of strangers over the internet helps us see the house as you and your family would live in it. After all, the the most important question is always "does this house fit YOUR Family?"

All that said, the first thing that struck me was that turret thingy in the master bath. Is that the shower? If so, then I guess the windows would be glass block - hopefully quite OPAQUE glass block since the turret is at the front of the house. Otherwise, you may find showering to be a bit more public than you would like. LOL!

Secondary bedrooms seem a bit small to me if they're going to be used by family members. For overnight guests, they're fine. The bedroom closest to the garage is likely to feel rather dark since, with the only window/door tucked back under a porch between two wall, it is likely to get very little light. If that room will belong to a child/teenager, I would think twice (three or four times really) about having a door to the exterior. If it is going to be used as a guest room or secondary office however, the exterior door is a great touch.

The kitchen looks reasonably well designed though I personally prefer my pantry to be a bit closer to my work triangle. I'm also not a big fan of having the cooktop in an island that people are going to be sitting around. This one however does seems big enough to get people out of the danger zone - especially since it appears to be a double level island - so I wouldn't necessarily nix it. Do note that the space on the island that is between the cooktop and the raised bar is going to be fairly useless because you won't want to be reaching across a hot stove to set things down there.

If you have children (or even if you don't) a bathroom close to the garage entrance is always nice for those times when you've been stuck in traffic and "gotta go now" the minute you get in the house. As it is, you would have a pretty long dash to the nearest facility. One remedy would be to move the garage entry door about 5 ft to the left (so that it is even with the left wall of that bathroom) and then stick in a pocket door to that bathroom.

A guest going from bedroom 2 or bedroom 3 across the hall to heir bath seems like they're a bit exposed to the "public areas" of the dining room and living area. I usually tend to try and get rid of hallway space but in this case I would probably extend the wall across the bottom of the dining room to create a hallway making the bedroom area a little more private. You might be able to fit a linen closet at the end of the hallway.

You also lack anyplace to hang coats near the front entry. The linen closet mentioned above might serve if the door were put on the opposite wall or you could carve some space out of the master closet

I love the huge porch in back! Can't quite read what the lettering near the porch says but I assume it will be screened in for maximum usage. That is a magnificent feature and, all by itself, would just about sell me on this plan. What ever changes you wind up making, I do hope you'll leave that porch just the way it is.

Finally, be aware that all those bumpouts in front will make this house more expensive to build than others of comparable size and quality. They will also result in a fairly "busy" front facade and some people hate that look while others love it.

Here is another copy of your floorplan that I've edited to show more clearly what I was suggesting above. Hope some of this is helpful. Again, welcome to the forum. It is addictive!

I, too, would like to see a larger view of the plan to see the room labels and sizes better.

I like the changes Bevangel suggested. I think the island in the kitchen is more of a problem than a cool feature and think you could get a better layout. (If this is the plan you decide to go for, you can post the kitchen plan on the kitchen forum for specific advice)

If that porch is indeed covered, I'd worry about the dining and living room being pretty dark.

I will work this afternoon to try to figure out how to post the plan larger.

As suggested, I will give you a little background. My wife & I have a blended family with 4 children ranging from ages 32 to 17. The 17 year old is mine & lives with her mom. I also have one in college that may or may not be returning to live with us. (so the exit on the bedroom might be a good thing.) We also have a possibility of a parent coming to live with us.

BEVANGEL!!! Thanks for the suggestions! I love the idea of the closet creating more of a hallway & providing privacy for the bedroom/bathroom. My wife is already concerned that the master closet may not be large enough (for MY clothes, not HERS) so I know she won't let me take any from there. We also really like the idea of the bathroom entrance from the hallway coming in from the garage. That would make that bathroom utilized much more.
You are correct that the turret is a shower. The windows are small and are about 9 feet up so there shouldn't be too much of a privacy issue.

We have purchased 1 acre outside of town. The house will be east facing.

Rhome, I was concerned about the covered patio as well, but was able to see a version of this home actually built. The patio is about 12 feet high so it allows enough light into the living room. Also there is light that comes in over the front door.

I agree about the cooktop in the kitchen. The island is large for seating since there is only one dining area. I have tried to think of other arrangements. Once we have zeroed in on the plan for certain, I think placing on the kitchen forum would be a great idea.

This is exactly the type of feedback we need. Thanks so much. I'll start working on the photo enlargement in a bit. It took me 2 hours last night to get that one on!!! LOL I'll get my 19 yr. old niece over here & she can probably do it for me in 10 minutes.

Thanks again!

I'm not crazy about the walk-through interior DR nor about having meals at an island looking at the kitchen walls. An island cooktop is awkward to vent; we've had posts from people unhappy with the downdraft fans sometimes used in these situations.

I'm the 'back hall' queen around here, so I'd prefer a larger laundery/back hall with some natural light.

Where are you building? This feels like a house for a hot climate. Will that west-facing rear porch be hot? Where is your best view?

I'm still working on making the plan larger. Thought I had it fixed, but apparently not.

CHISUE - Thanks for the information about the downdraft fan. We have wondered about the funtionality of that entire set-up. (plus they cost a little more to install.) The lot is wooded across the back, so when seated at the island you would have a view out the back windows at that. We live in central Texas, so our summers do get pretty warm and the winters aren't too terribly bad. The trees across the back will help with the west sun.

http://s432.photobucket.com/albums/qq47/chance_2008_photo/?action=view&current=plan.jpg
http://s432.photobucket.com/albums/qq47/chance_2008_photo/?action=view&current=plan.jpg

Here is a link that might be useful:

Okay. I think this is good as I'm going to get it. If you click on PLAN - then click on the "full size" button, you get a pretty decent size copy of the plan.

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Ah-hah! Did you find a neighborhood child to help? LOL (I don't even TRY!) This is much better. Now I *know* I like bevangel's changes. No house gets the ChiSue stamp of approval without at least a half-bath near the family entrance (usually the garage). Our back hall powder room is the most used facility in the house. I know that because I replace the TP in it as often as I do in our master bath. LOL

Could you partially flip the kitchen, putting a sit-down eating area on an outside wall with windows and some of the the counters, cabinets etc. inside? Our 'breakfast' room is a well used area in our home.

I'll know more about one downdraft exhaust fan in a month. My DS and DIL are going to install one. They're refurbishing a 1910 house in Chicago. The fan they've chosen elevates about ten inches from the back of the cooktop when in use; should help capture steam from taller pots.

We're on an acre -- 2900 sq ft. 30 miles north of Chicago. Love the privacy and *quiet*.

Hmmm? I'm a bit confused. Looks like the large image you just posted is quite a bit different from the earlier one. This one only shows two secondary bedrooms while the first plan had three but a lot less room in the garage. Did you post the wrong large image or have you now decided you don't want/need the additional bedroom?

BEVANGEL - You are correct. I did post the wrong one. This was a 3 BR version of the floor plan. But, we wanted to go with 4 BR so as to have a room that we could use for our treadmill and exercise equipment and still have room for overnite parents, children, grandkids, etc. However, as someone has pointed out, the BR's in the 4 BR are pretty small. We hope to be in this house from now on, but still want to keep resale in mind because nothing is ever certain! I'll try to post the CORRECT one. As long as it takes me, I might have it posted in a day or two!LOL

O.K. I THINK I have the right plan now(4 BR). I'm getting a little better at this posting thing!

I guess since I have both plans posted now, I would be curious as to which one is preferred. We don't HAVE to have a 4th BR.
Thanks once again!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Seems to me like it's a really LONG way to and from the laundry room from the bathrooms and the bedrooms. Could you flip the laundry room and the hallway bathroom somehow, so both are accessed from the hallway that serves the bedrooms? It makes no sense to me that the laundry room entrance is near the garage.

CHISUE - I'm not sure I understand how flipping the kitchen cabinets would work. The space between the kitchen sink & island isn't very wide. At least if there is a table & chairs in that space where the sink & cabinets under the window are. I may not be completely understanding what you're saying.

I agree with you on the bathroom change that bevangel made. I showed it to my wife & she loved it as well as the bump out closet.

Our acre is just outside the city limits in a quiet setting. It is on a single street with about 8 houses in it with room for about 4 more. The neighbors seem wonderful. They have already started inviting us to neighborhood functions and we haven't even started building yet. We can't wait to get started. I have never built a home before and my wife has only built one, so this forum is wonderful for us. We have learned so much.

LITTLEBUG - I will mention the laundry room location to my wife. Lucky for me, she handles most of that. That's something I've never really thought about.

I'd prefer to have a sit-down table and chairs on an outside wall with natural daylight and a view -- could be the rear wall, the porch wall, the current 'Game Room' rear wall. You have both your Kitchen 'view' walls stacked with cabinets. (And a dining table in an interior hallway.)

I worry about these open floor plans. You have a game room, kitchen, dining, and family room all open to each other. This is going to make it hard to shuffle the kids off to the game room while the adults are at the dining table or in the family room trying to have a converstation. The t.v. or music is going to bleeding out of that game room into the rest of the living space, especially if you use a hard floor such as tile.

i would add a wall and a door so the game room can be closed off.

Our old house in NJ was closed off - you had to walk through the dining room to get from the living room to the kitchen. We hated it.

When we were househunting we found a house with an open plan - the tv room leads to the breakfast nook which is part of the kitchen. We thought it was perfect!

Well, can I tell you how annoying it is to be watching TV only to have the running water at the kitchen sink drown out the dialogue on TV? It's ridiculous.

So, when we go to build, we'll still have an open plan, but not THAT open - we will still have the living room open to the kitchen, but want to configure it so there is at least a halfwall separating the two.