I should preface this post by saying that kitchen lay-out is my stronger suit but I had an idea for your bathroom. This plan assumes that you can move the waste line and plumbing lines for the toilet. The areas that would need privacy in a house of 2 boys and 2 girls are the shower/toilet area, IMO, so it made more sense to put these in a room together, not the toilet and vanity. This way one of your daughters could be at the sink while a son is in the shower. My brother and I had a bathroom like this growing up and it worked for us. Oh, and putting the toilet in the same room as the shower means less chance of siblings playing pranks on the one in the shower. ;-) If you install transom windows above the shower, door and vanity area, you'll get natural light into the shower/toilet area. You could also check into a frosted glass door for even more light into the shower area without giving up any privacy. I added a window seat below the window to give you more storage and to give that area a purpose. Besides, window seats are cute. ;-) If clearances will allow it, you might be able to lengthen the vanity up to 1', which would mean your vanity would be long enough for 2 sinks, making it even easier for your bathroom to serve 4 kids.

Having a 'friends' entry and main entry seems like a sweet idea, but the reality of it, does it work? For me, the only people that come to my house are friends/family/neighbors and the UPS guy. Therefor the only person using the 'main' door would be the UPS guy, but even then, if there is any question in his mind what the front door is, he'll go to the closest and most easily accessible door. I also completely agree with comments about the foundation plan (general rule, the more corners = the more expensive). While I am all about adult privacy, it is a very long distance between where you plan to put a master bedroom from what I assume will be children's bedrooms, a trek that might not be fun at 3 am when trying to get to a screaming baby or when you are putting the toddler back to bed for the umpteenth time. Just some food for thought :) Good luck and have fun as you continue working through the process!

Wow MrsPete thats a lot to think about! I was not expecting to have to request so many changes to this plan. Considering we hired a professional designer to do the plan. I will do my best to address all the issues mentioned. Again thanks for everyone who has chimed in.. Great point on the double entry doors. I did not even think about turning the lights on. It looks like the master bathroom has double entry doors too. I am not sure I want to shut two doors every time I go in the bathroom. So if we flip the washer and dryer to the kitchen wall and make it come off the mudroom. What about the door entry from the mudroom ? Looks like the washer and dryer would hang out some past the doors edge. But I think this may be ok if they are placed on down the wall verses right beside the door. With the fridge I actually like it where it is for the most part. I like that when you look back towards the kitchen from great room, you dont really see the fridge. But this is also one thing I told the wife she could make the call on the layout of the kitchen. Also as far as all the plumbing goes I will be running everything. I have done a few houses that are rental properties and have all the tools to run pex and the drains. Ok, so maybe we need to make plans to eliminate a bathroom and add on for the pool area. When you say you would build one nice bath between the two bedrooms and having into opening into the hallway for a guest bath, do you mean the bath will have 3 entry doors, 2 from bedrooms and 1 in hallway? It seems like this would also put it really close to the half bath. Also what are the thoughts on a jack and jill? On the closets this is one thing I requested. I want some space for myself!! Otherwise the wife will take it over! I thought the divider wall would actually give you a little more room to hang things also. I do like the idea of putting the shower in the corner and moving the toilet. But at the same time I like the privacy of it being on the outside wall away from everything else. With the windows in the closets I am not sure what to do on this. I do agree its not the best scenario. I also do not know if I want a large window in the toilet room. I know the designer said he had a very difficult time making the windows work on the front of the house. We do plan to make changes to the doors leading out to the porch. I am concerned about furniture placement with all those doors. Also if your looking outside from the great room who wants to see the backs of outdoor furniture? I am kinda at a loss on how that will look. You all have been a great help so far, I am sure we will get this all worked up and build pics will be coming before you know it. I will also try to attach some pics that I gave the designer for ideas on what the wife and I liked. We basically gave him some pictures and he had us fill out a 3 page questionnaire.

funkycamper, thank you so much for the feedback! I did actually consider putting the refrigerator where the beverage center will be, and there were a couple of reasons I decided against it... The first is that the space is only 69" long, so there isn't enough space for the 48" built in refrigerator plus the pantries, so I'd still have to have some of the pantry space be over where we have it shown. One of the reasons we are getting rid of the pantry that is there now is that it's pretty annoying having the pantry space split across the kitchen like that, I frequently find myself running back and forth from one to the other. Plus, if there is something I need from the other pantry I would have to go over to that side anyway, so it would seem to be more convenient to have the pantries and fridge together so I only have to go to one area to get the food. The second reason is that currently we have a regular depth refrigerator in that space and the opening to the dining room is 2 ft 5 in. We are widening the doorway to 4 ft and putting in a built-in (therefore counter depth) refrigerator, so I figured that would keep the refrigerator doors from blocking the doorway when they are open. Although I do love the idea of getting as big windows into the space as we can, the reason we have the upper making that turn is that we are going to have an appliance garage under it to put my food processor, blender, and stand mixer. I didn't want them to be too far from the range since I will likely be using them either right before or right after things come off the stove/out of the oven.