First, thanks for some honest feedback while we can still make floorplan changes. We're aiming for a long-term home that suits our lifestyle but would not make future buyers say, "They can't really be serious." I had to laugh and cringe, david_cary. We seem to be walking the knife's edge. homey_bird, I'm afraid what you see here is the result of hours of stewing. We drafted the initial plan and want to work out all the specifics before we send it for bids. As everyone knows, one change affects so many things that we stay up late and our heads start spinning. We will seriously consider all feedback. At the risk of TMI, I'll attach the original elevations and floorplans. This second floor plan doesn't include the deep tub or larger shower in the master bath. Trying to fit those items has been a problem. Creek_side and alabamanicole, thank you for your feedback and your interest in the bigger picture. We've also been thinking about how we use the master bath. My dh likes to spend an hour locked in the bathroom each morning (?) so I would really enjoy a vanity in the hall dressing area. I don't think we would use two sinks in the master concurrently. I was hoping a vanity would help resale too if we put only one sink in the master. So what is the room between the master bedroom and bath? Good question. A vanity which could also function as a seat for dressing, an east-facing window (view of the wetlands behind us), a small triangular closet, a longer reach-in closet, and some built in shelving. I've looked at our wardrobe and realized that we need half our closet space for hanging and half for shelved items (folded clothes, shoes, purses). The previous walk-in closet plan seemed too tight for a seat or vanity and the window was small in order to minimize damage to clothes. We are open to any suggestions to get an attractive, functional, reasonably priced dressing area. The one foot deep storage in the bathroom is our attempt to get as much storage as possible in there for soaps, shampoos, toilet paper, towels, cleaning supplies etc. We could give the bathroom a foot from the closet area for deeper storage in the bath. We assumed that the shower door would be 2-3 feet wide (out of five) so the bench could wrap around and we could still open the shower door. I'll attach a rough view from our home planning software that requires a lot of imagination. The tub is just 40 inches in diameter and would be positioned near the window with the internal seat facing toward the east window/view. The rest of the deck would be tiled so we could step on the bench, sit on the tile deck, and swing our legs over into the tub. That's the theory, anyhow. We put in a pedestal sink to give us more room near the bath and to approximate art deco style. The window above it is a transom for more light at the sink. There is a mirrored medicine cabinet directly in front of the sink. We have been partial to east facing windows (top of floor plan) because that is our view of a wetlands. The master bedroom also has transoms to the south (right of plan) because we have 1.5 story neighbors on that side and would like as much sunlight as possible. Thanks for the comment about the toilet area and corner windows, creek_side. We can cut adjust those. Please feel free to throw us a comment about anything else on the plan as well. Now's our chance to fix it. Liz

Here's what I came up with. I can't see the point of having the toilet in such a large room. However I can see having a larger shower for the master bathroom, so I switched the shower and toilet, and moved the vanities to the outside wall. I then gave you a pocket door from the bedroom to the master bathroom. I squared off your master closet and moved your door to your room down a bit. Now when you walk into your bedroom you have a path to either side of the bed without having to make a jog around the bed. Your toilet closet is 5'2" x 3' wide which is plenty large. You can do as I'm doing and add a frosted glass swinging door to the closet to get more light into the room. The shelving area can be shelves, or a narrow closet, or??? The shower is now whatever the width of the room was by 5'2". A nice sized shower. I moved the entry to the closet down also.

White. It is timeless. I don't have white interiors in my kitchen or bathroom cabinets but I opted for white for my custom closets. Even in the most fabulous beautifully designed ultra-expensive homes, the closets are white.

Thanks for the clarification and if we decide to send everything to an architect I will be sure to upload. At this point the builder has told us we have to put down a $5,000 deposit on the lot and $5,000 deposit to send the rough sketches to an architect. With the market being crazy, we are trying to compare what we would be able to afford with a new build vs. what we've been seeing come (and go) on the market. So we are trying to get a general sketch/layout idea of our build to see if the estimated costs are going to work in our budget.