What exactly do you want help brainstorming? The general layout, or finishes? Are you looking for potential decorating challenges in the floorplan above?

Sorry, I'm confused. I thought you wanted floorplan help, but then you're talking about deer heads & wood species. Help us help you. :)

:) all of the above .... and a big push would help! I've already paid for one building permit and a house plan that we both admitted we hate (the guy just did not have the vision) so we stopped building and decided to wait until we had what we wanted! I guess I need to start with the general layout and/or finishes that would work with the layout. I really do appreciate your time!

From a cost standpoint, it is a good idea to share plumbing walls - i.e. to cluster bathrooms, and kitchen too, if possible. You've drawn a split bedroom plan, which is nice, but perhaps you could put two baths in between the bedroom areas, and move the kitchen where the master bedroom is now. Master bedroom would shift to where master bath is now.

There are magazine style publications of home building plans that could help you quite a lot. Your library may also have books of home building plans. Certainly if you google 'home building plans' you will find a lot of resources - e.g. William E. Poole Designs and many others. Then you narrow down your choices by searching for plans that are similar in dimension to your footprint size of 46' x 38'.

It's good you stopped building until you have a plan that you are completely like. Anything else will cause many headaches and ultimately cost more.

Even though you think of this as a decorating challenge, it's your building plan you need help with. The Building Forum here is excellent - lot's of experienced people who can give great pointers. I recommend you ask for help there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Web Building a House Forum

dlm you are right and I have asked them but I wanted to get both sides-building plan with thoughts toward the decorating stand point making both work. Not to end up with a plan with a decorating issue that I have to work on later. I would like to think all angles through before I build.

Please don't take this harshly, but I think you're going about this backwards. I wouldn't worry about the decor yet. Design comes first, decor second. The great thing about decor is that it helps you make the best of the spaces you have. You don't want to design a LIVING space around VISUAL decor.

I'm not a builder, but I've had two homes built. There are a few things in the drawing above that I think will bother you when you "live" with them.

You don't have any windows in the living room. I think you'll want to change that.

The arrangement of the bedrooms and bathroom on what's the top/north of the drawing. If those three doors are closed, you're going to walk from an open living room into a tiny rectangular capsule. And you're walking straight into a bathroom. I think it would bother me to round the corner, and *boop* there's a bathroom.

I also think you might come to hate that corner window on the top left. I took great pains to avoid that in my current house. It's a really limiting design to live with.

Usually it's nice to have some counterspace right next to the fridge. In your plan, you're butting against the sink, and the island is on the other side of the room. I think this may bug you over time. It also looks like the opened dishwasher would block your access to the sink. As a previous poster mentioned, we have several forums here. You should post your kitchen design in the Kitchens forum. There are some very savvy space planners there.

Assuming that peninsula is designed to have seating on the living room side, the seats look like they may block access to the top/north door.

Your master bath entry door & closet doors are going to crash into each other. If you keep them where they are, consider using pocket doors for at least one of them to help avoid that. I would not put a bathtub directly across from the shower. I would be more tempted to put a toilet closet where the tub is, and move the tub to where the toilet is. That would give you a great wall for towels near the shower (which most people use most frequently), a more private toilet area, and a great tub nook - epsecially if you'd want to consider a corner tub. And your guest bathroom door is going to crash into the toilet.

Blue is your primary traffic patterns. Red are the things that I think may be a concern for you. Red questionmarks seem to be wasted space -- not sure what you have planned for those areas.

Avesmor: wow! such insight, all that you have pointed out gave me such a fresh look at this house plan.

I had not even noticed the counter space problem-or lack of next to the sink-I'm not sure where to put the fridge or the dishwasher though within this space. You are right about the bar stools also. The bathroom where the ? are is where the original plan had the closets for the bedroom-that might be the best spot instead of taking away from the bedrooms (even if I don't really plan to use these rooms much). :) the original plan had the door swinging into the toilet (took me a min looking over what you wrote to understand this BUT you are so right-I would hate this).

Thank you for taking the time and looking over this for me, I've copied your thoughts to ponder further.

As avesmor pointed out, there's a bit of a traffic flow issue with the front door. I would shift it down and perhaps center it on the dining french doors.

I would encourage you to not rush through this process.

The hall bath could definately be designed better. 10' might be tight in the dining room, especially if you are constantly walking around it.

Yes, please take your time with this. Just dittoing some others about:
1. The dining room: You should have at least 36" for main traffic areas and it may still feel tight. It will interfere with the laundry area.
2. The closet: I don't think you should put a closet in the bathroom, with humidity, it can cause issues.
3. The front door: Consider what you want to see when you first open the front door. It's nice for it to have it's own space instead of walking right into the room so at least consider a flooring change. I would see about having a coat closet by the front door. It may give you the opportunity for an entry area.
4. The kitchen: Remember and look up the kitchen triangle for space layout.
5. The plumbing: The previous poster is correct about having all of the plumbing on one wall in a room.
6. Look up plans online or I believe you can buy a magazine of them in the grocery store.
7. The design inspiration: I don't think you shouldn't consider design and decor decisions all together. Keep them in mind while you do the floor plan but at this phase, it's much more important to get adjacencies and traffic flow right. Still, think about what you want to see when you first walk in the room and keep things like the location of the television in consideration.

A few more ideas:

1) consider flipping the kitchen and the dining room, this would enable you to better coordinate pantry, laundry, and utility spaces (what is that space next to the washer/dryer)? And would also help concentrate plumbing. In addition, it would give you a "clean" wall in your dining area, where I would put a bench (against the wall), w/ a rectangle farm table. This would give you enough seating for company, but leave you with plenty of space everyday.
2) I would also improve the layout of the master bath and closet, I think a better use of space is to have one well planned closet (versus 2), and, if possible, include a pass thru to the laundry area.
3) since space is tight, I would use pocket doors throughout the interior (except for bedroom entrances)
4) that back bedroom is really small ,,, I would consider having the front and back bedrooms the same size and (without knowing your ceiling height), I would include built in storage on top of the closets, which I'd keep at minimum depth. I'd also widen that section a bit and shoot for slightly bigger rooms. I'd re-work that hall area, seems like there is wasted space and I'd consider angled doorways (be sure it's not so tight that you can't move in furniture).
5) The second bath can be laid out more efficiently to give some space to the bedrooms. I'd just have a bath/shower combo, a stool, and vanity/sink. I would omit a linen closet and instead include built-in's ,,, both in the shower (for shampoo etc.) and around the room e.g. medicine cabinets and storage cubbies. In terms of layout, I'd have the door open up across from the sink/vanity, with the tub turned, and the stool on the outside wall (that's a classic bath layout, and it's classic for a reason).
6) With cement floors, I'd consider radiant floor heating.
7) I would have the left and right sides of the house 13.5 feet wide and then the middle section would be 18 ft. I'd also consider lining up the entrances to the bedroom areas on each side of the house across from one another. I'd also consider a built-in opposite the bar where one side is a book shelf (opening to the living area) and the other side is a buffet/server/china cabinet opening to the dining area. I like symmetry.
8) although I like the front door in the middle from an exterior perspective, it would not work for me from an interior perspective. Slide it down off-set to the french doors in the back of the house. I would then add two windows to the living room. Along with symmetry, I like windows.

I strongly recommend that you finalize a detailed house plan, BEFORE you start building AND to include in your written contract with the builder.

Good luck.

Have you thought about flipping the master bedroom and master bath so that the bedroom is at the back of the house for more privacy? With the bedroom in back you could have French doors opening up to the back yard. You should probably also post on the Building a Home forum for feedback and ideas on the plan.

I have not read the other comments in detail, but just want to say the following:

You cannot/should not be designing a house. You don't know enough about design to be doing it. There are zillions of design plans that you could look through and then buy one that fits your box - a basic, square three bedroom house. There are ways to build an inexpensive house, but the design plan should not be the place to DIY.

I'm not trying to insult you here. Even people who have some experience with houses and design - or think they do - make stupid mistakes. I am much older than you are, I have lived in lots of houses and have lots of house experience. And I am not equipped to design a house either.

I don't know if others have pointed this out, but you have water lines running across the house. There are good reason why architects cluster the plumbing into one or two areas of a house.

You would be far better off finding an existing plan and adapting it.

I have to agree with graywings. Your plan is approximately 1750 square feet and doesn't even have a proper entry/foyer and your laundry area is in your dining room. 1750 sq ft may not seem like a big home to many people, but I have seen many homes that size and smaller that have much better space planning. I don't see a garage on your plan. Do you plan to have one? Will it be detached?

In reference just to the laundry - I'd put the laundry in the master bath near the closet. That's where most of your dirty laundry will be generated. I would not want the laundry in my dining/living area.

seagrass

I highly recommend looking at professionally drawn house plans before finalizing your plan. There are many places for improvement on your current plan and others have mentioned some of them. I recommend you draw your plan to scale using graph paper where 1/4" = 1'. Just from a quick look at your plan I do not think it is to scale unless the bedroom closets are very shallow and your bathrooms are not planned for maximum efficiency of space.

I was in real estate for long enough to see many houses where the plans were drawn by amateurs and there is no need to make expensive mistakes which you will have to live with. These houses don't sell well or at top price either. Even if you plan for this house to be your 'forever' home it should be the best you can make it. Even on professionally designed house plans there is often room for improvement so just use them as a starting point.

Is your property in an area where a building permit is necessary? If so you will have to follow certain guidelines. Even tho we had an architect designed plan there were some necessary changes that had to be made to our plan because of recent changes to the building codes of our area. Better to know ahead of time what is allowed. It's much easier to make changes on paper before than during the building process.

On the link below you can key in your specifications and find many plans that might be suitable.

Best of luck to you with this project. Remember time spent in planning is never wasted.

Here is a link that might be useful: one site to look at

thank you all for your comments. I plan to print all of these out and digest before I move further.

Your kitchen is exactly like my old kitchen but we had the sink on the stove wall in your plan, and the stove where your sink is.

Putting the sink/dishwasher on the north wall, and the stove on the east wall with extra counter space between the fridge and stove will solve your problems.