Bevangel: Thanks for the perspective of the view toward the powder room from the dining area. We originally had the elevator and powder room flipped, but moved the powder room toward the front entry since it could be too easily viewed from the living room. I did not want the powder room in the back hall either. What I thought I would do was have a credenza or entry table with some tall pottery or plant on it in that space between the entry and the dining since there is no space along the wall for a welcome. Do you think that would make them visually separated from each other? We had just reworked our kitchen and I also just realized that the door from the garage would be better served if it opens directly into the elevator hall. Glad someone else felt that way too. I had not thought of having a wheelchair entering through the garage, but was planning on the front entrance being the accessible one. I like the idea of the flat landing too. I have one in my current house and love, love, love it. It is so nice when your arms are filled with groceries and you do not need to reach way up to open the door. Thanks for the 5' info. You think in those terms for awhile, but then make a change and all past sense flies through the window! dekeoboe: We do not have our elevations. The builder is working on them as we speak...rather type. No one needs a wheelchair now, but don't want to have to move if one of us needs it down the road. We are starting by having the elevator and the doorways wide enough. Not all rooms will be wheelchair accessible. The builder is double checking the measurements. We could take out the bench and landing zone if need be. There may not be a turn around for the laundry, but may be able to back out? The basement master will have a roll-in shower and will be set up for a current guest in a wheelchair. We just added that turn into the master so you don't walk right into the master bedroom from the living room. Maybe we should reverse that change. lavender lass: Thanks. kirkhall: We were talking about how to close off the upstairs when we don't have company so we aren't heating and cooling the upper floor when not in use. We put them in both places. I figure they'll let us know what code is. Going upstairs, you would open the door on the landing, but coming down, you'd be on a step. That could be awkward. Thanks to all.

Wish I could be more positive but... 1) Your log-on name tells me you have 3 kids and that being a good mom is a top priority for you so I don't think you've noticed what a horribly long distance it is from the master bedroom to bedroom number 4! If a child sleeping in that room cries out for you in the night, would you even be able to hear them? And, if you heard them, how long would it take you to make the dash from your bed to their room? Consider: out of bed and across your room to the door (10 ft?) down first hallway (12-15 ft?), right turn down another short hall and across a large foyer (25-30 ft?), diagonal up thru the kitchen zig-zagging around the kitchen island (20 feet?) then u-turn down another long hallway (25 ft?) then right turn down yet another hall (10 ft) before you FINALLY reach the child's room? Bedrooms 2 and 3 aren't much more convenient. Parental privacy is one thing but with this design, you might just as well put your kids in a separate house entirely. 2) Even if your kids are grown and you are no longer concerned about little ones crying in the night or teenagers trying to sneak out of the house after Mom and Dad have gone to bed (LOL!); do you really want to pay for hundreds of square feet of hallway space when a better design could give you so much more useful living space? A 12'6" x 12'6" secondary bedroom in a 1700 square foot tract home is one thing, in a 4300 square foot home they ought to be more spacious. 3) The master bathroom toilet has no convenient spot for washing one's hands after using the facility... a major no-no in my book. 5) In a 4300 square foot house, I would want a more spacious guest powder-room as well...one that a person in a wheel chair could get in and out of. 6) I don't know why your architect is calling your pantry a "butler's pantry" when it does not open onto an eating area and therefore is useless as a staging area for serving a meal. It really is just a big pantry which is fine BUT it is not located conveniently to the garage or port cochere for ease in unloading groceries. I'd want my pantry in a more convenient location. 7) I don't see a doorway directly from your garage to the gameroom so I'm guessing you anticipate that the family will generally enter the house via the port cochere. If so, the mud-room is much too small to be of any real use and the laundry room is positioned so that anyone entering or exiting will have no choice but to traipse across any laundry that is being sorted (and as che1sea pointed out, you have no place to sort laundry except the hallway floor.) 8) The design manages to locate each of the secondary toilets so that a half-asleep child needing to use one at night is going to have to maneuver a rather long winding hike to the nearest toilet. Draw a line from each bed to the nearest toilet and you'll see what I mean. Would you want to navigate those paths in a half-asleep mode in the middle of the night? 9) The kitchen looks good on paper but strikes me as not being well \-designed for actual use. The whole "work triangle" idea is probably overused but whoever cooks in this kitchen is going to spend an awful lot of time jogging around that kitchen island. A nice big kitchen with room to spread out is nice - but not to the point where you need roller skates to prepare a meal. Frankly, if it were me, I'd take this back to my architect and tell him start over again fresh.

Nice idea, I never thought of that. There is going to be 48" of countertop on each side of the cooktop. So, if I took out 36" for a doorway, that leaves me with only 12" of cooktop counter to the left of the cooktop. I have more than that now and it drives me insane. I thought about a half wall with a ledge for stacking dishes, serving food, etc. But for that to work properly the sink and cooking areas need to swap. Drats. Seems like everywhere I turn, this kitchen, my budget and my stubborn hubby are against me! But, it is what it is, and built back in the day when sinks just HAD to be under a window, period. Is it THAT expensive to move plumbing??

Hi everyone. I've been trying to get paying work done (I freelance), but I've had more ideas bouncing around my head. I'm liking what we all came up with for the island/table configuration. But, I really want to move the wall. I think it just opens up many options for the kitchen. I talked to the engineer today and am setting up an appt for him to evaluate next week. I also talked to a framer that a full-service firm who didn't want my small job referred me to. He does nothing but framing for builders and remodelers. He told me "realistically anywhere from $1500 to $3k" and he knows about pouring new footers if needed and building temp support walls on all 3 floors while the new support is being built. IF it is under $5k altogether to move the walls, then I'll do it. Our cabinets will come in at under $5k, so I figure for the $10k lots of folks in our neighborhood spend on cabinets at Home Depot, I'm getting the layout I really want. So here is my latest plan (number 472 I think ;-) Janet--I got you some landing space for the ovens! Which is now also a beverage center outside the main work space, so I think that is good placement for kids to grab something and for adults at parties. All my wine glasses can go in the cab above. The micro is there as well. The micro might be better inside my L space, but this way, it's pretty convenient to getting heated stuff to the table. And we use it mostly for steaming veggies or heating up leftovers, so things usually go from micro to table. Plus there is more storage space with that unit. I appreciate the feedback on the corner, but I like this cabinet versus the 36" lazy Susan (which I think should be renamed the "go-getter Susan" ;-). I don't like the piano hinge door on the Susan cab--I can see my kids banging it around and scratching up the cabinets around it will get banged up too. That IKEA corner unit has a door and it is just two half moon shelves that swing out. It may not hold as much, but I found it pretty handy to use. Plus, it gives me a drawer right there by the cooktop which the Susan doesn't have. Another thing I realized is that the DR door shouldn't be centered on the wall--it needs to stay near where it is now. Even though I think it looks more aesthetically pleasing to be centered, that door is a direct pathway into the kitchen and we don't need to be maneuvering around the dining room table. LavenderLass--you may have missed this in my earlier verbose posts, but I already have most of the appliances in the basement. They were a great deal from a fancy appliance store that went out of business. So, it's putting the cart before the horse, but I'm trying to work it all in. Thank you for helping me out on the window--I'm definitely going to find out the costs on that one. It would look much more upscale. I'll check in after I've met with the engineer and get more precise bids on the wall. Keep your fingers crossed. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and suggestions so far. Susan Layout number 472: View of the DR wall for this plan: