Try posting this on the Home Decorating forum along with photos of the home and the colors you are considering.

I think Hubby's come around to floor plan #2 -- the one with the back stairs centered in the box bay. (That was my favorite.) Your comments were very helpful and insightful, and I think hearing then from someone other than me was also persuasive. What also helped was running into a guy over the weekend who designs and sells timber trusses. Hubby is a stone and timber and metal guy, and the idea that the staircase, catwalk, front porch and trusses could all be part of this grand master truss design is starting to catch on. I've been looking at a lot of inspiration photos on Houzz lately, and have seen some neat pictures where the catwalk is actually suspended from the ceiling trusses. There's got to be some way to do this that's drop-dead gorgeous: [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/ski-house-rustic-living-room-austin-phvw-vp~101894) [traditional living room design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2107) by austin architect Webber + Studio, Architects So now onto the exterior: There'll be a balcony, like in the 2nd and 3rd sketches. Our main issues are windows on the garage/master bedroom section (far right), and dining room (below the balcony), and the front porch section. The windows at the top of the master are pretty much set due to the placement of plumbing fixtures. They could go a bit taller, but frankly, I like the squares, and keeping them short and high up gives us privacy in the bathroom. The 1st floor area there is garage on the right, with a small garage bath on the far left. There really are a lot of trees and shrubs out front there, so whatever we do won't be terribly visible. (See the 2nd and 3rd exterior drawings for possible windows.) The dining room will have very low ceilings, just over 7 feet, which can't be helped,(raised slab) so I'm thinking the room needs to be 'dark and dramatic' by design since it can never really be anything but dark, no matter what we do. So my thoughts are that the windows there should be more for what looks good from the outside. The windows shown in #2 & 3 match one on the wall to the left, shown on the floor plan right below the closet. But we're definitely open to suggestion there. The front entry and porch is where we have the most design potential -- What I've attempted to draw is a copper metal roof over a grouping of French Doors and a 6-foot deep stone-floored porch. The wall behind the French doors would be stone on the bottom, and could either stay stone all the way up, or switch to wood siding above the copper. (Same wood is used elsewhere on the house.) We're also trying to decide on support columns, visible rafter tails, etc. to support the roof overhang. I'd like a 'woodsy craftsman' vibe, and Hubby likes lots of beefy structure... Also, if the catwalk stays centered, and is integrated into the trusses, it would be possible to lower the walls of that section slightly, giving us more height-variability on the front facade. Does that make sense? And is that a good idea? I'd welcome your ideas --

Where are you located? I like the white shutters, but would definitely add color to the door and to the landscaping. Beyond that, I would want to know what is going on at that left corner of the house (behind the pickup) and to the right of the pickup before you get to the windows and door. Those are two large areas and I can't tell what's going on there and they might need some different attention. Ignoring those two areas for the moment, the white shutters could look very nice and the overall look very cool and refreshing (appeals in Texas in the summer), but most of what I'm picturing changing is the door and landscaping with a lot of variation in foliage color and textures (grey greens, light green, lime green, some purples even) and white blossoms -- maybe some pinks or purples. I'd think about a green or plum on the door. If you want more change, look at your brick for cues. It looks like the brick has a lot of pink or peach to it and you can generally go into the greens with pinks and reds. If not a green or white, I'd look at the darker tones in your brick mix for clues -- I'm thinking more grey than taupe, but a deeper tone somewhere in that range. Regardless of your paint color or colors, with all those other vertical lines, I'd do something different on your door so that it stands out.

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read through these posts and to post advice and suggestions and constructive criticism. I am taking all of it into consideration and some of it was not what i wanted nor expected to hear, but what I needed to hear. I feel as if a little more explanation is needed. We found a builder that we really like and everyone that he has built for has been really happy. He had several plans that we could look at or if we had any plans he could build whatever we liked. He has a gentleman that could draw and customize a home for us. We thought it was architect at first and the price was so good because we were going through him and he would then be able to have our house plan to use in the future. Upon our first meeting with the gentleman that was going to draw up of dream home so we could make it a reality, we learned that he was not an architect, or designer. He's retired now from 40 years of experience woking on/building homes and is good with the software. He is very kind and has been very patient with the many changes we have made along the way. However, we soon discovered that he really has no design ideas or suggestions. He just draws whatever we ask him to or whatever I draw to send to him. If we wanted something a changed, the standard procedure was to just make part of the house bigger, we had gotten up to almost 4400 square feet! If we didn't like the way something worked and asked for a change, he would fix that issue and cause 2 more. I got so frustrated that we are trying to build our dream home and pretty much the only person I had for design help was myself. Uhm, I really want someone with much more skill and talented and better taste to design my home. I know what I want, I just do't know how to get there. We have been working on this for 8 months. I got so frustrated that I gave up for 3 months. Our neighbors are using the same builder and they had difficulties getting their design as well. However they had found a floor plan that they liked and just had him make changes to it and add a mother in law plan. I firmly believe that we are his first truly start from scratch home. Again, this is the guy the builder sent us to to have plans drawn, not our builder. Giving him credit he has taking my very very basic sketches and turned them into something the builder can build from, but pretty much the design is about 99% me, not that I wanted it that way. Here is where I'm at, so you can see that he is doing all the builder type stuff. We don't want to be difficult, but we want a good design. We don't want the builder to think that we are difficult or indecisive because we just can't get there with his guy. I'm at a loss! Several people wanted to know the lot dimensions. So here they are: It is at the top of a ridge, has some slope to it and has a nice open are in the middle. Of course we want the house to sit about at the arrows part of the lot. There is an utility easement of 20 feet on the right side of the lot, but the utility poles are more like 30 feet inside the property. I really do appreciate all of your insight. It has been eye opening. I'll make another post addressing questions and comments. Sorry to be so long winded.