Nice plan. I see your points about the master set up, the pantry & the mudroom/powder room set up. Here are my initial thoughts: Mudroom/Powder Room- I would move the interior to garage entry door/wall to the other side of the staircase and then slide the door all the way to the left so it swings toward the left hand wall (I would move the side entry door down into the garage area) or slide it all the way right and have it open toward the door at the base of the stairs. This would allow you more space in the mudroom area to reconfigure to your heart's content and eliminate the mudroom/powder room door issue. You could also move the powder and laundry rooms to the opposite wall and do a back hall sort of entry so you couldn't see straight through to the mudroom from the kitchen. Pantry/Stove counter space issue-Delete the angled wall and extend the stove wall out as far as possible. Move the pantry door to the wall opposite the backside of the main staircase. Master Suite-Flipping the bath/closet & the bedroom would indeed allow a greater buffer from the family room noise and would allow you to have more windows in the master bedroom. I like this idea. Dining Area-It will be very difficult to get out those french doors with a table and chairs in front of them. I would make that area a wall of long windows to take advantage of plenty of natural light in the space and move the doors to the set of windows on the left in the family room. Kitchen- Have you thought of compromising in the kitchen and maybe doing a prep island in the center and a snack bar island at the edge of the kitchen/family room area? If you straightened out the angles on the sink side of the kitchen and just made it a 2' deep square jut out, ran the countertops within the jut out and not beyond it,there should be enough space between the sink counter and the snack counter to do a nice size island. Out of curiosity, what is it about a snack bar island that your DH likes? What is it he doesn't like about a regular island with seating? I will say, we lived in a rental house with a kitchen setup like the one in your plan and those snack bar counters became clutter magnets. Just my experience. -No tub? Even if you don't plan to ever sell the house, small grandchildren/nieces/nephews may come over and need a tub vs. a shower. Tubs are also nice for soaking sore muscles after soccer/basketball/etc. I would at least put one in the kids' bath. Hope this helps!

If you do get a nice big lot, as you hope, are you sure you want your garage in front? I wouldn't call 3/4 - 1 acre a big lot, but still it's big enough not to have the dreaded garage-out-front situation. The garage is rarely a particularly attractive part of a house, so unless you're building on a lot so small that it's listed in feet instead of acres, why put the worst part of the house out front to set the tone of the whole house? Can you elaborate more on why I need to have a lot first? You certainly have ideas already about the type of house you want, but the specific lot -- especially when you're talking about an acre or less -- may dictate the type of house you'll choose. Examples: - If you choose a corner lot, you may opt for a side-opening garage placed at the back of the lot so that it'll provide some privacy for the back yard ... whereas that layout wouldn't work at all if you choose a typical lot. - If you find a great neighborhood that happens to have narrow/deep lots (or a neighborhood with large set backs), this house plan you've drawn could easily be too wide. Or vice-versa, you might fall in love with the last lot in a neighborhood, and it could be wide and shallow. Or, yet again, you might choose a cul-de-sac lot that'd necessitate a rather narrow front dimension. - The neighborhood you choose may specify what you can and can't have in a house; for example, the neighborhood in which we're going to build specifies only all-brick or stone and at least 1900 sf. Some neighborhoods require that the house plans are approved by committee, others require very specific items such as a specific roof pitch, a garage of a certain type or size, insist up on two-stories, even mailboxes of a certain type. - You may find a great deal on an oddly-shaped lot, and this fairly predictable rectangular house may not work on it. - You may find that very simple lot that you think has no real distinguishing characteristics and can accomodate pretty much any house plan, and your builder may tell you that because of geographical features of the lot, the driveway /garage MUST be placed on the left instead of the right ... and that throws off what you wanted to do. So until you know where you're going to build, it's absolutely not a waste of time to go through plans and develop a strong sense of what you want ... but don't get your heart set on anything specific until you've chosen your building spot. To get the square footage down, I think the size of your bedrooms are way too large. My master is 15 X 16 and it fits a king size bed, two end tables, GC stand, a dresser and a recliner. I think the rest of the bedrooms could be sized down to 12 X 12. It really is enough room. Your guest bath could also bescaled down. Just don't skimp on the closet sizes. Agree. Your bedrooms are all master-sized rooms, and that's not really a plus in a house -- it just means you need more furniture and your heating bill will be higher. Also, ask yourself if you need a walk-in closet in the guest room; I think this, like the upstairs walk-in storage, is a space that just fell into existence -- you want to control the rooms, not allow them to control you. I think you've defaulted to "oversized rooms" throughout this plan, especially in the bedrooms ... but in other areas you're skimpy. For example, you really don't want to build a study that's only 9' wide; by the time you account for wall thickness, this is going to be a massively tiny room -- it might work if you open it towards the foyer and use double French doors, but in its current rendition it's essentially the same size as your closet. Note, too, that once you allow walkways on three sides of the great room, you're going to have a fairly small area for seating. Yet in the dining room you've allotted space for a long table, yet really too much width -- the proportion of the room's going to feel "off". You might say "elegance" instead of proportion; an elegant room is properly sized, fits well into the grand scheme of things, enhances the house ... this first-draft house plan feels more choppy and haphazzard than elegant. Back to bedrooms: I also agree on fairly large closets; large closets allow rooms to be smaller and keep rooms neater. With that being said, all of those components, no matter their layout requires a decent amount of footprint. I don't want to have to compromise on these spaces because of the land. Consider that an average house in America is between 2000 and 2400 -- you're looking at building something significantly larger. Is this realistic in terms of budget? Not just building, but also maintaining, insuring, cleaning? If it is budget-appropriate, do you really want to dump this much money and this much time into your house? Is this over sized house going to fit on the rather modest sized lot you're anticipating? If you needed to sell it, would a house of this size sell easily in your area? I'm in no hurry to do this and would rather find the perfect land that would accommodate a house with these spaces. I agree that "right" trumps "fast", and I have the impression that you're very much still in the "developing ideas" phase. Don't rush through this. So with all those constraints are we talking 0.5 acre, 0.75 acre, or more for minimum? More. If you want a large house, an over sized garage, a pool and a garden, you realistically can't do that on 1/2 an acre. Test it. Go onto your county's GIS system and look at lots and houses -- pick houses that have pools -- you can easily see the lot size, the square footage of the house. You'll find that 1/2 acre lots can support a house of about 2000 sf and a medium pool ... but they're really tight. At an acre you can include the larger house, the deck and screened porch ... but not with a whole lot of room between you and the neighbors. Upstairs: the kids will not use the kids study. They just won't. Those are long, dark, narrow hallways. They separate the boys from one another, and from the action downstairs. Agree and agree. No reason the kids can't study in their bedrooms. I agree that this floorplan has excessive hallways. Why not just give each bedroom its own bathroom, or let them share one bathroom with hall access? Again, agree. This bathroom is overly complicated with too many doors. What it doesn't have is storage space by the vanities. I suggest a plain and simple 3-piece bath opening on the hall. Not set on 2 staircases. Husband wanted that....I think to have an easy access to the bonus room. Staircases require more square footage than you realize, and they are a very big line item in the budget. Other thoughts: - Pay attention to all your doors. For example, note that once you place a table in your dining room, you won't be able to comfortably reach that door. You also don't want doors that open towards the outside ... think about the hinges, think about what's going to happen to the doors in the rain. - Look, too, at where the interior doors "park". The study has it right: When the door is open, it lays against a wall. Now look at the master bedroom -- the door is in the middle of the room, meaning you have an uncomfortable spot "behind the door". You want doors to open into the corners of rooms. And look at the guest bathroom: When you walk in, you're looking at the toilet -- nicer to walk in to a view of the sink/mirror; it makes the room feel larger. Also, if this door is left open (and it will be), it blocks the hallway. - Note that you could easily use the guest bathroom as your downstairs powder room. It's in a private location and is accessible to guests. This would be a very big money saver. - Pay attention to sizes in bathrooms; for example, neither the guest nor master bathroom has a vanity of adequate size to support two sinks ... and neither one has any storage at the sink. In both places, you'd be better off with one sink and a stack of drawers for your necessities. Note, too, that the toilet closet in the master bathroom is minimal in size; it'll be uncomfortable to use and impossible to clean -- since the 2'6" door barely opens into it, I'm thinking it's smaller than code. - You say you're not clear on "good flow". Consider the pathways you'd take through the house to complete daily tasks. Here are two examples: Look at the red line. It's the flow between your master closet and the laundry room. It's awful. Look at how many turns, how many rooms you must walk through, how many doors you must open -- all while carrying a laundry basket. Don't miss the "pinch point" formed between the coat closet and the island. This is too complicated a line. On the other hand, you have very good "food flow". Look at the blue line. You come in from the garage, and the pantry is located near the door. You put your food away before continuing on into the house / no interruption of the cook, no traipsing through the kitchen. Then when you're ready to cook, the food comes out of the pantry, moves to the sink, is cooked nearby and it moves straight on to the table for serving. This keep-things-moving-in-one direction is what you want. Consider other daily patterns. Think through your return home from work, your kids setting up their materials to do their homework, washing the dog. In all cases, you want to arrange the house so that you have space and storage where you need them -- not too far, not too close, no backtracking. Often houses with good flow have a circular pattern, which allows people to move from one area of the house to another. For example, look at this oh-so-simple houseplan:You could use the foyer to reach any room, or you could "circle through" the butler's pantry to reach the rooms. Everything's close together and accessible. This is what's meant by "good flow". - What's the elevation going to look like? And the roofline? I'm not able to visualize a roofline from these drawings. - You've placed the two first floor bedrooms on the sides and a screened porch on the back ... the result is that your living spaces, the places where you'll spend most of your waking hours, are squished into the middle. They'll have less natural light than the bedrooms. You could alter this by moving the guest room upstairs (and it could use some of that walk-in storage or the bonus room). This would allow natural light into your kitchen. - Consider, too, that you want to attempt to "stack" your walls and your plumbing in a two-story house. Two-story walls are easier to build, and electrical and plumbing can be run "straight up" to the second floor. This is a big money saver. - I'd move the dog cubbie to the mud room. It'd be quieter for the dogs, and it'd get them out of the way when you have guests who don't necessarily want to be around the dogs. I'd also move the coat closet out of the kitchen and into the mud room.

I prefer the second plan, but fear that you won't have room for a dining table unless you make the house wider. And I still prefer a side-opening garage. I still cook and when I was younger cooked a lot, and I typically do as you do - refrig to stove area, not often to the sink first. But then I don't use a ton of fresh veggies that must be clean/peeled etc. I buy frozen and have since my children left home, as it's easier to control the portions and involves less work. My refrigerator is at the opposite end of the kitchen from my sink - the room is 15 ft wall-to-wall. There is a narrow island cart in between, but since it's one 17" wide, walking past it is far from an onerous task. It was the best place in my house (built in 1948, kitchen remodeled 2 years ago) for the refrigerator. I'm a very organized person so I take everything out at once, and either place it on the counter near the stove where I do my prep, or on the island where it can easily be reached later to take to the sink if needed. We all have different cooking styles and I would never attempt to impose MY style on others. It would be the same as telling a man how to arrange his wallet, and a woman, her handbag. It's a very personal preference.

I do not want to offend you, and am commenting because you asked for feedback. I can imagine how excited you are to be building a new home as you should be. I identified a fairly extensive list of issues I found with the layout and after spending some time to provide potential solutions, kept coming up short. I tried to stay within the footprint and read the other comments to glean your requirements/ preferences. Ultimately, I was unable to address even one item successfully without compromising some other area. Typically when that happens, my solution is to start from scratch - new , but I don’t know that it’s an option for you at this point. If there are other plans being offered that you might be able to switch to, please post. Here are just a few things that struck me immediately: a “foyer” being 7’-8” W is fine, but a 20’ hallway that wide in a house this size is simply wasted SF. Hallways are “circulation space”- function as pass thru’s, do not function as living area. over 100sf of wasted space in front hall. also from front door, look down very wide, long hallway to off-center window in family room. the floating kitchen. your kitchen is an island with appliances randomly sprinkled around the perimeter. to get from the pool to your bedroom to shower/change into dry clothes is through the keeping room and kitchen. to just use powder room you still have to walk soaking wet through the keeping room. you look from the keeping room unobstructed into the mudroom to get groceries into pantry have to carry them into house and either drop them and go into mudroom to kick off coat, shoes or wear everything and walk through keeping room, and kitchen. -fridge and bvg fridge far from back door which on hot summer pool days, will mean constant traffic through kitchen. -DR is fairly large sized- and it will be one of the least used spaces. Another ?? re: allocation of SF; as is double height foyer. There are more, but my point really is, this is a very poorly laid out floor plan and you are paying for lots of wasted and unusable space and space that isn’t going to function well.