Are we just looking at the kitchen or overall? I'm not sure, so here are some quick and random thoughts from an initial glance:

The mudroom and laundry room seem very nice, and it looks like you'll have a gorgeous set-up for outdoor entertaining.

I like the little office, if that's a convenient location for you. I'd like something like that more convenient to the kitchen, but that's dependent on personal use and habits.

A little sad that the kitchen serves as a hallway to the rest of the house, but at least the stove isn't in a path. That's definitely a plus. The stove, however, seems to have little space to each side. Also, for sight line's sake, I would adjust the doorway to the dining room so that the range is centered in it, and the island, too.

I think I'd want to switch the dw to the other side of the sink so it isn't right in the doorway from the bedroom hallway. I'd just make sure you had a good 4 ft aisle between it and the island with it on the left of the sink.

Will the family come in through the garage? If so, will people circle through the kitchen to get to that one bedroom and game room, or traipse through the pantry?

The paths through the house, to rooms and various exits, seem kind of long and complex, and especially for the family room might affect the furniture placement and overall use of the room...Making it live smaller than it looks on paper. It's hard to tell a lot of this, though, without a closer look at measurements, and maybe some idea of how you plan to place furniture.

The bathrooms, except possibly the master that has potential for some, don't have any storage...and maybe not much option for towel bars.

Best wishes! Looks like an exciting project.

Rhome: I swear you should charge people for what you do!

Amazing.

Thank you for those nuggets of wisdom!

rhome it's like one of those transporter people who can appear instantaneously(TV folks). You have the ability to actually see yourself in the space as a working family would function. And you do that as a main thing not an after thought. That helps so much because it's the daily functioning stuff that makes a good kitchen great.

hahaha.. yes remodelfla, that is what Rhome is like!

You guys are funny. I am glad if anything I notice or say will help your home serve you better. Some people do crosswords, and I like to work on floorplans. ;-)

I came back to check in, because I was actually thinking about this in the shower this morning...I was thinking of my advice about adjusting the doorway and island to center based on the range, and wondered if I'd neglected the fireplace position (if that is a fireplace), since I was concentrating on the kitchen. Now I see that the range is, indeed, not lined up with the fireplace, and that's the problem with the island and doorway, which are. It's a bit nit-picky in the scheme of things, but a design like this that has made those centered elements a key feature, and in a project of this magnitude, it seems like those types of things should be 'right.' Not end up looking like a near miss.

Anyway, traffic paths, room use, and storage are bigger issues.

I agree with all the comments made by rhome (and yes I totally agree that she's awesome but I hope she does not start charging at least till I finish my home remodel in future!).

With that in the mind, I think that you could carve out an independent passageway from the front entry into the house over to the second bedroom and the adjacent area. Note, that for this you will need to move the garage and utility so that the passageway does not open into the mudroom directly. It may be good if it opens into the space in front of the staircase etc.

Overall, I envy the plan for the fantastic porch space -- I see you spend long hours just relaxing and doing activities into this space!

I'll throw in my 2 cents:

1) If I read your plan correctly you're planning a big range which should get a pretty big exhaust fan, but the logical exhaust path goes upward through the corrider on the second floor - it's not clear, so perhaps it goes up through the linen closet?

2) The big middle hall is a lot of space devoted to just being central. It strikes me that it will be a decorative challenge. On the family room side the logical placement of sofa and maybe sofa table will work nicely to define the space, but on the dining room side the very nature of a traditional table and chairs leaves the hall side of the DR sort of boundary-less. Perhaps if you used benches instead of individual chairs or had a low finished-on-all sides sideboard? Still the hall space feels a bit to much real estate for the benefit gained, to me. On the plus side, I really like the door framing details with the extended part on the front and recessed on the rear. I wonder ow you could make better use of the space.

3) Do I see an outdoor fireplace on the covered porch? That brings up a couple of thoughts (besides how cool it would be!) First, it effectively blocks the enfilade view from the front entrance by being plunked there and, secondly, I wonder what the chimney will look like from the outside. I assume the ridge of the house runs on the long axis (from MB to kitch) to the fireplace will intersect the lower eave at the edge of covered porch. But the chimney will have to extend (relatively) very high up above the edge in order to achieve good draft because it is so close to the higher roof/ridge. Have you seen an elevation of that plan and how did it look? The other chimney will emerge in customary proportion from high on the roof of the house.

4) back to the kitchen: It seems a bit underpowered compared to the rest of the house, particularly for work space and storage (I realize you have the pantry/storage area around the corner.) It seems cramped, somehow.

5) I love that your laundry room has an outside door - that will make it possible to dry outside very conveniently.

I have no idea what a hill-country style house looks like and would be quite interested if you have any typical pictures.

Hope I have helped your thinking, no hindered.

L

HI, ALL! Thank you so much for all of your wisdom and suggestions. I am really honored that you would take the time to pour over our plans....for free!

I'm including the requested elevations, as well as the inspiration house that our plans are based off of.

First, here are the dimensions of each space that may help:

Family Room: 17'6 x 22
Dining Room: 17'6 x 22
Kitchen: 12'6 x 19'3
Game Room: 20 x 20
Office: 5'5 x 12'2 (this is designed as a walk-thru office for hubby and myself. Kids will have their own built in computer desks in the game room)

INSPIRATION HOUSE:

INSPIRATION HOUSE #2:

ELEVATIONS:

Hrmmm. Honestly I don't like that kitchen as hallway either. I'd be tempted to insert a wall--not necessarily a solid one--across the back of the kitchen and rework the kitchen to be smaller. You know, slide the sink wall over. Then that area where you had the sink run could be a proper hall, maybe with a door to the porch.

I guess I'm a little old fashioned, though. It's not like I don't meander through the kitchen before I go to bed anyway, but I don't HAVE to! Gig 'em.

OK, I am sorry that I have to be so blunt here, but the present placement of the porch fireplace and required chimney stack really bugs me!

I'm glad you posted the elevations but I think you need to ask your architect to do a more accurate one of the porch side. The front drawing shows the porch chimney stack sticking up above the ridge of the house (as it properly needs to do for good draft and safety), but the elevation of the porch side doesn't show it sticking up anywhere near that far, perhaps because if it is shown correctly you will have the same aesthetic objections that I do. I have looked and looked at the porch elevation to see it is just a perspective problem, but I don't think so. If it was shown correctly the chimney above the porch roof surface would completely dwarf the part below the porch roof. It will assume a smokestack appearance.

Frankly, having the FP there just doesn't work for me anyway. Can it be moved closer to the house (which will improve the spatial relationship between the parts of the chimney above and below the plane of the roof) and place it where it will not block the center view of the porch and second floor window? Perhaps closer to the DR and Game room intersection? That would also balance the chimney locations a bit better.

I think your drawing shows that the fireplace may be two-sided which will have to change if the FP is moved closer to the house wall, but the disadvantage of where it is now is so extreme it seems worth it to me.

I can see from your inspiration pics that the TX Hill style orginated from German immigrants' stone houses which have distinctly balanced, almost 18th c. proportions, with evenly spaced fenestration and lower roof profiles. It's a very attractive interpretation of a vernacular style and I find it very appealing.

Is one reason to have the porch FP where it is to keep the radiant heat away from the main building during the outdoor grilling season? If so perhaps a different, more projecting porch pattern could be designed that would move the FP even farther away, reducing the need for the chimney to be so high. If not, maybe it could be joined to house near the game room ell, making it convenient to kitch and DR?

I think you loose so much of the very attractive open veranda feel of that fabulous porch by having it where it is sited now!

If you are quite dedicated to the FP placement where it is now, please feel free to assume I just don't get it! But if what I've written causes you to review the placement while it's still on paper (and cheap to change), perhaps you'll come up with an improved design that you'll like even better.

L.

liriodendron: I like you. I'm a "blunt one", too so I appreciate your directness.

I will reconsider the fireplace. I was thinking that walking into our home and seeing a fire burning on the back porch would add a dramatic, yet cozy feel when a guest entered. But alas, my visions don't always translate in reality.

I'm not certain where a better placement would be, though. It was originally against the Master Bedroom wall....

Love that you don't walk in the front door and face a stairway - like 99% of the tract homes built. My personal pet peeve.

"A Pattern Language" is an excellent resource for this type of free-form planning, and contains the underlying principles for "Home by Design" that illustrates the principles well. Might give you ideas for the kitchen-hall issue. I'd look something up myself, but my GC friend is borrowing them.

Aggie,

You are very generous to take my comments with such equanimity. I got to thinking about my post and was worried that I might have hurt your feelings, so I was checking back to see if apologies were needed.

While I like the idea of seeing a fireplace on the long view through the house, I think it comes at the cost of the strong sense of shelter that will come with an unobstructed view. The mass of the FP will foreshorten the outward view.

There is a house museum (in northern NY) near where I live which has the most admirable through-house view. On the formal front it's a traditional facade, but it has a wide central hall with wonderful door openings on the other side that open up to view of the wide flat lawn that visually extends right to the Hudson River and across to the mountains on the other side. That is the sense I had when studying your plan; that you had the opportunity to recreate the enormously satisfying, completely sheltered quality of being in that house. Since you're in Texas, I should think it would be even more enhanced because of the strength of the light outside during the day and the shade provided by the porch.

On cold days or cool evenings, you'll probably be using the indoor FP, so the outdoor one will mostly get used on warm summer evenings or for grilling, so it seems like finding the outdoor FP a place near the kitch or game room might be a good idea.

I live in a house that is heated only with woodstoves, so I deeply appreciate the pull of a fire view. I send a lot of my winter days and evenings lolling in front of our hearths.
But I've found over many decades of woodburning that the postion of the stove or FP is crucial to the success of the room. Perhaps it's because we are so profoundly hard-wired to gather around the fire. But if the hearth position doesn't work, then the room feels out of kilter, no matter how attractive. Right now I am in the process of moving my kitchen out of its current room simply because that room contains an unmoveable, and vitally necessary, woodstove hearth. The room will work splendidly as a sitting room, but won't cut it for a kitch, so the cooking has to go! I've actually been struggling with this decision for nearly 20 years (my house is an intact mid-19th c building, so any changes have to carefully considered). But the die is now cast!

Do consider finding a chance to read the book I noted above. Your local public library may have it, or be able to get it, as it is a classic. For anyone building a house it is especially rich with insights.

L