Thanks everyone for your inputs. just what I was looking for. Planatus, I havent tried it here (central Illinois) before, so we will see how it works out. I have another 12X12 sq ft plot, where I plan to plant some squash, no pole beans though. Julia, we are just 2 people. I am glad that you raised this point. May I ask how many okra plants do you normally have in your 3' X 3' area? Is it 3 - 4 as you said in your last sentence? As far as my plan is concerned, do you like the layout? I mean I am planning to have taller plants at the North and progressively go towards shorter plants at the South end. That should be fine right? Any comments about the spacing? Is it too much I am leaving there? Is there any vegetable other than radish I can plant within tomato or okra rows? Because right now if I plant only radish in there, I fear I will have too much. Thanks.

Hey Thanks for all the feedback. I have tweaked the plan a little bit, some based on feedback here. For the most part I am happy with this plan. A couple comments below. 1. I know stairs usually go in foyers, but I dont see why they need to. THe stairs lead to the private area of the house, 90% of guests will never go up to the bedrooms so why have the link to that part of the house the first thing guests see? I like the idea of having it back off the main family living space. 2. The dining room will get used. I like the separation of it so you could have a conversation with guests while kids are running umuck in the main living area. I have added some more space for casual eating in the kitchen and may add even more to the island in final version. 3. I flipped the bench in the mud room area so it is now hidden from the dining room. I also lost a couple closets but still think we have enough on the the first floor. 4. The mini bar area is not a wet bar. It will be a built in with a 36" counter, 24" mini frig, 12" cabinet drawer below and a 36" upper cabinet. It will store beer, wine, snacks. I never have room for these things in the main frig, they end up in garage or basement so it would be nice to have off the main living areas. I think it is a good use of space for that spot. 5. I cleaned up the upstairs bath/laundry./closet areas, I think it makes more sense now. 6. Still see closets in front bedrooms as potential trouble spot. Yes I hate having a window in a closet but the house needs to have a window there, sometimes you must make small sacrafices. Now that this is really happening I am of course freaking out, that I have done it all wrong, but I think this is going to work. We will spend most time in family room/kitchen and I think that space is very open and functional. Also I am about to get on my knees and beg to somehow figure out how to get the front porch in my budget. The house does not look right without it, it gives it its character. I know the windows are not traditional colonial style but this is more of a nantucket/cape cod inspired design and often large windows are used to take in the views of the ocean. No we don't have an ocean in our front year, but I think it will help bring in lots of light and give it a different feel than most colonials. Here is a link that might be useful: Updated plans

Thanks everyone! I'm glad to hear that others agree about worrying less about some of the symmetry and getting wider (more functional) cabinets/drawers instead. :) wannaknow- My kitchen is about 13'x18'. It opens to a dinnette that's about 9'x15'. I will also have a wetbar and dropzone nearby- that's why neither of those zones are shown above in the cabinet layout. I'll attach my kitchen area floor plan from the builder below. Just in case you're interested. :) prariemom- I actually have a pull-out trash/recycle in the island across from where you suggested it by the sink. That way I can easily access it for my prep trash and clean up trash. That was rhome's brilliant suggestion. :) herbflavor- I was already writing WAY TOO MUCH in my original post. LOL. My mother makes stained glass, and she has offered to make me a panel for the top transom. I just need to sketch something out and figure out colors, and I'm sure it will be beautiful. That window faces due south, so I'm sure the colors from the stained glass will be beautiful in the kitchen. This is why I requested a transom for the kitchen. :) I haven't met with the finish carpenter, but my builder assures me he will do something nice with the hood. I'm a bit nervous about it too. My builder's description sounded much nicer than the rendering looks. Eeek. :-/ taggie- thanks so much! I hope we spend a lot of time in our kitchen. After talking more this morning, DH and I have already figured out several places where we want to switch from 3 to 4 drawers. I had worried about it at the design meeting and then forgotten until you mentioned it again. Unfortunately all the cabinet options our builder gave us are framed. Oh well. lavender_lass- I'm so glad to hear you like it! The KD pointed out the issues with the glass too. The house windows will have grids so we are going to use solid panels in the cabinets. I'm still hoping to paint some beadboard for the background of the glass cabinets, but I'm going to wait a while for that. We're getting "glass-ready" cabinets and then heading to a stained glass store to pick out the glass. I have no idea what I might fall in love with there. As I mentioned above, I am a bit nervous about the range hood as well. My builder promised it would look nice. Taking a deep breath about that one. wiemom- I'll have to search for some pics of your kitchen! I'm really hoping the layout works for us. Glad to hear you like the way yours is set up. :)

sayde, that's an interesting thought about deepening and extending a few of the shelves on the back wall. I had also considered a small wall hung cabinet similar to my spice cabinet beside my stove. rhome, no the shelves wouldn't protrude into the doorway. It's hard to tell from the photos I posted, but 5 inch shelves would just be flush with the left side of the door opening. I might think about some kind of upward lip on the shallow shelves to ensure things don't fall off. And yes, the shallow shelves would make the back shelves 29" (the 5" would still be there, it would just be blind). The doorway into the pantry is 30" wide, and the buffet on the right is shallower than the doorway by 10", so with my 5" shelves on the left, I'd still have 40" of width in which to navigate. That sounds like plenty to me, but I guess I don't know until I see it. The back shelves are 12" deep now. They work great for some things like the toaster oven and boxes of cereal, but I'm not crazy about how they work for canned goods when I only have one or two of something. If I have a dozen cans of the same thing, they're great because I know that all the cans front to back are the same thing. I keep wishing for more shelf frontage. I keep all the things I use frequently on the shelves I can reach easily, and extra inventory or ingredients I use less on the high shelves. The top shelf I've reserved for my vintage enameled fish poacher. Not my most practical purchase ever, but I like seeing it there.