For the bathroom, lay them from the door to opposite the door, just as one would walk in (in a typical bathroom where you enter at one end). If you enter in the middle or have an odd layout, I'd have them go the same direction as the vanity counter runs. For the kitchen, I'd go the same direction as the cabs and the counters. Across would feel choppy.

Rhome, I agree. It just looks odd to me to have it between the door and the sink. Actually, it's not that often that we do have that door open--early spring/summer, late summer/fall--the rest of the time it's really hot or too cold--so I wouldn't think it would be a huge inconvenience. I was thinking of an outward swinging door, too. Code here requires a 4 foot cement slab in front of it, which we could do. I guess I'll live with this one for a few days and see how it sits. Does it look odd to anyone to have cabinets behind the door? Thanks, everyone! Any other suggestions are most welcome. I hope I don't get any other surprises on Monday! I will check back over the weekend. For those celebrating the holiday, Happy Easter! Cj

I am going to dissent for 3 reasons, though I am not sure I am seeing everything accurately.... If the current wall lines up with the rest of the wall to the right of the hall (can't tell with DH's feet there), I might leave it as is. Depends on the size and shape of the main room and whether that 'bump in' would look funny in that room. Two, consider the doorways and hallway headers. The opening to the room to the left (the one with the HWF) and to the hall will be affected by the 'bump in'. Right now the openings are framed, giving you options for casing or paint color changes room to room. Think about that before you axe the defined transitions. Three, since the chair will move forward when the wall does, the "gained" space will be behind behind you when you sit at the desk chair. You could always put storage on that back wall - but the space is then the same size as it was, and that storage is visible from the main room. Careful design will affect how much storage and function you can squeeze out of the desk area as is. I think there is enough there to work with. Instead of moving the wall, I would concentrate on ceiling to desktop storage. Open or closed. that could hold a ton and would be visible only from the desk chair. A return of 1-2 feet would allow a 3 sided recess above the desk for 'mondo storage' and still leave excellent sight line from the desk chair to and from the larger room. Opposite the desk, make the area visible from the main room attractive and simple: a framed print with a wall mounted sliver of a credenza below. I really like designs that give a work area 'mondo storage' and sight lines that manage to conceal that storage but not the worker. You have that option here. Transoms would be great, but only if they look good from the main room.

lyfia, I was hoping that table-cleaning would happen after cooking & eating. I was also hoping that whoever carries the dirty dishes could walk around the other end of the island, i.e., the hallway area, to get to the sink. :) Lisa, Sena -- Thank you so much for your replies. Lots of good suggestions! I came up with a revision last night based on Lisa and everyone else' suggestions, before seeing your grand drawings. I attached my revision below, but will study your drawings tonight and update my amateur drawing accordingly. :) RE: the dressing room. I have to agree it was a very bad idea to have the door face the hallway, LOL. So I re-arranged the entrance to the master suite and the study, but introduced a new problem -- no windows in the bedroom. Having double glass doors between the study and the bedroom would help somewhat. If I increase the ceiling height from 10' (9' under beams) to 12', I could fit a nice row of transom/clerestory windows above the 84" wardrobes. 12' ceiling might be too high and costly, though. RE: master bath. We currently have double sinks (7' vanity), and think that two is not necessary and one might be just fine (yay to one fewer sink for me to clean), so I put down one. We feel the current 3' x 4' shower is a bit small, so I increased the size, but I probably overshoot by doubling it. I will change it to 4' x 5'. I increased the exterior footprint by 2', from 49' x 39' to 51' x 41', so I could widen the staircase to 42", give a little more room to the kitchen range wall, and allow some space for the powder room and laundry room. I put the bath and laundry in the northwest corner, as I kind of want to have the northeast corner to myself, i.e., for bed and study, because I notice that in our current house, the most pleasant places tend to be near the northeast and southeast corners. These places are bright but not too bright, and don't get overly hot. Is that selfish thinking? I imagine to use the front door more often. With our current house, we always enter through the kitchen door which faces the attached garage. We only use the grand front entry when the garage door is stuck, or when there are guests who need help loading or unloading their vehicle(s). I feel like we should use what we have more often, especially nice things. I think by locating the detached garage closer to the front entry, perhaps in the northwest corner, might help us achieve that. In that case, having the laundry/bath near the front entry would make sense. As for unloading grocery, I imagine to use a small rolling cart to get things from the car to the kitchen. Also could have the car stop at the kitchen door for a moment, LOL, although this probably would require a longer driveway. Now, I am not exactly sure about the purpose of the kitchen door.. Oh, right, DH wants a door off the kitchen so that when he grills food outside, he can come into the kitchen to quickly grab spices, put away trash, etc, without going through other areas. I love the idea of separating the fridge and freezer. Our current fridge/freezer (all-in-one) is 36" and I find it quite full after each weekend visit to the farmers' market. So we thought we could use a bigger one. I am thinking of a 30" fridge and a 30" freezer. I kept the freezer next to the pantry, so it's close to the microwave, which in turn is close to the sink/trash. Like Sena suggested, I moved the fridge to the range wall, as placing it at the end of the sink run (what Lisa suggested initially) will make the door space too tight because the posts are actually structural (which I will explain below). Lisa, great point about gunk collecting on the counter strip behind the range. As you've already guessed (correctly), I'd take the low-maintenance route, i.e. 24" range counter. But since I just moved the fridge to the range wall, I probably should stick to 30" counter, right? I also have to admit, I've never thought I would "have to get out the vacuum's crevice tool to go around each post". I might be able to delegate that task to my DH, LOL, as I often ask him to clean the floor under the bed. :) Anyway, the posts are there for structural reasons (think of a timber frame house), but I do try to place them in such a way that they visually define the space. I also try to center windows/ table/ entry door/ etc on posts. While it's cheaper to build a rectangle shaped house, I think bump-outs are entirely possible, even with timber frame houses...I just don't know if they are expensive to add. Looking at the gable end (i.e., the kitchen/ study exterior wall), the post distance (center-to-center) in my drawing below is 14'-10'-14'. It can be changed to 14'-14'-14', 12'-10'-14', 12'-12'-12', etc, as long as two adjacent posts are no more than 14' apart. Along the eave/ ridge, two adjacent posts can be up to 20' apart. I agree the posts make the kitchen design difficult. There is some freedom in the placement of the kitchen posts -- we could move the two freestanding posts (one next to the fridge, the other next to the island) towards either the dining room or the kitchen sink. Could also deepen the pantry/hallway area, by making the two posts in the middle (looking at the gable end, one at the end of the sink counter run, the other in the study) further apart, like 12'-14' (vs. 10'), but the overall house will be deeper too, and I don't know if that's desirable. The upside of deepening the pantry/hallway area is, I would be able to place the fridge at the end of the sink run without making the door space too tight, and as a result, the range counter run can be lengthened. Lisa - Sorry, I don't have the floor plan for the upstairs and the breezeway yet. I only recently started learning to use the chief architect software, and the user guide says it's best to finalize the main floor before adding more floors, so I've been focusing on improving the main floor. I probably could add a gable roof quickly and generate an exterior view, though. I still need to add basement, second floor (half story), garage, and breezeway. It will take me a while to get all these done, but I will keep you posted! This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 12:47