First floor view

The butler's pantry is in the complete wrong spot. It should be located between the dining room and kitchen in order to house the entertaining dishes and facilitate entertaining between the food production zone and the food service zone. As shown, it's a dead end space that will not be used for either entertaining or any kind of prep. It needs to be completely reworked.

If this is a home that you plan to live in for some time, you need a full accessible bath downstairs, alog with at least one room that can serve as an accessible gest room or nursery. The location and orientation of he stairs is marginalized, but those will have to be used multiple times a day. They are inhospitable to family use. Overall, not too impressed with the plan shown. Are you sure you're dealing with an actual architect and not an unregulated home designer?

Hi hollysprings -- Thanks for taking a look. A couple of clarification points to include:

1) This is just the main floor. There will be an upstairs with 4 bedrooms/laundry/3 bath. There will also be a basement level with a guest room/media center/bar/craft room.

2) We don't have a formal dining area and the "dining/everyday eating" area we do have is in place to take advantage of the views of the backyard. Perhaps I should stop using the verbiage Butler Pantry - as it is more of a kitchen overflow than perhaps what a traditional BP would be. Still want to think through the best use of that space as a walk in pantry.

3) Yep, more (real) architect hours on this than I care to count ;)

On the stairs...interested in your concerns/thoughts here. We have it at the back of the house as we wanted more informal than the formal stairs that typically great you at the front door. Figured most of the traffic is garage/kitchen/upstairs.

How exciting Foolnt8!

I tend to agree with hollysprings regarding the bedroom/full bathroom downstairs. I too am in the process of building a new home. We currently have a two story 4 bedrooms with all bathrooms upstairs and just a powder room downstairs. Our new home will have 5 bedrooms with one full bedroom/bathroom downstairs. I have two very active kids (12 & 10). My daughter broke her leg and it was nightmare for almost two months! Thankfully, we were still able to carry her upstairs for showers and bed. However, when my neighbor's teenage son needed hip surgery after years of playing baseball, he needed to shower at someone else's house for months and they had to turn their living room into his temporary bedroom. So, although you may plan to move into an elder friendly home after your little one is gone, your custom forever20 home should be ready for anything. I'm sure your study could double as an emergengy/guest room downstairs, but consider adding a shower to the powder room and turning it into a true cabana bath with access to the outdoors too.

A couple of notes from my very personal point of view: I don't like that you practically walk into your kitchen. Don't like the idea of hiding your beverage center in your pantry.
If you want it as an extension to kitchen and will spend all that money in cabinetry, why hide it?
Can't you simply make it part of the kitchen and then possibly do more of a traditional double cabinetry pantry on the opposite side?

Just thoughts...have fun!
DD

I'm also surprised that an actual architect designed this house. It's got some serious issues. As others have mentioned it is not suited at all to being a forever home. I won't rehash what others have already pointed out but one thing that jumps out at me is that you've got what appears to be a lovely outdoor porch with fireplace but it's bizarrely located behind the equally bizarrely located stairwell where it can't even be seen! It should be off the living room or dining room I would think.

The staircase comments are interesting to me...thinking about it. Googled a little more discussion on the topic. Appears that there are two different schools of thought 1) Entrance for a little more formality/traffic patterns from the front door and 2) back of the house for more private living etc. Thus far, our thinking was more private living and that 90% of the activity in/out of the house in the garage/mudroom it seemed practical.

The sun room is off to the left side of the house as the million dollar view is diagonal off of the terrace/dining room so we were trying not to block those with a screened in porch. At this point we are likely to drop the whole porch.

RightDi - appreciate your thoughts on the pantry. You have a point so I need to think through what opening the pantry into just the kitchen would provide me as far as benefits.

Any thoughts on how to set up the island and main wall of the kitchen as far as work zones?

Thanks!
NT8

Honestly, I don't have the problems with the layout that everyone else has mentioned so far, but I am wondering if having the great room in the back where the dining is, the dining room to the right, and the screened porch further on the right or in the back right corner would work. Obviously this would need a revised footprint to reallocate the space. But then the stairwell also is right next the great room as I would imagine the primary flow like you said would be garage, kitchen, and also great room.

I love screened porches, so I wouldn't abandon it purely because you're not sure of the location as it is right now... Also, I don't mind walking from the entry into the kitchen if what you are drawn to is a dramatic back wall of windows to what you said is a million dollar view...

On the pantry - I am actually in the middle of finishing off my pantry which is in basically the same location in my kitchen as yours. I call it a butlers pantry as well purely because I love the look of traditional butlers pantries with the cabinetry, etc. but it really is just a large walk-in pantry that I will put in a mix of open and closed cabinetry. I finished my kitchen 3+ years ago and have been living with temporary shelving in my pantry until now. I wasn't sure upon finishing my kitchen what I really needed in the pantry for extra appliances, etc as my kitchen was already so much bigger than my prior one. Anyway, it took me really living in my space to know what my needs are. For example, I originally thought I needed a sink, but I have nixed that now. Anyway, I would just really think about what this space will house and what your needs are now and also down the line (do you need more fridge or freezer overflow etc.). Also, search for willowdecor's pantry for some good inspiration pics. Happy planning!

Also, small island detail - i would consider switching the trash and prep sink location. I had this recommendation in my planning stage here and I am so happy for it as it gives the full width of the island as a drop zone for the fridge.

Sadly each of us seems to be recommending a modification to your footprint.
If possible, I would put more space at the front of the auto slot adjacent to the kitchen and I would move the pantry and the mudroom into that new space so that the mud room faces the staircase that way people coming out of the mudroom can go straight to the stairs and it would also it would give you the shortest walk with your bags of groceries.

I completely side with those who insist that there must be some kind of a bed/bath downstairs. Even though you don't intend to age in place anyone of you or your children could have an accident that makes it impossible to go up and down the stairs for some months and assorted older relatives may visit and be unable to do the stairs as well...or they very well may be able to do the stairs but you don't want them upstairs.

I personally would flip the locations of dining room and the kitchen. You have indicated that the dining room is to take advantage of the views but the person doing the work in the kitchen is the person most in need of the views. The cook could look out over the main kitchen sink to the outside and the people sitting at what would be the new breakfast bar area on the island would also be facing outside if you flipped the island and dining room table. Also it would put the kitchen between the dining room and the covered porch which probably will also have a table for eating outside when the weather is fine.

I also think it will look strange to have an island that is bigger than the dining room table and to step through this relatively large front entryway into the kitchen. Usually kitchens are accessed from the back door only. Of course the drama of the views and custom cabinetry may make this a moot point.

This is such an open plan it seems to me that even with a great hood you run the risk that the living room will always smell of cooking.

One miscellaneous note, with these views you may anticipate having no window coverings and it may make it difficult to see any television set which I presume will be located in the living room because there is no family room. Just something to think about.

If the best views are in the upper left hand of the drawing, then why on earth is the stairwell blocking them from the publicly occupied rooms of the house??? Sorry, but I'm not loving much of anything about this plan.

First, I like the design. It will be a great house for entertaining, IMHO. The kitchen is open to dining and living room, but you don't walk though it to get there. And the screened porch is wonderful! I believe the best view is in the upper right corner...is that correct?

If it were me, I'd put the baking area in what is called the "butler's pantry". Did you see this link to an earlier thread about baking centers? Cotehele's kitchen is about half way down...and she actually has her baking area in another space. I would love to have something like this :)

As for the butler's pantry/possible baking area, I would leave the sink and possibly bump the space out, to be even with the entry and study. If you make this the baking area (and maybe incorporate freezer space) could you use the space by the fridge for a snack/breakfast location?

Hope this helps...and while I also think a main floor guest room and bath is a good idea, you CAN always get a chair/lift gizmo, if it ever becomes a serious concern. Have fun with the planning!

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to baking areas and Cotehele's kitchen

It would be pretty easy to add a roomy shower to the bath down there, shifting mudroom Over, lose a bit of closet or shift that into the garage. A shower there is also handy for cleaning big stuff! (And I remember a recuperating guest using my sunroom for a week, better than a bedroom because it isn't isolated if you don't want it to be)

Is that a vestibule at the entry? Nice! The kitchen took me aback at first,too close to entry,mbut now I see that when people walk in, they'll be looking at the view. When you're eating dinner, you can hide the pots in the pantry (scullery?) and close the door :)

I never understood stairs right at the front door in this day and age.

I would reverse the cooktop and cleanup sink/dw. It would put more of appliances and storage used in cooking closer together, but still with a water source and sink. Moving cleanup and disk storage out to the perimeter seems to make sense - when some people are doing cleanup or setup, they won't be clogging the aisle between the cooktop/ref/pantry. I would also consider moving the undercounter ref out where others could use it.

The mudroom/storage/half-bath could be configured to be a full bath plus a healthy sized closet. Lockers are cute, but also sometimes a waste of space. Either the study or the family room could be pressed into service as a bedroom. Also look at niche or alcove beds. You could tuck one into the study under the window.

We have a much smaller house with no bedrooms on the first floor, but we do have a full bath. As I am currently facing two different surgeries, I'm so happy we have it as I will not be able to go up and down stairs for a few weeks. I have a small daybed up in my office which we'll move down to the living room.

Good luck with your new build.

I just wanted to say, I think a back location for the stairs is brilliant! If the upstairs space is all private living, why would you have it in the front? I like it as drawn. It will be a beautiful home! I wish I could peek at your view;)