My 17 y.o. DD has a WIC and my 15 y.o. DS has a reach in with bifold doors. I dearly wish we had room for a WIC for DS. His closet was set up with an Elfa system about 5 years ago, and we set up the rods and shelves to fit his hanging shirts, sweatshirts, and pants, and drawers for socks etc. Well, I recently took out and rehung everything, because he's now 6'5" (and growing) and none of the hanging clothes fit any more. Luckily, the Elfa components are easy to shift around. The bifold doors are a pain and regular doors would take up too much room. His closet is always spilling over into his room. DD is not an organized person, but at least she can throw stuff into her closet and her room stays neat. All her clothes are in the WIC so we don't need a dresser in her room. DS has one dresser and I'm going to order another one because he just doesn't have enough space for his stuff. And we're good about clearing out and donating things he has outgrown or doesn't want anymore; it's just that they get big and their clothes get bigger and they need more clothes. (On game days in middle school and high school the players wear button down shirts, dress pants and ties, so they need a fair amount of nice stuff in addition to their everyday stuff.) I applaud your planning efforts! I feel overrun with shoes. There are only the 3 of us (DH passed away last year) but we're a multi-sport family and if you counted our shoes you'd think there were 20 of us! Don't know your climate but when you do your planning take into account the size and height of rain and snow boots, as well as sports shoes. We have had soccer, football, basketball, baseball, golf, tennis, hiking and running shoes all in the mudroom at the same time, along with the shoes we actually wear just for regular use and the pads for football and other sports equipment. I can't imagine keeping all my work/dressy shoes in the mudroom as well. There are some shoes you may only wear infrequently - think dress shoes that your kids only wear for holidays, graduation, highschool dances or other fancy occassions, and your dressy shoes. Are you sure you want all of those in your mudroom?

Perhaps you would be interested in the article I wrote regarding energy conservation. Air leaks are the largest source of heating and cooling loss, resulting in increased energy costs. The same air leaks that cost us heat loss in the North can cost you cooling loss in the South. thanks, Mark D. Tyrol, P.E. Battic Door Attic Stair Covers PO Box 15 Mansfield, MA 02048-0015 tel. 508.320.9082 fax 508.339.4571 email: mark@batticdoor.com web: www.batticdoor.com Reduce Your Heating Bills This Winter - Overlooked Sources of Heat Loss in the Home, by Mark D. Tyrol, P.E., www.batticdoor.com - November 2004 Imagine leaving a window open all winter long the heat loss, cold drafts, and wasted energy! Well if your home has a folding attic stair, a fireplace, and/or a clothes dryer, that may be just what is occurring in your home! These often overlooked sources of heat loss and air leakage can cause your heat pour out and the cold outside air pour in costing you higher heating bills, causing cold drafts, and wasting energy. Air leaks are the largest source of heating and cooling loss in the home. Air leaks occur through the small cracks around doors, windows, pipes, etc. Homeowners are well aware of the benefits of applying caulk and weatherstripping to these areas to minimize heat loss and cold drafts. But what can you do about the three largest "holes" in your home the folding attic stair, the fireplace, and the clothes dryer? Here are some tips and techniques that can easily, quickly and inexpensively seal and insulate these holes. Attic Stairs: Do you have a folding attic stairway in your house? When attic stairs are installed, a large hole (approximately 10 square feet!) is created in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation that were there have to be removed. And what is installed to cover this opening? A thin, unsealed, un-insulated sheet of plywood! Did you know that your attic space is ventilated directly to the outdoors? In the winter, the attic space can be very cold, and in the summer it can be very hot. And what is separating your conditioned house from your unconditioned attic? That thin sheet of plywood! Often a gap can be observed around the perimeter of the door. Try this yourself: at night when it is dark, turn on the attic light and shut the attic stairway door - do you see any light coming through? These are gaps - which add up to a large opening where your heated/cooled air leaks out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year! This is like leaving a window open all year round! An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add an attic stair cover. An attic stair cover provides an air seal, reducing the air leaks. Add the desired amount of insulation over the cover to restore the insulation removed from the ceiling. Fireplaces: Approximately 100 million homes in North America are constructed with wood or gas burning fireplaces. Unfortunately there are negative side effects that the fireplace brings to a home especially during the winter home-heating season. Fireplaces are energy losers! Researchers have studied this to determine the amount of heat loss through a fireplace, and the results are amazing! One remarkable research study showed that an open damper on an unused fireplace in a well-insulated house can raise overall heating energy consumption by 30%! A recent study showed that for many consumers, their heating bills may be more than $500 higher per winter just due to the air leakage and wasted energy caused by fireplaces! Why Does a Home With a Fireplace Have Higher Heating Bills? Hot air rises! Your heated air leaks out any exit it can find, and when your warm heated air is drawn out of your home, cold outside air is drawn in to make up for it. The fireplace is like a giant straw - sucking the heated air from your house. This is like leaving a window open all year round! An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add a fireplace draftstopper. A fireplace draftstopper is an inflatable pillow that seals the damper, eliminating any air leaks. The pillow removed whenever the fireplace is used, then reinserted after. Clothes Dryer Exhaust Ducts: Have you ever noticed that the room containing your clothes dryer is the coldest room in your house? Ever wonder why? Your clothes dryer is connected to an exhaust duct that is open to the outdoors. In the winter, cold air leaks in through the duct, through your dryer and into your house, while your heated air just pours right out! Dryer vents use a sheet metal flapper to try to reduce this air leakage. This is very primitive technology that does not provide a positive seal to stop the air leakage. Compounding the problem is that over time, lint clogs the flapper valve causing it to stay open. This is like leaving a window open all year round! An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add a dryer vent seal! A dryer vent seal will reduce unwanted air infiltration, and keep out pests, bees and rodents as well. The vent will remain closed unless the dryer is in use. When the dryer is in use, a floating shuttle rises to allow warm air, lint, and moisture to escape. If your home has a folding attic stair, a fireplace, and/or a clothes dryer, you can easily, quickly and inexpensively seal and insulate these holes. At Battic Door, we have developed low-cost, green solutions to these and other energy-conservation related issues. For more information please visit our website www.batticdoor.com or send a S.A.S.E. to P.O. Box 15, Mansfield, MA 02048.

marti8a: they are Blum brand, and are called Tandembox. Blum also makes a similar product for Ikea (called Rationell), so you might look into that (there is an ikeafans website much like this one that could probably help you figure out if they would work for your framed cabinets). My cabinets are frameless. I remember my cabinet maker saying that he bought the components for the rollouts (the metal front and sides, slides, etc) and then cut the metal front to fit my cabinet and put them together with the gray corner pieces. The bottom and the back is melamine (1/2 or 5/8 inch). The ikea looks really similar and economical. $24 for a 24 inch wide or $22 for the 21 inch wide, plus you'd need a drawer front. The 24 inch drawer front is $12, there isn't a 21 inch wide drawer front, but maybe you could cut the 24 inch down? These prices include the fully extending drawer slides. I think that there are also products at ikea that are not shown online, so there may be more size options and components to build your own drawers. Here is a link that might be useful: Ikea rational fully extending drawer

I think that your dining space is tight the way it is drawn. I also really dislike the 2 islands plus the table all going the same direction. Imagine a couple people sitting at the table while you are finishing up a meal...they are facing the wrong way for conversation. I also am having a very large garden and want to do lots of canning. I would hate to try doing a lot of it in the my Gator's garage stall(not sure what is going in yours, but one of my stalls IS for my UTV). We are planning a Massive deck of which 18*12 is planned for an outdoor kitchen. I'm planning to put a 7 foot Galley sink out there for washing and canning prep. At that size, I can actually have canning parties. I'm really looking forward to be able to do most of my canning outside where I can enjoy the view. We may later add a pool, which I would be able to see from there also. I do not like the path your food will take through the laundry room. I think that space could be rearranged better, even having the pool bathroom over there. I didn't do anything as I don't know what you need to a bonus room. I love your pantry size. It is a crime that you have the little corner etched out of it for the appearance of the front...as you are loosing so much extra shelving space as a result. Will you have a basement? I am using under front porch space for a cold storage room also. Storing canned foods in a 70 degree room for years diminishes the quality of them. (I'm also doing a good sized main floor pantry, but canned goods will mainly get stored in cold storage..) I don't like the location of the 2nd master bath sink. But I spent a LOT of time agonizing over my MB layout. Yours feels more like they just put the sink there because they could fit it in. I'm not a fan of the view you get from the foyer...sort of half of the living room window and whatever could/chairs are at the back of the living room plus the walkway between the living/kitchen. Maybe you are fine with it, but picture yourself coming in the foyer, what decor looks like, and if it is the first impression you want guests to have. You have a large space dedicated to it, so make sure it works the way you want.