Having a 'friends' entry and main entry seems like a sweet idea, but the reality of it, does it work? For me, the only people that come to my house are friends/family/neighbors and the UPS guy. Therefor the only person using the 'main' door would be the UPS guy, but even then, if there is any question in his mind what the front door is, he'll go to the closest and most easily accessible door. I also completely agree with comments about the foundation plan (general rule, the more corners = the more expensive). While I am all about adult privacy, it is a very long distance between where you plan to put a master bedroom from what I assume will be children's bedrooms, a trek that might not be fun at 3 am when trying to get to a screaming baby or when you are putting the toddler back to bed for the umpteenth time. Just some food for thought :) Good luck and have fun as you continue working through the process!

I understand what you are trying to do with the 4 foot increments; however in real life they mostly don't work out that way because you have to account for the dimensions of the layers, such as drywall, finish trim, siding/brick/stone, etc. So it's important not to go OVER your increment, but it's very likely you will go slightly under most places, or else you will end up with slightly over on external surfaces. If you are planning for certain siding lengths on the exterior then this can put you into small pieces, etc. On the interior: depending on how you cover your windows, there may be space lost due to window coverings out into the room. For example, if you use curtains (and curtains are an energy saving layer at night when drawn during cold weather), they typically use up at least six inches into the room off the wall. So a window over a dresser will use up your dresser top with curtain overhang, etc. Or if the curtains go to the floor then you would have to pull your dresser out 6-8 inches from the wall. Likewise for the desk in your second bedroom. Don't forget this same concept with your barn door, too. You will have to pull furniture out 6-9 inches for the door to clear behind any furniture pieces. Right now you have furniture pieces in the track of your barn door, in the drawing. It's also very awkward to have a piece of furniture partially covered by a window, as it looks your master night stands will be. Much better to have pure wall behind them, or all window, but not in between - it will not look right visually. Remember that your birdseye view shows only the window width. You then have to visually account for more width due to casing/trim and then a few more inches still if you hang curtains and have the rod wider than the casing. Allow about six inches between the bed and a night stand, too. That six inch gap is the perfect place for an outlet bedside. But you also just need it for space. If you have a seating corner in the master bedroom, you will likely sometimes read while sitting there. Therefore you need real estate to put a desk lamp or floor lamp, for lighting. Next up to think about: lighting (and where the controls will be) for the dining and living rooms. This is more of a challenge than it first looks, because you need most your light coming from above in this over-sized single space. Normally you get a good chunk of light bounced off the walls in smaller rooms, but in the case of huge rooms then your light has to come from above and be adequate without being piercing to the eyes. You'll want at least two carefully placed floor outlets in the living room. You'll want to locate your dining table light fixture carefully so it ends up over the table correctly. We did a chandelier type fixture centered over the table, and then two down pointing cans, one on either side of the chandelier. In our case, the chandelier has frosted type glass and the bulbs in the glass pointing UP. It does a great job of washing the ceiling with light, but the table is muffled and rather dark. So we needed down light as well to increase the intensity of light on the table, which you want so you can see well when you are eating, and to highlight table decor. One thing you can do in the living room is plan wall sconces along the available walls that will wash the walls with light both upwards and downwards. Another approach is to place some ceiling can lights near walls, such that their light cones then hit and wash down the wall (if you don't want to have sconces on the walls) Otherwise the room will tend to look dark during non daylight times. Don't underestimate how lit walls will make the atmosphere inviting and cheerful, whereas non-lit walls, even with good ceiling light, tend to make a space dreary. Another great option is to use carefully planned LED strips up against the wall or ceiling, to make a light wash, similar to above cabinet lighting. These concepts do not have to be expensive to do or energy hogs, either, if done carefully. In our bedrooms we used wall mounted two x 4 foot fluorescent t8 fixtures, mounted horizontally on the wall up high. We then put up a curtain rod and valence/cornice to cover the fixture. Light washes the wall and ceiling from the top bulb, and washes down the wall from the bottom bulb, but does NOT glare into your eyes, due to the valence/cornice. Very cheap to do, very inexpensive energy-wise for the amount of light you get, very cheap parts to replace. Lighting is one area where you can EAT IT in your budget if you don't plan carefully, both in buying fixtures and in energy consumption. The three big challenges of "open concept" spaces are furniture placement in the absence of walls, lighting, and electrical outlet placement. (With a two story house you have another: infrastructure placement such as heating ducts and plumbing lines to reach the second floor, but this doesn't apply in your one-story house case.) Don't forget there are in-between models, too, to open concept. Half walls maintain the visual feel of open concept, but also allow for furniture placement against a (half) wall and outlets placed in (half) walls. One thing we did was put cased openings (like glassless windows between rooms) in the wall between our den and dining room. This was intermediate between a wall and open concept. It gave us the wall space we needed for furniture placement and in-wall infrastructure (ducts, etc.) but still gave visual sense of openness between the two rooms. It was a great balance for us. I'm not seeing glaring wasted space. There are a few pockets of space that are just... space. Like the chunk outside the entrance door to the master bathroom. There's a chunk in the guest bedroom. You'll want to trim the size of the shower in the master back into that niche and not bring it the whole size of the niche. This will cost much less to build, be MUCH more friendly to clean and maintain, and give you a chunk of "in-niche" space outside the shower where you can have your ceiling ventilation fan mounted (in our case we mounted two heat lamps on either side of the fan in that niche, but they are on separate control so we don't burn energy using them unless we are chilled). You have very generous spaces in general but not that much wasted space; part of it will be how you use the space and arrange stuff in it. One more thought: if you are a pet person, then plan for real estate for feeding, food storage, bed/crate, toy storage, litter box, etc. And a cabinet or drawer for pet related stuff (grooming brushes, treats, etc.) This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Jul 30, 14 at 22:59

C L, I know it’s frustrating but please add me to the crew who say you have to find a lot first. Unless you’re looking at a cookie cutter cornfield flat generic square parcel (and even then orientation matters!) you really can’t look at a layout until you have a place. I have fought against this for years - perusing floor plans and drafting up ideas while we looked at sites. My husband, who does this for a living, wouldn’t ever indulge me in more than just a basic list of desires and features until we secured land. And he never drafted up ANYTHING unless we were dealing with a specific site and testing feasibility. I HATED it. I wanted to plan and dream. But after research and time and more experience I’ve come to see the wisdom of what everyone else (and my spouse) were saying. Like Holly said, even just popping a house to the other side of the street means a complete shift in the layout of the rooms to maximize views, sun exposure, minimize winds, line up the driveway and garage, massing of the spaces and roofline, etc. And a site with any interesting topography or trees really needs to have a plan customized for it. It just does. The land we ended up with is in the windy Midwest on a somewhat steep incline, with lots of views. SO different than the other one we considered, which was sheltered in a lower spot on a piece of converted farmland, with a ravine on the west side. And those two sites demand completely different styles of house, not to mention changes in shade/sun design, styles of entryway, basement, etc. They’re four miles apart and night and day different. I cannot plop the same basic house ideas on both of them with equal success. Your design time right now, pre-site, is best spent prioritizing your wants and needs. Make a list on what you want your house to do or how you want it to live, and what it MUST contain, what it should contain if it fits, and what would be nice but not critical. Ask your husband to do the same and compare. If energy efficiency is important to you, for example, figure out if it is for eco-consciousness or durability/redundancy, because those two different facets will cause you to come up with entirely different solutions (especially if cost is a major prevailing factor). Do you want high end bones but can deal with mid grade finishes? How flexible do your spaces need to be? Can you double up or triple up function of things like bedrooms and office space and craft rooms or skip a second full bath to reduce cost and still live comfortably? Etc etc etc. Use this time to flesh out what you want, not how it will look. Once you know what you and your spouse value, you can search for land with that in mind, and give an architect a solid and highly personalized list to help him design YOUR perfect house. You’re digging st the wrong part of this process by trying to make floorplans work - that’s an answer, but to the wrong question. What you need to do is find a place before designing a dwelling. Dwellings should not exist independent of their place on earth. I have had to eat crow on this one, but it really is such wise advice.

We are working on a one level floor plan which will have a daylight finished basement. The main level will have the master bedroom and a guest suite. There will be an additional bedroom, bathroom and family room in the lower level/basement. The house will have 10 ft ceilings with a 12 ft coffered ceiling in the Great Room. We would love any comments or suggestions on this floor plan in regard to flow and efficient use of space. Some of our concerns are: -. Should the Great Room be enlarged? It seems that the edge of the island (which will have stools) is pretty close to the great room and also worried that the distance from the island to the fireplace is too short. The fireplace wall with have built in cabinetry which will stick out 2 ft from the wall,. The distance from the edge of the island to the fireplace wall is 20 ft. The distance from the back kitchen counter with the cooktop to the fireplace wall is 28 ft. - Is the Master bath and adequate size? - Do the Master closets appear to be adequate size? - I feel like the Master bedroom doorway is a little close to the the foyer but can't figure out how to add a little hallway without adding a lot of square footage. - Please comment on any other suggestions regarding general flow and efficient use of space. Thank you so much for your input!