Hi, I'm just chiming in.... I've had a home similar to the one you want to build... a few times, actually. We've owned almost 20 homes. This last home we built, we improved on issues that bugged us with previous homes and it has paid off. We've been in this home ten years and still love it. We have recently bought waterfront property and want to come up with a bit different plan, but it is hard for us to change too much of some parts of the layout because it works so well. I see some changes that you could make that may seem ridiculous, but with your children, you will be SO thankful if you do it. I would give up some of your MBR closet for a decent laundry room near your MBR. You will NOT regret it. I put in two washers and dryers, cabinets with a sink, and closet with room for my "flipping lid" types of 13 gal. Rubbermaid type trash cans that I use for sorting clothes. (My kiddos all learned to sort clothes and do laundry correctly!) I have a can for whites, darks, lights, dress/gentles, towels, sheets/blankets. Plenty of hanging areas. In the next home we build, even if it is just my husband and I, we will also have two washers and dryers. I believe it is that important. I'd be chained to the house all the time doing laundry. With kids, grand-kids, guests, etc... it's just crazy to not have them if you have the room. I'll post my photo of what we did. Heck, I think I still have a site up when we were building. Check out the MBa... and how /where we put the shower and water closet. This way, when my husband was showering, he had privacy while I am doing my hair or brushing teeth. I cannot stand having a shower 'open' so if he is in the bathroom, he gets to watch me. I just do not like it. As you get older, you really do want more privacy.... even if it's your spouse. I want to be seen in my best light...not when I'm bending over shaving, etc. Also, we built porches this house which keeps our home cooler. We put in Radiant Barrier almost everywhere. We have over 6,000sf under roof... 4500 heated/cooled. Over the garage has not been hooked up to AC yet...because I'm still using it for storage. When it was almost 100F outside in FL, with the fans on upstairs, it was like 78F with the radiant barrier. Neighbors could not believe it. Our electric bill for our house with two AC systems (5 and 3.5 ton) is less than $300/mo. Possibly $250 avg. We love our kitchen layout, laundry, MBR will be larger next go around. Your home looks good... except there would be great longevity in your home if the MBR was larger and the layout a bit different for the bath, imo. I am also a Realtor and see many homes. I have gone the gambit with building this house. (Lawsuit over kitchen...and custom cabinet issues in MBR. They are fixed now.) Adding 'keystones' of real granite over windows added architectural elements. Fake keystones always look tacky. Also, our present MBR shower is 3'x5'. Next time, at minimum 4'x6'...most likely larger. Our MBR is 14'x16'. I've had 16'x18' before and thought it too large. I think 15' x 21' will be our next MBR... at least. Here is a link that might be useful: Check out some of the features we put in.

I don't know how this would look, but what if you removed the soffit and the cabs on the sink wall? Switch the sink wall cabinet to the range wall--you have 23" between corner and window. That might provide more balance to that wall--there's something about it that looks off to me. I think it's all the height and bulk in the middle of the wall and the unevenly-spaced windows. Or could the stove and window be shifted down and that wall be made more symmetrical without the soffit? I'm not sure about keeping the single cabinet over the DW, but I think two shelves for mugs and coffee supplies could work. Then that corner becomes a coffee corner. How tall will the crown be on your cabinets? When I add 36" base cabs + 18" between counter and bottom of upper cabs + 48" upper cabinets, I get 102", the height of your ceilings. I think those 48" uppers aren't allowing for crown. I am concerned that all your wall cabinets will look very tall and skinny and not really hold much. I can't believe how many times I edited this post! I must need a nap! This post was edited by may_flowers on Tue, Feb 11, 14 at 20:35

Bathrooms could really use some work. For starters, consider that the bathroom parts that're used most are the sink and the toilet ... and in your master, although you have lots of space, yours are all crammed in the first few feet. The toilet-closet door blocks the main door, and a person at the sink will be in the way of either door opening: Meanwhile, you have all that empty space at the far end of the bathroom. You really don't want a pocket door on a bathroom. Pocket doors are ideal for doors that remain open most of the time -- mudroom, laundry -- but the bathroom door will be opened/closed multiple times a day. Humidity isn't kind to pocket doors, and when they break, you have to open up the wall to fix them. But, really, I'd give the whole thing a re-do ... it's hard to beat a simple two-sided bath layout -- this allows a bigger shower, a bigger linen closet, and ample access to everything -- and it uses slightly less square footage. If you insist upon keeping the toilet in a small, uncomfortable, and difficult to clean closet, here's a slightly different layout. Since no one ever actually closes doors on toilet closets, this would be an appropriate spot for a pocket door. For the guest bathroom, you want the "water items" to all be on the same wall. Ideally that'd be the wall shared with the master ... but the door doesn't allow that. You could steal 1-2' from the master to make this possible ... but "as is", your easiest switch is to move the toilet to the same wall ... and flip the tub's faucet to the other end. With a clear pathway through the bathroom, this also allows you to enlarge the vanity ... which will allow for a stack of much-needed storage drawers. The toilet can go under the window without any problem. This isn't the best of plans because it places the water items on an exterior wall ... this can be a problem if you're in a cold location (freezing), and if you need work on the plumbing, it can be a problem. I'd consider my first suggestion and consider stealing a bit of space from the master bath. The downstairs bathroom is wasting all its space on a big, empty walkway in the middle ... and the sink, the most used item in the room, is hidden behind the door, meaning you have to enter the room and close the door just to wash your hands. At 6x9, the downstairs bath can be a simple 3-piece (identical to the one above, actually) ... you can move the door so that you'd see the sink first /have the opened door rest against the top wall. I drew it in as a tub, but a standup shower would work just as well in this spot. you mentioned tub in guest bath is 6'6" and big. We def do NOT need a large tub. We actually considered just a shower in there, but put tub only for when we have grandkids some day and need a tub for baths. Any suggestions for that bath if we skip tub and just put shower in instead? If you're not going to use the tub yourself ... and just want it for future grandchildren, go with a standard sized tub (5') instead of something extra-big. Definitely needs to go bigger then. And maybe wider if it's only 3' wide. Take a look at just how big 3' wide is ... or, more accurately, isn't. I'm not 5' tall, and I hate using the toilet in my daughter's new house, and I can't imagine how her husband -- also a big and tall guy -- feels in that bitty space. regarding cp's comment on tubs and grandkids: there definitely ought to be another tub besides the master. When we visit my inlaws, we have to bathe our kids in the master bath and not only is it inconvenient (clear across the house from our rooms) it can be awkward and there are times that we simply can't use it, like times when everyone's getting ready to go somewhere at once. Just my experience:) I'm not saying this isn't a problem, but you have to consider how often this is going to be used for bathing small children. If you're talking about a couple times a year, I'd say put up with the trouble ... on the other hand, if the grandchildren will frequently be bathed at their grandparents' house, then I'd spend the money to get what's most convenient. That is my experience too at my parents house. They have a spa tub like I want and my arms couldn't reach into the tub from sitting outside it. My husband stayed at a certain resort numerous times for work, and he came home telling me that he wanted THAT TUB for our retirement house. Finally I got a chance to go with him, and I hated it: Oh, I loved the built-in arm rests, but the tub was 48" wide, and I could only put my arm on one at a time ... and since I like to read in the tub, that wasn't working out too well. It also held SO MUCH water that it would be expensive to use. After discussion, we've decided we want the features of that tub and the depth of that tub ... but not so long and not so wide.

I think your list for improvements is a good start but I'd still like to mention the following: I understand you have lots of family and entertain a lot but do you really need a great room, family room, and living room plus the loft upstairs? You say the views are to the west. How far to the west and I'm wondering if there's a way to rearrange the rooms to better get south light into the main rooms versus the master bedroom, the kid's TV/family room, pantry, garage and laundry room. Also I know from personal experience that once late afternoon arrives here, you will need to have good shades because of the light and heat from those west exposures. I know western exposure is not ideal but that’s the direction of the lake and also the land is much longer E/W than it is wide. We spent Thanksgiving at a friend's house last night and their living room exposure is due west. The sunset was spectacular but we couldn't watch it until the sun was right at the horizon line because of the glare into the room. They had to keep their shades drawn until then. And yes, th I’m hoping the covered balcony will offset the sun somewhat. And yes, my friends do have a covered balcony. The only linen closet I see is in bedroom 4. You need more. Lots of wasted corner space in the vanity in the master bath. For such a large house where I assume more than one person is cooking, I think you need to reconfigure your kitchen so you can have multiple people helping at the same time. As arranged it's a 1 person kitchen. Another thought about the kitchen is you might also want to consider it not being on the south side again because of heat. Hope that's not an open loft to below because noise does travel up. Seems there is lots of wasted space on hallways and pathways. The master closet upstairs will feel like a long dark hallway. It's barely wide enough at 5'4" considering clothing takes up 2' of space. Agree with MrsPete that you really don't need that many bathrooms. It's a bit of overkill. You want to cut down on space so why do you need bedroom 3? The dining room is far from the kitchen.