I am wondering about the heating and cooling of a house with cathedral ceilings and a loft. Our electric bills in this condo have been between 400 and 500 this winter. When we are on a fixed income in a few years that will really matter. And all those walls of glass. Max Fulbright is in GA. You might want to ask them if they have any information about these plans being built in your area. If you can find any that were built in your area, you can ask about utility costs.

mrspete not everyone wants or needs to save money by sharing their master bath with all the guests in the house. Personally I wouldn't want my guests using my master bath and checking my cabinets or mistakenly using my towel. i understand if you need to save money but niidawg is building a custom home and is planning to use an architect. My guess is the OP can afford to put in a powder room. Yes, I suggested making this the master ... and I also suggested making that bathroom the main downstairs bathroom. Could be one suggestion, could be combined. Personally, I think most houses on this forum are "over-bathed". I see no problem with a master bath being used by guests. I can afford to build whatever I want ... but I am thrifty enough to want it to be a good value, and this just isn't something about which I care personally. vwtyler - definitely not going with a sub-division for that exact reason. all the lots we saw that we liked had so much architectural restrictions by the HOA, we would have ended up with a building totally different from our desires. Additionally, we have an HOA now and i think they are very hard to deal with (to put it mildly). I'm so ready to be done with them. I understand the desire to go with no HOA. It seems that the new neighborhoods in my area are all being built by a cookie-cutter builder with very strict ideas. I'm not sure why people are jumping to build with them.

@Kristin S - I was thinking the homework space might end up somewhere in one of the bedrooms upstairs. We don’t need the en-suite on the main level immediately so might use that as an office / homework space initially. Thanks for your suggestions. @Mark Bischak - thanks for you suggestion on the MBR entry. And yes I am working with a local architect. @The Cook’s Kitchen - not entirely sure about the roofline yet but will definitely keep the structural support in mind given the open floor plan. Thanks!

Quick question is it okay to have your main entrance into your living area? This was something I was previously told to avoid and to try create a "landing area" where coats etc could be kept and random knocks on the door would not have a direct view to your living area. When doing these things, in order to focus on what I want emphasized, for better or worse, I try to keep as much other stuff the same as possible so the owner doesn't get side tracked and it's easier for them to compare "apples to apples". In this case I was talking about moving the entrance. Sure, the entry could be a little better defined and maybe 5'x5' (1.5mx1.5m) but that's another conversation for another day with your guy/girl. Maybe the front door moves out to the plane of the wall with some sort of entry roof figured out. But foyers don't have to be big to get definition and a visual separation from other spaces. Examples below. Also would the hallways be very dark? This is again something i have tried to avoid. Again, I was focusing on the entry without getting you distracted so I didn't touch that but I'm not in love with that hall either. I'd be getting your designer to take a whole fresh look at that wing which is going to be time consuming. And I do have one question for you....normally the elevations, sections and the plan are developed simultaneously. In your case it looks like you have a well defined hard lined floor plan to the detailed level of different wall thickness shown for the exterior and interior walls but then you drew the elevations on level of what looks like a freehand crayon rough sketch. Does your guy/girl have elevations? If not, they should.