It's a very dark house. Very dark. Mainly because the perimeters are full of secondary spaces like closets and baths rather than rooms that could use the exterior walls for additional windows.

The foyer porch complex is off, and wastes a tremendous amount of space. The porch isn't deep enough to be truly useful. 8' is decorative, or a single birds on a wire chair depth. The foyer is oddly large, but not in a dimension that renders it more welcoming or more functional. It's space for space's sake. That you are paying to hear and cool permanently.

The roof will be oversized, awkward, and the second most defining feature of the home behind the awkward presence of the giant GARAGE out front. With 1/2 acre, you can do MUCH better as to a side load garage and a plan wider than deep. That minimizes the bulbous top hat look of a house as deep as it is wide.

You need an architect, not a drafter. You need someone who will offer design pushback and guidance rather than translate what you have into buildable form. To do that would be a disservice to you. This plan isn't very workable as is.

I would say swap the master suite side and the hearth room side so the hearth room, where you will relax and watch TV, will be closer to the kitchen. Shorter walk for the snack attack. :)

Is your dining area going to be big enough for when your daughters & their families come over for gatherings? I would also try to reposition the garage...I don't like front load, especially if it isn't absolutely necessary due to lot size.

Thanks for the feedback. I forgot to mention that our 1/2 acre lot is pie shaped with the front being 78 feet wide and tapering out to 150 ish feet wide at the back. It also has two utility boxes towards the front - both belong to Verizon and so we r hoping to be able to move one of them. The other homes in the neighborhood all have front or side facing garages similar to the ones in the plans I drew and have at best 30 feet of concrete leading into their garage and so didn't want to be the oddballs on the block with a rear garage

Live_wire_oak - The entryway was based off of a parade of home in our area several years back and was stunning and a crowd favorite. I don't remember what the roofline looked like but I was also concerned with the roof being out of proportion. I can do a side entry on the garage but it will be tight if we can't move one of the utility boxes.

I agree with u Jdez and think it makes perfect sense to have the hearth room closer to the Ice cream which is hubby's favorite. And nini804 I think it will be lg enough. My table extends to 8 feet by 4 and so that lvs six feet for walkways all around. We typically eat outside or in the great room except for holidays. Only one daughter married and no grands yet or planned anytime in the future

I will get busy on your suggestions and repost when I get them done. We have signed a 12 month lease on The townhouse we r renting and can pay month to month after that without a penalty so we aren't rushed to get going and I don't really want to pour concrete in the dead of winter. So I have a few months to get this worked out but I know from experience that the more planning I do now will save me from having to make quick decisions that I might regret later.

Hi Robbie,

About halfway down in this thread is a floor plan I drew up that is very similar to yours. It might be worth a look!

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2893471/please-critique-our-plan

Thanks Nick they are gorgeous. How big is it? They look huge

Eh, I'm not finding a great deal of love for this design.

The out-front garage that "starts" beyond the porch is going to overshadow the rest of the house. I know that pie-shaped lots can necessitate pushing the garage forward, but this is pretty extreme. Your porch and the rest of the house will be in the shadow of the garage. I wonder if you could win this game by going with a detached garage -- connected to the house with a breezeway. That could also allow you more windows in your public rooms.

I'd move the washer/dryer to the side of the room so the dryer could vent directly outside. Of course, this means it'd vent onto the front porch. The concept of the workroom is nice, and I'm sure the garage's location is why you placed it here ... but I think it'd work better at the back of the house; it seems like more of a casual room.

I've seen such a foyer, and it isn't my taste. To me, it feels like you don't have enough separation between the door and the great room -- like you're walking straight into the living room. However, if you've seen one and love it, you know what you're choosing.

I am concerned about the size of the great room. You'll need walkways on all four sides, and minimal walkways will leave you about 12x12 for furniture placement -- the same amount of space as your smallest bedroom.

Are these little lines windows or doors? I'd be most concerned about the ones in the dining room. If those are doors, you won't be able to access them easily once a table is in place. I do think the dining room is big enough for company.

I like the suggestion to switch the master bedroom and the media room.

I am completely ambivalent about closets opening from bathrooms ... but this one is arranged poorly. This concept works when the closet is near the door of the bathroom -- in this case, you have to walk the full length of the bathroom to reach the closet. And it means you'll have to thread your way through the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom with clean clothes. The laundry-to-closet pathway is too complicated for convenience, especially for someone who's just had a hip replacement.

The closets across the house aren't 'specially well thought-out. Though you clearly like walk-ins, several of these aren't wide enough to give storage on both sides ... which means you're spending the square footage for a walk-in but are only getting the storage space of a reach-in.

You mentioned you have lots of stuff to store, and since you want to shove it into the garage, I'm thinking it's not stuff you want to access frequently? Do you have attic access anywhere in this house? It's a deep house, which will necessitate a large, expensive roof. If you're going to pay for that roof, you should have a way to access the storage it can provide.

On the subject of depth, have you considered truss sizes?

In the media room, if you lose the closet and move the built-ins to the inside wall, you can have windows on three sides -- which would be lovely. But then this best-lit room in the whole house would be the one in which you'd least want glare on the TV.

Since your adult children live in the area and rarely spend the night, I wonder why you're dedicating two bedrooms to overnight guests. PLUS you have the workroom and the media room. I think I'd go with ONE guest room, and use the other bedroom as a media room (saving some square footage and lowering the budget). In the future, if it ever needs to be a bedroom, you could convert it.

Similarly, with few overnight guests, why not skip the powder room and open the secondary bedrooms' bathroom to the hall? It's a big budget saver.

On the positive side, I do like the kitchen layout. Simple, uncluttered, good pantry.

Finally, about your current house -- you say that the modifications you chose didn't work out well. Why? I ask because you certainly don't want to repeat past mistakes. Did you jump into them without adequate research? Did you "go too trendy"? You're making some unconventional choices here, and you don't want to end up feeling the same way about this house that you do about your current house. Analyzing where you went wrong could be the path to getting it right this time.

I'm a quilter too, and I'm just curious - why would you want to do your quilting in the laundry room? In our empty-nester home, my "woman cave" is my office, with a wall of bookshelves with counter and cabinets below on one side of the room, and countertops on the other two sides. I have my computer set up on one side, and my sewing machine on another. Much more comfortable than the laundry room.

Some encouragement about size: We wanted a 'small house with some big rooms'. We built a 2900 sq ft one-level 'retirement' home in 2001. We use all of it daily with exception of the DR and Guest Suite -- but they do get used *at times*. I easily recovered from two hip replacements here. I'm now past seventy and have seen friends move in retirement.

Examine your reasoning on moving and storing 'stuff'. I eliminated a lot, but moved a few items into our attic -- where they have sat, untouched for 14 years. I'm glad I didn't move *more*. I bought almost all new furniture -- that fit the new spaces in the new house and were in character with it.

Things that have worked for us and for other Seniors I know:

If you seldom have guests, make one BR your workroom. Skip the J&J bath. A hall bathroom can serve as your guest powder room. Add a powder room near your family entrance/laundry/kitchen. (This is the most used toilet in our house.)

We *live* in our 'breakfast room', 'library' (AKA TV room), and living room. In summer we use our screened porch. We need only cross our foyer, kitchen-to-library, and there is a bathroom off the library. Our master suite has a short hallway with flanking closets leading to the bathroom. Our house is one step up from the ground. (I do like your oversize garage plans -- leave plenty of room for car door-swing.)

Your plan wouldn't work for me, but it may be fine for you with some changes suggested here.

I'm another one who loves corner rooms with light from two sides. This shows a garage, closets and a fairly windowless (?) hearth room in the corners.

Regarding learning from your last mistakes: yes, you are probably hyper-aware of the things you hated. Make sure you think really hard about the things that worked well, too-- they tend not to come to mind as easily!

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions. We just purchased some 3D software to get a better idea of what my ideas will look like before going to an architect. Being a visual person has its down side to be sure..... In my comment to romeotybalt I explained what happened during our first build. Long story short the stairs jutted into the family room and instead of stopping our project and getting a professional to re design our stairs or figure out a way around the issue, I allowed myself to be pressured by subs, time constraints and budget concerns to make quick decisions that I regretted the entire time we lived there. One of the "ideas" I came up with caused us to have openings on every wall in the master and family room which made flow and furniture placing a nightmare. This is the reason I have made closets accessible thru the bathroom when possible instead of having their own entrance thru the bedroom and placing windows on only one wall. There is every possibility that I'm being overly cautious. But if I learned anything from our first build, its that it's not worth skimping on your plans. So I'm going to make a pot of coffee and watch the tutorial on our new design program. ☕️

Robbie: I think the house has good "bones". Good starting point but definitely needs considerable refinement.

But I've never understood the folks who work on a design and focus on solving the myriad of tiny details before "going to an architect". The best way to do it is the other way around.

And going to a designer of talent doesn't have to be overblown, time consuming or expensive. In lieu of doing a retype, read my remarks here http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3399359/looking-for-a-critique-part-4?n=15 And regarding design software go to the second link there and read #47. For the houses posted here using design software, they run the gamut. Some are very good, excellent as a matter of fact, and some are absolutely horrible. The only constant being the use of design software, and the only variable being the user of it.

But exciting times. I envy you! Mrs. Architectrunnerguy and I have GC'ed three house over the years and amazingly, we're still married!! We had a blast!