I think you're off to a good start except for the very problematic second bedroom. Right now if the guest wishes to use the restroom or take a shower he/she has to walk in full view of the most public parts of the house (living room, kitchen and dining room) and then go through what I'm assuming is an office. That is a big 'ol mess and just doesn't work.

You need:

1. more privacy for the second bedroom's entrance.

2. Either a jack and jill bathroom shared between the office and second bedroom plus a public powder room or a bathroom with a public entrance and an entrance from the second bedroom. I prefer the first option since the office will look more like a third bedroom. That will help with future resale since a three bedroom house is more marketable than a two bedroom plus office. I know a lot of people who come to the boards state that they are building their forever home but you never know what the future will have in store for you. We thought our current home would be our forever home and joked about being buried in the backyard. Our circumstances changed in a very unexpected way and now we're building home about an hour from where we currently live.

How many acres is your property? You said something about a hobby farm so I'm thinking you have acreage? If so, why the heck are you sticking the garage on the front of the house so it's the main thing you see in front? What you have there with the garage front and center is something for a small city lot.

Honestly right now I live in a high rise condo and with the second bedroom off the living room, it reminds me of some of the two bedroom condos in this building. Why would you put the second bedroom in full view of anyone sitting in the living room? Plus how are your guests supposed to go to the bathroom if they are in the guest bedroom?

Thanks tcu and cp - we needed the extra eyes to make that decision on the bathroom. We were struggling with what to do with that. We're thinking to take out the hall closet (that's the foyer you were referring to as an office) to make way for a second door to the bathroom.

Re: the garage- this is definitely function for us. I want to get in and out of the car and not have to worry about the weather, and be able to have a mini door to put the groceries right in the pantry! We also are going to use that space as our workshop. Where the house will sit on the property will make it the mos accessible place. We'll put a fun water feature or trellis in front so it doesn't feel like an eye sore.

thanks again!

Function is fine but on that much acreage you can have both and this doesn't do it.

The orientation and tilt of your photo makes it very difficult to look at the plan for any length of time. A quick glance, however, raises three immediate questions: 1) Have you studied the exterior massing and appearance of your design, particularly how the large garage (with a very large roof required to span the garage dimensions assuming the roof is pitched) will appear? and 2) Have you considered that when you and guests arrive and pass through the front door, the very first view everyone will have is of your kitchen? and 3) Have you evaluated that your master suite is equivalent to perhaps 50% of the remainder of the house, excluding garage? Appears to me that some addition thought on the design may be beneficial...

This looks like a wonderful start to a plan. However, I was curious how you came up with the layout for the main bath? It seems wasteful. However , if you're going to rearrange it for your guests, it may be a moot point.

I just took a re-look at your home plans, Tina, and discovered that I was in error (bad eyesight here) that your entryway is on the left and what I thought was the garage door was a window. Still, I don't see a problem with the garage doors in front and indeed this is often frequent in rural settings. However, that one single very large garage door could indeed be made into two doors -- which would possibly be cheaper as you could get them in standard sizes.

I'd like a few questions answered:

1) Could you provide home dimensions in feet?

2) What are those two rooms above the entry foyer for? (I assume the room from the garage into the house might be the mudroom? And, the other?)

3) What zone are you in (weather conditions)? This is in consideration of Virgil's comment about the garage roofing, which raises an excellent point.

Looking further -- the master suite can be organized more efficiently. That walk in closet is as big as the second bedroom! There's a lot of wasted space in the laundry area. I am going to guess you are having a large shower stall in the space above the sinks, and that the nook to the left of the entry door is a linen closet?

This might make it easier to understand :)

I agree with the note on the plan, "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION". Hopefully nobody ever built this one. I see a lot wrong with the plan starting with poor spacial relationships. Contact a local architect to design a home with you with better relationships between spaces.

Keep reading and keep looking at plans. Consider not blocking so much of the house's exterior with the garage. As long as you can go Garage-House without going outside, you're good.

I'll add my usual warning about the Killer Stairs (no landing).